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Murder at the Mission: A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the American West
The
New York Times
bestselling author of
Escape From Camp 14
returns with the riveting and revealing story of one of the most persistent "alternative facts" in American history: the story of a missionary, a tribe, a massacre, and a myth that shaped the American West
In 1836, two missionaries and their wives were among the first Americans to cross the Rockies by covered wagon on what would become the Oregon Trail. Dr. Marcus Whitman and Reverend Henry Spalding were headed to present-day Washington state and Idaho, where they aimed to convert members of the Cayuse and Nez Perce tribes. Both would fail spectacularly as missionaries. But Spalding would succeed as a propagandist, inventing a story that recast his friend as a hero, and helped to fuel the massive westward migration that would eventually lead to the devastation of those they had purportedly set out to save.
As Spalding told it, after uncovering a British and Catholic plot to steal the Oregon Territory from the United States, Whitman undertook a heroic solo ride across the country to alert the President. In fact, he had traveled to Washington to save his own job. Soon after his return, Whitman, his wife, and eleven others were massacred by a group of Cayuse. Though they had ample reason - Whitman supported the explosion of white migration that was encroaching on their territory, and seemed to blame for a deadly measles outbreak - the Cayuse were portrayed as murderous savages. Five were executed.
This fascinating, impeccably researched narrative traces the ripple effect of these events across the century that followed. While the Cayuse eventually lost the vast majority of their territory, thanks to the efforts of Spalding and others who turned the story to their own purposes, Whitman was celebrated well into the middle of the 20th century for having "saved Oregon." Accounts of his heroic exploits appeared in congressional documents, The New York Times, and Life magazine, and became a central founding myth of the Pacific Northwest.
Exposing the hucksterism and self-interest at the root of American myth-making, Murder at the Mission reminds us of the cost of American expansion, and of the problems that can arise when history is told only by the victors.
In 1836, two missionaries and their wives were among the first Americans to cross the Rockies by covered wagon on what would become the Oregon Trail. Dr. Marcus Whitman and Reverend Henry Spalding were headed to present-day Washington state and Idaho, where they aimed to convert members of the Cayuse and Nez Perce tribes. Both would fail spectacularly as missionaries. But Spalding would succeed as a propagandist, inventing a story that recast his friend as a hero, and helped to fuel the massive westward migration that would eventually lead to the devastation of those they had purportedly set out to save.
As Spalding told it, after uncovering a British and Catholic plot to steal the Oregon Territory from the United States, Whitman undertook a heroic solo ride across the country to alert the President. In fact, he had traveled to Washington to save his own job. Soon after his return, Whitman, his wife, and eleven others were massacred by a group of Cayuse. Though they had ample reason - Whitman supported the explosion of white migration that was encroaching on their territory, and seemed to blame for a deadly measles outbreak - the Cayuse were portrayed as murderous savages. Five were executed.
This fascinating, impeccably researched narrative traces the ripple effect of these events across the century that followed. While the Cayuse eventually lost the vast majority of their territory, thanks to the efforts of Spalding and others who turned the story to their own purposes, Whitman was celebrated well into the middle of the 20th century for having "saved Oregon." Accounts of his heroic exploits appeared in congressional documents, The New York Times, and Life magazine, and became a central founding myth of the Pacific Northwest.
Exposing the hucksterism and self-interest at the root of American myth-making, Murder at the Mission reminds us of the cost of American expansion, and of the problems that can arise when history is told only by the victors.
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Published April 27, 2021
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About the author
Blaine Harden
9 books263 followersHarden is an author and journalist who worked for The Washington Post for 28 years as a correspondent in Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia, as well as in New York and Seattle. He was also a national correspondent for The New York Times and writer for the Times Magazine. He has contributed to The Economist and PBS Frontline.
Harden's newest book, "Murder at the Mission: A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the
American West." New York Times columnist Tim Egan calls it a "terrific" deconstruction of a Big Lie about the West. The LA Times calls the book "terrifically readable." The Spokesman Review (Spokane, Wa.) raves that Murder at the Mission is "a richly detailed and expertly researched account of how a concocted story...became a part of American legend.
Harden is also the author of "King of Spies" (Viking/Penguin 2017), "The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot" (Viking/Penguin, 2015), "Escape From Camp 14" (Viking/Penguin 2012) and "A River Lost" (Norton, revised and updated edition 2012).
Harden's newest book, "Murder at the Mission: A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the
American West." New York Times columnist Tim Egan calls it a "terrific" deconstruction of a Big Lie about the West. The LA Times calls the book "terrifically readable." The Spokesman Review (Spokane, Wa.) raves that Murder at the Mission is "a richly detailed and expertly researched account of how a concocted story...became a part of American legend.
Harden is also the author of "King of Spies" (Viking/Penguin 2017), "The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot" (Viking/Penguin, 2015), "Escape From Camp 14" (Viking/Penguin 2012) and "A River Lost" (Norton, revised and updated edition 2012).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 111 reviews
January 17, 2022
I started this book not knowing the names of Marcus Whitman or Henry Spalding but I was curious to find out about the events and the myth behind them.
It is not for me to judge where the truth lies, however, the author presents the history quite convincingly and I am glad I chose this non-fiction. The background of the Oregon Trail and the relations with and attitudes towards the Native Americans were an extra bonus, so was the description of the rivalry between the churches to win the hearts and minds of the indigenous people. That was the bit I was totally unaware of.
OverDrive, thank you!
It is not for me to judge where the truth lies, however, the author presents the history quite convincingly and I am glad I chose this non-fiction. The background of the Oregon Trail and the relations with and attitudes towards the Native Americans were an extra bonus, so was the description of the rivalry between the churches to win the hearts and minds of the indigenous people. That was the bit I was totally unaware of.
OverDrive, thank you!
March 7, 2021
Oh man, this should be required reading for every Whitman College grad. As a Whittie and Oregon resident I was keenly interested in the subject, and Blaine Harden's previous books have all been fantastic. "Murder at the Mission" did not disappoint. I appreciated the long look at Whitman and his legacy - not just his life and the context, but the historical lie that developed following his death and how it was promulgated. I had no idea it played such foundational role in my alma mater's survival. As with Harden's other books, this is thoroughly researched and about as much of a page-turner as any account of historians and missionaries engaged in bitter rivalries can be.
February 17, 2022
Blew my mind. Every child in Washington state should have to read this book.
October 9, 2021
Great deconstruction of an old myth and the damage it did. For generations, the story of the death of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman read like a Christian morality play. Blending service to the expanding American empire with evangelical Protestant Christianity, the story cast the two as heroically venturing to the wild to save indigenous souls from darkness. They even threw in a dramatic cross-country ride in which Marcus Whitman rode to DC to convince the President to keep Oregon in the US and not let the British take it. The American Indians, in this case, served as ungrateful savages who turned on the innocent missionaries and slaughtered them. In this book, Blaine Harden shows how much of this story was absolute garbage. The Whitmans were not mild mannered lambs led to slaughter. They knowingly pushed in where they weren't wanted, ignored the advice of longtime Oregonians and misused the tribespeople around them. They invited large wagonloads of whites to come take Indian land from its rightful owners. It is doubtful they were as interested in saving Indian souls as they were in turning Oregon into a white farmer paradise. And the story of Whitman saving Oregon for the US by riding to Washington to warn President Tyler of British designs on the territory. In fact, Whitman had been ordered by his superiors to leave the Oregon mission because of infighting with other missionaries and troubling reports they were bothering the tribe they were supposed to be serving. Whitman's ride was simply to convince them to allow the mission to remain open. And while the deaths served as a tragedy, the Whitmans had escalated the tensions with their neighbors to the fatal level. But the story of the righteous martyrs to Christian white nationalism served a useful purpose. The Cayuse tribe, to whom the killers belonged, became the savage villains of the story, with no one listening to their side. Five Cayuse warriors, accused of the crime, were hanged for it. Only one of them had been involved. The tribe's land was stolen from them at an alarming rate as the US punished the Cayuse to the third and fourth generations. But the story has a silver lining. As real historians exposed the myth, descendants of the Cayuse learned to fight a white man's battle in the courts and won back control of much of their land and resources. They have also begun to change the narrative surrounding the Whitmans. This is a great case study for why it is so vital to teach REAL American History. Myths have consequences.
