What do you think?
Rate this book
Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books
Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place
Winner of the 2008 Washington State Book Award for History/Biography
In traditional scholarship, Native Americans have been conspicuously absent from urban history. Indians appear at the time of contact, are involved in fighting or treaties, and then seem to vanish, usually onto reservations. In Native Seattle, Coll Thrush explodes the commonly accepted notion that Indians and cities-and thus Indian and urban histories-are mutually exclusive, that Indians and cities cannot coexist, and that one must necessarily be eclipsed by the other. Native people and places played a vital part in the founding of Seattle and in what the city is today, just as urban changes transformed what it meant to be Native.
On the urban indigenous frontier of the 1850s, 1860s, and 1870s, Indians were central to town life. Native Americans literally made Seattle possible through their labor and their participation, even as they were made scapegoats for urban disorder. As late as 1880, Seattle was still very much a Native place. Between the 1880s and the 1930s, however, Seattle's urban and Indian histories were transformed as the town turned into a metropolis. Massive changes in the urban environment dramatically affected indigenous people's abilities to survive in traditional places. The movement of Native people and their material culture to Seattle from all across the region inspired new identities both for the migrants and for the city itself. As boosters, historians, and pioneers tried to explain Seattle's historical trajectory, they told stories about Indians: as hostile enemies, as exotic Others, and as noble symbols of a vanished wilderness. But by the beginning of World War II, a new multitribal urban Native community had begun to take shape in Seattle, even as it was overshadowed by the city's appropriation of Indian images to understand and sell itself.
After World War II, more changes in the city, combined with the agency of Native people, led to a new visibility and authority for Indians in Seattle. The descendants of Seattle's indigenous peoples capitalized on broader historical revisionism to claim new authority over urban places and narratives. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Native people have returned to the center of civic life, not as contrived symbols of a whitewashed past but on their own terms.
In Seattle, the strands of urban and Indian history have always been intertwined. Including an atlas of indigenous Seattle created with linguist Nile Thompson, Native Seattle is a new kind of urban Indian history, a book with implications that reach far beyond the region.
Replaced by ISBN 9780295741345
In traditional scholarship, Native Americans have been conspicuously absent from urban history. Indians appear at the time of contact, are involved in fighting or treaties, and then seem to vanish, usually onto reservations. In Native Seattle, Coll Thrush explodes the commonly accepted notion that Indians and cities-and thus Indian and urban histories-are mutually exclusive, that Indians and cities cannot coexist, and that one must necessarily be eclipsed by the other. Native people and places played a vital part in the founding of Seattle and in what the city is today, just as urban changes transformed what it meant to be Native.
On the urban indigenous frontier of the 1850s, 1860s, and 1870s, Indians were central to town life. Native Americans literally made Seattle possible through their labor and their participation, even as they were made scapegoats for urban disorder. As late as 1880, Seattle was still very much a Native place. Between the 1880s and the 1930s, however, Seattle's urban and Indian histories were transformed as the town turned into a metropolis. Massive changes in the urban environment dramatically affected indigenous people's abilities to survive in traditional places. The movement of Native people and their material culture to Seattle from all across the region inspired new identities both for the migrants and for the city itself. As boosters, historians, and pioneers tried to explain Seattle's historical trajectory, they told stories about Indians: as hostile enemies, as exotic Others, and as noble symbols of a vanished wilderness. But by the beginning of World War II, a new multitribal urban Native community had begun to take shape in Seattle, even as it was overshadowed by the city's appropriation of Indian images to understand and sell itself.
After World War II, more changes in the city, combined with the agency of Native people, led to a new visibility and authority for Indians in Seattle. The descendants of Seattle's indigenous peoples capitalized on broader historical revisionism to claim new authority over urban places and narratives. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, Native people have returned to the center of civic life, not as contrived symbols of a whitewashed past but on their own terms.
In Seattle, the strands of urban and Indian history have always been intertwined. Including an atlas of indigenous Seattle created with linguist Nile Thompson, Native Seattle is a new kind of urban Indian history, a book with implications that reach far beyond the region.
