TEXT OF CHIEF SEATTLE'S TREATY ORATION 1854
(Seattle
Sunday Star Oct. 29,l887 by Dr.H.A. Smith)
Yonder sky that has
wept tears of compassion upon my people for centuries
untold, and which to us appears changeless and eternal, may
change. Today
is fair. Tomorrow it may be overcast with clouds. My words
are like the
stars that never change. Whatever Seattle says, the great
chief at
Washington can rely upon with as much certainty as he can
upon the return
of the sun or the seasons. The white chief says that Big
Chief at
Washington sends us greetings of friendship and goodwill.
This is kind of
him for we know he has little need of our friendship in
return. His people
are many. They are like the grass that covers vast prairies.
My people are
few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept
plain. The great,
and I presume -- good, White Chief sends us word that he
wishes to buy our
land but is willing to allow us enough to live comfortably.
This indeed
appears just, even generous, for the Red Man no longer has
rights that he
need respect, and the offer may be wise, also, as we are no
longer in need
of an extensive country.
There
was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a
wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time
long since
passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a
mournful
memory. I will not dwell on, nor mourn over, our untimely
decay, nor
reproach my paleface brothers with hastening it, as we too
may have been
somewhat to blame.
Youth is
impulsive. When our young men grow angry at some real or
imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint,
it denotes
that their hearts are black, and that they are often cruel
and relentless,
and our old men and old women are unable to restrain them.
Thus it has
ever been. Thus it was when the white man began to push our
forefathers
ever westward. But let us hope that the hostilities between
us may never
return. We would have everything to lose and nothing to gain.
Revenge by
young men is considered gain, even at the cost of their own
lives, but old
men who stay at home in times of war, and mothers who have
sons to lose,
know better.
Our good father in Washington--for I presume
he is now our father as well
as yours, since King George has moved his boundaries further
north--our
great and good father, I say, sends us word that if we do as
he desires he
will protect us. His brave warriors will be to us a bristling
wall of
strength, and his wonderful ships of war will fill our
harbors, so that
our ancient enemies far to the northward -- the Haidas and
Tsimshians --
will cease to frighten our women, children, and old men. Then
in reality
he will be our father and we his children. But can that ever
be? Your God
is not our God! Your God loves your people and hates mine! He
folds his
strong protecting arms lovingly about the paleface and leads
him by the
hand as a father leads an infant son. But, He has forsaken
His Red
children, if they really are His. Our God, the Great Spirit,
seems also to
have forsaken us. Your God makes your people wax stronger
every day. Soon
they will fill all the land. Our people are ebbing away like
a rapidly
receding tide that will never return. The white man's God
cannot love our
people or He would protect them. They seem to be orphans who
can look
nowhere for help. How then can we be brothers? How can your
God become our
God and renew our prosperity and awaken in us dreams of
returning
greatness? If we have a common Heavenly Father He must be
partial, for He
came to His paleface children. We never saw Him. He gave you
laws but had
no word for His red children whose teeming multitudes once
filled this
vast continent as stars fill the firmament. No: we are two
distinct races
with separate origins and separate destinies. There is little
in common
between us.
To us
the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is
hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your
ancestors and
seemingly without regret. Your religion was written upon
tablets of stone
by the iron finger of your God so that you could not forget.
The Red Man
could never comprehend or remember it. Our religion is the
traditions of
our ancestors -- the dreams of our old men, given them in
solemn hours of
the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our
sachems, and is
written in the hearts of our people.
Your
dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as
they pass the portals of the tomb and wander away beyond the
stars. They
are soon forgotten and never return. Our dead never forget
this beautiful
world that gave them being. They still love its verdant
valleys, its
murmuring rivers, its magnificent mountains, sequestered
vales and verdant
lined lakes and bays, and ever yearn in tender fond affection
over the
lonely hearted living, and often return from the happy
hunting ground to
visit, guide, console, and comfort them.
Day and night cannot dwell together. The Red
Man has ever fled the
approach of the White Man, as the morning mist flees before
the morning
sun. However, your proposition seems fair and I think that my
people will
accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer them.
Then we will
dwell apart in peace, for the words of the Great White Chief
seem to be
the words of nature speaking to my people out of dense
darkness.
It matters little where we pass the remnant
of our days. They will not be
many. The Indian's night promises to be dark. Not a single
star of hope
hovers above his horizon. Sad-voiced winds moan in the
distance. Grim fate
seems to be on the Red Man's trail, and wherever he will hear
the
approaching footsteps of his fell destroyer and prepare stolidly
to meet
his doom, as does the wounded doe that hears the approaching
footsteps of
the hunter.
When the buffalo are all
slaughtered, the wild horses all tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy
with the scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking
wires, where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone.
And what is it to say farewell
to the swift and the hunt, to the end of living and the beginning of survival?
We might understand if we knew what it was that the white man dreams, what he
describes to his children on the long winter nights, what visions he burns into
their minds, so they will wish for tomorrow. But we are savages. The white
man's dreams are hidden from us.
What is man without the beasts? If
all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit, for
whatever happens to the beasts also happens to man. All things are connected.
Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth.
A few
more moons, a few more winters, and not one of the descendants of
the mighty hosts that once moved over this broad land or
lived in happy
homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will remain to mourn
over the graves
of a people once more powerful and hopeful than yours. But
why should I
mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe,
and nation
follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of
nature, and
regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it
will surely
come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with
him as
friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny.
We may be
brothers after all. We will see.
We will
ponder your proposition and when we decide we will let you know.
But should we accept it, I here and now make this condition
that we will
not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting
at any time
the tombs of our ancestors, friends, and children. Every part
of this soil
is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside,
every valley,
every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy
event in
days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and
dead as the
swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with
memories of
stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and
the very dust
upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their
footsteps than
yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors,
and our bare
feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed
braves, fond
mothers, glad, happy hearted maidens, and even the little
children who
lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love
these somber
solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning
spirits. And when
the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my
tribe shall
have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will
swarm with the
invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children
think
themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the
highway, or
in the silence of the
pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the
earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when
the streets
of your cities and villages are silent and you think them
deserted, they
will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them
and still love
this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone.
Let him
be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not
powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change
of worlds.
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