why was the whitman massacre important

He wrote well but spelled badly. Snake River, but the disorganized and poorly disciplined troops did not Not only did Spalding invent details that transformed Whitman into a hero but he and others also used these concocted details to raise money and found a college named in the Whitmans honor. Whitman was demanding and inflexible; Spalding, self-righteous and quick-tempered; and Gray was universally disliked. endobj The Whitmans were aware of this practice as shown in a letter held by the Oregon Historical Society in Portland, Oregon. They met briefly with William Clark (1770-1838), the famed explorer, who was serving as Indian Agent at the time. to 500 volunteers. [cited 7 Jul 2018]. The Whitmans and other missionaries struggled against the Cayuse form of life and attempted to get them to establish farms and adopt a settled agricultural life. See this image and copyright information in PMC. But as Hardens research lays out, the story was spun into a golden legend by the fabulist and fellow missionary Henry Spalding. Both these children had been After months of research, students at the University of Oregon have narrowed potential sites where they think five Cayuse men were buried or. Drury came across a copy of the letter in the archives of Whitman College. The story told in Unsettled Ground: The Whitman Massacre and Its Shifting Legacy in the American West begins three decades earlier when Marcus Whitman came west to scout locations for a . Violent death at the hands of tomahawk-slinging hostiles gave the story a stirring shiver of land-stand martyrdom. At 30, Whitman was about six feet tall, muscular and sinewy, with what many thought a stern demeanor. endobj He regarded the Cayuses "as an inferior race & doomed at no distant day to give place to a settlement of enterprising Americans," Perkins wrote in a letter to one of Narcissa's sisters. Our mission is to get Southern California reading and talking. One of the key questions was the role of the Whitmans themselves. Texas Tower shooting of 1966. Whitman, whose suspicion and distrust of "papists" ran deep, would no doubt have been appalled to find himself sharing company in a hall of honor with a Catholic. endobj All these Indian people are getting salaries, theyre getting benefits. A Papal Bull issued in 1493 articulated the Doctrine of Discovery, which laid claim to lands that were not under Christian control. 1:00 This story originally appeared onUnderscore News. A key issue involved Whitman's role as a physician. Four more men were killed during the next few days. 13 0 obj 'Unsettled Ground' examines the shifting legacy of the 1847 Whitman "You are aware already of their habit to kill their own Medicine men as they are commonly called when an excuse offers by the death of some of their friends" (April 8, 1845, ABCFM Collection). National Library of Medicine He had not yet earned the right to put "M.D." Accessibility News of the massacre reached Fort Vancouver early in The incursion of European infectious illnesses proved particularly challenging for shamans. The Whitmans established a Protestant mission on Cayuse land next to the Walla Walla River at Waiilatpu (pronounced Why-ee-lat-poo, meaning "Place of the Rye Grass") in 1836, under the sponsorship of the Boston-based American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. sharing sensitive information, make sure youre on a federal Sources. Land was a key issue with Indians, with whites having very different concepts about it. They quarreled about everything from how to load a wagon to how to pray. [Missionary Medicine of Canadian Presbytery and Korean Doctors under Japanese Occupation--focusing Sung-jin and Ham-heung]. They decided that Whitman would return with the fur company to the East, to organize a missionary party to travel to Oregon Country the next year, while Parker would continue westward with Nez Perce guides to locate mission sites. Before For Native peoples of the Columbia Plateau, illness was attributed to evil spirits that had invaded the body or to the loss of ones own personal spirit. Hoffman, one of the butchers, was killed while furiously defending himself with an ax. The murders became known as the Whitman Massacre. The authors examine the historical record, including archived correspondence held at the Yale University Libraries and elsewhere, for evidence of what motivated the killings and demonstrate that there were two valid perspectives, Cayuse and white. The connection to land for Indians was spiritual but was viewed as pagan by white people. degree, and make a better living as a doctor. In all, there were 14 victims of the massacre. wars plagued the Pacific Northwest; but the Cayuse were never again a Treatments included bleedings, purgatives, and various other interventions to balance the humors. By that time, the Spaldings had already left Prattsburg for what they still assumed would be a mission in Missouri. 