Replaced by ISBN 9780295741345
326 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2007
66 people are currently reading
806 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
November 6, 2017
A beautiful book that powerfully illustrates its key claim: that the Native history of Seattle may be dramatically changed and challenged, but it's neither past nor complete. A few things I particularly appreciated:
* The vivid description of the multi-ethnic Seattle of the early pioneer days. It made me wish that hadn't been wiped out, and wonder what kind of hybrid culture could have emerged in a Seattle or a Vancouver that had allowed it to keep flourishing.
* A clear sense of how the contemporary Tribes of the region relate to ancestral and language groups.
* A much clearer portrayal than I've seen elsewhere of who "Chief" Seattle really was and why he commanded so much respect and attention.
* Many mentions of individuals and families who weren't necessarily individually notable. A lot of them are very brief sketches, but they still mean much more than just saying "we know there were Shilsholes and Muckleshoots working at this mill", etc.
* The powerful sense of continuity of Native Seattle even among all the hardship and forced change.
* The atlas section at the end that brings the immediate pre-Settler period to life though its list of place names and explanations of their significance.
That atlas was what I thought the whole book would be, but it's actually much more interesting in the context of all the stories that precede it.
* The vivid description of the multi-ethnic Seattle of the early pioneer days. It made me wish that hadn't been wiped out, and wonder what kind of hybrid culture could have emerged in a Seattle or a Vancouver that had allowed it to keep flourishing.
* A clear sense of how the contemporary Tribes of the region relate to ancestral and language groups.
* A much clearer portrayal than I've seen elsewhere of who "Chief" Seattle really was and why he commanded so much respect and attention.
* Many mentions of individuals and families who weren't necessarily individually notable. A lot of them are very brief sketches, but they still mean much more than just saying "we know there were Shilsholes and Muckleshoots working at this mill", etc.
* The powerful sense of continuity of Native Seattle even among all the hardship and forced change.
* The atlas section at the end that brings the immediate pre-Settler period to life though its list of place names and explanations of their significance.
That atlas was what I thought the whole book would be, but it's actually much more interesting in the context of all the stories that precede it.
January 6, 2012
Some excellent research and some fine writing make this a highly educational and entertaining guide to Seattle's indigenous history. A copy should be issued to all residents and visitors. The "Atlas of Indigenous Seattle," included as an appendix, is well-worth the cost of the entire book just on its own. The Atlas includes over 100 native place-names around the city, and even a quick guide to Whulshootseed pronunciation for all of us cheechakos. Highly recommended!
May 20, 2019
coll thrush does a really thorough job of chronicling a native history of seattle that is directly linked to ongoing dispossession/expropriation. i think it's especially remarkably written given how easily native iconography has been appropriated for settler place-story in seattle, in hippie/environmental movements, etc. � thrush points this out specifically and takes care to distinguish between appropriations and reclamations of seattle's indigenous past/present. 🌊recommended reading🌊
June 5, 2022
Coll Thrush's rich historical exploration of the history of Seattle, the history of the Native American in and (forced out of) Seattle, and how the two histories cannot be separated is a fascinating investigation of the white American re-vamping of a place-story to make it seem as if Native Americans simply disappeared instead of becoming woven into that story and contributing to the current urban reality. Thrush's careful research, explanations, inclusion of maps and photos to demonstrate the points he makes, is a particular boon for those who--like me--who live on Puget Sound but don't know the significance of the places that we drive past every day and take for granted the Indian symbolism we see on our sports teams and in our tourist destinations without understanding how and why it got there. I found this one hard to put down, underlined heavily, and imagine I'll revisit it again. I imagine a similar book could be written for urban centers all over the country.
This book will appeal to those who have an interest in the history of how America was settled by "the Bostons," how Native Americans fare in the history we've all learned, and to people who are familiar with Seattle and this part of the Pacific Northwest. Well worth the read.
This book will appeal to those who have an interest in the history of how America was settled by "the Bostons," how Native Americans fare in the history we've all learned, and to people who are familiar with Seattle and this part of the Pacific Northwest. Well worth the read.