April 29, 2022
Thoroughly disappointed. Undoubtedly, there were lies and legends spread about Marcus Whitman and the calamitous events of 1847. Westbound settlers and following generations certainly committed atrocities against the native people of the land, and this cannot be ignored in the slightest, nor lightly brushed aside. However, the author of this book is not an historian; he is a critic. He writes with an underlying tone that seems both condescending and morally superior. I get frustrated as a reader when a writer hides behind the banner of “history” to convey obvious bias and opinion. It should not be called a history, but rather a critique of historical events. I have no doubt the history he writes is true, but it is so skewed through his personal lens with no attempt at objectivity that I was left feeling beat over the head. I like this recent quote from Victor Davis Hanson: “Critics assume their own judgmental generation is morally superior to those of the past. So they use their own standards to condemn the mute dead who supposedly do not measure up to them.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.
People are complex beings. There is so much nuance to history and in every historical period there have been both noble and evil actors. But I don’t believe for a second that we somehow have moral superiority in 2022 over those who lived in 1847, whatever their race or religion. Evil is in the heart of man, and that will never change no matter how far we progress in humanity.
People are complex beings. There is so much nuance to history and in every historical period there have been both noble and evil actors. But I don’t believe for a second that we somehow have moral superiority in 2022 over those who lived in 1847, whatever their race or religion. Evil is in the heart of man, and that will never change no matter how far we progress in humanity.
July 29, 2021
This nonfiction book centering around the Whitman Mission Massacre of 1847 reads like a novel for about half the book. It's a page turner throughout. Narcissa and Dr. Marcus Whitman, Eliza and Rev. Henry Spalding were the first Protestant missionaries to reach the Indian tribes west of the Rockies. Their stories read like adventure tales up to the time the Whitmans and eleven others were killed by Cayuse Indians at the mission near Walla Walla, Washington.
This book engages the reader and is a composite of history of the settling of the western United States from the mid 1800s to the present day. That much of white settlement and mistreatment and genocide of the Indians resulted from myths about Dr. Whitman and the massacre is perhaps little known today. The author has researched extensively and presents eye-opening facts about the settlement of the west, especially in the Pacific Northwest.
The 432 page book is not as lengthy as it is hefty. The last 70 pages contain acknowledgments, notes, bibliography, and a helpful index detailing Harden's extensive explorations and research.
The myths debunked in this book (and a few others previously) center on Dr. Whitman's supposed saving of Oregon for God and country by revealing a supposed British-Catholic plot to steal the territory, and non-factual causes of the Whitman killings at the mission. The results of these myths widely believed for several decades served to exploit and decimate Indian nations, destroy their cultures, and steal their lands. Treatment of the Indian tribes following the mission killings made way for further white settlement and development of western lands.
The only benefit of the myths fabricated and spread by eccentric missionary Henry Spalding following the Whitman deaths, was to a small private college in Walla Walla, Washington: Whitman College. A long-time president of the college that began in the 1890s made use of the lies about Marcus Whitman to raise enough funds for the college to keep it operating. After historical and reliable research eventually debunked the myths, a college president in the 1970s made sure the Whitman stories were allowed to fade into oblivion. A bronze statue of Marcus Whitman was moved to a remote portion of college property near a railroad track.
The author follows the consequences of the Whitman myths into the 20th and 21st centuries, reminding readers of how Indian tribes have suffered from the wrath and disregard of white settlers and the perfidy, neglect, and broken treaties by the U.S. government. The Cayuse, Umatilla, and Nez Perce tribes are mainly referred to in this book, but tribes in the Midwest were also affected by the anti-Indian fervor of the times.
Despite improvements in federal laws and appropriations for Indian nations that began with President Richard Nixon in the 1970s and economic opportunities for the tribes, notably casino operations, heartaches remain. Many in the Cayuse tribe remember the trauma of being demonized and isolated as a result of the Whitman myths.
The book is a sad reminder of how widely-accepted lies, hatred, and apathy can have lasting and widespread effects.
This book engages the reader and is a composite of history of the settling of the western United States from the mid 1800s to the present day. That much of white settlement and mistreatment and genocide of the Indians resulted from myths about Dr. Whitman and the massacre is perhaps little known today. The author has researched extensively and presents eye-opening facts about the settlement of the west, especially in the Pacific Northwest.
The 432 page book is not as lengthy as it is hefty. The last 70 pages contain acknowledgments, notes, bibliography, and a helpful index detailing Harden's extensive explorations and research.
The myths debunked in this book (and a few others previously) center on Dr. Whitman's supposed saving of Oregon for God and country by revealing a supposed British-Catholic plot to steal the territory, and non-factual causes of the Whitman killings at the mission. The results of these myths widely believed for several decades served to exploit and decimate Indian nations, destroy their cultures, and steal their lands. Treatment of the Indian tribes following the mission killings made way for further white settlement and development of western lands.
The only benefit of the myths fabricated and spread by eccentric missionary Henry Spalding following the Whitman deaths, was to a small private college in Walla Walla, Washington: Whitman College. A long-time president of the college that began in the 1890s made use of the lies about Marcus Whitman to raise enough funds for the college to keep it operating. After historical and reliable research eventually debunked the myths, a college president in the 1970s made sure the Whitman stories were allowed to fade into oblivion. A bronze statue of Marcus Whitman was moved to a remote portion of college property near a railroad track.
The author follows the consequences of the Whitman myths into the 20th and 21st centuries, reminding readers of how Indian tribes have suffered from the wrath and disregard of white settlers and the perfidy, neglect, and broken treaties by the U.S. government. The Cayuse, Umatilla, and Nez Perce tribes are mainly referred to in this book, but tribes in the Midwest were also affected by the anti-Indian fervor of the times.
Despite improvements in federal laws and appropriations for Indian nations that began with President Richard Nixon in the 1970s and economic opportunities for the tribes, notably casino operations, heartaches remain. Many in the Cayuse tribe remember the trauma of being demonized and isolated as a result of the Whitman myths.
The book is a sad reminder of how widely-accepted lies, hatred, and apathy can have lasting and widespread effects.
October 25, 2022
We've heard one side of this story often. . .pious men and the first white women to plan, settle and make a home, centered around their faith. Home, their way, over those challenging mountains.
Blaine Harden's book is the other side of the coin, a story we should have heard long ago, but there were few voices rising over the mainstream chant of manifest destiny. There are ears to hear now, and he's filling them. Some may have a hard time with this point of view, but this Reader was very pleased to have some sunlight on the other side of the story. Murder is horrific no matter who does the killing and who is the killed. However, motivations are truly worth considering - the whys and wherefors of desperate acts can educate all of us. After all, that is the job of justice, to weigh both (all) sides. This read was wide open and provided special protection to no one.
There are other sides of the story that feel forced and contrived. This is not. This is truth. Our past is filled with all kinds of uncomfortable truths. This is one of them, and we should consider it fully from all sides, and make sure we share histories from all sides with our children - as they are the inheritors of past generations' consequences. The more information they have, the better tools they will have for solutions, resolutions and reconciliations, if such can be found.
Blaine Harden's book is the other side of the coin, a story we should have heard long ago, but there were few voices rising over the mainstream chant of manifest destiny. There are ears to hear now, and he's filling them. Some may have a hard time with this point of view, but this Reader was very pleased to have some sunlight on the other side of the story. Murder is horrific no matter who does the killing and who is the killed. However, motivations are truly worth considering - the whys and wherefors of desperate acts can educate all of us. After all, that is the job of justice, to weigh both (all) sides. This read was wide open and provided special protection to no one.
There are other sides of the story that feel forced and contrived. This is not. This is truth. Our past is filled with all kinds of uncomfortable truths. This is one of them, and we should consider it fully from all sides, and make sure we share histories from all sides with our children - as they are the inheritors of past generations' consequences. The more information they have, the better tools they will have for solutions, resolutions and reconciliations, if such can be found.
