CHIEF SEATTLE’S SPEECH SUMMARY

Chief Seattle delivered the speech to mark the transfer of ancestral Red Indians’ land to the federal
government. He says that the great chief in Washington sends greetings of friendship and goodwill
and wishes to buy their land. This is kind on his part as he has little need of their friendship in return
because his people are strong and more powerful than the Native Red Indians. Chief Seattle recalls
the time when his people were larger in number but now they are reduced to a mournful memory.
But he will not mourn over their untimely decay. The young men are too aggressive and want to take
revenge even at the cost of their own lives but the old men are wise and do not want to continue
their hostile attitude towards them. It was the time when the white men pushed their forefathers
westward. He wishes that George Washington, who he calls as their “good father”, will protect them.
His brave warriors will protect them from ancient enemies.

Then he encounters a fear that the God of white people is not their God. He only loves his people. He
makes the pale face stronger and has forsaken his Red children. He cannot love his Red Indian
children, so how can they be brothers? They seem to be orphans. Thus he says that they are two
distinct races with separate origins and separate destinies. There is little in common between them.

He further remarks that the ashes of his ancestors are sacred and their resting place is that land
whereas the whites wander away from the graves of their ancestors. The white man's religion was
written on stone tablets by the iron fingers of their God. But the Red Indians’ religion is the tradition
of their ancestors. He then says that their dead men cease to love them (the Whites) but their (the
Red men’s) ancestors can never forget this beautiful world. They keep on loving its verdant valleys,
murmuring rivers, magnificent mountains, valleys, lakes and bays.

He remarks that Red Man has ever fled the approach of the White Man as the morning mist
disappears before the morning sun. Grim fate seems to follow them and soon his race will disappear.
But then Seattle says that they will consider the matter and before accepting President’s
proposition, he had put forth the condition that they will not be denied to visit the tombs of their
ancestors, friends and children anytime.

He concludes his speech by saying that when the last Red man has vanished from the earth, his
memory will become myth and the shores and forests will hold the fruits of his tribe. The White Men
will never be alone. He urges the White men to love and care for the land as they did with all their
strength, mind and heart, love and preserve it as God loves and preserves us. He believed that the
dead of his community were a part of his world and said that there is no death but only a change of
worlds.