Address Indian Chief Seattle led the white man (1855) U.S. , 1855
The Great Chief in Washington sends a message let us know you want to buy our land. It also sends us words of brotherhood and goodwill. We appreciate the detail, because we know that does not need our friendship. But we will consider your offer because we know full well that failure to do so well, maybe the white man took away our land with their firearms.
But ... Who can buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the earth?. That idea is strange to us. Neither the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water is ours. How could anyone buy them? Still, try to make a decision
My words are like the stars forever, never extinguished. You have to know that every piece of this land is sacred to my people. Each needle of a fir tree, each sandy beach, every mist in the depths of the woods, every clearing among the trees, every humming insect is holy to the thoughts and feelings of my people. The sap that rises through the trees is sacred experience and memory of my people.
The white dead forget the land of their birth when
away to wander the stars. Ours, however, never stray from the earth, it is the mother of us all. We are a part of it, and the fragrant flower, deer, horse, the great eagle are our brothers. The rugged mountains, damp meadows, the body sweaty pony and man ... all belong to the same family.
So when the Great Chief in Washington sent us word that he wanted to buy our land, demanded too much of us. The Big Boss wants us to know which aims to give us a place to live in peace. He was our father and we would be their children. But it will be possible one day?. God must love your people and abandoned his red children.
He has sent machines to help the white man in his work, and they built large settlements. He makes your people are, day by day more numerous. Soon invadiréis earth as rivers overflowing from the mountain gorges, like an unexpected rainfall. My people however, is like a stream overflowing, but no return. No, we are different races. Our children and yours do not play together, and your old and mine do not have the same stories. God is favorable to you, and we feel orphaned. Yet
meditate on your offer to buy the land. Not be easy, because this land is sacred to us
We are happy in these forests. I do not know why, but our way of living is different from yours. The crystal clear water that flows through the streams and rivers is not just water, is also the blood of our ancestors. If we sold you the you would have to remember that it is sacred, and teach and your children. In fact, the rivers are our brothers. We fought
thirst, we dragged our canoes and provide food. Images that reflect the clear waters of the lakes are the memory of the events that occurred and the memory of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.
Yes, Father White of Washington, the rivers are our brothers. If we sell you our land, you will have to remember and teach your children that the rivers are our brothers, and later, yours, and treat them with the same care that you treat a brother.
is clear that the white man does not understand our ways. We are indifferent to each other because the land is not like a sister, but as an enemy. When he has taken over the neglected and abandoned.
Leave behind the graves of his parents not care. Plundered the land of their children and they are indifferent. He treats his mother the Earth and his brother, the sky-like objects that are bought, used and sold like sheep or beads. Hungry, eventually swallowing the white man's land, not
leaving behind only a desert. My people have always been ambitious section of the white man, as morning fog in the mountains gives way to the rising sun. But the ashes of our ancestors, their graves are holy ground, and so these hills, these trees, this part of the world, it is sacred.
not know, but our way of life is very different from yours. Maybe it's because I'm what you call a "wild" and therefore do not understand anything. The sight of your cities hurts the eyes of my people. Perhaps because the "Red Indian" is a savage and do not understand. There is some silence in the cities of the whites, there is no place where you can hear the leaves grow in spring and the hum of insects. There is no quiet place only in the white man's cities. No place where you can hear in the spring the buds of leaves or the fluttering of an insect. Maybe it's because I'm what you call a "wild" and do not understand some things ...
The sound of your cities is an insult to the ears of my people and I I wonder what kind of life is the man who can not hear the lonely cry of the heron or dialogue night frogs in a pond?. My people can feel the soft whisper of wind on the surface of the lake, the smell of clean air with dew in the morning and noon scented with the aroma of the pines. The air is of great value to us, as all things share the same breath: the beast, the tree, man, everybody.
The white man seems to give importance to the air we breathe, like a man dead for several days, dulled by his own stench. But if we sell you our land, do not forget that we have the air in high esteem, that the air shares spirit with all life.
