Chief Seattle was a Suquamish and Duwamish chief. A leading figure among his people, he pursued a path of accommodation to white settlers, forming a personal relationship with "Doc" Maynard. The city of Seattle, in the U.S. state of Washington, was named after him. A widely publicized speech arguing in favor of ecological responsibility and respect of Native Americans' land rights had been attributed to him; however what he actually said has been lost through translation and rewriting. The name Seattle is an Anglicization of the modern Duwamish conventional spelling Si'ahl, equivalent to the modern Lushootseed spelling siʔaɫ. He is also known as Sealth, Seattle, Seathl, or See-ahth.
Biography
Seattle's mother Sholeetsa was Dkhw'Duw'Absh and his father Shweabe was chief of the Dkhw'Suqw'Absh. Seattle was born some time between 1780 and 1786 on the Black River near Kent, Washington. One source cites his mother's name as Wood-sho-lit-sa. The Duwamish tradition is that Seattle was born at his mother's village of stukw on the Black River, in what is now the city of Kent, Washington, and that Seattle grew up speaking both the Duwamish and Suquamish dialects of Lushootseed. Because Native descent among the Salish peoples was not solely patrilineal, Seattle inherited his position as chief of the Duwamish Tribe from his maternal uncle. Seattle earned his reputation at a young age as a leader and a warrior, ambushing and defeating groups of tribal enemy raiders coming up the Green River from the Cascade foothills. In 1847 he helped lead a Suquamish attack upon the Chimakum people near Port Townsend, which effectively wiped out the Chimakum. Like many of his contemporaries, he owned slaves captured during his raids. He was tall and broad, standing nearly tall; Hudson's Bay Company traders gave him the nickname Le Gros. He was also known as an orator; and when he addressed an audience, his voice is said to have carried from his camp to the Stevens Hotel at First and Marion, a distance of. Chief Seattle took wives from the village of Tola'ltu just southeast of Duwamish Head on Elliott Bay. His first wife La-Dalia died after bearing a daughter. He had three sons and four daughters with his second wife, Olahl. The most famous of his children was his first, Kikisoblu or Princess Angeline. Seattle was converted to Christianity by French missionaries, and was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church, with the baptismal name Noah, probably in 1848 near Olympia, Washington. For all his skill, Seattle was gradually losing ground to the more powerful Patkanim of the Snohomish when white settlers started showing up in force around 1850. When his people were driven from their traditional clamming grounds, Seattle met Doc Maynard in Olympia; they formed a friendly relationship useful to both. Persuading the settlers at the white settlement of Duwamps to rename their town Seattle, Maynard established their support for Chief Seattle's people and negotiated relatively peaceful relations with the tribes. Seattle kept his people out of the Battle of Seattle in 1856. Afterwards, he was unwilling to lead his tribe to the reservation established, since mixing Duwamish and Snohomish was likely to lead to bloodshed. Maynard persuaded the government of the necessity of allowing Seattle to remove to his father's longhouse on Agate Passage, 'Old Man House' or Tsu-suc-cub. Seattle frequented the town named after him, and had his photograph taken by E. M. Sammis in 1865. He died June 7, 1866, on the Suquamish reservation at Port Madison, Washington.
The speech or "letter"
The speech or "letter" attributed to Chief Seattle has been widely cited as a "powerful, bittersweet plea for respect of Native American rights and environmental values". But this document, which has achieved widespread fame thanks to its promotion in the environmental movement, is of doubtful authenticity.
Legacy
Seattle's grave site is at the Suquamish Tribal Cemetery.
In 1890, a group of Seattle pioneers led by Arthur Armstrong Denny set up a monument over his grave, with the inscription "SEATTLE Chief of the Suqampsh and Allied Tribes, Died June 7, 1866. The Firm Friend of the Whites, and for Him the City of Seattle was Named by Its Founders" On the reverse is the inscription "Baptismal name, Noah Sealth, Age probably 80 years." The site was restored and a native sculpture added in 1976 and again in 2011.
Soundgarden, a Seattle rock band, covered the Black Sabbath song, "Into the Void" replacing the lyrics with the words from Chief Seattle's speech.
The Suquamish Tribe honors Chief Seattle every year in the third week of August at "Chief Seattle Days".
The city of Seattle, and numerous related features, are named after Seattle.
A B-17E Flying Fortress, SN# 41-2656 named Chief Seattle, a so-called "presentation aircraft", was funded by bonds purchased by the citizens of Seattle. Flying with the 435th Bombardment Squadron out of Port Moresby, it was lost with its 10-man crew on August 14, 1942.
The Chief Sealth Trail in southern Seattle is named after Chief Seattle.