June 28, 2021
Every time I finish a book about this part of history (such as Debra Gwartney's I am a stranger here myself or Cassandra Tate's Unsettled Ground), I think to myself, "That's it. I've read enough on this topic." But inevitably, another one will come along and I will read it too...
They are all good and for different reasons. For me, this account shed fascinating light on the role of Spalding and of the eponymous college (of which I am a proud alum) in perpetuating the myth. But what I most appreciated were the voices of the Cayuse people.
They are all good and for different reasons. For me, this account shed fascinating light on the role of Spalding and of the eponymous college (of which I am a proud alum) in perpetuating the myth. But what I most appreciated were the voices of the Cayuse people.
February 8, 2023
Reading books like this usually makes me angry and yet I can't stop doing it! I wasn't familiar with the names Marcus Whitman or Henry Spalding but as a lover of history I am fairly acquainted with American myth-making and "alternative facts", and this great book is an excellent example of how a bunch of malarkey grows legs and becomes our history. Excellent read for history lovers.
November 17, 2023
Like the myth of the American cowboy (who receives government subsidies and cheap grazing rights in national forests while the vast majority of US beef actually comes from east of the Mississippi), the American West is full of fake history. The author presents a well researched history of an actual incident, the stories that were spun from it and those who benefited by doing so.
Important read for those interested in Oregon history.
Important read for those interested in Oregon history.
May 22, 2021
While the main topic of this book (the lies surrounding the murder of missionaries in what is now Oregon), by Blaine Harden, certainly needs to be exposed widely, especially in this time of the proliferation of lies as facts (which isn't a new thing, evidently), the writing leaves a bit to be desired. The first half (at least) of the book is a repetitive recounting of facts and theories about the "murder at the mission," the people who were certainly unfit to be missionaries, if not settlers, who spread the lies, the second half of the book recounts the outcome and ongoing resolution of the damage these early settlers did to the land and the native peoples who they found there. I found this much more interesting, although it was satisfying to learn about Whitman College's history. I kept wondering if the seeds for the proliferation of survivalists and white supremacists in this country's northwest weren't born during its settlement, with its 'whites only' laws, abuse of native Americans (including native Hawaiians who I didn't know had found their way up north), and other ethnic groups. Even though it wasn't "riveting" as the blurbs would have you believe, I would still recommend it for anyone interested in the settlement of this country, the damage missionaries have done, and how native Americans are re-establishing their place on the land promised to them (then stolen) by the American government.
June 13, 2021
As a native Oregonian, we learned, in passing, of the Whitman massacre. As many girls did in the upper elementary grades, I read a biography, rather romanticized, of Narcissa Whitman. I got the impression the massacre would have never happened (at least to the Whitmans), if Spalding has not been so difficult and quarrelsome and had taken the mission to the Cayuse tribe, with the Whitman going to work with the Nez Perce.
I had no idea of the lies and political machinations that went on, let alone the rampant anti-catholicism. The Catholic intolerance was still there in the 50s and 60s, in full force from many evangelical churches.
I am not at all surprised by the terrible ways our Native Americans were and have been treated. Organized religion played a big part, that remains to be acknowledged, in this.
An eye-opener of a book, well-researched, and full of uncomfortable truths.
I had no idea of the lies and political machinations that went on, let alone the rampant anti-catholicism. The Catholic intolerance was still there in the 50s and 60s, in full force from many evangelical churches.
I am not at all surprised by the terrible ways our Native Americans were and have been treated. Organized religion played a big part, that remains to be acknowledged, in this.
An eye-opener of a book, well-researched, and full of uncomfortable truths.
January 5, 2024
I wouldn’t have finished this book had I not been reading for s new Book Club I am excited to be a member of.
At 360 pages, it shouldn’t have been so hard to get through. I did it old-school and bought a used copy and highlighted and under-lined things I wanted to point out at the discussion. That is a fun way to do it.
It covers so much, from 1835 to 2022, and a lot of points of view. It dragged a lot, and the writing makes you angry at injustices, so I had to quit reading often
And just do a little at a time.
I learned a lot. I wonder if I’ll remember much of it? It was a fun discussion. I can’t recommend the book very highly.
At 360 pages, it shouldn’t have been so hard to get through. I did it old-school and bought a used copy and highlighted and under-lined things I wanted to point out at the discussion. That is a fun way to do it.
It covers so much, from 1835 to 2022, and a lot of points of view. It dragged a lot, and the writing makes you angry at injustices, so I had to quit reading often
And just do a little at a time.
I learned a lot. I wonder if I’ll remember much of it? It was a fun discussion. I can’t recommend the book very highly.
September 14, 2021
The things I learned about the early days of my alma mater. 😬 But I am glad to have learned them. This piece of northwest history was always part of my family and regional mythology, and while I thankfully mostly missed the hero worship era of the Marcus Whitman legacy, I also definitely did not have a full picture of the background to the events of the massacre or the context of all that followed. Very recommended for those who are interested in history of the west and how we got to now.
April 10, 2025
Mostly interesting, some of it was repetitive. I listened to the audiobook version and the narrator pronounced “wh” so harshly I felt like someone was blowing a strong gust of air into my ears. And it was a lot cause this book talked a lot about the WHitmans and WHites…
October 22, 2025
I never knew the true history of the Whitman massacre. Fascinating and very sad story.
December 2, 2021
My husband grew up in eastern Washington, and has childhood memories of visiting the Whitman Mission site, learning about the massacre of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman by the local Cayuse tribe on field trips, and seeing the Whitman name all over his home state. In Murder at the Mission, Blaine Harden describes what really happened to the Whitmans, the elaborate lies spread after their deaths to raise funds for Protestant missionaries and Whitman College in Walla Walla, and the impacts of those lies even today.
Since I did not grow up in Washington, I had little knowledge of the Whitman legend before reading this. Harding is not uncovering new information here, as several others he describes were obsessed with unveiling the lies earlier, but it was interesting to see the way in which Americans reacted to the Whitman story differently over time. I do think it would not have been too far-fetched to say that the Whitmans normalized the idea of white families traveling via the Oregon Trail to settle in Oregon without saying Marcus Whitman saved the Oregon territory for America, and I wonder how the outcome of this story would have been different if Whitman's mythologizers had restrained themselves just a little. I also really appreciated Harden's focus on the modern Cayuse people, and the stigma they still feel they bear because of how their cultural norms were misunderstood by the Whitmans and other white settlers who stole their land.
Overall Murder at the Mission is a pretty fascinating read, even if you are not aware of the Whitman myth, and an important reminder of how much damage white settlers did in the American West not so long ago, and the continuing repercussions of the stories we tell ourselves about that time period today.
Since I did not grow up in Washington, I had little knowledge of the Whitman legend before reading this. Harding is not uncovering new information here, as several others he describes were obsessed with unveiling the lies earlier, but it was interesting to see the way in which Americans reacted to the Whitman story differently over time. I do think it would not have been too far-fetched to say that the Whitmans normalized the idea of white families traveling via the Oregon Trail to settle in Oregon without saying Marcus Whitman saved the Oregon territory for America, and I wonder how the outcome of this story would have been different if Whitman's mythologizers had restrained themselves just a little. I also really appreciated Harden's focus on the modern Cayuse people, and the stigma they still feel they bear because of how their cultural norms were misunderstood by the Whitmans and other white settlers who stole their land.
Overall Murder at the Mission is a pretty fascinating read, even if you are not aware of the Whitman myth, and an important reminder of how much damage white settlers did in the American West not so long ago, and the continuing repercussions of the stories we tell ourselves about that time period today.
February 21, 2023
This is an interesting book. It tells the tale of the Whitman murders in Oregon Territory and the subsequent myths that arose from the killings. The deconstruction of the false narrative around Marcus Whitman makes good reading.