October 6, 2015
This is an important book about Seattle. Unfortunately, I do not think it is a "book" but rather an academic paper that has been published for general readership. It is dense and could be more readable. Well-researched and very thorough, Coll Thrush tried his best to bring the history of tribes in the Seattle area (and beyond as he explains) over the last 150 some-odd years, starting with before the Denny party landed at Alki.
For me, it was refreshing to hear so much effort put into telling the story of the long-term residents of the city. I was always so frustrated reading Seattle-area histories where tribes were a blurb at the beginning and the rest of a story was about the new-comers. People do not disappear, and Thrush has done his best to represent their stories.
I would LOVE to see more books like this. I would also like to go check out the community center. They have events!
For me, it was refreshing to hear so much effort put into telling the story of the long-term residents of the city. I was always so frustrated reading Seattle-area histories where tribes were a blurb at the beginning and the rest of a story was about the new-comers. People do not disappear, and Thrush has done his best to represent their stories.
I would LOVE to see more books like this. I would also like to go check out the community center. They have events!
January 10, 2024
Beautifully written. For some reason I was expecting more of a pre-Denny party history/anthropology and was initially a little disappointed, but instead this has a fairly tight focus on the intersection of the urban and indigenous in Seattle. I don’t really think I had in my head that modern, urban Seattle superseded indigenous life in the area (despite many efforts throughout the last 100ish years), but he pretty thoroughly discredits that notion regardless, while also pointing out how much Seattle has taken on indigenous imagery (and language) as a kind of authenticating emblematic symbol for the city and region.
There was also a quite interesting atlas of native places as a kind of hefty appendix, which unfortunately is not very satisfactory in the kindle version.
There was also a quite interesting atlas of native places as a kind of hefty appendix, which unfortunately is not very satisfactory in the kindle version.
October 30, 2019
Recommended for any Pacific Northwesterner looking to learn about the place where they live. While this is mostly a history book, the author is successful in showing how the Native American communities in and around Seattle have evolved with and been forced to evolve by the non-native communities. The author is not a Native American, but is forthright about that, and has engaged with many of the local tribes in his scholarship.
December 22, 2024
I think the history is really good and I admire the author's depth, but this was quite hard to get through. I still recommend it to those who want their understanding of Seattle to be subverted. A good introduction, though, might be the Duwamish longhouse eco-tour, which is free to the public. It served as an unexpected companion to this book and helped ground me in the academic literature.
May 25, 2019
These are stories that need to be told, but also that need to be heard or read.
July 29, 2021
"This book is great and so well researched and fun and exciting, I never want it to end!"
*literally spends 4 months reading the map in the back*
*literally spends 4 months reading the map in the back*
February 19, 2024
A really interesting look into Seattle's history with Native peoples that focuses on the varying perceptions of events rather than a standard play-by-play of them. The decision to note specific situations, people, conflicts, and phenomenons allows for a philosophical conversation about what each detail means for each viewpoint. In that regard I felt it was a fascinating and very worthwhile read.
There were several moments though where I think the tone of the writing got in the way of its intent, or otherwise made it initially confusing to follow what was being said. Though they were few and far between, these did make me stumble over the words a bit and question the author's phrasing. It can also be quite a dense read at times, and I found it the most rewarding to read in large chunks for long periods of time rather than reading a few pages here and there, as the given conversation at hand often spanned over large chapters that were difficult to get back into if paused part-way through.
The writing style of this book also assumes the reader has some familiarity of this history already, as it tends to focus on specific events or trends rather than some of the most well-known aspects of PNW Native history, such as the Treaty of Point Elliot or siʔaƛ̕ himself. While this isn't inherently a bad thing and the author does well to shine a light on many other people and experiences throughout the timeline of Seattle's founding, I feel this isn't the book to start with when first learning about Native history.
Generally speaking though, it was an engaging book with a lot to offer and I'd be curious to delve into Coll Thrush's other works.
