Battle of Seattle (1856)
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The Battle of Seattle was a January 26, 1856 attack by Native American tribesmen upon
Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region o ...
,
Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
. Walt Crowley and David Wilma
Native Americans attack Seattle on January 26, 1856
HistoryLink.org, February 15, 2003. Retrieved November 2, 2006. At the time, Seattle was a settlement in the
Washington Territory The Territory of Washington was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1853, until November 11, 1889, when the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Washington. It was created from the ...
that had recently named itself after Chief Seattle (Sealth), a leader of the
Suquamish The Suquamish () are a Lushootseed language, Lushootseed-speaking Native Americans in the United States, Native American people, located in present-day Washington (state), Washington in the United States. They are a southern Coast Salish peopl ...
and Duwamish peoples of central
Puget Sound Puget Sound ( ) is a sound of the Pacific Northwest, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean, and part of the Salish Sea. It is located along the northwestern coast of the U.S. state of Washington. It is a complex estuarine system of interconnected m ...
.T. S. Phelps:
Reminiscences of Seattle: Washington Territory and the U. S. Sloop-of-War ''Decatur'' During the Indian War of 1855-56
'. Originally published by The Alice Harriman Company, Seattle, 1908. Accessed online November 2, 2006 on the site of the U.S. Department of the Navy. European-American settlers were backed by artillery fire and supported by
Marines Marines, or naval infantry, are typically a military force trained to operate in littoral zones in support of naval operations. Historically, tasks undertaken by marines have included helping maintain discipline and order aboard the ship (refl ...
from the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
sloop-of-war In the 18th century and most of the 19th, a sloop-of-war in the Royal Navy was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above; thus, the term ''sloop-of-war'' en ...
'' Decatur'', anchored in
Elliott Bay Elliott Bay is a part of the Central Basin region of Puget Sound. It is in the U.S. state of Washington, extending southeastward between West Point in the north and Alki Point in the south. Seattle was founded on this body of water in the 1850s ...
(Seattle's harbor, then called ''Duwam-sh Bay''). They suffered two fatalities. It is not known if any of the Native American raiders died. The contemporary historian T. S. Phelps wrote that they later "would admit" to 28 dead and 80 wounded. The battle, part of the multi-year Puget Sound War or Yakima Wars (1855-1858), lasted a single day.


Terrain

The Seattle settlement of the time was located roughly in the area of Seattle's Pioneer Square and its neighborhood. T. S. Phelps's memoir of the time described the settlement as:
…on a point, or rather a small peninsula, projecting from the eastern shore, and about two miles (3 km) from the mouth of
Duwamish River One sailor, Hans Carl, died later of causes unrelated to the battle. Phelps characterizes the low casualties as "incredible" and "miraculous", given that "one hundred and sixty men were for seven hours exposed to an almost uninterrupted storm of bullets". The casualties on the native side are unknown. Phelps claimed personally to have seen ten men die from one shell. He said that the natives later admitted to 28 dead and 80 wounded, but said that the native women "secret dthe dead beyond all chance of discovery." No Indian bodies were found on the battlefield. According to Seattle lore, decades after the battle, Seattle's future fire chief Gardner Kellogg was excavating his house and found a shell from ''Decatur'' that had buried itself without exploding. He stuck it under a stump that he was trying to burn out and went off to lunch.
Dexter Horton Dexter Horton (1825 – 1904) was the founder of the first bank in the city of Seattle. Before his founding of the Bank of Dexter Horton in 1870 financial transactions were conducted by merchants. Dexter Horton was born in 1825 in Seneca Lake, New ...
stopped by to warm the seat of his pants at the fire, and as it exploded, nearly became the last casualty of the battle of Seattle.


Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Seattle, Battle of Conflicts in 1856 History of Seattle 1856 in the United States Naval battles and operations of the American Indian Wars United States Marine Corps in the 18th and 19th centuries