The book is a bit too righteous for my taste. The Native Americans who murdered the missionaries seem to be canonized by the writer as misunderstood people acting within the bounds of their culture. The murders are portrayed as executions based on tribal custom. I do not disagree with his summation. However, the missionaries are vilified for acting in the bounds of their culture. And their executions under their "tribal customs" (US law) are portrayed by as heinous crimes. Perhaps a better view is that the tribes, both Native American and whites, made mistakes that neither would do today.
Additionally, there is a sour taste at the end of the book where a modern Native American rejoices in fleecing white tourists of their dollars in the tribal casino. I appreciate the way the tribe has been able to pull itself up but their bootstraps but the ills of Indian gaming, and gambling and lottery systems are well documented and controversial on the reservations. I also understand the anger expressed by Mr. Minthorn, however, it turned me off from rating the book more highly.
I do recommend this book with hesitation. It is not a book about the history of Oregan, or the Cayuse, though what is included is very interesting. The most important part concerned the deliberate lies told to create 'history'. This made the book and is really what the book is about. It is certainly something that should be looked at when reading contemporary history and also when reading revisionist works.
The book is a bit too righteous for my taste. The Native Americans who murdered the missionaries seem to be canonized by the writer as misunderstood people acting within the bounds of their culture. The murders are portrayed as executions based on tribal custom. I do not disagree with his summation. However, the missionaries are vilified for acting in the bounds of their culture. And their executions under their "tribal customs" (US law) are portrayed by as heinous crimes. Perhaps a better view is that the tribes, both Native American and whites, made mistakes that neither would do today.
Additionally, there is a sour taste at the end of the book where a modern Native American rejoices in fleecing white tourists of their dollars in the tribal casino. I appreciate the way the tribe has been able to pull itself up but their bootstraps but the ills of Indian gaming, and gambling and lottery systems are well documented and controversial on the reservations. I also understand the anger expressed by Mr. Minthorn, however, it turned me off from rating the book more highly.
I do recommend this book with hesitation. It is not a book about the history of Oregan, or the Cayuse, though what is included is very interesting. The most important part concerned the deliberate lies told to create 'history'. This made the book and is really what the book is about. It is certainly something that should be looked at when reading contemporary history and also when reading revisionist works.
January 8, 2023
I knew the “textus receptus” of the myth of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, and knew that Henry Spaulding had created it. I knew the basics of the reality but nothing more.
The reality? Marcus Whitman believed in manifest destiny and clearly threw his lot in with that, and with evangelizing white migrants to Oregon, after his 1843 midnight ride to back East.
Although the myth was first debunked more than a century ago, the debunking generally stopped there. Even though the Cayuses had good reason, in their lights, for attacking the Whitmans, the debunking didn’t focus on that.
Harden does. And, he looks at the resurgence of them and the other two tribes on the Umatilla Reservation today. Yes, it’s in fair part due to casino gambling. But, it’s also due to reclaiming some of their water rights and more. And, within the three tribes, the Cayuses are also focused on reclaiming their history. Harden talks to some of today’s Cayuses in the last chapters of the book.
Throw in anti-Catholic bigotry and the roots of the Native American party on top of that, and you've got something combustible. This is well-researched with many pages of footnotes, and well written.
See a more detailed review at Storygraph.
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October 5, 2021Marcus and Narcissa Whitman were Calvinist missionaries in the American West, in what is now southeastern Washington state, but at the time – they arrived in 1836 – wasn’t yet even Oregon Territory. Narcissa is an important figure in the history of the Oregon Trail. Her writing, published widely in the East, relating what she experienced as one of the first white women to venture into the territory, convinced thousands of others that the trip was something they could consider undertaking, and so she was instrumental in one of the greatest migrations the New World had seen. The killing of the Whitmans by Cayuse Indians outraged at the epidemics decimating their numbers – and also at the thousands of immigrants arriving to steal their land – was also instrumental in helping whip up anti-Indian pogroms.
Marcus Whitman was memorialized, among other things, by having a very good liberal arts college named after him. Generations of Washingtonians grew up hearing stories of his heroism. Harden was one of them. He recalls acting in an elementary school pageant celebrating the story of the Whitmans. Most of which was complete fantasy. Therein was the genesis – and the major problem – of this book. Harden has set himself the task of thoroughly debunking myths that you have likely never heard. Principal among them the story that Whitman made a solo journey across America in winter to the White House, where he convinced President Tyler to save Oregon from the predatory grasp of the nefarious British. He didn’t. That story was made up years after the Whitmans’ death. By one Henry Spalding, who with his wife Eliza came west with the Whitmans, and who was a missionary to the Nez Perce.
One of the most interesting parts of the book for me was a glimpse of these missionaries at home. They’re all from New York. They grew up late in The Great Awakening, the revivalist fervor that swept the state so repeatedly that it began to be referred to as “the burnt-over area.” I felt great sadness for these young people, growing up in a milieu that offered them no picture of any life options other than being a missionary. Like young boys growing up in Afghanistan where the only education is the fanaticism taught at the local madrassa. Marcus Whitman was trained as a doctor, but crammed with evangelical zeal at the height of the fervor, all he wanted to do was save souls. He applied to be a missionary but was rejected because he was single. He had never met Narcissa, but she had also applied to become a missionary, and she also was rejected because she was single. (She did know Henry Spalding. He had proposed to her, and she had turned him down. Spalding devoted the rest of his life to plotting revenge against her, and against her new husband.)
Harden actually gives us very little about the way west. We see a bit of the life at the missions. Spalding’s wife Eliza was a talented linguist, and she quickly made fans among the Nez Perce. Narcissa Whitman, on the other hand, soon realized was not cut out for pioneer life. Or missionary life. Definitely not for life among the Indians, whom she quickly came to loathe and do everything she could to avoid. She was a trail angel, on the other hand, for immigrants coming off the punishing Oregon Trail. They arrived in the territory nearly dying, and the Whitmans fed them. There were numerous orphans among them, and the Whitmans took them in. The Cayuse came to hate the Whitmans, especially when the Cayuse began dying, but the immigrants revered them and were grateful to them for life.
I was surprised when the Whitmans died so early on in the book, as I had imagined that it was a book about them. (Instead of what it is, a book about their story.). I remember seeing Mendelssohn’s opera adaptation of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As the curtain came down for the intermission, Mendelssohn had already dispensed with the entire plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. What would they do after the intermission? (Everything after the intermission was the wedding.) I felt like that here. It’s only page 88, and Marcus and Narcissa are already dead. What are we going to do for the whole rest of the book?
Basically, for the whole rest of the book, we’re going to go through the creation of the myths about them, and then the debunking of those myths. Whole chapters on the Whitman College president who whipped up Whitman worship to help fundraising. Whole chapters on historians you’ve never heard of who devoted their lives to showing that the stories about Whitman weren’t true.
I did appreciate the sketches of Spalding in the Willamette Valley in the 1850s. He had been run out of missionary work, it having become widely recognized that he was crazy. He created a new career for himself as a nativist demagogue. It was the time of the Know-Nothings, early practitioners of the hatemongering later developed by the KKK and the Forty-Fifth President of the United States. Many of the Whitman myths Harden works so hard to debunk were created by Spalding, primarily to foment anti-Catholicism. Although a Catholic priest saved Spalding’s life after the Whitmans were killed, Spalding, like many on the Nineteenth Century alt-right, found it profitable to shriek out fear and hatred of Catholics, and he strove to blame them for the Whitmans’ death.
And I very much appreciated the final section on the Cayuse. If you’ve ever heard any story about any Indian tribe and its decades of dealings with the U.S. government, you could probably imagine most of that story, but there are wrinkles you might not think of. Not only did the whites take their land and stick them on a reservation, and then repeatedly come back to steal the best parts of the reservation, but the settlers also dried up their river. This being the Pacific Northwest, and salmon being the foundation of everything. I was happy that the story did not end on that note. Harden also shows us generations of dogged fighters for the Cayuse who managed to win some victories and leave the tribe today not utterly destitute and hopeless.
