WhoWas Chief and Did He ReallySay, "The Earth Does Not Belong to Man; Man Belongs to the Earth?"

BY PETERSTEKEL

Amongst the Indians of the Pacifrc Northwest, people, "...busily engagedlike swine, rooting up this perhaps none is as well known as Chief Seattle. beautiful rneadow...' Called Sealth by his native tribe, the Chiefs fame rests upon a speechmade popular As a young adult, Sealth made his mark as a war- during the heady days ofthe 1970s. It includes rior, orator, and diplomat. He worked to increase such inspiring lines as, "Man did not weave the web cooperation within the 42 recognized divisions of of life; he is merely a strand in Salish people occupying the it. Whatever he doesto the Sound including his own web, he does to himself." As Suquamish. In later years it early as 1975, the authenticity was remembered that the old ofthese words raised doubts. Chief had a resonate voice Although Sealth was an that carried,'tralf a mile," eloquent speaker, could his and, "...eloquent sentences famous words have been rolled from his lips like the written by someoneelse? ceaselessthunders of cata- racts flowing from exhaust- What we know of Sealth less fountains..." (pronounced See-elth, with a fr guttural stop atthe end) and E In 1832,he impressedDr. his life is mostly conjecture F William Tolmie, of Fort based upon myth with a little ; Nisqually as being, ahe bit of extrapolated fact. That e handsomest Indian I have he was a$ree, or Chief, has T ever seen." In 1838,Sealth never been disputed. His # was baptized, Noah, by father,schweabe,hadbeena 5 Father Modest Demers. One Tleeandthetitlewasheredi- ts wonders if the Tlee saw this tarythoughitconferredno [, as one practical way to power upon the holder. fire E ascend to the white man's Suquamish listened to the Tlee d affluence. When the Denny- only when he said what the Chief Sealth represented the Duwamish and Boren Party landed in 1851, people wanted to hear. The Suquamish Indians during their treaty negotia- to found their town on Puget tions in the 1850s. remainder of the time, a Tlee Sound, Sealth was there to was expected to share his encourage the construction largess with the rest of the tribe during a potlatch. of a trading post. When that failed, he made a marriage proposal to young Louisa Boren. In1792, Captain George Vancouver anchored off Restoration Point on Bainbridge Island in Puget Enter Dr. David (Doc) Maynard in 1855. Maynard Sound. Based upon recollections ofvarious old- had left his wife of 20 years in Ohio to come west timers, Sealth often spoke of seeing the ship and and make his fortune. One would assume that the being impressed with the guns, steel, and other lack ofcorrespondence between the couple and goods. Judging from these accounts, he must have Doc's subsequent marriage to another (without been about six years old at the time. Vancouver divorcing the frrst) indicated a glimmer of marital was not impressed, writing in his log, the village discord. Doc was a dreamer and he saw dollar signs was,"...the rnost lowly and tneanestof its kind. The on the shores of . No sooner had he bestof the huts werepoor and miserable...,"the filed on a large piece ofproperty, next to the

11 Denny's and Boren's, than he began to give it away had passed and the future belonged to the white to encouragegrowth. man. Dr. Henry Smith, a man with a penchant for florid Victorian poetry, was on hand to take notes. Doc openeda trading post along the shores of the Duwamish River and one of his best customers was In 1855, Sealth spoke again, briefly, at the formal Sealth. They becamegood friends and Doc named signing of the Port Madison Treaty which settled the new city after his friend, "Seattle" being as close the Suquamish on their reservation across the a pronunciation as most white tongues would allow. Sound from Seattle. His brief remarks have none of The Tlee was less than pleased with the distinction, the elaborate pretensions ofmost speechesrecorded convinced as he was that, after dyrng, every time his during that era. As historian Bernard DeVoto name was spoken he would turn in his grave. noted, Indian speechestended to reflect the literary aspirations of the recorder more so than the orator. The 1850s were a turning point for the Salish peoples in and around PugetSound. Never warlike like their Vo ncouver belligerent neighbors to lslond the north, the Salish preferred to raid each other and steal what Lower they wanted. The Elwha concept of all-out war, Swinomish for the sake of killing or to establish territorial |amestown Clallam privileges, was anath- Tulalip ema to them. As more Quileute and more settlers moved Riz,er into the country, aggres- Holt sively displacing the Salish, discontent rose within the various tribes. With the discon- tent came ever more acts ofviolence on both Skokomish ,6{i\. . o sides, with the Salish Puvallup\::::i' increasingly on the JL\ losing end. \- Tacoma In 1853, 'squaxin Territorial Governor Island @ Issac Stevens, a man ok who believed in the late d Nisqually 19th century philosophy of, "The only good a Indian, is a dead In- dian," began buying up a or seizing Salish lands OJ and removing the tribes to reservations. In December, 1854, the Governor visited Seattle and Tlee Sealth made a speeqhlamenting that This map of Washington shows the reservations that still exist today. The shadeil area repre- the day ofthe Indian sents the landg which once belongedto the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes.

