cheaf seattle

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Recommended: Industrial revolution and the environment

Summary:
Chief Seattle was a Native American leader. He was chief of the Suquamish, Duwamish, and allied Salish tribes. He wrote “Letter to President Pierce, 1855” as a response to President Pierce’s actions. In the letter Chief Seattle discusses that the exploitation of the earth by white people will evidently lead to the destruction of the people and creatures who rely on the earth for its resources. Furthermore, he argues of the different views within the earth that is held by whites and Indians. For instance, whites see the land as an enemy to be conquered and left behind, and the Indians consider cities created by whites to be bad for the earth. Moreover, in the cities whites distance themselves from quiet sounds and pleasing scents and from other living things. In contrast, Indians prefer nature’s separateness and see all things as a connection with them. Seattle says that the Indians, who once controlled the land, will soon die out, but he warns that whites will suffer the same outcome, unless they can learn to respect the earth.
Witnessing the actions of white people, Chief Seattle does not understand what they expect from the future. He ironically notes that the Indians’ barbarity prevents them from understanding the whites’ ways. In the letter, Chief Seattle referred to himself, who is an Indian man, as “a savage”, while referring to President Pierce simply as a “white man.” Throughout the letter, Seattle stands up against President Pierce’s exploitation in which President Pierce “is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs” (299). In the letter Chief Seattle continues to show his anger and his frustration towards the “white man.”
Analysis:
The earth has been around for thousands of...

... middle of paper ...

...Seattle uses emotional appeal to reach his audience. Moreover, he tells how the earth is important to the people, but the strangers that are coming are the ones that do not understand the earth and the joy that it offers to the people. In the letter Chief Seattle use his words carefully so that all the readers reading his letter will understand that the land is essential to the people of the land. The lives that the Indians live are bonded to the land and Chief Seattle tries to let the “white man” know that I they do not stop what they are doing they will not only suffer but the land will suffer as well. (1373 words)

Work Cited
Seattle, Chief. “Letter to President Pierce, 1855”. The Norton Reader: Shorter. 13th ed. Ed. Linda H. Peterson, Joseph Bizup, Anne Fernald, Melissa Goldthwaite, and John C. Brereton. New York: W. W. Norton & Co, 2012. 299. Print.

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