The wind gave our parents the first breath, and get the last. And the wind blown from the lives of our children. And if you were selling our land, you would have to take care of the air like a treasure and care for the earth as a place where even the white man knows that the wind blows gently on the grass in the meadow. When the last among my people is gone, when your shadow is not just a memory on this earth, even then, these banks and these forests are inhabited by the spirit of my people, because we love this landscape the same way that child loves heartbeat of his mother. If you decide to accept your offer, would have to put one condition: that the white man considers the animals of this land as brothers.
I'm what you call a "wild" and do not understand your way of life, but I saw thousands of buffalo dead, rotting in the sun on the prairie. Shot dead, unconscious, from the caravans. I am a savage and I can not understand how a machine-smoking iron horse can import more than the buffalo that we kill only to survive. What is man without animals? If all the animals disappeared man also died in the solitude of her spirit. What happens to the animals eventually will happen to man. All things are closely linked.
Teach your children what we have taught our children: that Earth is his mother. What happens to the Earth also happens to the children of the Earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. We know that the earth does not belong to man, who is the man belongs to Earth. We know very well, All things are connected to each other, like the blood which unites one family. The man did not create the web of life, it's just a fiber of it.
What you do with that this tissue, he does himself. No, the day and night can not live together. You must teach your children that the ground is under your feet containing the ashes of our own.
To respect the land, count the land contains the souls of our ancestors.
Our dead are living among the sweet waters of the rivers and back again with every gentle step of Spring, and their souls go with the wind blowing, ruffling the surface of the lake. Consider the possibility that the white man we buy our land. But my people
question: What do you want the white man? How can you buy the sky, or the heat of the earth, or the speed of the antelope? How are we going to sell all this and how you will be able to buy?
Perhaps you can do with the land what you want, just because we sign a piece of paper and deliver them to the white man? If we do not own the freshness of the air and the gleam of water, how will you be able to buy it? Do they, perhaps, you can buy the buffalo when they have killed the last? Consider the offer.
know that if he will not sell the white man come and take over our land. We know one thing, perhaps, the white man one day discover: our God is your God. You can think that now he belongs to you, just as now you wish that our lands are yours. Not so. He is the God of all men and equally achieved under my people and yours. Consider your offer we go to a reservation.
We want to live apart and in peace. No matter where we spend the rest of our days. Our children see their parents submissive and losers. Our soldiers are ashamed. After the defeat spend their days in idleness, and poison their bodies between food and alcohol. No matter where we spend the rest of our days. There are already many. Only a few hours a couple of winters, and there will be no son of a race that once lived on this earth, and now live in small groups scattered throughout the forest, to moan over the graves of his people. A town that once was so powerful and hopeful as yours. But, sad about the disappearance of a nation?
Nations are made by men. So. Men come and go like the waves of the sea. Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend to friend, is exempt from the common destiny of things. After all, you might be brothers. We'll see ... also white people disappear, and perhaps earlier than other strains.
continue polluting and corrupting any night your bed and die by drowning in your own filth. Yes ... you will walk toward extinction in glory and spurred by the belief in a God who gives you power on Earth and on other men.
When all the buffalo are gone, wild horses were tamed, the secret corner of the forest invaded by the crowd noise and the sight of the hills is tainted by the speaker wires (*), when the woods and disappears the eagle becomes extinct, we must say goodbye to fast horse and hunting. Will be the end of life and the beginning of another. For some reason that escapes me, God granted dominion over animals, forests and the Redskins. Maybe we could understand it if we knew what the white man dreams, what ideals offered to children on long winter nights, and what visions teem in his imagination, tending towards tomorrow. But we are savages. "
white man's dreams we have access.
And because we are hidden, we will follow our own path. Well, first of all, we consider the right of every human being to live as you want, even so very different from that of his brothers. There is much that unites us. Consider your offer ... If we accept is just make sure the reservation you have promised.
Maybe there we can finish the few days that remain, living in your own way. When the last Red Indian of this land is gone and your memory is only the shadow of a cloud on the prairie, you are still alive spirit of my ancestors on these shores and these forests.
For they loved this land as the newborn loves the heartbeat of his mother. If we were to sell you our land, love it, as we have loved. Take care of her, as we take care of, and preserves the memory of this land as you deliver it.
Where is the thick forest?: Gone.
What has been the eagle?: Gone.
So life is over and we can only try to survive the appeal.
Chief Seattle (1855)
(*) "talking wires" = telegraph.
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