Chief Seattle’s Letter In Response To The President Of The United States (1880′s)
The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky, the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?
Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect, all are holy in the memory and experience of my people. We know the sap that courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the Earth and it is part of us.
Perfume flowers are our sisters, the bear, the deer, the great eagle – these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadow, the body heat of the pony and man all belong to the same family. The shining water that moves through the streams and the rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors.
If we sell you our land you must remember that it is sacred. Each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father. The rivers are our brothers: they quench our thirst, they carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give to the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.
If we sell you our land remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life that it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell you our land you must keep it apart and sacred as a place where a man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.
Will you teach your children what we have taught our children, that the Earth is our Mother? What befalls the Earth befalls all the sons of the Earth. This we know, the Earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the Earth, all things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
One thing we know, our God is also your God. The Earth is precious to him and to harm the Earth is to heap contempt on its Creator.
Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted by talking wires? Where will the thicket be, gone. Where will the eagle be, gone. And what is it to say good-bye to the swift pony and the hunt, the end of living and the beginning of survival.
When the last red man has vanished with the memory of his wilderness and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here?
Will any of the spirit of my people be left? We love this Earth as a new born loves his mother’s heart beat.
So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it, care for it as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children and love it as God loves us all. As we are part of the land you too are part of the land. This Earth is precious to us and it is also precious to you.
One thing we know, there is only one God. No man be he red man or white can be apart, we are brothers after all.
Chief Seattle (more correctly known as Seathl) was a Susquamish chief who lived on the islands of the Puget Sound. As a young warrier, Chief Seattle was known for his courage, daring and leadership. He gained control of six of the local tribes and continued the friendly relations with the local whites that had been established by his father. His now famous speech was believed to have been given in December, 1854.
Disclaimer: Source: Museum of History and Industry;
Seattle, Washington — June, 1990
In 1854, the new territorial governor, Isaac Stevens, began the long-awaited process of making treaties with the native peoples of the Pacific Northwest. The purpose of these negotiations was clear: the Indians were to sign away their lands to the settlers in return for small reservations and promises of government aid. Dr. David Maynard, sub-Indian agent and a friend of Chief Seattle, arranged for Governor Stevens to meet with Seattle and his people in December 1854. The Indians congregated on the beach just north of the present Kingdome.
At this meeting, Chief Seattle is said to have made an impassioned speech in his native tongue. As Seattle spoke, Dr. Henry Smith, for whom Smith Cove is named, took notes from which he reconstructed the Chief’s words some 33 years later, publishing them in the October 29, 1887 edition of the Seattle Sunday Star. Smith’s flowery rendering of Chief Seattle’s oration does not conform to what we know of the speaking style of the Puget Sound Indians. Native speech was not given to ornate embellishment. Dr. Smith, for his part, was known as a “poet of no ordinary talent” who “wove into verses and essays much of his musings.” Thus while this earliest version of the speech may present the gist of Chief Seattle’s remarks, it seems likely that it is also the product of Henry Smith’s poetic musings. However flawed it may be, this is the only eyewitness account of Chief Seattle’s most famous speech.
That fame is due, in part, to the appearance of a magnificent call to environmental responsibility that has been wrongly attributed to Chief Seattle. In the winter of 1971/72, Ted Perry, a screenwriter working for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Radio and Television Commission, used Chief Seattle’s speech as a model for the script of a film on ecology called _Home_. The film’s producer wanted to show a distinguished American Indian chief delivering a statement of concern for the environment, so Perry wove such wonderful lines as “The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth” among pieces of Chief Seattle’s 1854 oration. Perry expected to be given credit for writing this film script, but he made the mistake of including the Chief’s name in his text. According to Perry, the producer didn’t credit his screen writer because he thought the film might seem more authentic without a “written by” credit. Since then, Perry’s environmental text has been widely circulated as a prophetic ecological statement by Chief Seattle himself.
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