The Whitman Massacre: The History and Legacy of the Native American Attack on Missionaries that Started the Cayuse War by Charles River Editors

Author:Charles River Editors
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Charles River Editors
Published: 2019-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

The Beginning of the End

“Perhaps God thought it for the best that your little child should be called away; it may calm the Indians to see a white child taken as well as so many natives.” – Narcissa Whitman

The Whitman and Spalding Missions lay perhaps 100 miles away from one another, but the two heads of the missions feuded constantly, which steadily sucked in other ABCFM missions in the region. Representations and reports periodically found their way back to the Board of the ABCFM, and in combination with a conspicuous lack of success in terms of confirmed conversions, it was decided that the Waiilatpu and Lapwai missions would close, the Spaldings would be recalled east, and the Whitman’s would transfer to a mission at Tshimakain close to present-day Spokane.

Meanwhile, some time after the missionaries had arrived, the Catholics put in an appearance in the form of a Jesuit mission headquartered at Walla Walla. While Marcus Whitman was sternly judgmental, Henry Spalding was beside himself with rage, and he could not thereafter reconcile himself to the Jesuits.

Naturally, the closures were devastating news for all involved. At the time, the movement of settlers along the Oregon Trail was minimal, and the country remained somewhat in a state of grace. A majority of the settlers arriving in the territory filtered into the Willamette Valley, a wide and fertile valley running south between the Coastal and Cascade Ranges, and the genesis of a settled, agricultural population was underway there. It was a Christian population, and there was no particular need for white missionary outreach. As a result, the failure to make inroads with the natives seemed to render missionary work a waste of money and resources.

As soon as the orders were circulated, the leaders of all the affected Oregon missions met, and it was agreed that Marcus Whitman would travel overland to Boston, the headquarters of the ABCFM, and petition the Board to reconsider their decision. It was late in the season of 1842, and it was known that a large wagon train was assembling on the banks of the Missouri River preparing to begin the journey to Oregon in the spring of the following year. It was agreed that Whitman, accompanied by Asa Lawrence Lovejoy, an early pioneer of the Oregon Trail, would set off immediately in hopes of reaching Boston in time to return with the proposed wagon train.

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