CHIEF SEATTLE

THINGS WE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT.

CHIEF SEATHL ( SEATTLE) DIES

JUNE 7, 1866

212 years ago, June 7, 1866, Chief Seathl of the Duwanish and Suqanish

tribes died in an Indian village near Seattle which was named for him 13 years before.

Born to a Suqanish Indian father and a Duwanish Indian mother, sometime around 1790 along

the banks of a Pacific coast bay, now Puget Sound, where white Euro-Americans, in 1850's,

began establishing villages along the shore of Puget Sound and Chief Seathl welcomed

his new neighbors and treated them with kindness.

In1853 the settlers set up a village on Elliott Bay to establish a permanent town.

Due to the chief's friendship and kindness they named the town after him, Seattle.

The American settlers had picked the Seattle site for the luxuriant forest near by, on

a bluff. which would produce the timber for the gold rush . A saw mill was built at the

lowerr side of the bluff and timbers for sawing were “skidded” down a chute to be cut into

lumber. He chute became to be known as “skid road” and in time this became the main

street of Seattle, keeping it's name. As the Seattle business district moved north, the area

of Skid Road became dilapidated and was home to the homeless and a haven for drunks

and derelicts, and Skid Road, became 'skid row' , heeiafter any dilapated , part of a city ,

is called 'skid row'.

Not all of the Puget Sound Indians were as friendly and in 1855 the White River Valley

tribe attacked Seattle village and Chief Seathl convinced the White River tribe that hostility

to the white man would only hasten the Indians demise, so they became peaceful.

Chief Seathl , rather that fight, tried to learn the white mans ways, and became

a devout believer in Catholicism which he observed the rest of his life. He died at age 77,

in 1866

Abstract: www.history.com/today , 06/07/18