Authors From The United States

"Before the passage of the Removal Act of 1830, a group of Cherokee chiefs went to the Senate committee that was studying this legislation to report on what they had already achieved... They expressed the hope that they would be permitted to enjoy in peace "the blessings of civilization and Christianity on the soil of their rightful inheritance." Instead they were... denied even the basic protection of the federal government. The Removal Act was carried out almost everywhere with total lack of compassion, but in the case of the Cherokee—civilized and Christianized as they were—it was particularly brutal."

"About 1790 the Cherokee decided to adopt the ways of their White conquerors and... established churches, mills, schools, and well cultivated farms... they adopted a written constitution providing for an executive, a bicameral legislature, a supreme court, and a code of laws."

"...the intensity of the indignation was in direct proportion to a White's distance from the Indian. On the frontier, the Indian was regarded as a besotted savage; but along the eastern seaboard, where the Spaniards, Dutch, English, and later Americans had long since exterminated all the Indians, philosophers and divines began to defend the Red Man."

"Following the War of 1812, the young United States had no further need for Indian allies against the British, and as a result the fortunes of the Indians declined rapidly. By 1848, twelve new states had been carved out of the Indian's lands, two major and minor Indian wars had been fought, and group after group of Indians had been herded westward, on forced marches, across the Mississippi River."

"The desire of Whites to occupy Indian lands, and the constant rivalry between French and English traders for furs gathered by the Indians, led to many skirmishes and several bloody wars, all of which involved Indians on both sides. The Whites were determined to fight it out with each other—down to the last Indian. These battles culminated in the French and Indian War of 1763, which represented a disaster to many Indian groups in the northeastern part of the continent. In May, 1763, an Ottawa warrior by the name of Pontiac fell upon Detroit and captured the English forts, one after the other. Lord Jeffery Amherst... distributed among the Indians handkerchiefs and blankets from the small pox hospital at Fort Pitt—probably the first use of biological warfare in history."

"The Puritans failed miserably in their dealings with the Indians of New England, with scarcely a glimmer of kindness to illuminate black page after black page of cruelty and humiliation. ...conversion of the heathen was not one of the compelling motives—or justifications—for the Puritan settling of New England..."

"When the Pequots resisted the migration of settlers into the Connecticut Valley in 1637, a party of Puritans surrounded the Pequot village and set fire to it. About five hundred Indians were burned to death or shot while trying to escape... The woods were then combed for any Pequots who had managed to survive, and these were sold into slavery. Cotton Mather was grateful to the Lord that "on this day we have sent six hundred heathen souls to hell.""

"Only a few years after the permanent settlement of Virginia, some fifty missionaries arrived to begin the massive task of converting the heathen. The Indians on their part, did not respond with alacrity to the idea of adopting a culture that to them, in many cases, seemed barbarous, indeed."

"By the seventeenth century, observers had reached the firm conclusion that American Indians were in no way inferior to Whites, and many writers took special pains to salute the Noble Red Man. The Jesuit missionary Bressani... reported that the inhabitants "are hardly barbarous, save in name. ...marvelous faculty for remembering places, and for describing them to one another." ...can recall things that a White "could not rehearse without writing." Another Jesuit enthusiastically corroborates... "nearly all show more intelligence in their business, speeches, courtesies, intercourse, tricks and subtleties, than do the shrewdest citizens and merchants in France.""

"At various stages of evolution, the Indian cultures were presented with only a limited number of possibilities. The members of certain kinds of societies—the small band, the large band, the tribe, the chiefdom, the state, and variations of these—tended to make characteristic choices concerning religion, law, government, and art... Such choices were not... consciously made... For a particular society, they either worked or they did not work."

"The most imposing characteristic of the Mississipian is the pyramidal mound, built not to cover a burial but as a foundation for a temple or a chief's house."

"The Hopewell fused elements of the Adena, the Archaic, and other Woodland patterns of life. Thus, it cannot technically be identified as a culture. ...Rather, the Hopewell people were an amalgam of many societies whose customs varied greatly, but who were bound together by... a cult of the dead and a trade bond... a network of trade linked widely separated areas of the continent."

"The culture of the Anasazi is still the best known of all prehistoric southwestern cultures. ...Their architecture... is distinctly their own, and unique among all the southwestern cultures."

