Chief Seattle is widely known for having supposedly given a speech in which he lamented the destructiveness of the white people. However, while he did give a speech in 1854, in which he thanked the U.S. president for buying his land, the widely circulated 'speech' which exists in various versions is a work of fiction written in 1971 by screenwriter and professor of film Ted Perry for the script of an ecological film Home, produced for the Southern Baptist Convention's Radio and Television Commission.