Native Seattle by Coll-Peter Thrush Read Free Book Online Page A

between the “law and order crowd,” represented by Yesler, Arthur Denny, and other civic leaders, and the “worthless,” less orderly elements of urban society would shape life in Seattle for years to come. While Yesler blamed interracial violence on the wrong kind of emigrants, many indigenous people knew that low-class settlers were only part of the problem. 15
     
    And so within just a few short years of Seattle's founding, both settlers and Natives were calling for a new sort of order. That new order came in the form of treaties designed to mitigate interracial violence by creating new boundaries between white and Indian communities and settling—pun intended—the question of indigenous title to the land. Much of the run-up to the signings took place in urban outposts. Seattle was the site of one such proceeding on 12 January 1854, when IsaacIngalls Stevens, the new territorial governor and Indian superintendent, introduced himself and the treaty process to more than a thousand Indians and some ten dozen settlers gathered in front of Doc Maynard's office. One year, ten days, and many speeches later, Seeathl and other headmen signed the Treaty of Point Elliott. 16
     
    In towns throughout Puget Sound, settlers celebrated the treaty process; one Native elder, in a particularly eloquent choice of words, described Seattle settlers' reaction to the treaty as “hooraying.” There was some cause for optimism among Indians as well. Among other things, the treaty ensured that indigenous people would have the right to camp, hunt, fish, and harvest berries and roots at the “usual and accustomed stations and grounds.” But despite the promises of the treaty, few Indians were hooraying. In fact, significant factions in Native communities on Salt Water and beyond took offense at the treaty agreements, and some did not hesitate to express their indignation. In late 1855, for example, a shaman named Chaoosh visited David and Louisa Denny at their cabin on Lake Union after a government “potlatch” at Tulalip north of Seattle. Enraged at the agent's offers of cheap needles and strips of blankets, he warned them that whites were few in number and could be easily wiped out. The condescending gifts, paltry compared to what could be found in any town's shops, only added to growing Native outrage at the hubris of the Bostons. 17
     
    As tensions grew, urban settlements, beachheads of the American invasion of Puget Sound, were obvious targets for the indigenous uprising that seemed increasingly inevitable. In response, white officials began with what seemed like the most obvious first step: removing Indians from the towns. Indian agent Michael T. Simmons, however, found that doing so was no simple task. A month before the attack on Seattle, after several attacks had already taken place elsewhere in the region, Simmons reported finding among Seattle's indigenous residents “a strong determination… not to cross over to their reservation.…I informed them that they must go over or they should receive nothing. Finally they obeyed my wishes and those of the head chief.” Removal, however, could not only not prevent war but might actually lead to it; Henry Yesler and several other Seattleites, for example, warned that forcingIndians onto the reservations “was to all appearance tantamount to a declaration of war against them.” 18
     
    But many did not leave, and, in fact, when the Battle of Seattle finally came, it was Indians who saved the day and the settlement. On the eve of the conflict, several hundred Native people remained in and immediately around the town, including Curley, who had close connections both with Henry Yesler and with Leschay (Leschi), a Nisqually militant who was allegedly organizing the attack. Curley met with Leschay to call for peace, but the warrior would not be swayed. And so, along with several other Duwamish people and a number of white men who lived with Indian women, Curley brought warning of the