By the Fire We Carry Quotes

“The fight over truth is so bitter because power flows from the dominant narrative—the power to shape both public sentiment and public policy.”
― Rebecca Nagle, By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land

“Federal Indian law today is not all good or all bad--rather it is the totality of our history. Embedded in American law are the victories and defeats of our ancestors, and the unimaginable compromises they were forced to make. ... What we are left with is a government that still contains both impulses: The impulse to uphold the inherent and legally recognized sovereignty of Indigenous nations. And the impulse to railroad tribes because it can.”
― Rebecca Nagle, By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land

“The legal doctrines the US created to seize Indigenous land still govern how the US treats people living at the margins of our empire. Native history is often treated like a tragic, distant chapter of the American story. And the legal terrain it created, like a siloed backwater of American law, but it is foundational.”
― Rebecca Nagle, By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land

“The genius of the Founding Fathers, we are told, was creating a system of checks and balances. Unlike the king of England, if the president stepped out of line, Congress or the Supreme Court would rein them in. But when [Andrew] Jackson defied the Supreme Court, nothing happened. The abuse of power went unchecked…In the end, it would be another time John [Ridge] and his tribe [Cherokee] leveraged their mastery of American law, only to learn the law didn’t matter”
― Rebecca Nagle, By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land

“Some research shows people's faith in the Supreme Court may be tied to their faith in law itself. If half our citizens don't believe the Supreme Court is legitimate, how will our democracy function?

"Like the Miner's Canary," an early scholar of federal Indian law wrote, "the Indian marks the shift from fresh air to poison gas in our political atmosphere." How our government treats Indigenous peoples, he argued, "reflects the rise and fall of our democratic faith.”
― Rebecca Nagle, By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land