Answering Chief Seattle

4. Answers from Afar

CHAPTER 4 AnswersjrnmAfar THE SPEECH OF CHIEF SEATTLE must, by now, seem barely credible as an event in history. Corruptions oftext, extravagances of language. distortions of translation, and inconsistencies of meaning all stand in the way of our hearing Seattle's voice. Conflicting records and the outlines of myth stand between us and any possible date and place where that voice might have spoken. And yet the mythic pressure of this speech endures and will endure. Perhaps rightly so. The person who led the Duwamish and Suquamish people has left just a few traces in the historical record. But in his place there remains a legendary figure. a symbol partly created and much enlarged by white men: a "ChiefSeattle" officially named by Governor Stevens, and a "sable old orator" reported by HenrySmith and reshaped by later editors. In return for the distortions ofwhite invaders and those who come after them. this figure goes on unceasingly in his reproaches. Looked at squarely. his message in its earliest traceable form is not a testament about ecologyor pristine. uninhabited nature. It is rather an expression ofmingled pride and sorrow about long habitation in a beautiful region. As he relinquishes his claims to much of the Puget Sound territory, Seattle admonishes the new settlers. He recalls the generations that have dwelled there. to whom every feature in the landscape has had meaning and been precious. He notes that past generations have died and been absorbed into the soil. But their spirits cannot leave their home. They will remain there to the end oftime, revisiting those scenes. Seattles long closing passage dwells on these ideas: 73 '-'1\ AMERICA'S REPLY ~ Every part of this country is sacred to my people. Every hill-side, everyvalley, every plain and grove has been hallowed bysome fond memory or some sad experience of my tribe. Even the rocks that seem to lie dumb as they swelter in the sun along the silent seashore in solemn grandeur thrill with memories ofpast events connected with the fate ofmy people, and the verydust underyourfeet responds more lovinglyto our footsteps than to yours, because it is the ashes ofour ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious ofthe sympathetic touch, for the soil is rich with the life ofour kindred. The sable braves, and fond mothers. and glad-hearted maidens, and the little children who lived and rejoiced here and whose very names are now forgotten. still love these solitudes. and their deep fastnesses at eventide grow shadowy with the presence of dusky spirits. And when the last red man shall have perished from the earth and his memory among white men shall have become a myth, these shores shall swarm with the invisible dead ofmy tribe, and when your children's children shall think themselves alone in the field. the store. the shop, upon the highway or in the silence of the woods they will not be alone.... At night, when the streets of your cities and villages shall be silent. and you think them deserted . they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled and still love this beautiful land. The white man will never be alone. Let him be just and deal kindly with mypeople, for the dead are not altogether powerless. There are analogous appeals in other speeches by Indians, includingleaders who met in treatycouncils with Governor Stevens. Many objected to leaving familiar places and ancestral burial grounds. But there is no speech quite so sustained on this theme. and none expresses the same point about permanent spirits dwelling in the relinquished lands. Are these Henry Smith's ideas, projected onto a figure from the past? Are they a haunting idea Smith absorbed from local Indians or from one or many speeches 74 around Puget Sound'! Whatever their origin, these ideas, embodied in this now-famous speech, address a deep-mnning problem of more than local interest. Who does own the American landscape ? What peoples have dwelled upon it most harmoniously or wisely? How has the vast invasion from Europe since the sixteenth century been absorbed by the North American continent'? How has this land impressed itself back upon the progeny and successors of its invaders? And how can peoples who have now come together here over generations, from every continent around the globe. dwell with a sense ofbelonging? The speech does not answer these questions, but it certainly raises them. We have looked with searching scrutiny...