Great Speeches by Native Americans

Frozen in Time: Examining Historical Speeches from Influential Native American Leaders

© 2017 Haley Rains Photography 

Organization:

Date of Assignment: April 11th, 2017

Title: Frozen in Time: Examining Historical Speeches from Influential Native American Leaders

Book: Great Speeches by Native Americans 

Chapters: "With such people I want no peace"; "Thy mother doth complain, implores thy aid against this thievish people new come hither"; “You have got our country, but are not satisfied; you want to force your religion upon us”; "The English who came first to this country were but a handful of people"

Author’s Full Name: Edited by Bob Blaisdell 

Background Research:

About this book:

Great Speeches by Native Americans is a book composed of 82 speeches that occurred over the span of five centuries by famous American Indian leaders like Tecumseh, Crazy Horse, Red Jacket, Sitting Bull, and many others. 

Summary Paragraph:

Three significant ideas:

1.   The great speeches by these American Indian leaders employed the use of metaphors and imagery to capture their audiences and spark social revolutions.

2.   The speeches serve as evidence of the brilliant and eloquent thinking of American Indians during a time when they were treated as having less than intelligent thought and comprehension.  

3.  Great Speeches by Native American Leaders is a testament to the power of the Oral Tradition. 

Three Key Moments in Plot:

1.   In "With such a people I want no peace" Timucua is challenging the notion of European valor and civility while pronouncing his refusal to accept the overthrow of his people. Acuera (Timuca) warns, "As for me and my people, we choose death -- yes! a hundred deaths -- before the loss of our liberty and the subjugation of our country" (3).

2.   In "The mother doth complain, implores thy aid against this thievish people new come hither" Chikataubut (Massachuset) shares a vision he had in which a spirit visits him and expresses its worry about the "wild people" (Europeans) who have "[disdained] our ancient antiquities, and honorable customs" (5) Of course, this is in response to the disregard on the part of the European settlers to recognize and respect the traditional culture and customs of the Indigenous American Indian population onto wich they imposed themselves.

3.    I found it interesting that throughout Red Jacket’s (Seneca) speech, “You have got our country, but are not satisfied; you want to force your religion upon us” in which he addressed a missionary that came to convert the Seneca to Christianity, Red Jacket repeatedly refers to the missionary as, “Brother”; this is evidence for the remarkable amount of integrity that Red Jacket possessed, despite living in a time of extreme adversity. Red Jacket eloquently depicted the frustration he experienced when trying to understand why, after losing his land and his people to Europeans, missionaries wanted to force their religion (Christianity) upon them as well. Red Jacket was courageous as he justly interrogated the missionary and tried to understand his motives for converting Red Jacket’s people to Christianity. Christianity made little sense to Red Jacket; the Seneca had their own religion and their own idea about a creator and it reflected their way of life and their connection to the Earth. Why did the missionary dismiss that? Red Jacket even suggested that followers of Christianity fail to agree unanimously on what exactly being a Christian means. Throughout his speech, Red Jacket remained composed and respectful of the missionary as he intelligibly stated the needs and beliefs of his people. I was moved by his appeal to the missionary; his efforts to protect his people and their way of life were genuine and deserving of great honor. 

The Significant Ideas (Poetry):

1.   Throughout the book, Native American leaders use imagery and metaphors which increase the impact of their messages. Using vivid imagery that depicts the world around them, They articulate beautifully their positions in a way that is true to their oral traditions and storytelling. 

2.   By employing personification in their speeches, the Native American leaders do an outstanding job at emphasizing the importance of land in relation to their culture. Using this approach, the leaders were able to humanize themselves in a way that challenges the notion that it is acceptable to remove Native American communities from their homeland and impose European culture on their ways of life.

3.    The leaders were able to appropriate a language that is not their own and integrate their traditional forms of storytelling and tribal traditions with formal European speaking and writing conventions to construct and deliver speeches that made an undeniable impact on the course of their tribal histories. 

Oral Tradition:

       Native American cultures employ storytelling and oral tradition to teach lessons about morality as well as instructions on navigating the world around them, which is why Great Speeches by Native Americans is so remarkable; it is a testament to the way in which Native Americans were forced to appropriate and selectively assimilate the tools of a society that sought (and seeks) to oppress and marginalize them. 

        The Indian writer Raja Rao's in his preface to Kanthapura wrote, "The telling has not been easy. One has to convey in a language that is not one's own the spirit that is one's own. English is not really an alien language to us. It is the language of our intellectual make-up but not of our emotional make-up" (Rao). This is the challenge these Native American leaders were faced with. Being colonized people seeking justice, they were compelled to do so by way of the language of the colonizer -- a monumental task. 

Literary devices:

Theme:

Great Speeches by Native Americans contains several reoccurring themes including racism, colonization, hate, fear, hopelessness, despair, and courage. The most remarkable theme that we see throughout the book is resilience. By preserving these great speeches, the way in which these tribal leaders and communities honorably resisted and tirelessly combated the destruction of their worlds against opposing forces has been solidified in history. 

Voice:

The structure, syntax, and impeccable command of the English language on the part of the Native American leaders initiated the dismantling of an imposed American cultural identity by employing traditional methods of storytelling to regenerate and preserve their cultures. 

Additional literary devices:

In "With such a people I want no peace," Acuera uses a metaphor to describe the destructive nature of European colonization; he declares, "Other of your accursed race have, in years past, poisoned our peaceful shores" (3).

He also uses imagery to warn European settlers of what they will encounter if they continue to impose their way of life on his community: "Every captive will we quarter and hang up to the highest tree along the road" (3).

Digital Media:

https://youtu.be/Zxp2M3ewdGg

This video is a reading of Acuera's "With such a people I want no peace" as well as a commentary on the powerful nature of the speech. The video also contains a brief introduction to the background of Acuera and his speech.

Work cited:

Blaisdell, Robert. Great Speeches by Native Americans. Courier Corporation, 2000.

Rao, Raja. Kanthapura. Vol. 224. New Directions Publishing, 1967.