African American

I think of the speech Chief Seattle gave in 1854 (translators needed to translate from Chief Seattle's native Lushootseed to Chinook Jargon and then to English) at a reception for the new Commissioner of Indian Affairs for Washington Territory. Dr. Henry A. Smith took notes and his version was published in the Seattle Sunday Star a few decades later.

Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove
has been hallowed by some fond memory or some sad experience of my tribe.
Even the rocks which seem to lie dumb along the seashore in solemn grandeur thrill with memories
of past events connected with the lives of my people.
And when the last red man shall have perished from the earth
and his memory among the white men shall have become a myth
these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe.
And when your children's children shall think themselves alone
in the fields, the store, the shop, upon the highway,
or in the silence of the pathless woods,
they will not be alone.
In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude.
At night when the streets of your cities and villages will be silent
and you think them deserted,
they will throng with returning hosts that once filled and still love this beautiful land.
The white man will never be alone.
Let him be just and deal kindly with my people
for the dead are not powerless.
Dead -- did I say?
There is no death, only a change of worlds.

(The whole speech, different version, can be seen at the Suquamish Tribe's website)
http://www.suquamish.nsn.us/HistoryCulture/Speech.aspx