31 0 obj 1994 Spring;95(1):647. He proposed, and they agreed, that he leave immediately for Boston to try to persuade the board to change its mind. Recognition of their special powers came early in life after successful spirit quests in which they had encountered their personal spirit and later when their special powers to manipulate spirits became apparent. The timing was critical: The party would have to leave upstate New York by late February in order to join the fur company's caravan before it left Missouri. Upon returning to his own home, he then stabbed his wife to death. He had wanted to train for the ministry but was denied the opportunity by his uncle who urged him to become a medical doctor. he asked. It was estimated to have up to 1,000 emigrants and 120 wagons. Gift-giving was an essential part of social and political interaction in Cayuse life; the missionaries regarded the practice as extortion. Marcus Whitman statue (Avard Fairbanks, 1953), Statuary Hall, Washington, D.C. HistoryLink.org Photo by Glenn Drosendahl. In Cayuse culture, a medicine man ("te-wat," or shaman) whose patients died could be suspected of sorcery and subject to death himself. Whitman Massacre "My Grand Father and Uncle were both pious & gave me constant religious instruction and care," Whitman wrote (June 3, 1834, ABCFM Collection). They were killed by a small group of Cayuse men who accused Whitman of poisoning 200 Cayuse in his medical care during an outbreak of measles that included the Whitman household. <>/P 24 0 R/S/Link>> [3] The killings occurred at the Whitman Mission at the junction of the Walla Walla River and Mill Creek, in what is now southeastern Washington near Walla Walla. Shamans or te-wats, Indian medicine men, were believed not only to have the power to remove the spiritual causes of disease, but also to induce evil spirits through sorcery. The .gov means its official. Whitman 'Massacre': Are we past the whitewashing of history? Roster of Victims of the Massacre. In Boyd R. The Pacific Northwest measles epidemic of 18471848. He spent the rest of the winter there, working on arrangements for what was now officially the American Board's Oregon Mission. The Spaldings were in Prattsburg, visiting friends before leaving for Missouri, when they received a letter from Whitman, begging them to go to Oregon instead. "I think I should wish to take a wife, if the service of the board would admit," he wrote in his original application, on June 3, 1834 (ABCFM Collection). Much of that correspondence and that of others relating to them has been preserved as manuscripts in archives at the Oregon Historical Society, Whitman College, and the Coe Collection at the Beinecke Library at Yale University. Articles with the HISTORY.com Editors byline have been written or edited by the HISTORY.com editors, including Amanda Onion, Missy Sullivan, Matt Mullen and Christian Zapata. Whitman finished his term on January 23, 1826, and was granted a medical license the following May. The fraud that inspired the settling of the Pacific Northwest Governor Abernethy and the provisional legislature sent emissaries to Whitman met with members of the board in a special session on April 4. 12 0 obj With the exception of David Main and the two Manson "Are females wanted?" The Oregon Territory was established on August 14, 1848 to protect the immigrant settlers. Meanwhile, discord within the missionary community was reaching a crisis point. Meanwhile, he traveled to Ithaca, New York, to meet with Parker and discuss details of the trip in person. Whitman had already indicated a willingness to get married if necessary to become a missionary. 20565.pp. prisoners were exchanged for 62 blankets, 63 shirts, 12 guns, 600 loads He was heavily influenced by Elisha Loomis (1799-1836), a native of Rushville who had served as a missionary in Hawaii for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions-- a Boston-based organization that sponsored Presbyterian and Congregational missions around the world. Epidemics of smallpox and measles with very high rates of mortality carried away whole villages and could reduce native populations to mere shadows of their former selves. He lived at first in the home of one of the elders of the Wheeler Presbyterian Church. The Cayuse would hand over the guilty and there would be no war. Changing the day will navigate the page to that given day in history. As a library, NLM provides access to scientific literature. In the drive west, lands were wrested from their original indigenous inhabitants. All five were found guilty (although one of them probably took no part endobj The "Whitman Massacre" spurred Congress to establish federal control over the present-day states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming. They selected a spot approximately two miles up Lapwai Creek and built a crude . It was a premeditated, vicious attack that originally entered the annals of the Pacific Northwest as the Whitman Massacre. However, two perspectives must be considered, and