I was recently asked to present the Native American
perspective in history. This information is very hard
to come by. So what I've done is found some quotes to
use, which, I think, relay what the tribes might have
felt so long ago.
I have heard talk and talk,
but nothing has ever been done, Good words do not
last long, unless they amount
for something.
Words do not pay for my dead people.
They do not pay for my country.
They do not protect my
fathers grave.
Good words will not give me back
my children. Good words will
not give my people good
health, and stop them
from dying
I am tired of talk that comes to
nothing, It makes my heart sick
when I remember all the good
words, and all the broken
promises.
The Great Cheif in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. How can you buy or sell the sky? The warmth of the land. The ideas is strange to us. Yet we do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. How can you by them from us. Every part of this earth is sacred to my people ... There is no quiet place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the leaves of spring or the rustle of insect wings. But perhaps because I am a savage and do not understand. The clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lovely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frog around the pond at night. The whites too shall pass--Perhaps sooner than other tribes. Continue to contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your oun 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 to the ripe hills blotted by talking wires. Where is the eagle. GONE. Where is the buffalo. GONE. And what is it to say goodbye to the swift and the hunt, the end of living and the beginning of survival.
By,
Chief Seattle to President Franklin Pierce, 1855.
I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say, "Yes" or "No." He who led the young men [Olikut] is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are--perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.
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