# Quote — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

> When George Washington directed federal troops to exterminate the Onondaga during the Revolutionary War, a nation that had numbered in the tens of thousands was reduced to a few hundred people in a matter of one year. Afterward, every single treaty was broken. Illegal takings of land by the state of New York diminished the aboriginal Onondaga territories to a reservation of only forty-three hundred acres. The Onondaga Nation territory today is not much bigger than the Solvay waste beds. Assaults on Onondaga culture continued. Parents tried to hide their children from Indian agents, but they were taken and sent to boarding schools like . The language that framed the was forbidden. Missionaries were dispatched to the matrilineal communities—in which men and women were equals—to show them the error of their ways. Longhouse ceremonies of thanksgiving, ceremonies meant to keep the world in balance, were banned by law. The people have endured the pain of being bystanders to the degradation of their lands, but they never surrendered their caregiving responsibilities. They have continued the ceremonies that honor the land and their connection to it.

- Author: [Robin Wall Kimmerer](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer.md)
- Book: [Braiding Sweetgrass](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass.md)
- Page: 318
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robin_Wall_Kimmerer#Braiding_Sweetgrass_(2013)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/when-george-washington

## More from this book

> The world is more than your thoughtless commute. We, the collateral, are your wealth, your teachers, your security, your family. Your strange hunger for ease should not mean a death sentence for the rest of Creation.

p. 359 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/the-world-is-more.md)

> It has been said that people of the modern world suffer a great sadness, a "species loneliness"—estrangement from the rest of Creation. We have built this isolation with our fear, with our arrogance, and with our homes brightly lit against the night.

p. 358 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/it-has-been.md)

> Naturalists live in a world of wounds that only they can see.

p. 357 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/robin-wall-kimmerer/braiding-sweetgrass/naturalists-live-in-a-world.md)