"What makes the Hohokam noteworthy is the development of irrigation works. The earliest... dates from some 2,000 years ago. ...They built dams that redirected the flow of water into irrigation canals, some of them... extending for more than twenty-five miles. ...They built flat-topped pyramids and ball courts, where they used rubber balls imported from Central America. The Hohokam may also have been the first to use the technique of etching with acid in their remarkable designs on marine shells."

"Numerous sophisticated inventions undoubtedly originated in the New World. They include many aspects of plant domestication and horticulture, the hammock, the tobacco pipe, an intricate system used for ventilating and cooling ceremonial chambers, the enema, the hollow rubber ball, the toboggan, and numerous other objects and ideas that were brought back to the Old World after Columbus."

"Social scientists of the past spoke glibly of an "agricultural revolution," a time during which human populations suddenly soared, cities were founded, and many trappings of civilization made their appearance. ...The food-production revolution turns out to be a slow evolution, a long period of experimentation rather than a sudden explosion."

"At the time of the Europeans discovery of North America, the American Indians already cultivated a wider variety of plants than did the Europeans."

"For a tribe to endure, it must find some way to achieve internal unity—and that way usually is external strife. The tribe exists at all times in a state of mobilization for war against its neighbors. The slightest incident, or often merely a desire to increase prestige, is enough to set off a skirmish, and in such circumstances hatred against external enemies must be unremitting."

"The seventeenth-century Iroquois... practiced a dream psychotherapy that was remarkably similar to Freud's discoveries two hundred years later. The Iroquois recognized the existence of an unconscious, the force of unconscious desires, the way in which the conscious mind attempts to repress unpleasant thoughts, the emergence of unpleasant thoughts in dreams, and the mental and physical (psychosomatic) illnesses that may be caused by the frustration of unconscious desires. The Iroquois knew that their dreams did not deal in facts but rather in symbols. ...And one of the techniques employed by the Iroquois seers to uncover the latent meanings behind a dream was free association..."

"To say that the invention "was in the air" or "the times were ripe for it" are just other ways of stating that the inventors did not do the inventing, but that the cultures did."

"We are in the habit of thinking in terms of great leaders largely because the leaders themselves want it that way. The pharaohs ordered that a record of their accomplishments be carved on stone; medieval nobles subsidized troubadours to sing their praises; today's world leaders have large staffs of public-relations consultants. No culture can be explained in terms of one or more leaders..."

"The League [of the Hodenosaunee] favorably impressed the White settlers, and some historians believe it to have been one of the models on which the Constitution of the new United States of America was based."

"Sharing is a kinsman's or a friend's obligation, and it is not in the category of a gift."

"Balanced reciprocity is as much a social compact as it is an economic advantage. It is particularly important in hunting-gathering societies, where no individual could possibly accumulate a surplus, live independently of other members of the band, or become so successful in the quest for food as never to need meat from someone else's kill."

"The environment does not determine the character of human culture; it merely sets the outer limits."

"In the far north, where humans must face the constant threat of starvation, where life is reduced to the bare essentials—it turns out that one of these essentials is art. Art seems to belong to the basic pattern of life of the Eskimo, and of the neighboring Athapaskan and Algonkian Indian bands as well."

"The Shoshone did not wage war, because it served no purpose."

"The more simple the society, the more leisured its way of life."

"Complex civilization is hectic... such hunters and collectors of wild food as the Shoshone are among the most leisured people on earth."

"An incestuous marriage establishes no new bonds between unrelated groups; it is an absurd denial to the right to increase the number of people whom one can trust. Marriages in simple societies are... usually alliances between families rather than romantic arrangements between individuals."

"An isolated human in a simple society is usually a dead human..."

"The Shoshone, as well as those peoples around the world who still survive at the least complex levels of social organization, know that romantic love exists. But they also recognize it for what it is—in their case, a form of madness. ...they regard the participants with tolerance and patience, for they know that the illness will soon go away. ...To them, only someone mentally backward would base an institution so important to survival as marriage on romantic love. ...it is a life and death business."

"The astonishing cluster of them [geniuses] that appeared in Athens during the fifth and fourth centuries B. C. ...what changed was the culture, which allowed exceptional minds to flourish."

"Culture is all the things and ideas ever devised by humans working and living together."

"The members of a society do not make conscious choices in arriving at a particular way of life. Rather, they make unconscious adaptations. ...they know only that a particular choice works, even though it may appear bizarre to an outsider."