There were several moments though where I think the tone of the writing got in the way of its intent, or otherwise made it initially confusing to follow what was being said. Though they were few and far between, these did make me stumble over the words a bit and question the author's phrasing. It can also be quite a dense read at times, and I found it the most rewarding to read in large chunks for long periods of time rather than reading a few pages here and there, as the given conversation at hand often spanned over large chapters that were difficult to get back into if paused part-way through.
The writing style of this book also assumes the reader has some familiarity of this history already, as it tends to focus on specific events or trends rather than some of the most well-known aspects of PNW Native history, such as the Treaty of Point Elliot or siʔaƛ̕ himself. While this isn't inherently a bad thing and the author does well to shine a light on many other people and experiences throughout the timeline of Seattle's founding, I feel this isn't the book to start with when first learning about Native history.
Generally speaking though, it was an engaging book with a lot to offer and I'd be curious to delve into Coll Thrush's other works.
September 4, 2009
My knowledge of Northwest History has always been sketchy, and the role of Native people in that history even more so.
I really like this book because it describes a complicated issue as complicated, and tries to present a variety of narratives (in the title, he talks about histories in the plural) about the role that Native people have played in the Seattle area.
Throughout, however, his explicitly stated goal is to challenge the so called "myth of tha vanishing indian", which is perhaps the founding myth of this country, according to which the inexorable expansion of cities and "modernity" proceeded along with the demographic and geographic retreat of the indigenous people, and further understands being "indian" and being "urban" as mutually exclusive.
I really like this book because it describes a complicated issue as complicated, and tries to present a variety of narratives (in the title, he talks about histories in the plural) about the role that Native people have played in the Seattle area.
Throughout, however, his explicitly stated goal is to challenge the so called "myth of tha vanishing indian", which is perhaps the founding myth of this country, according to which the inexorable expansion of cities and "modernity" proceeded along with the demographic and geographic retreat of the indigenous people, and further understands being "indian" and being "urban" as mutually exclusive.
May 17, 2018
This is exceptional and necessary. Native Seattle explores the idea that Native America had been and still is an active participant in America's urban landscape. Of course, you might say... why wouldn't this be the case? But the assumption that Native Nations were a mode of the past and that they were mutually exclusive to America's new Euro-based cities, destined to vanish away, is so ingrained as an element of racism in America's place-story as to be taken as fact.
Native Seattle uses the Emerald City as a case study for an academic category of study that, by all fairness, should exist more robustly than it does. What happened, and is happening, in Seattle and the rest of urban America is more surprising and richer than you imagined. Read this book.
Native Seattle uses the Emerald City as a case study for an academic category of study that, by all fairness, should exist more robustly than it does. What happened, and is happening, in Seattle and the rest of urban America is more surprising and richer than you imagined. Read this book.
August 8, 2012
Thrush's main task is two dispel two pervasive myths that "haunt" the city of Seattle and--arguably--locales around the country: that Native Americans are doomed to "vanish;" and that urban and Indian are mutually exclusive terms and experiences. He covers large swaths of the city's history (from before the arrival of the Denny party in 1851 to the early 2000s), at times shortening stories that could've better explained his case. But, in the same breath, he is not afraid to present the relationship between symbol and reality in an ever-changing environment as what it truly is: complicated and layered. This book should serve as a model for future (and much-needed) urban Indian histories.
October 27, 2010
Loved it. What an interesting view of Seattle's history. I can't wait to go back to Seattle and look at some of the places I read about. This may not be as interesting to someone who isn't interested in history...but it is well written. I think if you were from Seattle or lived in Seattle or even visited Seattle a lot, this book would be of interest. I even read the appendix and notes. Anyway, I did have to read it for school, but really enjoyed it. It was not a chore!
October 24, 2012
As much an intellectual history of the construction of Seattle as an idea as it is the history of the landscape on which the city sits, the changing ownership of that land, or a restoration of urban Indians in the face of the myth of the "vanishing Indian." The entirely separate "Atlas of Indigenous Seattle" section of maps in the back of the book displays some truly virtuoso scholarship. If one is curious about the history of Seattle, this strikes me as an excellent place to start.
