Parra-Wa-Samen
(Ten Bears) of the Yamparika Comanches
(ca. 1872).
When
I was at Washington the Great White Father told me that all the Comanche land
was ours, and that no one should hinder us in living upon it. So, why do you
ask us to leave the rivers, and the sun, and the wind, and live in houses? Do
not ask us to give up the buffalo for the sheep. The young men have heard talk
of this, and it has made them sad and angry. Do not speak of it more ....
If the Texans had kept out of my country, there might have been peace. But that which you now say we must live on is too small. The Texans have taken away the places where the grass grew the thickest and the timber was the best. Had we kept that, we might have done the things you ask. But it is too late. The white man has the country which we loved, and we only wish to wander on the prairie until we die.