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The Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. The Great Chief also sends us words of friendship and goodwill. This is kind of him, for we know he has little need of our friendship in return. But we will consider your offer, for we know if we do not do so, the white man may come with guns and take our land. What Chief Seathl says, the Great White Chief in Washington can count on as truly as our white brothers can count on the return of the seasons. My words are like the stars - they do not set.
How can you buy or sell the sky - the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. Yet we do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us? We will decide in our time. Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people.
We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother but his enemy and when he has conquered it he moves on. He leaves his fathers' graves behind and he does not care. He kidnaps the earth from his children. He does not care. His fathers' graves and his children's birthright are forgotten. His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert. The sight of your cities pains the eye of the red man. But perhaps it is because the red man is a savage and does not understand...
There is no quiet place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the leaves of spring or the rustle of insects' wings. But perhaps because I am a savage and do not understand the clatter which only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if man cannot hear the lovely cry of the whipoorwill or the argument of the frogs around a pond at night? The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of the pond, or the smell of the wind itself, clensed by a midday rain, or scented with pinioned pine. The air is precious to the red man. For all things share the same breath - the beasts, the trees, the man. The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man dying for many days, he is numb to the smell of his own stench.
...When the last redman has vanished from the earth, and the 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 the earth as the newborn loves its mothers heartbeat.
If we sell you 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 with all your strength, with all your might, and with all your heart 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.