The Algebra of Federal Indian Law by Robert A. Williams, Jr. pg.222

Despite Myer’s previous success in carrying out a 
sensitive mission with dark moral overtones, many 
Indians balked at the bill of goods the new Commissioner-
designate of Indian Affairs had been assigned to sell. 
At one gathering of Indian people, for instance, Myer 
had been preaching about the potential benefits of the
Indian’s “complete integration” into the mainstream of
political, economic, and social life in the United States,
when he asked the rhetorical question of the day:
“What can we do to Americanize the Indian?” An Indian
elder rose and answered Mr. Myer as follows:
You will forgive me if I tell you that my people were
Americans for thousands of years before your people
were. The question is not how you can Americanize us
but how we can Americanize you. We have been working
at that for a long time. Sometimes we are discouraged at
the results, but we will keep trying. And the first thing we
want to teach you is that, in the American way of life,
each man has respect for his brother’s vision. Because
each of us respected his brother’s dream, we enjoyed
freedom here in America while you people were busy
killing and enslaving each other across the water. The
relatives you left behind…are still trying to kill each
other and enslave each other because they have not
learned there that freedom is built on my respect for
my brother’s vision and his respect for mine. We have
a hard trail ahead of us in trying to Americanize you and
your white brothers. But we are not afraid of hard trails.
-The Algebra of Federal Indian Law: The Hard Trail of
Decolonizing and Americanizing The White Man’s Indian
Jurisprudence by Robert A. Williams, Jr.
Pg.222 Wisconsin Law Review