Marcus Whitman was memorialized, among other things, by having a very good liberal arts college named after him. Generations of Washingtonians grew up hearing stories of his heroism. Harden was one of them. He recalls acting in an elementary school pageant celebrating the story of the Whitmans. Most of which was complete fantasy. Therein was the genesis – and the major problem – of this book. Harden has set himself the task of thoroughly debunking myths that you have likely never heard. Principal among them the story that Whitman made a solo journey across America in winter to the White House, where he convinced President Tyler to save Oregon from the predatory grasp of the nefarious British. He didn’t. That story was made up years after the Whitmans’ death. By one Henry Spalding, who with his wife Eliza came west with the Whitmans, and who was a missionary to the Nez Perce.
One of the most interesting parts of the book for me was a glimpse of these missionaries at home. They’re all from New York. They grew up late in The Great Awakening, the revivalist fervor that swept the state so repeatedly that it began to be referred to as “the burnt-over area.” I felt great sadness for these young people, growing up in a milieu that offered them no picture of any life options other than being a missionary. Like young boys growing up in Afghanistan where the only education is the fanaticism taught at the local madrassa. Marcus Whitman was trained as a doctor, but crammed with evangelical zeal at the height of the fervor, all he wanted to do was save souls. He applied to be a missionary but was rejected because he was single. He had never met Narcissa, but she had also applied to become a missionary, and she also was rejected because she was single. (She did know Henry Spalding. He had proposed to her, and she had turned him down. Spalding devoted the rest of his life to plotting revenge against her, and against her new husband.)
Harden actually gives us very little about the way west. We see a bit of the life at the missions. Spalding’s wife Eliza was a talented linguist, and she quickly made fans among the Nez Perce. Narcissa Whitman, on the other hand, soon realized was not cut out for pioneer life. Or missionary life. Definitely not for life among the Indians, whom she quickly came to loathe and do everything she could to avoid. She was a trail angel, on the other hand, for immigrants coming off the punishing Oregon Trail. They arrived in the territory nearly dying, and the Whitmans fed them. There were numerous orphans among them, and the Whitmans took them in. The Cayuse came to hate the Whitmans, especially when the Cayuse began dying, but the immigrants revered them and were grateful to them for life.
I was surprised when the Whitmans died so early on in the book, as I had imagined that it was a book about them. (Instead of what it is, a book about their story.). I remember seeing Mendelssohn’s opera adaptation of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As the curtain came down for the intermission, Mendelssohn had already dispensed with the entire plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. What would they do after the intermission? (Everything after the intermission was the wedding.) I felt like that here. It’s only page 88, and Marcus and Narcissa are already dead. What are we going to do for the whole rest of the book?
Basically, for the whole rest of the book, we’re going to go through the creation of the myths about them, and then the debunking of those myths. Whole chapters on the Whitman College president who whipped up Whitman worship to help fundraising. Whole chapters on historians you’ve never heard of who devoted their lives to showing that the stories about Whitman weren’t true.
I did appreciate the sketches of Spalding in the Willamette Valley in the 1850s. He had been run out of missionary work, it having become widely recognized that he was crazy. He created a new career for himself as a nativist demagogue. It was the time of the Know-Nothings, early practitioners of the hatemongering later developed by the KKK and the Forty-Fifth President of the United States. Many of the Whitman myths Harden works so hard to debunk were created by Spalding, primarily to foment anti-Catholicism. Although a Catholic priest saved Spalding’s life after the Whitmans were killed, Spalding, like many on the Nineteenth Century alt-right, found it profitable to shriek out fear and hatred of Catholics, and he strove to blame them for the Whitmans’ death.
And I very much appreciated the final section on the Cayuse. If you’ve ever heard any story about any Indian tribe and its decades of dealings with the U.S. government, you could probably imagine most of that story, but there are wrinkles you might not think of. Not only did the whites take their land and stick them on a reservation, and then repeatedly come back to steal the best parts of the reservation, but the settlers also dried up their river. This being the Pacific Northwest, and salmon being the foundation of everything. I was happy that the story did not end on that note. Harden also shows us generations of dogged fighters for the Cayuse who managed to win some victories and leave the tribe today not utterly destitute and hopeless.
August 7, 2023
A text about history that also was a page-turner.
October 20, 2022
Growing up as an Oregon schoolkid, I was familiar with the story of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, the Presbyterian missionaries who came to the Oregon Territory in the 1830s to convert Native Americans to Christianity. Their lives were cut short when they were murdered by Cayuse Indians in 1847 in what became widely known as the Whitman Massacre.
Thanks to Blaine Harden’s fascinating new book on the Whitmans (subtitle: “A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the American West”), I have a much keener and nuanced appreciation for this chapter of pioneer history.
Marcus Whitman was a doctor as well as a missionary. The Cayuse killed the Whitmans, and 11 others, because the Indians were dying in droves from measles, a white man’s disease for which they were unprotected. The Cayuse had a long history, even before the white man’s arrival, of killing “medicine men” who failed to heal. The Indians saw Marcus Whitman care for white people with measles, who did survive, and suspected him of intentionally poisoning all those Indians, 200 or more, who succumbed from measles.
The biggest lie about Marcus Whitman was perpetrated by others after his death. They claimed he had journeyed back East, in the dead of winter, to warn President Tyler that the Brits, led by Hudson’s Bay Co. trappers and Catholic priests, were threatening to wrest the Oregon Territory from US jurisdiction, and that Tyler needed to encourage white settlers to head for the territory en masse to assure its American legacy. In this telling, Tyler agreed, and Whitman was celebrated as the man who assured that 3 stars, representing the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho, were ultimately affixed to the American flag.
This story was a lie. Whitman did journey back East, but only to save his job, as missionary leaders had decided to end the enterprise because of the constant bickering among the West Coast missionaries. Whitman, who assured continued funding for his mission, never actually met with President Tyler.
Nevertheless, the story of Whitman as Oregon’s heroic savior was widely believed for decades, appearing in schoolhouse textbooks and in such publications as the Encyclopedia Britannica and The New York Times. The fable was instrumental in securing funds for the financially vulnerable Whitman College, located in Walla Walla, Wash., during its shaky first decades of the 19th century.
The Whitman story continues to resonate today. Five Cayuse men were hanged in Oregon City in 1850 for their alleged roles in the Whitman Massacre. In 2022, students in the University of Oregon Clark Honors College have been researching the possible burial site of the “Cayuse Five,” that they might be properly reburied in keeping with tribal tradition.
One more side note: I am a 7th-generation Oregonian. My parents took great pride in our status as descendants of Oregon Trail pioneers. In nurturing that pride, my parents read aloud the novel “On to Oregon” to me and my siblings when we were youngsters. The novel, first published in 1926 by Honore Morrow, is a fictionalized account of the true story of the seven Sager children — two boys followed by five girls — who were orphaned when both their parents died on the Oregon Trail. All seven made it to the Oregon Territory and were adopted by Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. The novel ends by noting that the children’s terrible journey “ended in the safe heaven of this home.”
There is no epilogue noting that John Sager was 16 and Francis Sager was 14 when they were among the 13 killed in the Whitman Massacre. The five girls survived the massacre, and three of them lived long lives. One of them, Catherine Sager Pringle, returned to the mission in 1897 to help commemorate the 50th anniversary of the massacre.
Thanks to Blaine Harden’s fascinating new book on the Whitmans (subtitle: “A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the American West”), I have a much keener and nuanced appreciation for this chapter of pioneer history.
Marcus Whitman was a doctor as well as a missionary. The Cayuse killed the Whitmans, and 11 others, because the Indians were dying in droves from measles, a white man’s disease for which they were unprotected. The Cayuse had a long history, even before the white man’s arrival, of killing “medicine men” who failed to heal. The Indians saw Marcus Whitman care for white people with measles, who did survive, and suspected him of intentionally poisoning all those Indians, 200 or more, who succumbed from measles.
The biggest lie about Marcus Whitman was perpetrated by others after his death. They claimed he had journeyed back East, in the dead of winter, to warn President Tyler that the Brits, led by Hudson’s Bay Co. trappers and Catholic priests, were threatening to wrest the Oregon Territory from US jurisdiction, and that Tyler needed to encourage white settlers to head for the territory en masse to assure its American legacy. In this telling, Tyler agreed, and Whitman was celebrated as the man who assured that 3 stars, representing the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho, were ultimately affixed to the American flag.
