Red Jacket’s Speech to Missionary Cram, Buffalo Creek, New York,
1805
Sa-go-ye-wat-ha, or Red Jacket, Seneca chief, and great orator of the Six Nations, was born
near the present site of Geneva, New York, in 1750. In 1805, a young missionary named
Cram was sent into the country of the Iroquois by the Evangelical Missionary Society of
Massachusetts to "spread the Word." A council was held at Buffalo, New York, and Red
Jacket made the following reply.
Brothers, our seats were once large, and yours were small. You have now become a
great people, and we have scarcely a place left to spread our blankets. You have got
our country, but are not satisfied; you want to force your religion upon us.
Brother, continue to listen. You say that you are sent to instruct us how to worship
the Great Spirit agreeable to his mind; and if we do not take hold of the religion
which you white people teach, we shall be unhappy hereafter. You say that you are
right, and we are lost. How do we know this to be true? We understand that your
religion is written in a book. If it was intended for us as well as you, why has not the
Great Spirit given to us — and not only to us, but to our forefathers — the knowledge
of that book, with the means of understanding it rightly? We only know what you tell
us about it. How shall we know when to believe, being so often deceived by the
white people?
Brother, you say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there
is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Why not all
agree, as you can all read the book?
Brother, we do not understand these things. We are told that your religion was given
to your forefathers, and has been handed down from father to son. We also, have a
religion which was given to our forefathers, and has been handed down to us, their
children. We worship in that way. It teaches us to be thankful for all favors we
receive; to love each other, and be united. We never quarrel about religion, because
it is a matter which concerns each man and the Great Spirit.
Brother, we do not wish to destroy your religion or take it from you; we only want to
enjoy our own.
Brother, we have been told that you have been preaching to the white people in this
place. These people are our neighbors: We are acquainted with them. We will wait a
little while and see what effect your preaching has upon them. If we find it does them
good, makes them honest and less disposed to cheat Indians, we will consider again
of what you have said.
SOURCE: McLuhan, T.C. Touch the Earth: A Self-Portrait of Indian Existence (New
York: Promontory Press, 1971), pp. 60, 61, 63.
Excerpt, Tecumseh’s Addresses to General William Henry Harrison,
August 10-11, 1810
Tecumseh was the Shawnee leader of Tecumseh's Confederacy, which opposed the United
States during Tecumseh's War and the War of 1812. In August 1810 he met with Indiana
Governor and future U.S. President William Henry Harrison in Vincennes. Tecumseh
insisted that the Fort Wayne treaty was illegitimate; he asked Harrison to nullify it and
warned that Americans should not attempt to settle the lands sold in the treaty. Before
leaving, Tecumseh informed Harrison that unless the treaty was nullified, he would seek an
alliance with the British.
I am a Shawnee. My forefathers were warriors. Their son is a warrior. From them I
take only my existence; from my tribe I take nothing. I am the maker of my own
fortune; and oh! that I could make of my own fortune . . .
The being within, communing with past ages, tells me that once, nor until lately,
there was no white man on this continent; that it then all belonged to red men,
children of the same parents, placed on it by the Great Spirit that made them, to
keep it, to traverse it, to enjoy its productions, and to fill it with the same race, once a
happy race, since made miserable by the white people, who are never contented but
always encroaching . . . The white people have no right to take the land from the
Indians, because they [the Indians] had it first; it is theirs . . . All red men have equal
rights to the unoccupied land . . .
You wish to prevent the Indians from doing as we wish them, to unite and let them
consider their lands as a common property of the whole. You take the tribes aside
and advise them not to come into this measure. You want by your distinctions of
Indian tribes, in allotting to each a particular, to make them war with each other. You
never see an Indian endeavor to make the white people do this . . .
Brother, this land that was sold, and the goods that were given for it, was only done
by a few. In the future we are prepared to punish those who propose to sell land to
the Americans . . .
The way, the only way to stop this evil, is for the red people to unite in claiming a
common and equal right in the land, as it was at first, and should be now—for it was
never divided, but belongs to all. No tribe has the right to sell, even to each other,
much less to strangers. Sell a country?! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well
as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children? How
can we have confidence in the white people? We . . . have ample grounds to accuse
the Americans of injustice. . . When Jesus Christ came upon the earth you killed him
and nailed him to the cross. You thought he was dead, and you were mistaken.
Everything I have told you is the truth. The Great Spirit has inspired me.
Source: www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/nativeamericans/chieftecumseh.htm
Black Hawk's Surrender Speech, 1832
Black Hawk (1767 – October 3, 1838) was a leader and warrior of the Sauk American Indian
tribe. Although he was not one of the Sauk's hereditary civil chiefs, his status came from
leading war parties as a young man, and from his leadership during the Black Hawk War of
1832. During the War of 1812, Black Hawk fought on the side of the British. Later he led a
band of Sauk and Fox warriors, known as the British Band, against European-American
settlers in Illinois and present-day Wisconsin in the 1832 Black Hawk War. After the war, he
was captured and imprisoned.
I am much grieved . . . I fought hard. But your guns were well aimed. The bullets flew
like birds in the air, and whizzed by our ears like the wind through the trees in the
winter. My warriors fell around me . . . [Black Hawk’s] heart is dead, and no longer
beats quickly in his bosom. He is now a prisoner to the white men; they will do with
him as they wish. But he can stand torture, and is not afraid of death. He is no
coward. Black Hawk is an Indian. He has done nothing for which an Indian ought to
be ashamed. He has fought for his countrymen, the squaws and papooses, against
white men, who came, year after year, to cheat them and take away their lands. You
know the cause of our making war . . . The white men despise the Indians, and drive
them from their homes. But the Indians are not deceitful. The white men speak badly
of the Indian . . . But the Indian does not tell lies; Indians do not steal.
An Indian, who is as bad as the white men, could not live in our nation; he would be
put to death, and ate up by the wolves. The white men are bad school-masters; they
carry false looks, and deal in false actions; they smile in the face of the poor Indian
to cheat him; they shake them by the hand to gain their confidence, to make them
drunk, to deceive them, and ruin our wives. We told them to let us alone; but . . . they
coiled themselves among us like the snake. They poisoned us by their touch . . .
Things were growing worse. There were no deer in the forest . . . and papooses
without victuals to keep them from starving; we called a great council and built a
large fire. The spirit of our fathers arose and spoke to us to avenge our wrongs or die
. . . We set up the war-whoop, and dug up the tomahawk; our knives were ready,
and the heart of Black Hawk swelled high in his bosom when he led his warriors to
battle . . .
Black Hawk is a true Indian . . . But he does not care for himself. He cares for his
nation and the Indians. They will suffer. He laments their fate. The white men do not
scalp the head; but they do worse-they poison the heart . . . His countrymen will not
be scalped, but they will, in a few years, become like the white men . . .
Farewell, my nation. Black Hawk tried to save you, and avenge your wrongs. He
drank the blood of some of the whites. He has been taken prisoner, and his plans
are stopped. He can do no more. He is near his end. His sun is setting, and he will
rise no more. Farewell to Black Hawk.
Source: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/black.htm