“Still, it had been a triumphal six-week tour. The nervy, smooth-talking governor had dispossessed the natives of 20,000 square miles without firing a shot. In return, the Indians were given nine reservations totaling about 93 square miles and promised $300,000 in hardware over the next two decades and a few vocational services. The U.S. government was subject to no penalties if it welshed on any of its promises.”

“Scholars have estimated that by 1850, the aboriginal population in North America—besieged by the invaders’ explosive weaponry, wondrous technology, contemptuous cruelty, and irresistible pathogens, as well as the Indians’ own ever-deepening despair—was just one-tenth of what it had been when Columbus first ventured ashore.”

“Americans, from the beginning and throughout much of their history, were a warrior people when dealing with those who stood in their path.”

“White Americans cannot deny their long history of abusive transactions with people of color. These offenses, it should be noted out of fairness, can be explained in part by the fact that no other sizable national state has ever been formed from the confluence of so many diverse ethnic streams. All our heterogeneous ferment no doubt made contentiousness inevitable.”

“Let's also not forget Wei's immortal words to him nine minutes after he was born, when she first stared into those big brown eyes: 'Oh, honey. Promise me you'll grow up to like boys. Because I don't want any other woman in your life except me.”

“The cost of contemplating history is often an uneasy conscience.”

“Say 'Kenmore Square'," I insist."Kenmaw Sqway-ah.""Say 'Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina.'" "Nothing could be finah than to be in Caroliner.'" "You're doing that on purpose." "I'm not. I sway-ah.”