You come here to tell us lies, but we don't want to hear them. If we told you more, you would have paid no attention. That is all I have to say. - Sitting Bull

I never committed any depredations in the white man's country. I never made the white man's heart bleed. The white man came on to my land and followed me. The white men made me fight for my hunting grounds. The white man made me kill him or he would kill my friends, my women, and my children.

[Speaking of the Custer fight] There was a Great Spirit who guided and controlled that battle. I could do nothing. I was sustained by the Great Mysterious One (pointing upwards with his forefinger). I am not afraid to talk about that. It all happened it is passed and gone. I do not lie, but do not want to talk about it. Low Dog says I can't fight until some one lends me a heart. Gall says my heart is no bigger than that (placing one forefinger at the base of the nail of another finger). We have all fought hard. We did not know Custer, When we saw him we threw up our hands, and I cried, Follow me and do as I do. We whipped each other's horses, and it was all over. There was not as many Indians as the white man says. They are all warriors. There was not more than two thousand. I did not want to kill any more men. I did not like that kind of work. I only defended my camp.

I hardly sustain myself beneath the weight of white men's blood that I have shed. The whites provoked the war; their injustices, their indignities to our families, the cruel, unheard of and wholly unprovoked massacre at Fort Lyon … shook all the veins which bind and support me. I rose, tomahawk in hand, and I have done all the hurt to the whites that I could.