English-born
UK and American citizen in Seattle, founder, creative director, site/page designer,
editor-in-chief, content developer, translation coordinator, marketing
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Contributing
Voices
Vasilis Afxentiou,
Dr. Gerry T.
M. Altmann, Rachel Bell, Michael S. Beyer,
Melissa K. Beynon, Anne Bloedorn, Tom Bradley, Jeff Brousal, Shelly
Bryant, Carlos Buhler, Pat Byrnes, Ben Curtis, Julie Denesha, John DesMarteau, Hugh Downs, John Eidswick, Laura Feister,
A. L. Fern, James L. Fidelholtz, Brian Foley, Alison Gates,
Tab Gilbert, Suzanne Gillis, Slava Glazychev,
Denise Gray Gooden, Thomas Greuel, Scott Grunow, Giulia
Guarnieri, Joseph
Fabio, David Hahn, Denzel J. Hankinson, Pete Hansen, Dr. Aboudi Jawad Hassan, Paul Hawken, Mary
Hayes, He Who Must Be Obeyed, Alan Hulse, Gardenia C. Hung, Janis Ian, Leila Imam-Kulieva,
Yves Jaques, Todd Jatras, Constance Keene,
Marjorie Kelly, A.C. Koch,
Anatoly Krynsky,Maria Lamkin, David Lang, Malcolm Lawrence, T. E. Lawrence,
Jon Letman, Jean-Christophe Le Toquin, Edvard Lieber, Lise Lingo, Paul Linkletter, Livia
Sian Llewellyn, Michael Logan, Da Brudders Mahugh, Richard
Maxwell, Sterling McKennedy, Prem Panicker,
Jana Pendragon,
Bradley Pennington, Mateo Pietez, Joanna Porackova, Calvin Stacy Powers, Jennifer Prado, Angeli Primlani, Susan
Purton, Elizabeth Raab, Sienna Reid, Wendy J. Rohrbacher, Jim Rovira, Marta Graupera Sanz, Leonard Schwartz,
Phil Shen,
Anis Shivani, Ed Sloan, Russell
C. Smith, Nicholas P. Snoek, Paul Sperry, Starhawk, Chance Stevens, Gaither Stewart, subaltern, Cason
Swindle, Larry Swindle, Jan Vanderhorst, Rohan H. Wickramasinghe, Ph.D., Mary Wildfire,
Doug Williamson, Wayne L. Wilson,
Mark Wynne, John Bell Young
This
text was produced by one "Dr." Smith, an early
settler in Washington State, who took notes as Seattle spoke
in the Suquamish dialect of central Puget sound Salish
(Lushootseed), and created this text in English from those
notes. Smith insisted that his version "contained none
of the grace and elegance of the original." The last two
sentences of the text here given have been considered for
many years to have been part of the original, but are now
known to have been added by an early 20th century historian
and ethnographic writer, A.C. Ballard.
There
are many versions and excerpts from this text, including a
wholly fraudulent version [known as the Ted Perry text]
mentioning buffalo and the interconnectedness of all life
which was written by a Hollywood screenwriter in the late
70's and which has gained wide currency. The bogus version
has been quoted by individuals as prominent and diverse as
former U.S. President Bush and Joseph Campbell.
At the
time this speech was made it was commonly believed by whites
and as well by many Indians that Native Americans would
inevitably become extinct.
Authentic
text of Chief Seattle's Treaty Oration - 1854
[Originally
published in the Seattle Sunday Star, Oct. 29 1887]
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.
A few
more moon, 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.
