let me be a free man chief joseph

Let me be a free man – free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade I choose, free to 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

The Nez Perce chief, in speech at Lincoln Hall in Washington in 1879. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown.