A Simple Philosophy – Seathl

# Bring out the critical significance of the Chief Seathl’s frequent use of the adjective ‘Savage’ for himself and his people in his letter to the President of the United States in the year 1855.

The letter, ‘A Simple Philosophy’, written by the Red Indian Chief Seathl of the Suwamish tribe of the State of Washington, to the US President Franklin Pierce is a great piece of Sarcasm and also bears inexorable consequences that he was apprehensive about which the Earth is facing today. The Red Indian Chief has skillfully tried to aid and abet a passionate interest towards the well being of the nature and the called ‘bests’, which the ‘white man’ used to kill with immense pleasure.

A critical ideology relating to the utter futility of nature’s destruction roused in Seathl’s heart that eventually made him try to make the white man aware of the verve and vitality of a healthy environment that is required for the existence of human race. The use of the term ‘savage’ in any way, is defending the Chief from being counter attacked. The Utter humbleness with which Seathl has tried to light the idea of being eco-benign has been appreciated with self-acceptance of the red tribe being a savage, In a nut-shell, Seathl has cogently tried to make the US President very clear about that the concept and ideologies of the white man, in accordance with their dealing with nature is merely fallacious with the sarcastic elucidation of the wrongdoings in the corridor of white man’s power and pleasure.

Seathl has to put some conditions before handing the region of Red Indian tribe to the US government. Asking for favours was not so simple for Seathl and that too, when it was about the attitude by which the flora and fauna should be preserved. He has to be genuinely coherent in explanations supporting his tribe’s feelings as a whole – to form a basic platform to put forth logical points and then ask for treating the ‘beasts’ as ‘brothers’ and letting the nature remain undisturbed and the land, undivided. Seathl more or less mulled over his tribe as a colony of nature-lovers as also while drawing a sarcastic contrast between the attitudes of the two races…. The term ‘savage’ used for the tribe implicitly annuls the ideological defiance. Also, he demanded that the aboriginals, i.e. the members shouldn’t be subjugated and hampered for the pleasure of the white-men, by turning the blacks into slaves or the so called ‘the beasts of burden’.

Repetition of the term ‘Savage’ five times in the same letter has for a considerable significance when taken in regard to the US President who had asked for the literal friendship before overpowering the region of the Suwamish tribe by letting them surrender for their own life safety and also for false footed future security.

“How can you buy or sell the sky – the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us”

Here Seathl has directly denied the fact upon which the capitalist world is residing in the world. He has been unable to fathom the way by which the whites distributed and segregate the different parts and aspects of nature. His tribe used to see them with equal appreciation and reverence. Thus, they could never even think of creating natural havocs and hence distributing the whole environment for the sake of pleasure or pain. They were much aware of the natural predicament that could have befallen due to their ruthless activities and thus could not discard the fact that human life has got its existence from its surroundings. They were quite clear in their view that it’s not only the concept or technological power that can make difference in life or positively saying, general betterment, but also – it’s the mere attitude, with which it has been acquired by the world.  

If everyone had followed the Red Indian tribe, none would have been facing the present natural cataclysmic problems of ‘Global Warming’, frequent floods, famines, pollutions in all possible forms and chronic diseases as a result of the negligence and selfishness of mankind.

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