L2 Three years later, an old and impoverished Sealth Another problem is confronted here. Sealth was a spoke one last time for the record, wondering why prideful man and, though he embraced the white the treaty had not been signed by the Congress, man's commercial products, refused to learn their leaving the Indians to languish in poverty. "I have ways and speak their language. Hence, it is safe to been very poor and hungry all winter and am very say that what Smith heard was a translation. It was sick now. In a little while I will fie. When I do my probably made from Sealth's Lushotseed language people will be very poor; they will have no property, into the Chinook jargon and then into English with no chief and no one to talk for them." This entire each transliteration losing or embellishing some- text and Sealth's 1855 comments are preserved in thing of the original. At best, the reader can assume the National Archives. that the $ee's meaning, and maybe his thinking and some of his words, found their way through Until recently, the story of Chief Seattle belonged to Smith's pen to the SeattLeSunday Snr. the city that bears his name. Then, with the environmental movement in full swing, the speech In 1931, Clarence B. Bagley published an article Sealth made to Governor Stevens in 1854 was and reproduced the Chief Seattle speechwith his resurrected into the consciousnessof Americans. It own additions. In 1932, John M. Rich published a is not difficult to frnd people who attribute to the booklet called, Chief Seattle's Unanswered Chal- speechsomething approaching the level of Gospel. Ienge, which follows the Smith text but with some The speechhas had a profound afrect upon the minor changes. A l97l version by W.C. environmental movement and people interested in Vanderworth in, Indian Oratory : Fam,ousSpeeches Native Americans. by Noted Ind.ian Chieftains, is essentially the same as these two. There are problems with modern versions of the speech,which has been called the embodiment of all The third major revision of the speechwas done in environmental ideas, that call its authenticity into 1969 by the poet, William Arrowsmith, who, doubt. Referencesto things Sealth would have "Translated from the Victorian English of Dr. never have seen or known about, such as trains, Henry Smith," an interpretation that retains the whippoorwills, and the slaughter of the bison ftee's meaning, if not the wording and phrasing. A (which occurred long after the Tlee's death) raised fourth version displayed at the 1974 Spokane Expo, questions. Comparisons between known versions of a shorter "Letter to President Franklin Pierce," and the text have turned up four main variants, each many other with its own phrasing, wording, and sometimes variations at contradictory content. There is also a shorter this time have 'tetter" h purportedly sent to President Franklin familial resem- o Pierce in 1855. blance to the ct) Smith text but ct o The first version ofthe speechhas been traced to a begin to adopt transcription made by Dr. Henry J. Smith over 30 an ecological q years after the actual event. H Smith's is the original view. In !l from which all others are based and appeared in the Smith's 1887 o a October 29, L887 issue of the Seattle Sunday Star version, the entitled, "Scraps From A Diary". It begins with a natural world bD favorable description of "Old Chief Seattle" and is the canvas o seguesinto what is more than likely Dr. Smith's upon which F poetic impressions of what the Tyee said, based Chief Seattle's >r upon notes made at the time. b Smith concludeswith words are o the comment, "The above is but a fragment of his drawn. In the L speech,and lacks aII the charm lent by the grace 1970s,the and earnestness ofthe sable old orator, and the environment is Isaac Stevens, the governor ofWashing- occasion." Dr. Smith's diarlz cannot be found so it is the entire ton Territory, convinced and coerced impossible to know just how closely his notes painting. Indians to give up most of their lands by signing treaties. His actions followed what Sealth had to sav. triggered the Puget Sound Indian wars in the 1850's.

