Chief Bernard Speaks
On one of his (Sinixt Chief James Bernard) trips to Washington, D.C., where he attended a senate hearing of the Colville Delegation, a senate committee-man was reported to have said, “You Indians are never satisfied. Before the white men came, you Indians were naked; you had nothing; your dwelling place was under the trees. When you prepared for bed, you crawled behind a log and covered your breech-clout with a piece of bark. You were dying off with starvation. Now you sit there big and fat; you have a house to live in; you are better off now than you were before. Now go and don’t come back.”