This story was a lie. Whitman did journey back East, but only to save his job, as missionary leaders had decided to end the enterprise because of the constant bickering among the West Coast missionaries. Whitman, who assured continued funding for his mission, never actually met with President Tyler.
Nevertheless, the story of Whitman as Oregon’s heroic savior was widely believed for decades, appearing in schoolhouse textbooks and in such publications as the Encyclopedia Britannica and The New York Times. The fable was instrumental in securing funds for the financially vulnerable Whitman College, located in Walla Walla, Wash., during its shaky first decades of the 19th century.
The Whitman story continues to resonate today. Five Cayuse men were hanged in Oregon City in 1850 for their alleged roles in the Whitman Massacre. In 2022, students in the University of Oregon Clark Honors College have been researching the possible burial site of the “Cayuse Five,” that they might be properly reburied in keeping with tribal tradition.
One more side note: I am a 7th-generation Oregonian. My parents took great pride in our status as descendants of Oregon Trail pioneers. In nurturing that pride, my parents read aloud the novel “On to Oregon” to me and my siblings when we were youngsters. The novel, first published in 1926 by Honore Morrow, is a fictionalized account of the true story of the seven Sager children — two boys followed by five girls — who were orphaned when both their parents died on the Oregon Trail. All seven made it to the Oregon Territory and were adopted by Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. The novel ends by noting that the children’s terrible journey “ended in the safe heaven of this home.”
There is no epilogue noting that John Sager was 16 and Francis Sager was 14 when they were among the 13 killed in the Whitman Massacre. The five girls survived the massacre, and three of them lived long lives. One of them, Catherine Sager Pringle, returned to the mission in 1897 to help commemorate the 50th anniversary of the massacre.
January 20, 2022
A case study of white-washed history told in a fascinating and story-like manner. This books takes you through the history of one man most of us have never heard of (if you live outside the Pacific Northwest), Marcus Whitman. There are towns, a prestigious private college, and festivals trumpeting this man's name, even a statue on Capitol Hill. A legend in the extreme northwest corner of our country in some communities, is exactly that, a legend, a myth.
Even though a mythical story was passed down through the ages of American history, the story is a terrific look at how religion, white supremacy, and revisionist history take root and propagates throughout time. Coming out of the Second Great Awakening and the burned over district of upstate New York, like the Joseph Smith and Mormonism, Whitman takes his evangelical yearnings to a receptive native crowd in what is today eastern Oregon/Washington. Down on their luck, the Cayuse and Nez Perce try the white man's religion to turn the tide of their fortunes. Instead disease, colonization, and violence follow's Mr. Whitman and his fellow missionaries. As a tale repeated often in these times, Mr. Whitman's welcome wears out after promises not delivered and he and his ilk are ended. The cavalry literally comes and so do the white settlers looking for Native American land.
But instead of honoring a genocidal moment or broken treaty, the Whitman legend takes on its own life with the guidance of con-artists and people who want to believe in the goodness of the white man's "Native Problem." The propagandists that pushed the Whitman legend used him to escape ridicule, start a college, infiltrate public school textbooks, and thump the chest of the white man by claiming he saved the Oregon Territory from being taken by the British with the help of the dastardly Catholics.
As time rolled on, some scholars thought it was time to put this awful heroic myth to bed and began countering incredulous claims by those profiting off of Mr. Whitman's name. The general ethos of this tale encompassing the Whitman myth has the feel of the revisionist and contemporary backers of the southern states and the states' rights argument. Whitman was nothing more than a greedhead and curious bible thumper that held company of men in low honor and had nothing in mind more than hoping to bring more white settlers to where they weren't welcome. He didn't save the Oregon territory from Britain and the Catholics anymore than he could help the natives that took him in.
The conflation of the Whitman myth is a true story that sees parallels in other white-washed American history figures such as John Smith, Robert E. Lee, and others. White man brings hubris and trouble. There are consequences. Consequences seen as sacrifice. America saves the day. Story passed on through the times. While this story has repeated itself throughout our short history as a country, it is a fascinating read and detailed account of how these things are given life up to today. It was one of those book you didn't want to put down, mostly because of how far removed from reality and underwhelming the actual story was from what many believe to be the truth yesterday and still today in some parts of the Northwest.
Clean your mind and history up by reading this well written piece.
4.5/5
Even though a mythical story was passed down through the ages of American history, the story is a terrific look at how religion, white supremacy, and revisionist history take root and propagates throughout time. Coming out of the Second Great Awakening and the burned over district of upstate New York, like the Joseph Smith and Mormonism, Whitman takes his evangelical yearnings to a receptive native crowd in what is today eastern Oregon/Washington. Down on their luck, the Cayuse and Nez Perce try the white man's religion to turn the tide of their fortunes. Instead disease, colonization, and violence follow's Mr. Whitman and his fellow missionaries. As a tale repeated often in these times, Mr. Whitman's welcome wears out after promises not delivered and he and his ilk are ended. The cavalry literally comes and so do the white settlers looking for Native American land.
But instead of honoring a genocidal moment or broken treaty, the Whitman legend takes on its own life with the guidance of con-artists and people who want to believe in the goodness of the white man's "Native Problem." The propagandists that pushed the Whitman legend used him to escape ridicule, start a college, infiltrate public school textbooks, and thump the chest of the white man by claiming he saved the Oregon Territory from being taken by the British with the help of the dastardly Catholics.
As time rolled on, some scholars thought it was time to put this awful heroic myth to bed and began countering incredulous claims by those profiting off of Mr. Whitman's name. The general ethos of this tale encompassing the Whitman myth has the feel of the revisionist and contemporary backers of the southern states and the states' rights argument. Whitman was nothing more than a greedhead and curious bible thumper that held company of men in low honor and had nothing in mind more than hoping to bring more white settlers to where they weren't welcome. He didn't save the Oregon territory from Britain and the Catholics anymore than he could help the natives that took him in.
The conflation of the Whitman myth is a true story that sees parallels in other white-washed American history figures such as John Smith, Robert E. Lee, and others. White man brings hubris and trouble. There are consequences. Consequences seen as sacrifice. America saves the day. Story passed on through the times. While this story has repeated itself throughout our short history as a country, it is a fascinating read and detailed account of how these things are given life up to today. It was one of those book you didn't want to put down, mostly because of how far removed from reality and underwhelming the actual story was from what many believe to be the truth yesterday and still today in some parts of the Northwest.
Clean your mind and history up by reading this well written piece.
4.5/5
March 29, 2022
I think I must have been in 5th grade when I first heard about Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and the "massacre" that ended their lives. I vividly remember an illustration in our Social Studies textbook in the section about the 19th century Pacific Northwest of the beautiful, blonde Narcissa running in terror from the two sinister, hatchet wielding, Cayuse warriors framed in the open door. Narcissa, of course, looked like something out of a TV western--bright blonde hair, big blue eyes, wasp-waist.
Subsequently I devoured everything I could read in our school library about the noble, patriotic, brave pioneers Marcus and Narcissa, but especially Narcissa.
My mother worked hard to raise me with a nuanced attitude towards Native Americans, that like any other people, some were good, some were bad. My mother had a profound respect for the Nez Perce leader, Chief Joseph, so I "knew" the Nez Perce were good. But the tribe that killed the Whitmans (that is not in dispute by anyone, ever) were the Nez Perce's neighbors and occasional allies, the Cayuse, so I was perfectly willing to make them the "villains." I was eleven--cut me some slack.
Later, I learned that some of my father's family were actually part of the groups that followed the Whitmans, ultimately settling in the Willamette Valley, so Narcissa, Marcus, and their fate retained a little corner of my mind.
But also, over the years, I've spent a fair amount of time and energy learning about the realities of the Western expansion, supported during her lifetime by my mother, and facing fairly square-on the fact that...as Russell Means put it back in the day, "[Native Americans] are the landlords" and we owe them rent.
