Chief Seattle or Si'alsh ( 1786?-1866 )

was by all British and American accounts a strong, intelligent leader of the Duwamish and Suquamish tribes on Puget Sound during a time of great upheaval for American Indians in the region. That his legacy by the late 20th century should take on the aura of prophet because of a speech that he never made, one openly fictionalized by screenwriter Ted Perry for the 1972 movie "Home", is at best a curiosity and at worst a travesty for the way that so many scholars, environmentalists, and pop-culture producers have revered the words as those of the Chief, but also for the way these often unapologetic missteps have provided fodder for so much criticism thereof, some of it well-reasoned, some of it decidedly anti-environmentalist or patronizing toward First Nations people.

The controversy has also brought greater scrutiny to bear on an earlier text which after decades of less arduous questioning and minor alteration would serve as inspiration for Perry: this text being an 1887 article written by Henry A. Smith and published in a small Seattle newspaper.

Ohio-born Henry A. Smith, M.D. ( 1830-1915 ) had arrived at Elliott Bay in early 1853, less than two years after the Denny Party founded the first settlement there. After establishing a farm and log cabin infirmary, he served as superintendent of Seattle schools. A decade later, after moving to Snohomish County, he would serve as territorial legislator and briefly as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. He was a skillful poet and, according to some historians, a capable medicine man who made house calls by canoe and was eventually fluent in Lushootseed tribal language and the Chinook Jargon of traders. He was successful at grafting fruit trees, managing logging companies, and reclaiming and making arable some 75 acres of salt marsh at the mouth of the Snohomish River. Later in life, with the arrival of the railroads in Seattle, his speculative real estate investments would come to fruition and make him a wealthy man.

Smith also claimed to have attended an historic meeting in 1854 - he gives no more specific date - when the newly-appointed Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens introduced himself to the Seattle settlers and local Native American tribes. This meeting or reception took place, as Smith recalled, "in front of Dr. Maynard's office, near the waterfront on Main Street". It was on this occasion that Smith also claimed to have taken extensive notes, difficult as it was, of Chief Seattle's long, eloquent reply to Governor Stevens' address, the latter which, according to Smith, amounted to "an explanation of the Governor's mission, which is too well understood to require capitulation."

The mission of Governor Stevens was plain enough: to promote further settlement of the Washington Territory and negotiate the purchase of lands from native tribes. By most accounts, his advancement of this mission was ambitious, hurried, at times even reckless, but ultimately very successful from the perspective of those in the nation's capital who favored a speedy conquest of the West. Records of his tours of Puget Sound strongly suggest that the meeting that Smith recalls took place in January 1854, within two months after Stevens assumed the responsibilities of his office in Olympia, the territorial capital. It also stands to reason that Chief Seattle, the esteemed leader of two local tribes, would be present at such a reception, all the more so since Governor Stevens also held the title of Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Unfortunately however, except for Smith's 1887 article, there are no surviving reports or recollections from this gathering, thus nothing to confirm that Chief Seattle delivered a speech, let alone a speech like the one that Smith later published.

Many historians subscribe to this timetable and reading of events, but many others are not convinced. They instead place the date of Chief Seattle's famous speech, and Henry Smith's record thereof, sometime in December 1854, nearly one year later and after Governor Stevens had spent many long months away from the region conferring with federal authorities in Washington D.C. These historians reason that it is only after such high-level talks with federal authorities that the new territorial administrator could have articulated his proposal to purchase land from, and establish reservations for, the region's Native American tribes, points which Chief Seattle addresses not far into his lengthy oration. A plausible assumption, but one that weathers less well against an array of facts.

For Governor Stevens had only returned to Olympia early that very December in question. He addressed a session of the territorial legislature, and amid many other orders of business that had accumulated during his months back East, not to mention concerns for a wife who was house-bound by dint of severe depression, he was also busy making plans for what would prove a hectic treaty-signing tour. The tour would begin on Christmas Day at Medicine Creek, some 45 miles south of Seattle. There the treaty council would take three days before securing a final agreement, and not without some resistance, notably that of Chief Leschi.

The next treaty signing took place at Point Elliott, 25 miles north of Seattle. Some research suggests that preliminary negotiations began as early as December 27, although records show that Governor Stevens joined the proceedings only for the official council, January 21-23, 1855, as did Chief Seattle, who was a prominent treaty signee.

