How Can You Buy or Sell the Earth?

In 1854, the United States Government offered to buy a million acres of Indian land on the Northwest. Below is a translation of Chief Sealth's (Seattle) reply to President Franklin Pierce in December of that year...

The Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. The Great Chief also sends us word of friendship and good will. This is kind of him, since we know he has little need of our friendship in return. But we will consider your offer...

How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of 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 shinning pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing, and every humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man. So, when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us...

This we know: All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. 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. But we will consider your offer to go to the reservation you have for my people. We will live apart, and in peace...

One thing we know, which the white man may one day discover - our God is the same God. You may think now that you own Him as you wish to own our land: but you cannot...

He is the God of man; and his compassion is equal for the red man and the white. This earth is precious to Him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its Creator. The whites too shall pass; perhaps sooner than all other tribes. Continue to contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste...

But in your perishing you will shine brightly, fired by the strength of the God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose gave you dominion over this land and over the red man. That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, 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 pony and the hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival. So we will consider your offer to buy the land...

If we agree, it will be to secure the reservation you have promised. There, perhaps, we may live out our brief days as we wish. When the last red man has vanished from the earth, and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, these shores and forests will still hold the spirits of my people. For they love this earth as a new borne loves its mother's heartbeat. So, if we sell our land, love it as we've loved it. Care for is as we've cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you take it. And preserve it for your children, and love it...as God loves us all. One thing we know. Our God is the same God. This earth is precious to Him. Even the white man cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all...

We shall see...

Wonder if they are thinking this while stripping eggs from fish and leaving the rest to rot. Or when they shoot a 6 point elk and chop off the antlers and let the rest rot. Or when they rape a river with nets from shore to shore so no fish get back to spawn. I know not all do this and that some of us white men do it also, but I guess that really does show we are all "brothers".

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Just because I look big, dumb, and ugly, doesn't mean I am. It means I can stomp you for calling me it!

As sympathetic as I am with the feelings expressed in the translation of Chief Sealth's speech, I always cringe a little when I hear it put forth as an example of native American attitudes toward the natural world. Sealth spoke little or no English, and his speech was translated and written down by a translator who had a somewhat poetic flight of fancy. His translations frequently erred a bit in the direction of literary excess and some of the lines from the speech are patently bogus. Where, for instance, would Sealth have ever seen a buffalo, or had any idea of the importance of the buffalo to the plains tribes? I also doubt that Sealth ever rode a pony anywhere. As accomplished as the tribes of Puget Sound and the coast were as conoeists, they never showed any affinity for horses, nor (before the building of roads) would a horse have been a particularly desireable form of transportation.

If you ever care to see how they really feel about ol' mother earth, take a drive out on the Tulalip res. I'll let your observations do the talking.

BTW - if you need a hood for a 66 Impala, or whatever else you drive, go have a look.

If Chief Sealth was here today I think he would be ashamed of some of the fishing practices of the tribes. But he would probably be proud of the good tribespeople that help preserve the runs and are good stewards of the land.