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.

Illustration of Chief Seattle

Life

Chief Seattle was born around 1786 on Blake Island, Washington, and died June 7, 1866, on the Suquamish reservation at Port Madison, Washington. 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 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.

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.)

Quotations

Every part of all this soil is sacred to my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. The very dust you now stand on responds more willingly to their footsteps than to yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch.

Today is fair. Tomorrow may be overcast with clouds. My words are like the stars that never change.

At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with returning hosts that once filled and still love this beautiful land.

We are part of the earth and the earth is part of us.

Source

Murray Morgan, Skid Road, 1951, 1960, and other reprints

William C. ("Bill") Speidel, Doc Maynard, The Man Who Invented Seattle, Nettle Creek Publishing Company, Seattle, 1978.

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