We didn't know what they were talking about. 19 Ezra Meeker, a severe critic of Governor Stevens's Indian policies, accused Stevens of being drunk at the councils and of having suppressed a speech of opposition by Chief Leschi of the Nisqually Indians in the official record. Surely Meeker, himself an early pioneer of Washington Territory, would have used the polemic words attributed to Seattle against Stevens if they had been known to him. Meeker interviewed Colonel Shaw, the interpreter at the Point Elliott council, so he should have been aware of the speech if it actually occurred. Of course it matters, because this memorable statement loses its moral force and validity if it is the literary creation of a frontier physician rather than the thinking of an artictulate and wise Indian leader.
Noble thoughts based on a lie lose their nobility.
The historical record suggests that the compliant and passive individual named Seattle is not recognizable in the image of the defiant and angry man whose words reverberate in our time. Jerry L. Clark is on the staff of the National Archives and Records Administration. Properly spelled Sealth, but he was better known by the spelling used by his namesake city, Seattle. None of these anthologies provide a documented source for the speech. Angeline was a daughter of the chief.