All men were made brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born free should be content when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the equality and freedom of all humans as a fundamental right.
Chief Joseph's quote captures the essence of human rights and universal kinship, asserting that all people are entitled to freedom and equal treatment since they are all born from the same earthly origins. The imagery of rivers running backward highlights the absurdity of denying freedom to anyone, just as it is unnatural for rivers to flow against their course.
In practice
In a speech advocating for civil rights, this quote can inspire a call for equality.
We do not want churches because they will teach us to quarrel about God. We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on this earth, but we never quarrel about the Great Spirit. We do not want to learn that.
Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk, think and act for myself β and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty.
It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and the broken promises.
If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace. There need be no trouble. Treat all men alike. give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow.
The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.
All men were made by the Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers.
Pride is at the bottom of a great many errors and corruptions, and even of many evil practices, which have a great show and appearance of humility.
There is an inherent tendency in all governmental power to recognize no restraints on its operation and to extend the sphere of its dominion as much as possible. To control everything, to leave no room for anything to happen of its own accord without the interference of the authorities--th is is the goal for which every ruler secretly strives.
It is through living that we discover ourselves, at the same time as we discover the world around us.
The Holocaust teaches us that nature, even in its cruelest moments, is benign in comparison with man when he loses his moral compass and his reason.
The world has a soul and whoever understands that soul can also understand the language of many things.
Experience demonstrates that there may be a wages of slavery only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other.
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