When asked to give up Native American land for the
sake of the United States government to use instead, Chief Seattle, the leader
of his tribe with a desire to accommodate white settlers rather than fight them,
merely agreed. He did not yet speak for the entire tribe when he did so, but he
knew moving was not so big of a deal because of the way their culture was, and
the focus of that culture was not simply in the place they lived. In 1854, he
gave a speech to a presumably white council on the topic of this move, and
within the speech he argued for the respect of his people as well as their
ancestor’s land.
Chief
Seattle’s words were seemingly successful in their endeavor to make white
Americans feel as though they are responsible for taking care of the land as
well as the rapidly decreasing Native American populace. This idea of family,
of “white chief” and “our father” before he declares Indians to be mere “orphans”
may strike an emotional chord in the white settlers with a family of their own.
That emotional appeal to sympathy could aid him in convincing the Americans to
take care of the land as well as his people since they essentially seem to have
nowhere else to go.
His structure of the
speech also serves to persuade, and to agree only to show why they may not
because there “is little in common” between Native Americans and Americans
would seem like a convincing factor to address and work out in order for the
white settlers to actually win over the Native American land. His single
condition seems fair and almost easy when it appears like the majority of the
tribe could agree to the exchange, so the Americans would see no issue in
providing the respect they ask for if it meant getting what they wanted when it
seemed so close to their reach.
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