The following is an adapted excerpt from “The Burning of Moses Seattle,” a book about the murder of Chief Seattle’s dwarf grandson, Moses Seattle.
Long after most of Chief Seattle’s people were forced onto reservations, his daughter, Princess Angeline, continued to live on the Seattle waterfront in the town named after the chief. She supported herself and her grandson by weaving baskets and cleaning clothes.
One of the greatest mysteries about Angeline was her odd devotion to laundry. She worked as a laundry woman for the Bagleys, the Fryes, and all the other elite white families of early Seattle. What the whites viewed as drudgery, she undertook with a religious intensity that nobody understood.
Historian Clarence Bagley remembered that if you irritated Angeline while she was washing clothes she would “take her hands out of the water, grab her hat and leave the premises in high indignation, not waiting for leave-taking or even her pay.” Rev. Atwood respected the way Angeline “presided with queenly grace at the wash tub in the parsonage kitchen.” To let her wash clothes in peace, Rev. Atwood had his young son stand by the door to steer people away from walking in on her. Posting a guard also irritated Angeline…