If it had not been for the massacre, there would have been a great many more people here now; but after that massacre who could have stood it? When I made peace with Lieutenant Whitman my heart was very big and happy. The people of Tucson and San Xavier must be crazy. They acted as though they had neither heads nor hearts … they must have a thirst for our blood...These Tucson people write for the papers and tell their own story. The Apaches have no one to tell their story.

If it had not been for the massacre, there would have been a great many more people here now; but after that massacre who could have stood it? When I made peace with Lieutenant Whitman my heart was very big and happy. The people of Tucson and San Xavier must be crazy. They acted as though they had neither heads nor hearts … they must have a thirst for our blood…These Tucson people write for the papers and tell their own story. The Apaches have no one to tell their story.

– Eskiminzin

Aravaipa Apache chief. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, by Dee Brown. Chapter 9.

Eskiminzin Quotes