So when I saw this book, it was almost inevitable that I would buy it. How could I not?
This book deals less with the death of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, and more with the people they were, the choices they made, and then, for the last three-quarters of the book (yes, your read that right) how their deaths were exploited by a series of persons for both noble and ignoble ends.
The book has some flaws, and the writer isn't particularly consistent. He clearly has a bias, but on this subject it's hard not to, and for the most part he deals with things that can be documented. I'm glad I read it, though I suspect that part of that comes from the fact that I was frequently having my own biases confirmed.
It's history, so spoilers aren't really at issue here--but sometimes learning things you didn't know is as much fun as reading a novel, so I'm not going to say much. Let me leave it at while the Whitman's may not have been spotless heroes, they aren't the villains in this book. And neither are the Cayuse who killed them. The real villains....are the ones who used their deaths to tell lies about the West, profited from those lies--sometimes monetarily, sometimes otherwise, and who perpetuated those lies long after the truth was known.
Subsequently I devoured everything I could read in our school library about the noble, patriotic, brave pioneers Marcus and Narcissa, but especially Narcissa.
My mother worked hard to raise me with a nuanced attitude towards Native Americans, that like any other people, some were good, some were bad. My mother had a profound respect for the Nez Perce leader, Chief Joseph, so I "knew" the Nez Perce were good. But the tribe that killed the Whitmans (that is not in dispute by anyone, ever) were the Nez Perce's neighbors and occasional allies, the Cayuse, so I was perfectly willing to make them the "villains." I was eleven--cut me some slack.
Later, I learned that some of my father's family were actually part of the groups that followed the Whitmans, ultimately settling in the Willamette Valley, so Narcissa, Marcus, and their fate retained a little corner of my mind.
But also, over the years, I've spent a fair amount of time and energy learning about the realities of the Western expansion, supported during her lifetime by my mother, and facing fairly square-on the fact that...as Russell Means put it back in the day, "[Native Americans] are the landlords" and we owe them rent.
So when I saw this book, it was almost inevitable that I would buy it. How could I not?
This book deals less with the death of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, and more with the people they were, the choices they made, and then, for the last three-quarters of the book (yes, your read that right) how their deaths were exploited by a series of persons for both noble and ignoble ends.
The book has some flaws, and the writer isn't particularly consistent. He clearly has a bias, but on this subject it's hard not to, and for the most part he deals with things that can be documented. I'm glad I read it, though I suspect that part of that comes from the fact that I was frequently having my own biases confirmed.
It's history, so spoilers aren't really at issue here--but sometimes learning things you didn't know is as much fun as reading a novel, so I'm not going to say much. Let me leave it at while the Whitman's may not have been spotless heroes, they aren't the villains in this book. And neither are the Cayuse who killed them. The real villains....are the ones who used their deaths to tell lies about the West, profited from those lies--sometimes monetarily, sometimes otherwise, and who perpetuated those lies long after the truth was known.
July 27, 2021
Maybe more like a 2.5 rounded up because I really wanted to like this, but there was just something about the writing that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. The first portion of the book gives background information (maybe a little much) about the Whitmans—Marcus and his wife Narcissa, considered to be “missionaries,” in the American west in order to “civilize,” the Native American population in what is now Oregon. Now, I found the term missionary to be…in bad taste. I realize that this is what they were considered to be by white people, but I think that term has fallen out of favor—it makes it seem like the Whitmans were doing the right thing, which in hindsight they were definitely not doing something good.
The Whitmans were killed, along with others, at the reservation where they believed they’d been “helping,” the native people. However they weren’t actually helping they ended up spreading disease and this ended up being an early way to take away native Americans culture. The Cayuse people ended up killing them because of their frustration with the Whitmans—they didn’t want them there at all, they wanted to be left alone not end up being killed by a virus they had no way to fight off. Murder is always wrong, but I can understand where the Native Americans were coming from.
One of my main gripes with this book is that it took too long to get to the point. I get there was a lot going on around treatment of native Americans and in American history as a whole, but this book felt very meandering. There is a myth—which thankfully the author points out—that the Whitmans were doing something good for the nation by helping native Americans “fit in” better with white people. This is very untrue because helping was actually hurting groups of people that had been doing nothing wrong, but their culture was different so it made them look “strange,” in the eyes of people like the Whitmans.
But like I said, I think I was expecting more from this and unfortunately didn’t get it. I’d recommend this if you’re new to the topic but the meandering details might throw a lot of people off. However, I did find it interesting that myths (historical lying to make people look better) is not a new thing in American culture. In this case, it gave the US government a reason to take the west from the Native Americans.
The Whitmans were killed, along with others, at the reservation where they believed they’d been “helping,” the native people. However they weren’t actually helping they ended up spreading disease and this ended up being an early way to take away native Americans culture. The Cayuse people ended up killing them because of their frustration with the Whitmans—they didn’t want them there at all, they wanted to be left alone not end up being killed by a virus they had no way to fight off. Murder is always wrong, but I can understand where the Native Americans were coming from.
One of my main gripes with this book is that it took too long to get to the point. I get there was a lot going on around treatment of native Americans and in American history as a whole, but this book felt very meandering. There is a myth—which thankfully the author points out—that the Whitmans were doing something good for the nation by helping native Americans “fit in” better with white people. This is very untrue because helping was actually hurting groups of people that had been doing nothing wrong, but their culture was different so it made them look “strange,” in the eyes of people like the Whitmans.
But like I said, I think I was expecting more from this and unfortunately didn’t get it. I’d recommend this if you’re new to the topic but the meandering details might throw a lot of people off. However, I did find it interesting that myths (historical lying to make people look better) is not a new thing in American culture. In this case, it gave the US government a reason to take the west from the Native Americans.
January 29, 2022
Being a History Buff, not an Historian, I’ve been fascinated by the Whitman/Spalding story since fourth or fifth grade. I love the history of the Oregon Territory, the mountain men, and Native Americans. When I heard about this book, I was at my favorite bookseller immediately if not sooner.
Murder at the Mission was my book group read, which I suggested. I no longer have all the research material I collected when I wrote Blood on the Ground, which described the same happenings. However, if my memory serves me correctly, there are some departures and omissions in Harden’s telling of the tale, as well as new information.
For some reason, I wasn’t totally shocked at Spalding’s Big Lie about Marcus and his trip “to save Oregon” but I was surprised at some of the facts Mr. Harden quoted (Joe Meek finding his daughter’s bones—how did he recognize them?) As I recall, his daughter and the youngest Sager girl died a few days later and were buried by Joe Stanfield in the old cemetery (the Rangers tell me they know where). I had hoped Mr. Harden had found more information about the prime agitators, Joe Stanfield, Nicholas Finlay, and Joe Lewis and how their heated and repeated lies added to the Cayuse belief that Dr. Whitman was actively killing them or passively allowing sick Cayuse to die. I would have liked to read about Marcus’ proposal he was to have made later that afternoon (the killings were in the morning) to the Chiefs that he and Narcissa were willing to sell the Mission to the Catholics and move as soon as the sick children were well enough to travel. (Timing, they say, is everything.)
The trial of the five Cayuse is a fascinating read. And the execution was to have been made after the new Governor took office in 30 days, if at all. The hanging was, in truth, a lynching, because there was fear the incoming Governor would commute the sentence. The knot of one wasn’t properly tied, and Meek stomped on the head and neck until he (Cayuse) died. Revenge for Helen Mar. And, of course, my burning question I’ve never seen answered: How did Protestants react to the discovery that Fr. Brouillet baptized each of the dead he helped bury as Catholics once in the grave before burial? (Perhaps it’s in the book, and I missed it.)
Murder at the Mission was my book group read, which I suggested. I no longer have all the research material I collected when I wrote Blood on the Ground, which described the same happenings. However, if my memory serves me correctly, there are some departures and omissions in Harden’s telling of the tale, as well as new information.
