Chief Seattle's 1854 Oration Tone Essay

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This indeed appears just, even generous, for the Red Man no longer has rights that he need respect, and the offer may be wise, also, as we are no longer in need of an extensive country.

Clearly, Chief Seattle's tone, within his 1854 Oration, had become by necessity conciliatory about white encroachment upon his people and their lands. Yet his words remain wistful and poignant, reflecting, as they do on just how much current Anglo presence and domination have permanently interfered with his peoples' long-cherished customs, beliefs, traditions, and practices. None of these possess either the least value or importance to whites themselves, who have without hesitation or remorse, imposed themselves and their own beliefs and practice upon Seattle's people and numerous other Native American tribes. In view of all that, Chief Seattle also notes, sadly but matter-of-factly: "the Red Man no longer has rights that he need respect."

Seattle also accepts some of the blame, on his peoples' behalf, for past conflicts between them and whites, regretfully admitting how the young men of his tribe have been "impetuous" and often rash in their reactions against white presence, demonstrating neither the patience nor diplomacy recommended by their tribal elders.

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Seattle makes several key distinctions between white and Native American spiritual beliefs, and states his opinion that the God of white people cannot possibly be the Native Americans' God, since that God so favors white over red people. He also predicts near the end of his Oration, with what today seems like eerie accuracy, to those who now dominate his own people:

Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We will see.

The enduring power of Chief Seattle's 1854 oration is that its poignant tone expresses, and its descriptive content and specific examples illustrate, just how completely the coming of white American settlers to Native American territories, like those of Seattle's the Suquamish tribe, destroyed, then and forever afterward, the….....

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