We do not understand when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires. Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone. The end of living and the beginning of survival.
ATTRIBUTION:
Seattle (c. 1784–1866), Native American Chief of the Dwamish, Suquamish and allied Indian tribes. Letter, 1854, to President Franklin Pierce. Brother Eagle, Sister Sky: A Message from Chief Seattle (1990).
attributed. The letter, in which Seattle pleaded that his name should die with the ceding of the Washington State territories, was shown in 1992 to have been largely a forgery, devised by television scriptwriter Ted Perry for a historical epic in 1971.