Did Governor Stevens stop in Seattle on any date before or after Medicine Creek, and specifically, one in December? There are no records of any such visit; more importantly, there was likely no pressing cause for one. To expedite matters of policy and administration, Stevens had delegated much of the local groundwork on Indian affairs to district representatives of his government. In Seattle, that agent was David "Doc" Maynard, a seasoned pioneer who enjoyed good relations with Chief Seattle. In fact, the two men had forged a business friendship from the time that the Chief had convinced Maynard to relocate his supply store from Olympia to Elliott Bay in 1852.

Addressing a general lack of evidence, still other historians and investigators have sought to challenge or disprove Henry Smith's account and translation altogether. By doing so some also question whether Chief Seattle had ever made such a speech at all, implying instead that Smith's text was one of his own invention. This challenge is based once again on a singular line of logic: that Point Elliott provided the perfect opportunity for Chief Seattle to address those issues of the treaty agreement, specifically, the purchasing of land and the creation of reservations, as stated in the Smith translation. With this as a premise, proof by absence is then easily confirmed since the official record of the Point Elliott Treaty Council in January 1855 makes no mention of Henry Smith's presence either as translator or witness; accordingly, the same record makes no mention of any substantial oratory by Chief Seattle.

There is no good reason to doubt the accuracy of these official records for what was an occasion of historic consequence for the region and for the American nation at large. At the same time, that Henry Smith did not attend this treaty council should come as no surprise to anyone. For there is little to suggest that Smith, a relative newcomer to the territory, would be called upon to serve as an official translator when other, more experienced men, like George Gibbs, arguably the region's foremost authority on local Indian custom and language, or B. F. Shaw, former agent for the Hudson Bay Co., already served on Governor Stevens' staff or were part of his inner circle. It is just as unlikely that Smith, who was still in the process of founding a homestead with mother and sister under his wing, would have made the trip to Point Elliott to attend the council as uninvited observer.

What the official Point Elliott records do contain are two short statements by Chief Seattle that in no way resemble the locution or content of the Smith text which is longer by ten fold. But the concise nature of Seattle's remarks on this occasion should not mislead or engender wrong conclusions: for over the years the Chief had proven a formidable diplomat and negotiator when dealing with British and American settlers; in fact, on more than one occasion, when a threat of war loomed heavy, he had sided with territorial leaders against rebellious tribes. With that in mind, and since the Point Elliott council was an exercise in statecraft and ceremony, since it also included a host of chiefs from other tribes, some who would, and some who would not, accept the treaty conditions, it is very unlikely that a savvy, agreeable tribal leader would engage on this occasion the themes for which Chief Seattle is remembered by way of Henry Smith's now famous text.

Which returns us to that sliver of seminal if undecidable evidence that continues to inspire, haunt, and foster controversy over a century after it came into being: the 1887 article where Henry A. Smith soundly preambles that the speech he is about to share was one he heard Chief Seattle deliver on the banks of Elliott Bay sometime in 1854. How to deal with this statement when faced with no other means of confirmation, with no official minutes, not even the slightest mention in an Olympia, Washington newspaper? Without some personal recollection other than that of Henry Smith?

It is safe to presume, in what was then a small, pioneer community, that Henry Smith knew of Governor Stevens' visit in January 1854 and made every effort to be present. It is also likely that after having mastered the Lushootseed language, he could have managed other occasions to converse with Seattle, for the Chief and his daughter Princess Angeline were often seen in and around the town that adopted the name Seattle as its own. And while Smith's original notes have never been found, on his death bed he did reaffirm to a friend that events concerning Chief Seattle's speech had indeed happened as he had always said.

But what of those seemingly anachronistic remarks, purportedly made by Chief Seattle, regarding Governor Stevens' plan to purchase land and create reservations? A number of possible scenarios could explain their inclusion in Henry Smith's translation.

Since there is no record of Governor Stevens' comments at the January 1854 reception in Seattle, and since Henry Smith defers from enlightening the reader about those details in his preamble to the Chief Seattle speech, it is plausible that Stevens did make some perfunctory if modest remarks on the general form of his still to be articulated treaty proposals. It is also possible that Chief Seattle, being all too aware of the harsh realities facing Native American people in the region, and having over the years established good relations with some in the settler community, had learned of what was being planned through quasi-official discussions with someone like Doc Maynard. Finally, Henry Smith did not live in a vacuum, and over the 32 years that passed between taking notes on Chief Seattle's speech and publishing his article, it would be unrealistic to assume that information he had gleaned and garnered over time had not caused him to embellish or misinterpret his original notes.

