FFT

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, since we know he has little need of our friendship in return.
But we will consider the offer.

For we know that if we do not sell, the white man may come with guns and take our 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 sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing, and 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 in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us.
The Great Chief sends word that he will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably by ourselves.
He will be our father and we will be his children.
So we will consider your offer to buy our land, but it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us.

This shining water that lives in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors.
If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people.

The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.
The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst.
The rivers carry our canoes, and feed our children.
If we sell you our land, you must remember, and teach your children that the rivers are our brothers, and yours, and henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.

The white man's dead forget the country of their birth when they go walk among the stars.
Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red man.
We are part of the earth, and it is part of us.
The perfumed flowers are our sisters, the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers.
The rocky crests, the juices of the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man - all belong to the same family.

The red man has always retreated before the advancing white man, as the mist of the mountain runs before the morning sun.

This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth.
All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not create the web of life. He is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself.

The white man too shall pass; perhaps sooner than all other tribes. Continue to contaminate your beds, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.

- Seattle, Dwamish Indian Chief, upon surrending his land to Washington Governor Issac Stevens in 1854