the event is better termed the Whitman Tragedy. Among the many factors, the Indians views on the measles epidemic were crucial. HHS Vulnerability Disclosure, Help 1895, Whitman Mission at Waiilatpu by William Henry Jackson, Courtesy National Park Service (SCBL 151), The Free Encyclopedia of Washington State History. The many factors leading up to the tragedy were interlocking, making it seem almost inevitable. The site is secure. As one tribal member told Harden, Seeing all those white people playing those slot machines We got our water back and our fish back. "Very evident tokens gave us to understand that our company was not agreeable, such as the throwing of rotten eggs at me," Whitman wrote to David Greene (May 10, 1839, ABCFM Collection). Universities follow the money, Julie and Todd Chrisleys nightmare prison conditions from no air conditioning to rattlesnakes, kids say, Taylor Swift is about to boost L.A.s economy. Soc Sci Med. The American Board was less enthusiastic than Parker about establishing an Oregon mission, and agreed to sponsor his efforts only if he could raise most of the money and recruit volunteers himself. The murders became known as the "Whitman Massacre." Last week, officials in Washington mandated the removal from the U.S. Capitol of the statue of a man long seen as the states savior, correcting a destructive myth about how the Oregon Territory came into the United States. On investigating what had been described as the Whitman Massacre and the role of measles in provoking the killings, author Booss noted that a book he had been studying needed repair and restoration. Indians who desired them for wives. Closely linked to differing concepts about the land was the ever-increasing size of the immigrant wagon trains going through and despoiling Cayuse territory. United States history [1847] Learn about this topic in these articles: role of Whitman In Marcus Whitman The Whitman Massacre directed national attention to the difficulties faced by settlers in the Far West and contributed to early passage of a bill to organize the Oregon Territory (1848). The Cayuses were puzzled to see men putting up a shelter. He was "a strong temperance man" who campaigned tirelessly against the use of alcohol (Wakeman). : Rainy Day Press, 1981 . An Indian known as Tomahas aided by another, Tiloukait, buried a hatchet in the skull of the unsuspecting Marcus. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. He also said that Spalding should be retained at Lapwai; that three of the most quarrelsome missionaries had already withdrawn, and the others -- including himself and Spalding -- had reconciled. Whitman, whose professional and religious activities often took him to Prattsburg, had once attended a prayer meeting in the Prentiss home. The missionaries seemed to believe that a fixed location would promote the adoption of Christianity. When Cayuse headmen demanded payment for their land and timber, in keeping with white notions about private property, Whitman was offended and refused. It also demonstrated the perspectives of the Cayuse Indians, including fears about the introduction of diseases. He was never photographed, but acquaintances said he resembled his brothers. Whitman massacre - Wikiwand uuid:24e3ce45-b5fb-11b2-0a00-10964283fe7f Whitman, a former Eagle Scout and Marine, began to suffer serious mental problems after his mother left his father in March 1966. endobj 6 writers chart a course, Actor Richard E. Grant processed his grief by writing and name-dropping, How Ann Patchett puts her moral core into her novels, The untold story of Californias most iconic outdoor bookshop, Can politics, fiction and podcasting mesh? Blaine Harden, whose latest book, Murder at the Mission, dismantles that myth, grew up in Washington, the son of a man who helped build the Grand Coulee Dam, the mightiest thing ever built by a man, as Woody Guthrie sang. Scores of other pioneers were held captive. "Their being absent so much of the time is exceedingly trying to us," Narcissa complained (Letters, January 1, 1840). 1987;24(12):1051-60. doi: 10.1016/0277-9536(87)90020-7. Sales and Bewley, sick in bed at the time of the massacre, were killed 8 days later. They were killed by a small group of Cayuse men who accused Whitman of poisoning 200 Cayuse in his medical care during an outbreak of measles that included the Whitman household. Modern studies tracked measles north from California. The Prentisses quickly prospered with landholdings and mills . Unfortunately the doctor didnt follow up on this red flag. A French-Canadian hired hand and three mixed-race boys (including one who had been raised by the Whitmans) were allowed to leave. He has reported out of North Korea, war-torn Yugoslavia and many locations in Africa. She had had a miscarriage less than four weeks earlier, and he wondered if she was strong enough for a trip across the continent. <>2]/P 6 0 R/Pg 9 0 R/S/Link>> application/pdf <>10]/P 19 0 R/Pg 9 0 R/S/Link>> Lay theory of