Regarding those notes, Smith concedes in the closing remarks of his 1887 article that his translation of Chief Seattle's oration is only a "fragment" of the original. In fact, taking notes of the speech must have been a daunting task since Chief Seattle, who did convert to Catholicism some years earlier after the death of his son, spoke neither English nor Chinook Jargon. To complicate matters further, Governor Stevens, who was known for showing little interest in Native American culture, often to a point of annoying some of his aides and advisers, preferred that all government dealings with local tribes be conducted with a Chinook Jargon speaker as intermediary; in other words, direct translation between English and Lushootseed was typically avoided. Since Chinook Jargon employs a relatively small vocabulary, its use in official business often caused confusion and misunderstandings among American Indians. The plodding nature of overlapping translations would undoubtedly cause similar difficulty for Henry Smith on that day in 1854. For however much he had come to learn of local languages since arriving in the territory, it stands to reason that, as a relative newcomer, the notes he took on this occasion would have left much to be desired.

In fact, there is general agreement today that Henry Smith did inject a large dose of his own poetic talent into his final product. Not that Chief Seattle was incapable of great oratory. As those who knew him attested, while he was typically taciturn, his words would flow with wisdom and power whenever the spirit moved him. Even Smith admitted that his own speech translation "lacked all the charm lent by the grace and earnestness of the sable old orator." Still, as a reading of Smith's version quickly betrays, an illiterate, non-English speaking Native American, no matter how formidable an orator in his own tongue, would have neither the intention nor the command to exercise the sort of verbal flourishes that punctuate Smith's translation throughout.

And so, as many before me have demonstrated, the story of Henry Smith's translation of Chief Seattle's speech remains riddled with missing facts and unanswered questions, and subsequently, it is the job of researchers - historians, anthropologists, language experts - to separate the true from the false and unproven. On the other hand, myth-making like oral history is a slippery snake and one which can evolve, adapt, and change shape quickly; it is typically rife with a life of its own, one which transcends the real and integrates context and a style of presentation in ways that enrich its meaning and significance not by way of an individual but collectively in culture and community. In fact, myth and the imaginary pervaded the minds of Northwest pioneers by dint of the likes of Raven, Thunderbird, spirit doctors, war paint, ancestors, and totem poles; by way of the stories passed on by whalers, prospectors, amateur scientists; just as the imaginary and sometimes fantastic, posing as fact, were found on the book shelves of many respectable libraries, East and West.

Conversely, American Indians nurtured their own imaginary notions about the white man, his technology, his religion, and the lands whence he came. And since traditional myth is first and foremost a local invention, that is, before it travels and takes root in distant soil, it is clear that, unlike Ted Perry's creation for modern mass media a century later, Henry Smith and Chief Seattle did share a specific time and place, regardless of what moments they shared or did not share together. Just as important, theirs was a time and place of great change for the region and its people, native and settler alike, not least of all around Elliott Bay over the course of the 32 years that passed between the treaty councils and the publication of Henry Smith's article.

Just how those significant changes - the rapid urban development, the arrival of railroads, the unbridled exploitation of forest lands and other natural resources - affected Smith's early pioneer temperament or his decision to publish when he did, we do not know; nevertheless, any influence on the part of these changes cannot be simply dismissed. Add to the list the pernicious assumption, generally held by many at the time, that Native Americans as a race were destined to perish. For if we consider Smith's production as a cultural exercise of local myth-making, or even a poetic construct, sparked by a sense of urgency, emotion, even moral conflict, instead of one of purely factual or official history, then the questions and doubts surrounding Chief Seattle's famous speech seem less important and controversial. Does certainty of authorship ultimately effect the power of the Old Testament prophets? Would Hamlet penned by another bloke be less a good read?

That Smith's translation would be placed in a class with the Book of Job, or Shakespeare, or the time-honored tales of Coyote remains to be seen and to suggest so much clearly misses the point. But what is clear is this: without either man, Chief Seattle or Henry Smith, the speech, the article, would not exist, and because it exists, if we are willing to set aside the moral and scientific self-satisfaction that comes from historical hindsight, it grants us a small but extraordinary insight into a corner of the soul, the soul of a real place in history, where two peoples, two cultures, native and settler, had set out on a new if then uneasy journey together. Let the facts be made known, but whatever the facts, the text is ours to reflect upon, discuss, debate, and then draw wisdom if so it moves us.

Lloyd Vivola

November 11, 2011