Artist Statement

This song is based on a version of the text known as “Chief Seattle’s Reply.” For many decades it was thought the text was a rough transcript of an 1854 speech given by Chief Seattle of the Duwamish tribe to the Superintendent of Indian Affairs (Washington State governor Isaac Stevens).

There is evidence that the content may be at least in part fictional, at best being a reconstruction three decades later from handwritten notes, although based on that speech. Moreover, the modern version of the text is now widely accepted to be a creation (again, based on the Chief Seattle text) for a Baptist-produced environmental documentary produced in the early 1970s. So much for unadulterated history.

Still, it is likely still based on that authentic transcript, and the speech remains a lyrical and powerful expression of the environmental ethos that speaks to many people of the ways humans have exploited the environment and dismissed Native American tradition.