Native Seattle

Coll Thrush wrote Native Seattle: Histories form the Crossing-Over Place to illustrate the changing landscape and history of Seattle through the relationships between white and native people while proving that urban and Native histories are interwoven. Place-stories became important to indigenous people and pioneers who saw the drastic changes of the land. They used place-stories to connect to the past, strengthen their present identities, and to enhance their agendas. Seattle had multiple identities rooted in storytelling and the concept of place; one perspective was that “visitors and residents alike tell and are told stories about the city: that it is built on Indian land, that that land was taken to build a great metropolis, and that such
a taking is commemorated by the city’s Native American imagery.” This perspective glosses over the negative aspects of taking land, displacing Natives, and conflicts that arose between different tribes and white pioneers. Throughout Seattle’s history, there were times of communion and times of unrest between the different races inhabiting the land. Stories were rarely fact; however, they hold elements of identity often attached to specific places. The change of a place through “urban growth had also destroyed the numinous forces that had given local places their meaning;” however, memories and stories kept previous landscapes and places alive in the people.