arun jain asked 7 years ago
Discuss Seattle’s speech as a documentation on the way in which the white people of America have brought the Tribal people to their days of doom.
Chief Seattle criticised the Whites in an ironic way by his speech. In his speech he says that white people have covered vast land and thinks that they are superior to all. They think that natural resources are meant for exploitation and they deserve all the things. From many centuries they have ruled over red Indians and suppressed them a lot. Now when the governor of Washington / Issac Stevens gave them a proposal to acquire their land then they accepted their proposal without thinking about their future. Chief Seattle as a good chief and a holy and spiritual man, just gave a condition that he and his people will be allowed to visit their ancestors, family and children’s tomb without any molestation. Thus, it shows that the Whites have completely taken over the control of whole America just because of their martial strength. Chief Seattle also mentions that a day will come when his tribe will be vanished just because of the encroachment of the Whites.
Chief Seattle, through his speech, has given a clear picture of how his tribal people have been oppressed by the white American throughout the centuries. Though there was a time when the tribal people had filled the entire land, his race has seen an untimely decay giving him “a mournful memory” of the greatness of the tribes.
And for this doom of the Red Indians, Seattle mainly accuses the White people’s act of forcing their way into the native lands. The white people think themselves superior and supreme and do not respect the tribal people. The tribals don’t even get their land and human rights secured. Seattle complains, the God gave the white men laws, but He had no words for His red children. The white people don’t even allow them to freely practice and perform their religious and cultural actions. They make laws as they like and the red people’s rights are snatched away. They are tortured. These only hint at how the white men dominate the tribal men.
Again, there has been outsider attacks on their tribes, and the white people, who administer everything in the country don’t always give them protection. Seattle says that the White Chief has sent him an offer that if he agrees in their decision to buy the native lands, they will protect their women, children and old men from their ancient enemies far to the northward — the Haides and Tsimshians.
So, understandably they are reduced to a community who now live upon the sympathy of the white people. Even God has not been kind enough to protect their race from the white people and from the enemies. In some cases, as Seattle reckons, their own fault — the aggression of the youth and the thirst for revenge even at the cost of their own lives — are to be blamed. They are thus brought to the doorway of a premature doom.
Seattle concludes, it’s only their destiny, and this is “common destiny” that the white men will also face sooner and later.