Talk:Battle of Seattle (1856)

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[edit] T.S. Phelps, vocabulary, and other things

Like almost everyone else who has written about the battle, I have drawn heavily on T.S. Phelps. His account of the events is lively and circumstantial, but riven through with the racial prejudices of his time. I believe I have minimized the extent two which those have made it into the article.

I'm a little stumped on one vocabulary issue. Phelps generally uses the word "Indians", which has fallen out of favor, and "whites", which is more apropos but ignores the fact that at least one of the sailors was black, that some of the settlers were of various mixed ancestries, etc. I've used "natives" and "settlers", but I'm not totally satisfied with that choice either.

I'm not sure exactly which natives are Phelps's "Lake Indians". I don't think they correspond to one surviving organized tribe. I'm guessing that they form part of what are now the Duwamish, and that they were the ones who lived along what is no Lake Washington rather than along the Duwamish River. I'm sure the article could be greatly improved by someone who knows more of the history from the native side.

Also, I'm a little chagrined that I don't have a source handy that conveys what an incompetent and barbaric son of a bitch Governor Stevens was. Some of it comes through even in Phelps's narrative (he sails away saying "no problem here" less than a week before the attack, and you can imagine what a rebuke it was to him when Klakum et.al. were acquitted while he still had Patkanim out gathering scalps. (By the way, Bill Speidel has in one of his books an excellent anecdote about Patkanim showing up in the governor's office with his men, slapping scalps down on the desk, and demanding—and receiving—payment.) What he doesn't really get into was the degree to which the war was Stevens' fault in the first place, because he had forced a series of unequal treaties on the native peoples and had operated in bad faith at every turn. Probably as the article is further worked on, some of this should make it in. Some of this, but not nearly enough, can be found at Yakima War. Our article on Stevens (which, by the way, is completely unreferenced), seems reasonably accurate on his character. - Jmabel | Talk 07:10, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm no expert on this topic, but I've enjoyed Murray Morgan's book "Puget's Sound", which contained some fairly detailed history on the Puget Sound War, the Battle of Seattle, and conveys what an incompetent and barbaric SOB Gov Stevens was. There's a long section detailing the legal battles Steven's had to fight just to get Leschi hanged, and then many more afterwards. In the end he was found guilty of various crimes, but only had to pay a small fine. There's also an exciting courtroom scene in which supporters of Stevens and supporters of the Steilacoom judge drew and aimed their firearms at each other, nearly resulting in a courtroom shoot out. After reading it I long bemoaned how Stevens Pass and the nice ski resort there is named for this genocidal megalomaniac -- only to later learn that it is in fact named for a different Stevens; phew! Anyway, I agree that this page needs work and is rather heavily biased and sensationalized. Phelps is, according to the much more scholarly Morgan, a source to be taken with a very large grain of salt. If I find the time I'll try to do some editing here. Pfly 05:52, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Good article so far!

I added the --NorthAmNative-- tag so that some of those contributors may be drawn to this article and, perhaps, answer some of the issues you bring up.
Speidel certainly seems to agree with your assessment of Stevens!
Is the Battle of Seattle (1856) part of a larger, named conflict involving the Indians in Washington Territory - perhaps the Puget Sound War? Is there some relationship between this event and the hanging of Nisqually Chief Leschi February 19, 1858? rewinn 04:22, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I suppose it is part of the Puget Sound War, but I was unfamiliar with that term (and I live there).

There is no direct connection between this battle and the hanging of Chief Leschi. Leschi was hanged for a killing that historians seem generally to agree he did not commit and that was probably a legitimate act of war by whoever did commit it. Most of our article on Leschi is about the now nearly universal opinion that he was framed, an opinion that (as you can see from that article) had pretty strong currency even at the time and even among white settlers. - Jmabel | Talk 00:25, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm in Belltown myself. Growing up in Everett, I never heard a lot about Indian resistence to our settlement. There was actually an Indian corpse (or so it was said) on display at the Monte Cristo museum when I was a kid; something that would be inconceivable now (...as long as you don't look at those gross "Body" posters everywhere.) It would be interesting to find a history that combines the initial resistence of Patkanim (followed by his swift enlistment on "our" side; the raids by the Eastern Wa Indians that culminated in the Batte of Seattle (1856), and the fighting that let to Leschi's execution. Perhaps some local historian, or someone from United Indians of All Tribes would know. ... Anyway, thanks for getting this article going; it's quite interesting! rewinn 01:20, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I tried (and failed) a couple of years ago to get involvement in Wikipedia from someone at United Indians of All Tribes, but it wouldn't hurt to try again. I expect to have some time in January, I should go by Daybreak Star and try to talk to them again. - Jmabel | Talk 02:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)