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THE PUGET SOUND WAR AND ITS PECULIAR SEATTLE FIGHT GREW OUT OF INDIAN DISSATISFACTION WITH WASHINGTON TERRITORIAL GOVERNOR ISAAC STEVENS' TREATY-MAKING. IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE LITTLE WAR, NO PARTICIPANT PAID A DEARER PRICE THAN CHIEF LESCHI. BY PETER STEKEL
ON FEBRUARY 19, isss, the body of Chief Leschi hung by the neck, twisting in the wind, and settlers from Olympia to Seattle breathed a collective sigh of relief. Two years after the October 1855-March 1856 Puget Sound War, the suspected perpetrator of the so-called Battle of Seattle was dead. He had led the only armed resistance to the white invasion of western Washington Territory.
James Wiley, editor of the Olympia Pioneer & Democrat, had no doubt of Leschi s guilt. In many editorials, Wiley had written that Indians were "fiends," treacherous cowards" and detestable brutes." There were those who agreed with Wiley but others doubted that Leschi was responsible for the specific murder of which he was accused. They reasoned that, even were the charge true, shooting an enemy during time of war was not murder.
The Puget Sound War was part of a spontaneous uprising in Washington Territory that grew out of Governor Isaac Ingalls Stevens' ambitious 1854-55 treaty-making. Stevens, who was also territorial superintendent of Indian affairs, had concluded treaties with the Nisqually and Puyallup on December 26, 1854; with the Duwamish, Suquamish and others (Port Elliott Treaty) on January 22, 1855; with the S'klallam on January 26; and with the Makah on January 31. The treaties effectively cleared Puget Sound for white settlement. Misunderstandings soon arose because Stevens insisted that Salish, the native language in the Puget Sound region, not be used. Instead, the complex concepts of the treaty were rendered into Chinook jargon, a 500word vocabulary mishmash of English, French and various Indian tongues.
Stevens also insisted that there be no negotiation. Either the tribes accepted the terms (establishing fishing privileges, limiting trade, giving up land, agreeing to limit their number of stock) and signed the treaty or Indian land would be taken by force.
Tribal leaders across the territory were unhappy with Stevens' treaty provisions and quickly developed serious misgivings. They had a point to make-that the white settlers could not just come in and take everything away-and...