Political Quotes

“one floor above this Senate Chamber, near a bank of elevators, sit the marble busts of two leaders of the Ojibwa, or Chippewa, people who came to Washington, DC, in 1855 to sign a treaty with the U.S.Government. The terms of the treaty had been dictated by the U.S. Government: The Ojibwa people would surrender more than 2 million acres of their ancestral homeland in northern Minnesota. In exchange, the Tribes would receive less than $20,000 in cash, goods, and services, and assistance to resettle on two reservations. There was no real negotiation. The Ojibwa has two choices: Accept the terms, or face annihilation. So the two chiefs, whose English names were Buffalo and Flat Mouth, signed the treaty and hoped that they had salvaged some future for their people. It was one of more than 500 treaties that Indian nations signed with the U.S. Government between 1778 and 1871. Like every one of those 500-plus treaties, the 1855 treaty with the Ojibwa Nation was violated by the U.S. Government. The part of our government most responsible for carrying out treaty obligations and maintaining government-to-government relations with Tribal nations was--and still is--the U.S. Department of the Interior. That is part of what makes the vote we will take today so historic and important. It has taken too long--244 years--for a Native American to be included in a President's Cabinet.…”