Monday, March 23, 2015

Seattle and His Chief Audience

Chief Seattle must have had ideas of the genocides occurring throughout the world when he delivered this speech. Considering that Native American tribes were being obliterated by the United States, and many other nations were being wiped out by other imperialistic world powers, no hope existed for Chief Seattle to fight. The only hope he had was to try to get the “white people” to have enough fear and respect for the natural world so that they might allow the “red people” to live on in peace.

One of the most effective rhetorical strategies Chief Seattle uses is to utilize similes to connect his people to the natural world. Phrases such as “our people covered the whole land as the waves of a …sea cover its shell floor,” and “our people are ebbing away like a fast receding tide” help the audience to connect this tribe to the natural world, something that the chief is trying to get them understand.

Chief Seattle recognizes that the end is near for his people, and his audience is not just the white people. He is considering making a peace treaty with them even though some of his people want to fight on. He is trying to teach them that they can live on through this natural world too. Indeed, he uses antanaclasis to show those who would fight what will happen to them—that their hearts will turn as black as the paint on their faces.

In the process of trying to convince the white man to let them live in peace, he is also convincing his people to allow themselves to live in peace. This was a man who knew how to control his audiences.

2 comments:

  1. I enjoyed this reading! It's very interesting to read about others in history who stand up for what they truly believe in, and it ends up inspiring change many times. I like how you talked about how this isn't just for the white people to get rebuked by Chief Seattle. It is very much for his people as well to not engage in any form of retaliation. Observing this audience is crucial for why this speech is so famous because it warns and attempts to convince everyone that peace is the way to go.

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  2. You know someone is a powerful speaker when he works to speak to both sides. Although his focused seemed to be on the white man he was still sending a message to his people as well.

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