Chief Seattle

    Chief Seattle was a iconic person from American history. He is as important as the other Native Americans like Chief Black Hawk. The city Seattle was named because of him. The difference between him and other Native American leaders could it be the way he deal with the white man. When Chief Seattle realize that the white people wanted to take and destroy their lands he write a letter to president Franklin Pearce. The chief wanted that the president know how the Native Americans live, how the land are important to them and how the white man are destroying their land. He uses stereotypes for both Native Americans and the Americans, and when he are talking about the Native Americans he try to say in the way the Americans look at they. Below you can see some parts of the letter.

   "We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his fathers graves, and his childrens birthright is forgotten. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. But perhaps it is because the red man is a savage and does not understand."

   "There is no quiet place in the white mans cities. No place to hear the leaves of spring or the rustle of insects wings. But perhaps because I am a savage and do not understand, the clatter only seems to insult the ears. The Indians prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of the pond, the smell of the wind itself cleansed by a mid-day rain, or scented with the pinon pine. The air is precious to the red man. For all things share the same breath - the bests, the trees, the man. Like a man dying for many days, he is numb to the stench."

   "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 sons of the earth." 

   "It matters little where we pass the rest of our days; they are not many. A few more hours, a few more winters, and none of the children of the great tribes that once lived on this earth, or that roamed in small bands in the woods, will be left to mourn the graves of a people once as powerful and hopeful as yours."

   "The whites, too, shall pass - perhaps sooner than other tribes. Continue contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste. 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 goodbye to the swift and the hunt, the end of living and the beginning of survival? We might understand if we knew waht it was that the white man dreams, what he describes to his children on the long winter nights, what visions he burns int their minds, so they will wish for tomorrow. But we are savages. The white mans dreams are hidden from us."

 

    Some sources believe that the letter is not true or reliable. One reason is that the letter could never be located. Regardless of that, this letter tell us an important message about the preservation of the land for us and for the Native Americans.