[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[Case]

[Platt]
Whose land was it built upon? Indians claimed no ownership. And who 
owned the land before the Indians?.

[Case]
No, the Indians claimed something very different. They claimed that the land
was sacred and "owned' by no one. For that they were slaughtered. Treaties
were made then violated. Their leaders were captured and killed under flags
of truce. But it is not as though they did not speak for themselves:

"Every part of all this soil is sacred to my people. Every hillside, every
valley, every plain and grove has been hollowed by some sad or happy event
in days long vanished. The very dust you now stand on responds more
willingly to their footsteps than to yours, because it is rich with the
blood of our ancestors and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic
touch."
- Chief Seattle

"I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation. We do not want
riches but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no
good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want
riches. We want peace and love."
- Red Cloud

"What treaty have the Sioux made with the white man that we have broken? Not
one. What treaty have the white man ever made with us that they have kept?
Not one. When I was a boy the Sioux owned the world; the sun rose and set on
their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle. Where are the warriors
today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who owns them?....What law have I
broken? Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my
skin is red? Because I am a Sioux; because I was born where my father lived;
because I would die for my people and my country?"
- Sitting Bull

"The soldiers never explained to the government when an Indian was wronged,
but reported the misdeeds of the Indians."
- Geronimo

"If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in
peace.....Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them all an
even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit
Chief. They are all brothers. The Earth is the mother of all people, and all
people should have equal rights upon it.......Let me be a free man, free to
travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade....where I choose my own
teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk
and act for myself, and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty."
- Chief Joseph

"One does not sell the earth upon which the people walk."
- Crazy Horse

"The land is sacred. These words are at the core of your being. The land is
our mother, the rivers our blood. Take our land away and we die. That is,
the Indian in us dies."
- Mary Brave Bird