This text is an exact reproduction of the first newspaper account of the speech, published
in 1887. It was transcribed and corrected by Dan and Patricia Miller of Santa Cruz, CA,
who went to the Washington State Archives and photocopied the original newspaper.
Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion on our fathers for centuries untold, and
which, to us, looks eternal, may change.
To-day it is fair, to-morrow it may be overcast
with clouds.
My words are like the stars that never set. What Seattle says, the great
chief, Washington, can rely upon, with as much certainty as our pale-face brothers can
rely upon the return of the seasons.
The son of the white chief says his father sends us greetings of friendship and good will.
This is kind, for we know he has little need of our friendship in return, because his
people are many. They are like the grass that covers the vast prairies, while my people
are few, and resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain.
The great, and I presume also good, white chief sends us word that he wants to buy
our lands but is willing to allow us to reserve enough to live on comfortably. This indeed
appears generous, for the red man no longer has rights that he need respect, and the
offer may be wise, also, for we are no longer in need of a great country. There was a
time when our people covered the whole land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover
its shell-paved floor. But that time has long since passed away with the greatness of
tribes now almost forgotten. I will not mourn over our untimely decay, nor reproach my
pale-face brothers for hastening it, for we, too, may have been somewhat to blame.
When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong and disfigure their
faces with black paint, their hearts, also, are disfigured and turn black, and then their
cruelty is relentless and knows no bounds, and our old men are not able to restrain
them.
But let us hope that hostilities between the red-man and his pale-face brothers may
never return. We would have everything to lose and nothing to gain.
True it is that revenge, with our young braves, is considered gain, even at the cost of
their own lives, but old men who stay at home in times of war, and old women who
have sons to lose, know better.
Our great father, Washington, for I presume he is now our father as well as yours, since
George has moved his boundaries to the north; our great and good father, I say, sends
us word by his son, who, no doubt, is a great chief among his people, that if we do as
he desires, he will protect us. His brave armies will be to us a bristling wall of strength,
and his great ships of war will fill our harbors so that our ancient enemies far to the
northward, the Simsiams and Haidas, will no longer frighten our women and old men.
Then he will be our father and we will be his children.
But can this ever be? Your God loves your people and hates mine; he folds his strong
arms lovingly around the white man and leads him as a father leads his infant son, but he
has forsaken his red children; he makes your people wax strong every day, and soon
they will fill the land; while our people are ebbing away like a fast-receding tide, that
will never flow again. The white man's God cannot love his red children or he would
protect them. They seem to be orphans and can look nowhere for help. How then can
we become brothers? How can your father become our father and bring us prosperity
and awaken in us dreams of returning greatness?
Your God seems to us to be partial. He came to the white man. We never saw Him;
never even heard His voice; He gave the white man laws but He had no word for His
red children, whose teeming millions filled this vast continent as the stars fill the
firmament. No, we are two distinct races and must ever remain so. There is little in
common between us. The ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their final resting place
is hallowed ground, while you wander away from the tombs of your fathers seemingly
without regret.
Your religion was written on tables of stone by the iron finger of an angry God, lest you
might forget it. The red man could never remember or comprehend it.
Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors, the dreams of our old men, given by the
great Spirit, and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.
Your dead cease to love you and the homes of their nativity as soon as they pass the
portals of the tomb. They wander off beyond the stars, are soon forgotten, and never
return. Our dead never forget the beautiful world that gave them being. They still love
its winding rivers, its great mountains and its sequestered vales, and they ever yearn in
tenderest affection over the lonely-hearted living, and often return to visit and comfort
them.
Day and night cannot dwell together. The red man has ever fled the approach of the
white man, as the changing mists on the mountain side flee before the blazing morning
sun.
However, your proposition seems a just one, and I think my folks will accept it and will
retire to the reservation you offer them, and we will dwell apart and in peace, for the
words of the great white chief seem to be the voice of nature speaking to my people
out of the thick darkness that is fast gathering around them like a dense fog floating
inward from a midnight sea.
It matters but little where we pass the remainder of our days. They are not many. The
Indian's night promises to be dark. No bright star hovers about the horizon.
Sad-voiced winds moan in the distance. Some grim Nemesis of our race is on the red
man's trail, and wherever he goes he will still hear the sure approaching footsteps of the
fell destroyer and prepare to meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that hears the
approaching footsteps of the hunter. A few more moons, a few more winters, and not
one of all the mighty hosts that once tilled this broad land or that now roam in
fragmentary bands through these vast solitudes will remain to weep over the tombs of a
people once as powerful and as hopeful as your own.
But why should we repine? Why should I murmur at the fate of my people? Tribes are
made up of individuals and are no better than they. Men come and go like the waves of
the sea. A tear, a tamanamus, a dirge, and they are gone from
our longing eyes forever. Even the white man, whose God walked and talked with him,
as friend to friend, is not exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after
all. We shall see.
We will ponder your proposition, and when we have decided we will tell you. But
should we accept it, I here and now make this the first condition: That we will not be
denied the privilege, without molestation, of visiting at will the graves of our ancestors
and friends. Every part of this country is sacred to my people. Every hill-side, every
valley, every plain and grove has been hallowed by some fond memory or some sad
experience of my tribe. Even the rocks that seem to lie dumb as they swelter in the sun
along the silent seashore in solemn grandeur thrill with memories of past events
connected with the fate of my people, and the very dust under your feet responds more
lovingly to our footsteps than to yours, because it is the ashes of our ancestors, and our
bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch, for the soil is rich with the life of our
kindred.
The sable braves, and fond mothers, and glad-hearted maidens, and the little children
who lived and rejoiced here, and whose very names are now forgotten, still love these
solitudes, and their deep fastnesses at eventide grow shadowy with the presence of
dusky spirits. And when the last red man shall have perished from the earth and his
memory among white men shall have become a myth, these shores shall swarm with the
invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children shall think themselves
alone in the field, the shop, upon the highway or in the silence of the woods they will
not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the
streets of your cities and villages shall be silent, and you think them deserted, they will
throng with the returning hosts that once filled and still love this beautiful land. The white
man will never be alone. Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead
are not altogether powerless.
HOKA HAY!
Tecumseh
So live your life so the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no
one about their religion; respect others in their views, and demand that they
respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.
Seek to make your life long and of service to your people. Prepare a noble
death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word
or sign of salute when meeting or passing a stranger if in a lonely place.
SHOW RESPECT TO ALL PEOPLE, BUT GROVEL TO NONE. When you
arise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life and strength. Give
thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving
thanks, the fault lies in yourself. Touch not the poisonous firewater that
makes wise ones turn to fools and robs them of their visions. When your time
comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so
that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live
their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a
hero going home. -TECUMSEH-