Noah Seattle (1786 – 1866)
Duwamish chief

Noah Seattle (or See-athl) was a chief of the Duwamish or Suquamish tribe, one of the Salish group of the Northwest Coast of North America. Born in the Puget Sound area in 1786, Seattle lived there until his death on June 7, 1866. He was baptized a Roman Catholic about 1830 and is buried in the graveyard of the Port Madison Catholic Church. Ironically, Native Americans were banned by law from living in Seattle, Washington, the city named after him, one year after the chief's death.

By most accounts, Seattle was a great orator and a skilled diplomat. Although he never fought in a war against white people, he was a warrior with a reputation for daring raids on neighboring tribes. Seattle owned eight Native American slaves, but freed them after President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. He was the first to sign the Port Elliott Treaty negotiations of 1855, which surrendered most Native American lands in the Puget Sound area for white settlement. He gave two short speeches on that occasion, which are preserved in the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Both speeches encouraged others to sign the agreement and to cooperate with the United States authorities.

Seattle has become famous in recent years as the author of one of the most widely quoted pieces of environmental literature in the world. Among some familiar passages are: "How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The earth is our mother. This we know, the earth does not belong to man. Man belongs to the earth. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."

Generally called the speech, letter, or lament of Chief Seattle, this text exists in many forms. It has been set to music, called the Fifth Gospel in religious services, and used to sell everything from toilet tissue to recyclable plastic bags. A version was used by artist Susan Jeffers in 1991 to accompany drawings in a best selling children's book called, Brother Eagle, Sister Sky. This piece is a poetic, moving, environmentally sensitive work that supports beliefs about the reverence of Native Americans for the earth. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that Chief Seattle ever said any of the wise words attributed to him.

Historian Rudolf Kaiser has traced the origins and myths surrounding the Chief Seattle text. The first report of what we now know as Seattle's speech appeared in an article by Dr. Henry A. Smith published in the Seattle Sunday Star on October 29, 1887, as part of a series of old pioneer reminiscences. Smith was recalling remarks made by the Chief in 1854 on the arrival of Governor Stevens to the territory. Although 33 years had passed since the event, Smith wrote that he clearly remembered the "grace and earnestness of the sable old orator."

As Smith reconstructed it, the speech was dark and gloomy, the farewell of a vanishing race. "Your God loves his people and hates mine...It matters but little where we pass the remainder of our days. They are not many...Some grim Nemesis of our race is on the redman's trail, and wherever he goes he will still hear the sure approaching footsteps of the fell destroyer." This version was mostly a justification for displacement of the native peoples by the pioneers. Smith remembered the Chief saying that the President's offer to buy Native American lands was generous "for we are no longer in need of a great country." This version has no mention of the web of life or other ecological concepts.

In 1969 Smith's stuffy Victorian prose was translated into modern English by poet William Arrowsmith. Two year later, Ted Perry wrote the script for a film called Home produced by the Southern Baptist Convention. He used some quotes from Arrowsmith's translation together with a great deal of imagery, symbolism, and sentiments of 1970s environmentalism . Perry is the source of 90% of what we now know as Seattle's speech. Over Perry's objections, the film's editors attributed the text to Chief Seattle to make it seem more authentic.

The piece has since assumed a life of its own. Some obvious inconsistencies exist, such as "hearing the lovely cry of the whippoorwill" or having "seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie , left by the white man who shot them from a passing train." Chief Seattle lived his whole life in the Puget Sound area and died 13 years before the railroads reached the West Coast. He never heard a whippoorwill or saw a buffalo. Many people who use the speech are unperturbed by evidence that it is untrue. It so perfectly supports their view of Native Americans that they believe some Native American should have said these things even if Seattle did not.

This story is a good example of a myth that persists because it fits our preconceived views. In Chief Seattle, we seem to find an unsophisticated primitive who spoke in poetic, beautiful language and prophesied all the evils we now experience. Indigenous cultures probably contain much ecological wisdom that can be taught to others, but care must be taken not to blindly accept mythological texts such as this.

[William P. Cunningham Ph.D. ]

RESOURCES

BOOKS

Kaiser, R. "Chief Seattle's Speech(es): American Origins and European Reception—Almost a Detective Story." In Indians in Europe, edited by C. F. Feest. Gottingen, 1985.