Summary

Chief Seattle begins his speech “Selling Our Land” by arguing that the idea of selling skies and land are strange to Native Americans because their people do not believe that they own anything from the natural world.

The speaker claims white men cannot understand the ways of the Native Americans and that they assume they can take whatever they want and do not respect the land. Chief Seattle claims the white man does not see the earth like a brother, but like an enemy he has to conquer. Once he has conquered a piece of land, the white man moves on without any respect for it, exploiting it until there is nothing left.

The speaker claims that air is important to Native Americans because it represents the breath of life that unites everything in ...