If Seattle is "Indian Country," where are all the Indians ? : representing the past in a settler city

Abstract

This paper will examine the historical representations of Native people in public venues in the Seattle area, and will especially focus on representations in the last century. How did past representations serve the settler-state? How have recent revisions changed Native-settler relations? Are these revisions powerful enough to effect any significant change to the injustices that challenge the persistence and sovereignty of Native political entities? By performing a textual and contextual analysis of public commemorative activities, museum exhibits, historic monuments and markers, this paper will investigate the way Seattle's material culture has been preserved and mobilized for heritage tourism, paying particular attention to the ways that representations of Native people have changed over time. The goal of such an analysis is to reveal some of the meanings these "sites of memory" might convey about the relationship between Native people and the settler colonial society that has displaced them.