"A human being cannot survive alone and be entirely human. It is through the nature of their social and political institutions that the differences and similarities among cultures are to be accounted for."

"The other judges were all in suits and fancy clothes, and they didn't want to jump on a trampoline, or ride the go-cart in the dirt. I did every demo possible to see if the things would do what they were promising they would do."

"I am the truth-teller. I tried never to be mean, but Simon did tell me at one point. 'Doug, if you tell the truth, you don't have a choice.'"

"Some of America is going to love him, and some of America is going to hate him."

"I'm the only guy who actually invented anything of the judges. They got a couple of advertising hacks, and a venture capitalist."

"My dear friends, colleagues, and fans, my physicians have recently told me I may have a neurological disorder whose symptoms are consistent with Alzheimer's disease. So I wanted to prepare a few words for you now because when the time comes, I may not be able to."

"Tragedy has been and will always be with us. Somewhere right now, evil people are planning evil things. All of us will do everything meaningful, everything we can do to prevent it, but each horrible act can’t become an axe for opportunists to cleave the very Bill of Rights that binds us. America must stop this predictable pattern of reaction. When an isolated terrible event occurs, our phones ring demanding that the NRA explain the inexplicable. Why us? Because their story needs a villain. ... That is not our role in American society and we will not be forced to play it. ... Now, if you disagree that's your right, I respect that, but we will not relinquish it, or be silenced about it, or be told "do not come here, you are unwelcome in your own land.""

"NRA members are in city hall, Fort Carson, NORAD, the Air Force Academy and the Olympic Training Center. And yes, NRA members are surely among the police and fire and SWAT team heroes who risked their lives to rescue the students at Columbine. "Don't come here"? We're already here. This community is our home. Every community in America is our home."

"Thank you all for coming and thank you for supporting your organization. I also want to applaud your courage in coming here today. Or course, you have a right to be here. As you know, we've cancelled the festivities, the fellowship we normally enjoy at our annual gatherings. This decision has perplexed a few and inconvenienced thousands. As your president, I apologize for that. But it's fitting and proper that we should do this. Because NRA members are, above all, Americans. That means that whatever our differences, we are respectful of one another and we stand united, especially in adversity. I have a message from the mayor, Mr. Wellington Webb, the mayor of Denver. He sent me this and said, "Don't come here. We don't want you here." I said to the mayor, well, my reply to the mayor is, I volunteered for the war they wanted me to attend when I was 18 years old. Since then, I've run small errands for my country, from Nigeria to Vietnam. I know many of you here in this room could say the same thing. But the mayor said "Don't come." I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry for the newspaper ads saying the same thing, "Don't come here." This is our country. As Americans, we're free to travel wherever we want in our broad land."

"Telling us what to think has evolved into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can't be far behind. Before you claim to be a champion of free thought, tell me: Why did political correctness originate on America's campuses? And why do you continue to tolerate it? Why do you, who're supposed to debate ideas, surrender to their suppression? Let's be honest. Who here thinks your professors can say what they really believe? It scares me to death and should scare you too, that the superstition of political correctness rules the halls of reason. You are the best and the brightest. You, here in the fertile cradle of American academia, here in the castle of learning on the Charles River, you are the cream. But I submit that you, and your counterparts across the land, are the most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since Concord Bridge. And as long as you validate that ... and abide it ... you are — by your grandfathers' standards — cowards."

"Political correctness is tyranny with manners."

"You could say that the paparazzi and the tabloids are sort of the "assault weapons" of the First Amendment. They're ugly, a lot of people don't like them, but they're protected by the First Amendment — just as "assault weapons" are protected by the Second Amendment."

"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder. Yet in essence, that is what you have asked our loved ones to do, through an ill-contrived and totally naive campaign against the Second Amendment."

"I simply cannot stand by and watch a right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States come under attack from those who either can't understand it, don't like the sound of it, or find themselves too philosophically squeamish to see why it remains the first among equals: Because it is the right we turn to when all else fails. That's why the Second Amendment is America's first freedom."

"You do not define the First Amendment. It defines you. And it is bigger than you. That's how freedom works. It also demands you do your homework. Again and again, I hear gun owners say, how can we believe anything the anti-gun media says when they can't even get the facts right? For too long, you have swallowed manufactured statistics and fabricated technical support from anti-gun organizations that wouldn't know a semi-auto from a sharp stick. And it shows. You fall for it every time."