healing in northwestern New Spain. When Gov. 2003 Mar;10(1):28-36. doi: 10.1046/j.1440-1800.2003.00159.x. The Cayuse were not converted. weary wanderers. It was then, she wrote to the American Board, that she decided to "consecrate myself without reserve" to missionary work and someday "go to the heathen" (February 23, 1835, ABCFM Collection). Rethinking the Whitman Massacre; Historians attempt to demythologize Boyd R. The Pacific Northwest measles epidemic of 18471848. Without the collections of primary documents, we would be dependent on secondary sources and the bias of the times in which they were compiled. . "I am so nervous that I cannot govern my hand," he wrote (November 25, 1845, cited in Drury, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, Vol. UO students search for Cayuse Five's burial site, hanged in Oregon City At other times, while the massive herds of buffalo still existed on the Great Plains, the Indian men would go over the mountains to hunt. In mid-January 1835, Whitman learned that the American Board had accepted his application and assigned him to accompany Parker on a scouting expedition to the West in the spring. The remaining survivors -- mostly women and children -- were held as hostages for a month and then ransomed by Hudson's Bay company officials from Fort Vancouver. He arrived in Amity on February 21, 1835. Relations between the couple and their hosts were initially cordial. She deferred to the Bible, specifically Mark 16:15: "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." Whitman Mission NHS: Administrative History (Chapter 6) When we talked in early April via video, he admitted that hed never really thought about the connection between the electricity powering his house and the history of the Columbia River. people who would pursue the way of high principles and ideals. 83540-9715, Download the official NPS app before your next visit. The chiefs eventually agreed that they themselves would not take action against the missionaries but they would no longer take responsibility for whatever their young men might do. In a frank appraisal written a year after the attack, Reverend Henry K. Perkins (1812-1884), a Methodist missionary who had known him well, said Whitman was too impatient and arrogant to succeed as a missionary. What were the various reasons for why the Whitman Massacre took place? It has been said by RC Heizer that measles was the spark that lit the fuse. Marcus was also driven to save the souls of pagans. Three of the Indians were actually Nez Perce; the fourth was of mixed Nez Perce and Flathead heritage; none had flattened heads; and the real purpose of their visit is unknown. He is counted as the 14th victim of the "Whitman Massacre.". Whitman Massacre Links. "I was accustomed to tend a carding machine when I was a boy," he wrote in a letter dated April 13, 1846 (ABCFM Collection). The missionaries Marcus Whitman, a doctor, and Narcissa Whitman, his wife, and twelve other members of the Waiilatpu Mission were murdered in November 1847 by a small contingent of the Cayuse Indians in the Oregon Territory. We made an economy. Narcissa Prentiss had been born and lived most of her life in Prattsburg. 23 0 obj Salmon have returned to waters the tribe has fought to restore, and the tribes casino has funded related businesses and the buyback of reservation lands. Whitman began to consider relocating to the Willamette Valley but was torn between his desire to leave and his belief that he had a duty to stay. / January 28, 2021 In "Unsettled Ground: The Whitman Massacre and Its Shifting Legacy in the American West," author Cassandra Tate examines the death of Washington missionaries Marcus Whitman. A few days later wild Alerted by a phone call only minutes after Whitman began shooting at the mall, police arrived quickly . After 2 years of wandering and hardships, the Cayuse endobj . Two of them barged . By the time she was a year and a half old, Alice Clarissa was babbling in both English and Nez Perce -- the primary language spoken by the Cayuses. In the fall of 1847, a measles epidemic brought Whitman's relations with the Cayuses to the breaking point. Until "the benighted Indians" adopted a settled, agrarian lifestyle, they could not be exposed to "the benefit of constant instruction" from the missionaries. Correspondence held in major archives including that of the Coe Collection at the Beinecke Library at Yale University, the Oregon Historical Association, and the Whitman College Archives offered insights into the Whitmans aspirations and fears. Drury CM. He could also be thin-skinned, defensive, and, especially in his later years, self-aggrandizing. At least 30 of the 200 or so Cayuses living near the mission died between the first of October and the end of November and the sick could be found in almost every lodge. came to an end in the Pacific Northwest. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the March 1848 the remains, which again had been disturbed by wolves, were We are going to be okay. All it took was harnessing the white mans greed, just as the white man had harnessed their water. At the beginning of January 1837, Eliza began to teach and Henry began to preach among the Nez Perce. In 1836, Henry and Eliza Spalding accompanied Marcus and Narcissa Whitman over the Rocky Mountains to open missions in the Pacific Northwest. Natives believed that shamans with sufficient power could cause disease as well as cure it. He argued that Waiilatpu was the most strategically located of all the missions. Today, the story of the Whitmans serves to inspire all It was believed that use of the sweat lodge followed by immersion in cold streams hastened death from severe illness and contributed in part to the markedly greater mortality of Indians during epidemics. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. With respect to appropriation of the land, Euro-Americans, from the first trappers to the influx of settlers, behaved as if the land was theirs for the taking, disregarding the rights of the indigenous peoples who had lived on the land for eons. Both came to their deep piety by way of the Second Great Awakening, and both shared a com- He looked upon them as an inferior race & doomed at no distant day to give place to a settlement of enterprising AmericansIndeed it might almost be doubted whether he felt half the interest in the Natives that he did in the prospective white population. For Harden, it was an elementary school play about the Whitman massacre, the slaying of the couple and 11 other white men by a delegation from the Cayuse tribe in 1847. FOIA attacked. 2008;31(1-2):49-66. doi: 10.7202/019754ar. Narcissa showed the child's body to a Cayuse headman, in an effort to prove the disease was claiming white as well as Indian lives, but the gesture failed to allay suspicions that Whitman, the medicine man, was practicing sorcery against the Cayuses. Without it, he said, "papists" (Catholic missionaries) would have free rein among the Indians. too, left for Oregon City. A few months later she sent Marcus, then 8, to live with his grandfather, Samuel Whitman, and uncle, Freedom Whitman, in the village of Cumminton, in western Massachusetts. There was a chimney and fireplace but no windows and only blankets to cover the door. Unpacking the history of white settlement in the Pacific Northwest means dealing with one of the regions founding myths: how killings at a small mission in what is now eastern Washington led to the establishment of the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho. In fact, relations among all the members of the American Board's Oregon Mission -- including four couples who arrived as reinforcements in 1838 -- were contentious. He and Narcissa were married in the Angelica Presbyterian Church on the evening of February 19, 1836. Charles Whitman takes a stockpile of guns and ammunition to the observatory platform atop a 300-foot tower at the University of Texas and proceeds to shoot 46 people, killing 14 people and . Disclaimer. My name is Stephenie Flora. 2015 Dec;24(3):621-57. doi: 10.13081/kjmh.2015.24.621. Of this number, Mrs. Whitman was the only woman. The massacre is usually ascribed to the inability of Whitman, a physician, to prevent the measles outbreak. His stepfather, Calvin Loomis (1766-1840), had taken over Beza Whitman's businesses: the tannery, the shoe shop, and the tavern. After the murders of the Whitmans, Reverend HKW Perkins attempted to explain to Narcissas sister, Jane, the role of the Whitman personalities in the tragedy. source of real trouble. ." "They have been saying I caused the death of [a] young man who died of apoplexy," Whitman wrote to Greene. Whitman Mission NHS: Administrative History (Chapter 2) . With her death, an important bond between the missionaries and the Cayuses was broken. Both were from western New York State, a farming district known as the Burned Over District. It had earned that name because of a series of religious revivals in the first third of the nineteenth century. Whitman developed good experience as a doctor and was counted a fine physician. The board received a steady stream of letters from various missionaries complaining about each other. When the emigrants did A. Brouillet (1813-1884), who had helped bury the dead at the Whitman Mission. The Cayuse called it Waiilatpu, or "Place of the Rye Grass." Based in Hippocratic thought, most of Euro-American medicine until then was oriented toward material concepts. Nurs Inq. The missionaries disapproved of their intemperate habits, and the men, in turn, resented the presence of the missionaries. A few weeks after the killings, four Cayuse chiefs sent a message to George Abernethy (1807-1877), the provisional governor of Oregon, asking "That the Americans not go to war with the Cayuses" and that they "forget the lately committed murders, as the Cayuses will forget the murder of the son of the great chief of Walla Walla" and other grievances (Brouillet, 61-62).