MESSAGE TO THE WHITES
Dear James,
How are you doing my dear brother? I hope you are doing fine and the boarding school is taking you quite well. Don’t worry about us. We are doing fine. Merry really misses you and keeps regretting having not gone with you. Pass my greetings to all your school mates.
Last week, we visited the Ann Frank Human Rights Memorial, and we had a chance to learn quite a number of quotes from diverse regions and times written by renowned individuals in history. However, one particular quote by Chief Seattle caught my attention. In his speech to Franklin Pierce, Seattle said, “When the last red man has vanished from this earth, and his memory is only a story among the whites, these shores will still swarm with the invisible dead of my people. And when your children’s children think that they are alone in the fields, the forests, the shops, the highways, or the quest of the woods, they will not be alone.
At night when the streets of your town and cities are quiet, and you think they are empty, they will throng with the returning spirits that once thronged them, and that still love these places. The white man will never be alone” (Jefferson, 18) This particular quote meant a lot to me as an American and I believe it will have the same influence to you.I think the quote means that the death of people does not imply that their influence can no longer be felt on earth. Even after generations have passed after the death of the last tribe’s man, the influence of the tribe still remains in the land that they lived. Chief Seattle meant that even if he considers the proposal to sell his tribe’ land to the white man, the spirits of his people will still remain in the land. In the quote, Seattle says that, even after the last red man has vanished, and generations have passed, the red man’s influence will be in every activity that the white man carries out for the land belonged to the latter.
For this reason, Seattle insinuates that the white man will never be alone in the land. Even in quiet places such as in forests, the fields and the highways where the white man might think to be alone, the spirits of those that once thronged the land will be there. Hence, the white man will never be alone since the original dwellers of the land still love the land, despite not living in it any more (Jefferson, 32). I completely agree with Chief Seattle’s quote. In the last part of his speech, Seattle’s urges the white man to treat his tribe’s men with kindness and justice. He reminds the white man that the dead are not completely powerless. I agree that even after selling the tribe’s land to the white man, the …
