Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007 TV Movie)

Aidan Quinn: Henry Dawes

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Quotes 

• Charles Eastman : And now you speak of coercion. I don't understand.

  Henry Dawes : If we don't put that land into the hands of individual Indians in five years- less-homesteaders and ranchers will demand it all... for nothing. The Indian must own his own piece of earth, Charles.

  Charles Eastman : Did you know that there is no word in the Sioux language for that, sir?

  Henry Dawes : For what?

  Charles Eastman : To "own the earth." Not in any native language.

  Henry Dawes : Well, then perhaps you should invent one.

• Sitting Bull : Hear me, then for one last time. They mean to take our land away from us. You may say, "They wish to give us land. This patch to you, this patch to you." But here is the truth - each patch is for a man and all generations that follow him. And they know that this land cannot feed but one generation, not even so much as that.

  McLaughlin : All right, you've had your say.

  Gall : Do not interrupt.

  Sitting Bull : You teach our children the words of your God, "Be fruitful and multiply." But it seems these words are not meant for the Indian. For what kind of man would take a wife and have children he cannot feed? No Indian man. Not a Lakota, not an Arikara, not a Crow. You would have us cut off our balls and end our race right here on a patch of land on which nothing can live, and that will not happen! I have spoken.

  Henry Dawes : We did not put you on this land. Red Cloud surrendered - he made peace with the government. Have you forgotten the bloodshed that came before?

  Chief Red Cloud : Sitting Bull is a great leader. I believe this, no matter that the whites see us men all as the same. But he did not sit with us in the council those many snows ago when our reservation was made. He did not sit with us in the next council when these borders that we were told were like marks in stone were moved. And the Black Hills and our hunting lands were taken from us. Sitting Bull might have had his say, but such was his suspicion of the whites, such was his pride. I say today for all ears within hearing that if Sitting Bull had spoken the way he speaks today, I would not have touched that pen. I will not touch your pen to your paper. I will not touch it to your red paper, I will not touch it to your black paper. The white man will not see my mark again on his paper for the rest of my days on this earth.

• Henry Dawes : We cannot allow a return to incivility.

  Charles Eastman : Incivility? And what has civility earned them, might I ask? Trained nurses? Even one hospital?

  Henry Dawes : All things the Sioux will provide for themselves, Charles, once this plan has passed. As you yourself agreed - they must adapt.

  Charles Eastman : Must they adapt, sir, to the point of their own extermination?

  Henry Dawes : Extermination? I suppose you say we've exterminated your Indian heritage rather than provided to you the benefits of an entire civilization?

  Charles Eastman : Senator, please sit. Sir, if every individual were taken personally under your care, as was my good fortune, I admit, the outcome might be what you seek. But I am not the example you held up to The Friends of the Indian. I am the example of nothing. I simply do not see how placing each Indian man on a desolate, 160-acre parcel of land is going to lead his children to medical school.

  Henry Dawes : It will, in time. But first, this must pass. Or I guarantee you, destitution is all the Sioux will ever know. I have many opponents, Charles, in the press, in Congress...

  Charles Eastman : You have an opponent before you, sir.

• Charles Eastman : I am acting in the interest of my people, following the example you set for me.

  Henry Dawes : Do you really think you know better than I what is in the interest of these people?

  Charles Eastman : Yes. I am one of them, Senator.

  Henry Dawes : You're no more a Sioux Indian than I am.

• General Sherman : [after Custer and his men are massacred at the Battle of the Little Bighorn]  The man was a fuckin' idiot. Splits his forces? Daylight raid, high noon?

  Henry Dawes : An idiot, perhaps, but he had his orders, Mr. President. Drive the Sioux out of the Black Hills onto the ration rolls, so we could get to that damn gold. The Sioux resisted.

  General Sherman : Resisted? Bullshit!

  Henry Dawes : They *resisted*, General Sherman.

  President Ulysses S. Grant : Blocking a roundhouse to the chin is "resistance", Henry. Massacring five companies of cavalry...

  Henry Dawes : I am not defending their brutality, Mr. President. The Sioux resisted because by the '68 treaty, this land is theirs, and we had no legal...

  General Sherman : That treaty was also only supposed to feed them for four years. And yet here we are, eight years later, and you Senators are passing a million-a-year appropriation to keep filling their bellies. Why?

  Henry Dawes : To keep them from starving, General.

  President Ulysses S. Grant : And that's all it's done. Made them beggars. Hasn't advanced them one bit. Those smart enough not to sign...

  General Sherman : Do this!

  Henry Dawes : They were attacked by us first.

  General Sherman : [chuckles]  And what would you have us do, Dawes? Cut and run?

  Henry Dawes : Mr. President, this is a senseless argument.

  General Sherman : A senseless argument? Do you know what they did to those men on that hill? They did things even I've never seen before.