Battle of Seattle (1856) - After The Battle

After The Battle

News of the attack spread rapidly. By 4 p.m. it was known in Bellingham. At noon the day after the battle, Active steamed into Elliott Bay, Governor Stevens aboard. Stevens was, in Phelps's words, "at last compelled to acknowledge the presence of hostile Indians in the Territory." Active headed south in the direction of Steilacoom which seemed the most likely next target of an attack, dropping the governor at Olympia on the way.

Yark-eke-e-man reported that the hostile chiefs were ill-provisioned, because, confident of victory, they expected to provision themselves from the settlers' supplies. They spent the next several weeks scouring the land for food.

Two days after the battle, Coquilton threatened, through a messenger, "that within one moon he would return with twenty thousand warriors, and, attacking by land and water, destroy the place in spite of all the war-ship could do to prevent." The threat was taken seriously, and it was decided that Seattle's defenses must be improved. Henry Yesler volunteered ship's cargo of house lumber and on February 1 Decatur's divisions began a two-week's project to erect two fences five feet high, placed eighteen inches apart, and filled in with well-tamped earth, 1,200 yards (1,100 m) long, and enclosing a large portion of the town. A second block-house was also erected, and an old ship's cannon plus a 6-pounder field-piece borrowed from Active functioned as its artillery.

Trees and undergrowth were removed (variously attacked with levers, axes, and shovels, or burned in place) to provide an esplanade and enable Decatur's howitzer to sweep the shores. Much brush was also cleared from the town's inland edges, to reduce the cover for future attacks. On February 24, USS Massachusetts arrived and on March 28 USS John Hancock.

In the event, the well-defended town did not face a second battle. Defeat in the Battle of Seattle had discouraged the hostile natives; they did not again amass a comparable force, and (especially with the naval presence) Seattle was now a much better defended town. Furthermore, Governor Stevens had convinced Patkanim and his men to take on the role of bounty hunters, paying them handsomely for the scalps of leaders of the hostile tribes, a task at which he was gruesomely successful. Morgan does not describe the battle as a victory for the Americans. Rather, he writes that "both sides were dismayed, the whites by the realization that the enemy really would attack a town, the Indians by their first experience with exploding shells rather than cannonballs."

Also by Stevens order, a court-martial convened at Seattle on May 15 for the trial of Klakum and twenty other Indians; the military trial acquitted them, deeming their actions as having been legitimate warfare, not criminal acts, and they were released after a declaration of peace. It was certainly not the end of violence between settlers and natives in the region, but it was the end of outright war.

Nine days after the battle Chief Leschi and Chief Kitsap, along with a group of 17 Indians, appeared at the home of John McLeod near the Nisqually River. McLeod was a former employee of the Hudson's Bay Company and had a Nisqually wife, and was trusted by the hostile Indians. Leschi said neither he nor his band had taken part in the attack on Seattle and that he thought the attack had been foolish. Leschi also asked that John Swan, another trusted white man, visit Leschi's camp on the Green River for a peace conference. When Swan did visit Leschi's camp a few days later, he counted about 150 men of fighting age. Nearly all were from west of the Cascades, with only 10-20 from the east.