13 THESTORY OF SEATTLE

The city oiseattte got its staft:as a eettleme;t muchliter tiian Ofvnbia and Tacqma. Fouriooveredwqgons arrived in the northwest frorn no*hern Iltinois in the fall of 1851,ledby Arthur Dennf.':"Thegfolrp restedin Portland while Aithut's brother ,

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Bv lgzb;:Seatuetspoputatio;'*is bnei,,i0ob. tnis nirmUermorb iiinn,iripteC,u*.,i:Eso ,aridconiinusil,tfl:.graw es the,.liimbei'anAcoatindustrieb grew,..artwing more iAr-ni- grants and settlersto the area, :

FriimdiBlnring Washinglon'sPnst: A Road Guidei:History by Rutft firk and : : CarmelaAlexander, 1990, University of WashingtonPress.': "'

I4 The differences allowed anyone to believe that it was anything but between the a frctitious item written by me," he has said. Yet, Smith and this Perry has also been pleased that his words have latest Chief served as a powerful inspiration for so many others, 'TVould Seattle are that this stimulus had not come at the striking, expenseof more distancing and romanticizing the including the Native American," he adds. Iine,'Your God Ioves your And what of Dr. Smith's version? The best that can people and be said is he was there when Sealth spoke in 1854, hates mine," took extended notes, and waited 33 years to write vs. "Our God is them up. Any other comment about authenticity the same God.' must honestly wait until Smith's diary is found and There are his notes disseminated. phrases, the most inspiring Like many mistaken ideas given to us through the from the newer medium of popular entertainment, the legend of version, which Chief Seattle's speechwill take a long time to die. the Smith Undoubtedly there will be many who refuse to Dr. William Tolrnie, Chief Factor of Fort transcription believe that such fine and noble words and senti- Nisqually, met Chief Sealth in 1832, lacks, "How ments could have been made by a non-Indian stating that he was "the handsomest can you buy or during the 20th century and for a television show at Indian I have ever geen." sell the sky, that. To allow any version ofthe speechto pass the warmth of away would be to deny the magic and power of the the land? The idea is strange to us... The rivers are words and their meaning. If something is true, it our brothers... The air is precious...for all things shouldn't matter who said it and when it was said share the same breath.' And,'olhis we know. The as long as we recognize the source. What matters earth does not belong to man. Man belongs to the most is that the "Chief Seattle Speech"has some- earth. This we know. All things are connectedlike thing to teach us all. "So if we sell you our land, the blood which unites one family." love it as we have loved it. Care for it as we have cared for it. We may be brothers after all." For many years this fourth variant has been the acceptedversion of Chief Seattle's speech. So, it The Chief died in 1866. His grave lies in a little came as some surprise when this last rendering cemetery behind the historic St. Peter's Catholic was traced to a screenwriter, Ted Perry, for the Church in the hamlet of Suguamish on 1972 movie, "Homeo, a production of the Southern Washington's . Through tall Baptist Radio and Television Commission. Perry Douglas-fir trees towards the west, visitors can heard Arrowsmith read his version, and with gaze across mist covered Puget Sound on warrn permission, used the text as the basis for a new, summer days. With the snow clad CascadeMoun- fictitious speechfor a fiIm on pollution and ecolory. tains on the far horizon as background, the tiny The film's producers revised Perry's script without bumps of downtown Seattle rise like headstones. his knowledge, removed his name from the film credits, sent off18,000 posters with the speechto viewers who requested it, and glibly began the confusion we have today. Perry was not pleased.

Ted Perry is now a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont and has tried to set the record straight but with little result. In a Nepsweek atticle in 1992, 'TVhy Perry mused, are we so willing to accept a text like this if it's attributed to a Native Ameri- can," and not by a Caucasian? Over the years, he has been embarrassed by his role in putting words in the mouth of Chief Seattle. "I would never have

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