ARTICLE: We Have Plenty of Land...

If you will keep your people off of it.

I found a book for 50p called Great Speeches by Native Americans, compiled by Bob Blaisdell about 20 years ago. He says he did so, ‘to give readers of the twenty-first century an extensive appreciation of Native American oratory and some understanding of the history of America through the perspectives of its indigenous peoples.’ I thought this was a noble idea, and so I’ve picked out a few to share with you, a combination of 'outrage, wonder, exhortation, per-suasion, sadness, pity, reflection, and meditation.’

The first speech comes from Acuera of the Timucua. His people were native to what is now northern Florida and southeast Georgia. When the Spanish arrived, they numbered 200,000. By 1600, 75% of them were gone. Imported diseases and the local slave trade continued to decimate the tribe, and it became extinct at the turn of the 18th century.

In about 1540, Acuera was speaking 25 years after the Spanish ‘discovered’ Florida and enslaved tribes at the southern end of the peninsula. Hernando de Soto turned up with an army and this is what Acuera had to say when he asked to meet him. I thought it was interesting as a point of reference for what America’s indigenous people thought when colonists first arrived. Safe to say, Aceura was not a fan of Europeans:

‘Others of your accursed race have, in years past, poisoned our peaceful shores. They have taught me what you are. What is your employment? To wander about like vagabonds from land to land, to rob the poor, to betray the confiding, to murder in cold blood the defenceless. No! With such a people I want no peace, no friendship. War, never-ending war, exterminating war, is all the boon I ask.

You boast yourselves valiant, and so you may be; but my faithful warriors are not less brave, and this too you shall one day prove; for I have sworn to maintain an unsparing conflict while one white man remains in my borders, not only in battle, though even thus we fear not to meet you, but by stratagem, ambush, and midnight surprisal.

I am king in my own land, and will never become the vassal of a mortal like myself. Vile and pusillanimous is he who will submit to the yoke of another when he may be free. 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.

Keep on, robbers and traitors: in Acuera and Apalachee we will treat you as you deserve. Every captive will we quarter and hang up to the highest tree along the road.’

A depiction of a Timucuan village, as shown in a painting in the United States Capitol building. (Wikipedia)