Luther Standing Bear and Chief Seattle

Luther Standing Bear's main theme is that humans should be one with the environment. Their tribe loved all things in nature and let the wilderness rule their life instead of humans ruling the wilderness. They also preferred a lifestyle that was never hurried. They always gave time for thought instead of a rushed conversation that could be insincere.

Chief Seattle's Speech is mostly about the fatalism of his people. He is not optimistic about their fate and strongly believes that they must spend their days that they have well, because there will not be very many left. As Arnold Krupat describes, the tribes people "had suffered considerable depopulation as a result of the introduction of Western diseases to which they had not developed any immunity" (4). Chief Seattle thinks it is a better idea to accept the offer to move onto the reservation because it could be the only way of keeping his people alive.

Chief Seattle's speech was delivered either in 1854 or 1855 during meetings with Isaac Ingalls Stevens, the newly appointed governor of Washington Territory. The governor's goal was to persuade the Puget Sound Indians to give up most of their lands in Kitsap County for a reservation at Port Madison. The translation and first publication of  of the speech was done by Dr. Henry A. Smith. There is not proof that Dr. Smith was at the speech. Krupat states that the "speculations about Dr. Smith's presence or absence at Point Elliott are pointless because Dr. Smith himself stated very clearly that he did not hear the speech at Point Elliott and he even said himself that he did not attend the speech" (2). He took notes on what he heard about the speech and later added to the notes by getting information from articles about the speech. The fact that he added more information at a later time lowers the accuracy of Chief Seattle's original speech. Some of the versions of this speech after Dr. Smith's were also edited to portray certain environmental and ecological views. All this controversy makes many people wonder if anyone has a accurate depiction of Chief Seattle's famous speech.

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_indian_quarterly/v035/35.2.krupat.html