Did Millard Fillmore install the first bathtub in the White House? Did Betsy Ross make the first American flag at the request of George Washington? Did Pocahontas save the life of Capt. John Smith? Most Americans, whose knowledge of the history of their native land is sometimes sketchy, would answer yes to the above questions. The historian would answer definitely not, probably not, and maybe, respectively. The journalist H. L. Mencken concocted the Millard Fillmore tale during a slow newsday during the 1920s; the Betsy Ross story rests on dubious evidence; and Pocahontas was only eleven years old at the time that Captain Smith (not always known for his veracity) claimed she rescued him from the headman's axe.
While this article has nothing whatever to do with Millard Fillmore, Betsy Ross, or Pocahontas, it is concerned with a somewhat similar episode which remains present in the American mythology. The following oration, supposedly spoken by an Indian chieftain in 1855, has surfaced in today's world and has been used to justify and fortify current attitudes regarding the treatment of the first Americans and the natural environment in the United States. Since these words have been used for propagandistic and polemic purposes, a closer examination of the historical and literary origins of old Chief Seattle's catechism of woes and wrongs done to the American Indian and his world is in order.