For some reason, I wasn’t totally shocked at Spalding’s Big Lie about Marcus and his trip “to save Oregon” but I was surprised at some of the facts Mr. Harden quoted (Joe Meek finding his daughter’s bones—how did he recognize them?) As I recall, his daughter and the youngest Sager girl died a few days later and were buried by Joe Stanfield in the old cemetery (the Rangers tell me they know where). I had hoped Mr. Harden had found more information about the prime agitators, Joe Stanfield, Nicholas Finlay, and Joe Lewis and how their heated and repeated lies added to the Cayuse belief that Dr. Whitman was actively killing them or passively allowing sick Cayuse to die. I would have liked to read about Marcus’ proposal he was to have made later that afternoon (the killings were in the morning) to the Chiefs that he and Narcissa were willing to sell the Mission to the Catholics and move as soon as the sick children were well enough to travel. (Timing, they say, is everything.)
The trial of the five Cayuse is a fascinating read. And the execution was to have been made after the new Governor took office in 30 days, if at all. The hanging was, in truth, a lynching, because there was fear the incoming Governor would commute the sentence. The knot of one wasn’t properly tied, and Meek stomped on the head and neck until he (Cayuse) died. Revenge for Helen Mar. And, of course, my burning question I’ve never seen answered: How did Protestants react to the discovery that Fr. Brouillet baptized each of the dead he helped bury as Catholics once in the grave before burial? (Perhaps it’s in the book, and I missed it.)
November 12, 2021
I grew up in Oregon knowing that my pioneer ancestors had crossed the Plains in the 1850's and settled in the mid-Willamette Valley. In school we were taught about the courageous pioneers, and celebrated their accomplishments. Then, at the age of 10, I began to learn more about the plight of the local indigenous peoples, but still was exposed mainly to various myths about Indians, which ignored their diversity, their ways of life, and their ties to family and to the land. White Europeans could not conceive of the idea of shared ownership of forests, fields, and waterways; acquisition of and exploitation of property was regarded as the meaning of life.
I also knew, from an early age, about Marcus and Narcissa Whitman's mission and their early deaths, but only as an adult did I begin to understand that there was another side to the story. Blaine Harden's meticulous research has shone a light on how the Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla and Nez Perce people were manipulated by Whitman and others, leading to the Indians' perception that they had no choice. They had warned Whitman, and he wouldn't listen, so he had to die.
It's a tragic story, most especially because the reports of the day and subsequent writings that painted the Whitmans as saints among the heathens. Harden details the trial and executions that took place in Oregon City, highlighting the current efforts to find the remains of the five Cayuse men and move them to the reservation of the Consolidated Tribes of the Umatilla, where modern efforts have created a thriving economy.
I especially appreciated the section on revival that the book ends with. The Umatilla Reservation has undergone many changes since being reduced in size many times, like most reservations. While there are still problems with drugs and alcohol, racism and discrimination, the tribe has come a long way.
I also knew, from an early age, about Marcus and Narcissa Whitman's mission and their early deaths, but only as an adult did I begin to understand that there was another side to the story. Blaine Harden's meticulous research has shone a light on how the Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla and Nez Perce people were manipulated by Whitman and others, leading to the Indians' perception that they had no choice. They had warned Whitman, and he wouldn't listen, so he had to die.
It's a tragic story, most especially because the reports of the day and subsequent writings that painted the Whitmans as saints among the heathens. Harden details the trial and executions that took place in Oregon City, highlighting the current efforts to find the remains of the five Cayuse men and move them to the reservation of the Consolidated Tribes of the Umatilla, where modern efforts have created a thriving economy.
I especially appreciated the section on revival that the book ends with. The Umatilla Reservation has undergone many changes since being reduced in size many times, like most reservations. While there are still problems with drugs and alcohol, racism and discrimination, the tribe has come a long way.
January 27, 2024
This is the story of the Whitmans and Spaldings who were early Protestant missionaries in the Pacific Northwest. Harden baldly lays out the events that led to the massacre of the Whitmans and the subsequent re-writing of history. For this reader, the most shocking thing was how dishonest, self-serving, self-aggrandizing, two-faced, arrogant, self-righteous, racist, greedy and utterly despicable the missionaries were, and the blatant irony of "men of god" behaving horrifically. Yet they regularly got behind the pulpit and directed other people how to live with no thought to their own behavior and actions, Spalding especially.
Harden writes that "Whitman was not an especially contemplative man." His mission and purpose in Oregon was to save souls. In fact, Whitman wanted land. He wanted more white settlers. He wanted to be a white man's missionary. Why was it OK to take something that belonged to others? "...because the Indians had "refused or neglected" to fulfill the "designs of Providence."" His argument was basically that the whites taking over was god's will, because the Indians hadn't over-populated and over-colonized.
If one knows one is in danger, that one's actions have real and dangerous consequences, and one just blindly moves forward anyway, how much sympathy can be felt when they come to harm? Whitman knew that the Indians didn't want the white men to come and take their land. He knew that they would use violence. He knew that the way he practiced medicine put him in harms way. He knew the Indians were dying of small pox and were suspicious of its source and treatment.
This should be required reading for students with an interest in American history and expansionism.
Harden writes that "Whitman was not an especially contemplative man." His mission and purpose in Oregon was to save souls. In fact, Whitman wanted land. He wanted more white settlers. He wanted to be a white man's missionary. Why was it OK to take something that belonged to others? "...because the Indians had "refused or neglected" to fulfill the "designs of Providence."" His argument was basically that the whites taking over was god's will, because the Indians hadn't over-populated and over-colonized.
If one knows one is in danger, that one's actions have real and dangerous consequences, and one just blindly moves forward anyway, how much sympathy can be felt when they come to harm? Whitman knew that the Indians didn't want the white men to come and take their land. He knew that they would use violence. He knew that the way he practiced medicine put him in harms way. He knew the Indians were dying of small pox and were suspicious of its source and treatment.
This should be required reading for students with an interest in American history and expansionism.
September 18, 2022
What an introduction into Washington and PNW history this was! As someone who just moved to the PNW, I am really interested in learning all about its history since I grew up an entire world away in Texas. This was such an intriguing read. I love history books that take a different approach to history as we know it, and really reexamine how we look at certain events. This book was exactly that and tackled so many important issues within our current historical lens. I loved how in depth it went looking at the Whitman legacy and what events led up to the massacre. It was incredibly interesting to see how the Whitman myth developed and I am surprised that even to this day, there are people who refuse to let go of the Whitman myth and continue to peddle it. However, I would have loved more of an in-depth look at the Cayuses. The ending of the book especially felt a little rushed with the chapters on the Cayuses, but it was still a great examination and wrap up. The book calls to attention many issues surrounding the past and current treatment of Native Americans, and more specifically the Cayuses and Nez Perces. I think it is heartbreaking that still to this day the 5 Cayuses who were hung have not been found and given proper burials. It's disappointing, but not surprising, to see that they have been asking for generations to find their gravesites, and have received no help from the state of Washington. It was just super interesting and thrilling to read about another states history. I am so used to learning about Texas history that learning about this sliver of Washington history was a really cool experience. I think this should be a required read for Washington students.
November 28, 2024
This was a fascinating exploration of what has historically been known as "the Whitman Massacre" which took place in Washington State in 1847. As a kid growing up in Eastern Washington in the late 70s and early 80s, I definitely remember that the general background I was provided on what happened outside Walla Walla during that period in history was that the selfless Whitmans, Marcus and his wife Narcissa, had showed up to teach and convert the local natives, and that for no real discernible reason, the natives had murdered them. Needless to say, the actual history of the tragedy, (that in the end was significantly more negatively impactful on the Cayuse, Nez Perce and Walla Walla Indians), was far more complicated. This book not only explores what happened at the time, but how the history of it was then twisted by a variety of others, but particularly by Henry Spalding, a contemporary of Whitman's, into a false narrative that gave Marcus Whitman credit for "saving" the Oregon territory (later the states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho). That myth made its way into federal congressional records and hundreds of textbooks across the country. The book takes you into the present day and the ongoing impact of the myth on local tribes, particularly the Cayuse. Harden's book is well-researched and yet very readable. I highly recommend the book, but especially for those interested in the correcting of revisionist history.
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