Chief Seattle › Hymnals

In the 1850s, Chief Seattle was a prominent elder of the Duwamish (on his mother's side) and Suquamish (on his father's side) people of central Puget Sound. Settlers named one of their new towns (previously called "New York Alki" and "Duwamps") after the "chief" (as the immigrants called him). He attended, and addressed, a meeting called by Governor Isaac Stevens to determine the best ways to entice the indigenous peoples to settle on territorially limited, resource-poor "Reservations", and a version of his speech at that meeting, published decades later, has become widely known.