December 23, 2014
Stumbled upon this book at the Seattle Public Library while visiting the city, and it really spoke to my recent interest in the experiences of the Aboriginal Peoples of the Pacific Northwest - especially the Coat Salish. The book was fascinating, detailing the experiences, for better or for worse, of the original denizens of the Seattle area. The author has done some very detailed research, and has written an engaging account. Very glad I found and read this!
April 3, 2016
Excellent history of Seattle, and of the shifting demographics of the city over time. Thrush chronicles Seattle's historical development, with major events and eras in the city's history reconsidered through a lens of racial politics. The most illuminating history of Seattle I have read, though the book does unfortunately lose steam in the final few chapters. Every city deserves a history like this.
September 21, 2017
I think everyone living in Seattle should read this book to understand the history of so many of the places and institutions that we view as fixed but also to start to think critically about the use of indigenous imagery and stories that are so common in the region. It's a little more academic but for anyone familiar with academic historical writhing or has the patience for academic writing in general, it's a very accessible read.
May 6, 2022
A wonderful history of Seattle as an indigenous land. Fortunately, I grew up aware of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest Native American legacy and presence. Including the people, the rivers, land, villages, cities of the Seattle area to the Salish Sea/Puget Sound, this is a remarkable book. And I’m happy to say the work to incorporate urban, industrial, and tribal awareness continues with the reclamation of the Duwamish River.
December 30, 2024
I picked up this book when I moved to Seattle.
I believe that it is important to know who's land we are living and walking on. Though I am Indigenous to Turtle Island, I am not native to Seattle. I very much enjoyed learning about my Coast Salish and Duwamish relatives.
For as much as this book covers Native history, it does unfortunately "begin" the story with contact and holds very little reflection to what these territories looked like pre-contact.
I believe that it is important to know who's land we are living and walking on. Though I am Indigenous to Turtle Island, I am not native to Seattle. I very much enjoyed learning about my Coast Salish and Duwamish relatives.
For as much as this book covers Native history, it does unfortunately "begin" the story with contact and holds very little reflection to what these territories looked like pre-contact.
September 13, 2015
Excellent, in depth unwinding of the founding of Seattle. Coll resets the default narrative of the Puget Sound (Salt Water) by reclaiming and restoring the indigenous presence and voice to its rightful place. Especially compelling is the atlas he has included. I love seeing the place names and the meaning of those places as described by the original inhabitants.
June 28, 2019
I knew very little about the history of Seattle and the history of Native Americans in this area. This book was a really good introduction to both. I'd like to follow this up with some history that is told from more of a Native American perspective, but this definitely laid some good groundwork for me and gave me some ideas about where to go next in learning more.
July 18, 2021
Native Seattle sets out to answer the question, "What happened here?" The answer is found in countless "place-stories". I loved the concept that the land can be a teacher; and that it has many different narratives to tell over time. The inclusion of indigenous place names brings the native landscapes and stories to life.
March 4, 2009
I appreciated this different view of the role of Indians in Seattle's history. I was especially interested in the account of Seattle's earliest years and how intertwined the settler and Native communities were.
January 8, 2022
Whenever I travel, I buy a book at a local bookstore by a local author and/or about the place I'm exploring. I am so glad the bookstore was showcasing this particular book. It provided a depth & appreciation to my adventure that I would not have found otherwise!
October 1, 2008
Everyone who loves Seattle should read this book.
Makes you think differently about the people around you as you walk around town, the places you go, even the words you use.
Makes you think differently about the people around you as you walk around town, the places you go, even the words you use.
August 9, 2008
Very interesting History of Seattle, from both the "white man" perspective and equal treatment from the "Indian" perspective.
E
E
May 1, 2012
good so far. It was an academic piece, but reads fairly well. It supposedly will connect the modern seattlite with the history of the place
May 8, 2017
An excellent narrative history of the lived experiences of Native people in Seattle. It helped me understand my city in a much deeper and more thorough way. I highly recommend this book.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.