BUY OUR LAND

The Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land.

The Great Chief also sends us words 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 shining pine
needle, every shady 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 of 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 - 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 the newborn loves its
mother’s heartbeat. So, if we sell our land, love it as we’ve loved it.
Care for it 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.

~Chief Sealth’s (Seattle’s) reply to President Franklin Pierce in December of
1854, upon the United States Government’s offer to buy two million acres of
Native American land in the Pacific Northwest~

via Spartacvs