Chief Seattle

Chief Seattle (also Sealth, Seathl or See-ahth) (c.1786 – June 7, 1866) was a leader of the Suquamish and Duwamish Native American tribes in what is now the U.S. state of Washington. A prominent figure among his people, he became a convert to Roman Catholicism and pursued a path of accommodation to white settlers, and formed a personal relationship with David Swinson "Doc" Maynard. It was at Maynard's suggestion that Seattle, Washington was named after the Chief.

Life

Chief Seattle was born around 1786 on Blake Island, Washington, and died June 7, 1866, on the Suquamish reservation at Port Madison, Washington (north of Bainbridge Island and east of Poulsbo). His father, Schweabe, was a leader of the Suquamish tribe, and his mother was Scholitza of the Duwamish.

Seattle earned his reputation at a young age as a leader and a warrior, ambushing and defeating groups of enemy raiders coming up the Green River from the Cascade foothills, and attacking the Chemakum and the S'Klallam, tribes living on the Olympic Peninsula. He was very tall for a Puget Sound native at nearly six feet. He was also known as an orator, and his voice is said to have carried half a mile or more when he addressed an audience.

He married well, taking wives from the village of Tola'ltu just southeast of Duwamish Head on Elliott Bay (now part of West Seattle). His first wife died after bearing a daughter. A second wife bore him sons and daughters. The most famous of his children was Princess Angeline. After the death of one of his sons, he sought and received baptism in the Roman Catholic Church, probably in 1848 near Olympia, Washington. His children were also baptized and raised in the faith, and his conversion marked his emergence as a leader seeking cooperation with incoming American settlers.^*

The only known photograph of Chief Seattle was taken in the 1860s as he neared his 80th year.

Legacy and reputation

In an American Indian Quarterly paper assessing Seattle's legacy, Klallam leader Phillip Howell is said to have thought of him as "a low type of Indian, a joke among the Natives and worse, a coward and a traitor" for going along with the treaty negotiations and yielding Indian lands to the white men. A different view is cited by Peg Deam, a cultural development specialist at the Suquamish Tribal Council. She is quoted as saying Chief Seattle "was put in a position where he had to make some very difficult--and ultimately harmful--choices. Many hearts were broken because their lifestyle was completely changed. The settlers made the Natives move to these little pieces of land, separated from each other. But as a leader and what he could foresee at that time, I think he made the right choice." ^*

Murray Morgan remarks in Skid Road that a Puget Sound-area chief was merely "a rich man with some eloquence, a man whose opinions carried more weight than those of his fellow tribesmen," rather than a hereditary leader. He also points out that Chief Seattle was exceptional in that he first made his mark as a warrior, but served primarily as a peacetime tyee.

Chief Seattle's grave marker reads "Seattle, Chief of the Suquamps and Allied Tribes, Died June 7, 1866. Firm Friend of the Whites, and For Him the City of Seattle was Named by Its Founders," and, on the reverse, "Baptismal Name: Noah Sealth, Age probably 80 years."

(The sacramental register of those who likely baptised Seattle, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate at the St. Joseph of Newmarket Mission near Olympia, gives his name as Noe Siattle.)

"Chief Seattle's Reply"

Chief Seattle gave a speech in January 1854 that was reported by Dr. Henry A. Smith in the Seattle Sunday Star in 1887. It is most usually called Seattle's Reply since it was a response to a speech by Territorial Governor Isaac I. Stevens. While there is no question that Chief Seattle gave a speech on this occasion, the accuracy of Smith's account is doubtful. Even more dubious are the later accounts that derive from Smith's. ^*, (Speidel, 1978, 169-70)

While Smith is known to have been present to hear the speech, he did not speak Chief Seattle's native Lushootseed, and there is some question as to how much was translated even into Chinook at the time. According to the National Archives and Records Administration, "The absence of any contemporary evidence...create^* grave doubts about the accuracy of the reminiscences of Dr. Smith in 1887, some thirty-two years after the alleged episode. Thus it is impossible...to either confirm or deny the validity of this...message." Certainly, the rhetorical flourishes in Smith's version are his own, not Chief Seattle's. Many of the concepts and words present in Smith's version would be difficult to convey in Chinook, and it seems clear that Smith's rendition may capture the style of Seattle's speech, rather than its specific contents. While the content of the speech is in question, contemporary witnesses agree that it was about half an hour in length, and that, throughout, Chief Seattle, a tall man, had one hand on the head of the diminutive Governor Stevens.

William Arrowsmith edited a second version of the speech into contemporary language in the 1960s. The speech became famous again when a third version began to circulate in the 1980s. Joseph Campbell, with Bill Moyers, (1988, pp. 32-34) quoted Chief Seattle speech. The newest version bears little resemblance to the old one. It is the work of Ted Perry, a scriptwriter for a 1972 film about ecology called Home. This version casts Chief Seattle as an early ecological visionary, speaking of the insights of his people into the workings of nature. It led to his becoming a role model of the environmental movement (rightfully or not). A shortened rendering of the third version is also circulating.

External links

References

Murray Morgan, Skid Road, 1951, 1960, and other reprints, ISBN 0295958464
William C. ("Bill") Speidel, Doc Maynard, The Man Who Invented Seattle, Nettle Creek Publishing Company, Seattle, 1978.
Chief Seattle's Speech, HistoryLink.org, introduction by Walt Crowley, June 28, 1999, revised by Greg Lange and Priscilla Long, January 12, 2001, accessed July 21, 2005.

1866 deaths | Native American leaders

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Life

Legacy and reputation

"Chief Seattle's Reply"

See also

External links

References