Chief Seattle
Chief Seattle
Chief Seattle
In a time so long ago that nearly all traces of it are lost in the
prairie dust, an ancient people were a part of the land that we love and
call America. Living here for thousands of years, their children became
the great Indian civilizations of the Choctaw and Cherokee, Navaho,
Iroquois and Sioux, among many others. Then white settlers from Europe
began a bloody war against the Indians, and in the span of a single
lifetime claimed all the Indians' land for themselves, allowing them only
small tracts of land to live on.
When the last of the Indian wars were drawing to a close, one of the
bravest and most respected chiefs of the No.rthwest Nations, Chief
Seattle, sat at a white man's table to sign a paper presented by the new
Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the Territory. The government in
Washington D.C.,wished to buy the lands of Chief Seattle's people.
With a commanding presence and eyes that mirrored the great soul
that lived within, the Chief rose to speak to the gathering in a resounding
voice...
How can you buy the sky?
How can you own the rain and the wind?
This we know: Allthings are connected like the blood that unites us.
We did not weave the web of life,
We are merely a strand in it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
We love this earth as a newborn loves it's mother's heartbeat.
If we sell you our land, care for it as we have cared for it.
Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you
receive it.
Preserve the land and the air and the rivers for your
children's children and love it as we have loved it.