Question

Mention and discuss the versions of Chief Seattle’s speech.

Answer 1

The speech given by Chief Seattle in January of 1854 is the subject of a great deal of historical debate. The most important fact to note is that there is NO VERBATIM TRANSCRIPT IN EXISTENCE. All known texts are second-hand.
Version 1 appeared in the Seattle Sunday Star on Oct. 29, 1887, in a column by Dr. Henry A. Smith. He makes it very clear that his version is not an exact copy, but rather the best he could put together from notes taken at the time. There is an undecided historical argument on which native dialect the Chief would have used, Duwamish or Suquamish. Either way all agree the speech was translated into the Chinook Jargon on the spot, since Chief Seattle never learned to speak English.
Version 2 was written by poet William Arrow smith in the late 1960s. This was an attempt to put the text into more current speech patterns, rather than Dr. Smith’s more flowery Victorian style. Except for this modernization, it is very similar to Version 1.
Version 3 is perhaps the most widely known of all. This version was written by Texas professor Ted Perry as part of a film script. The makers of the film took a little literary license, further changing the speech and making it, into a letter to President Franklin Pierce, which has been frequently reprinted. No such letter was ever written by or for Chief Seattle.
Version 4 appeared in an exhibit at Expo ’74 in Spokane, Washington, and is a shortened edition of Dr. Perry’s script (Version 3).