Treaties

White men have entered our lands. They occupy our land and our fisheries. They take from us without asking. White people say they respect the law. Which law are they talking about? Do they talk only about the law they like? When some people have a law they don’t like, then they rely on force, and the weaker side must live by a new law that favors the stronger side. White men offered us a treaty. They offered to buy our land and leave us alone to gather our food as we have always done. We speak different languages and many dialects, but communicate for trade using Chinook Jargon, a pidgin tongue that started with the Chinookan peoples. White men talked to us only in Chinook Jargon, which could not express the true meanings of the treaties they asked us to sign. They gathered us together and let us talk. We said it wasn’t fair but we had no choice. They had us sign a treaty that they had already written. A good man admits when he is weak, when he has ceased to be his own master. We have tried to be good men. When we see a caring intention in a law, we try to honor and live by it, but sometimes this is difficult. It was difficult to honor a treaty when the white men who wrote it did not keep their promises.