The Whitman massacre (also known as Walla Walla massacre and Whitman Incident ) is the Oregon missionary killing of Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa, along with the other eleven, on November 29, 1847. They were killed by a group of native Cayuse Americans who accused him of poisoning 200 Cayuse in his medical care. The incident started the Cayuse War. It's in the state of southeastern Washington now, near the city of Walla Walla, and is one of the most famous episodes in the Northwest Pacific settlement. This event is the culmination of several years of complex interaction between Whitman, who has helped lead the first wagon train to cross the Oregon's Blue Mountains and reach the Columbia River via the Oregon Trail, his wife and colleagues Narcissa, and Native Americans. The story of the massacre shocked the United States Congress to act on Oregon's future territorial status. The Oregon region was established on August 14, 1848.
Murder is usually considered partly due to cultural clashes and partly due to Whitman's inability, a doctor, to stop the spread of measles among Native Americans. The Cayuse held Whitman responsible for his subsequent death. The incident is still controversial to this day: Whitmans is regarded by some as a pioneer hero; others see them as white settlers who have tried to impose their religion on Native Americans and are otherwise unfairly intrusive, even suspected of poisoning indigenous peoples.
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The Sahaptin States came into direct contact with white people a few decades before the arrival of members of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). This relationship sets expectations among Cayuse residents for how exchanges and dialogue with whites will operate. Especially early European-American people who are involved in North American fur trade and Maritime fur trading. Sea captains regularly give small gifts to indigenous traders as a means to encourage commercial transactions. Then the land-based trading post, operated by the Pacific Fur Company, the North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company, governs economic and cultural exchanges, including prize-giving. Interaction is not always peaceful. Native Americans suspect that white people have power over new diseases they suffer. Reports from that period noted that members of Umpqua, Makah, and the Chinookan states face the threat of destruction through white skin, as indigenous peoples have no immunity to these new infectious diseases. After becoming a major feather collection operation in the region, HBC continues to develop relationships in the Columbian Plateau.
Historian Cameron Addis recounts that after 1840, most of the Columbian Plateau was no longer important in feather trade and that:
... most of the population does not rely on agriculture, but traders have been spreading Christianity for thirty years. When Catholic and Protestant missionaries arrive, they meet Indians who are content with a mixture of Christianity and their native religion, skeptical of agriculture, and are wary of white power to cause illness. Local Indians expect trade and gifts (especially tobacco) as part of interactions with white, religious or medical people.
Maps Whitman massacre
Establish mission
Samuel Parker and Marcus Whitman traveled overland in 1835 from the Rocky Mountains to parts of modern states of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington to locate potential mission sites. Parker hired an interpreter from Pierre-Chrysologue Pambrun, manager of Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) trading company Fort Nez Percà © Ã… © s. He wanted help in consultation with the elite of Liksiyu (Cayuse) and NiimÃÆ'ipu (Nez Perce) to identify specific places for Christian mission and mission.
During the special negotiations on what the Waiilatpu Mission, six miles from Walla Walla's current city location, Washington, Parker told the Cayuse people who gathered that:
"I do not intend to take your land for anything After the Doctor [Whitman] comes, there will come every year a large ship, full of goods to be shared among the Indians, the goods will not be sold, but given to you.The missionaries will bring you plows and hoes, to teach you how to cultivate the land, and they will not sell, but give it to you. "
Initial contact
Whitman returned the following year with his wife, mechanic William H. Gray, and missionary couples Reverend Henry Spalding and Eliza Hart Spalding. The wives were the first white American women known to enter the Pacific Northwest. HBC Chief Factor John McLoughlin advises against missionaries living in Columbia Plateau, but offers material support for their efforts. In particular, he allowed the women to stay in Fort Vancouver in the winter when men began working to build the Waiilatpu Mission.
Since the otter population of the Columbian Plateau has declined, the feather trade activity of the UK is being restricted. Nevertheless, the practice of HBC during the previous decades formed Cayuse's perceptions and expectations in relation to missionaries. Whitman was frustrated because Cayuse always stressed the commercial exchange. In particular, they asked him to buy a beaver skin supply, at a price comparable to that of Fort Nez Percà ©. The Inventory of Mission in general is not sufficiently attractive to Sahaptin to be compensated for their work. Whitman did not have a large inventory of gunpowder, tobacco, or clothing, so he had to hand over most of his work to Hawaii Kanaka (who had settled down after working as a sailor) or a white man. To support the food supply for the first winter, Whitman bought some horses from Cayuse. In addition the early piracy of Waiilatpu farming was carried out mainly with draft animals borrowed by the nobles of Cayuse and Fort Nez Percà © Å © s.
The missionary family suffers from lack of privacy, because the Cayuse family does not think of anything to enter their homes. Narcissa complains that the kitchen "is always filled with four or five or more Indians - especially at meals..." and says that once a room was set up specifically for the Natives that missionaries would "not allow them to go to other parts of the house... ". According to Narcissa, the natives "are so filthy that they clean up wherever they go..." He writes that "we have come to improve it and not make ourselves immersed in their standards."
In early 1842, when the Cayuse returned to the vicinity of Waiilatpu after the winter, Whitmans told the tribe to set up a house of worship to use. The nobles of Cayuse disagreed, stating that the existing mission buildings were sufficient. The Whitmans tried to explain that "we can not worship him there because they will make it so dirty and fill it so full of lice that we can not live in it." The Cayuse who visited Whitmans found Narcissa's arrogance and Marcus's refusal to hold a sermon at the mission house to be rude.
Land ownership dispute
The Cayuse allows the building of missions, with the belief that Parker's promises are still valid. During the summer of 1837, a year after construction began, Whitmans was called in to make the necessary payments. The head who owns the land around it is named Umtippe. Whitman refused his demands and refused to comply with the agreement, insisting that the land had been given to him for free.
Umtippe returns next winter to ask for another payment, along with medical treatment for his sick wife. He told Whitman that "Doctor, you came here to give us bad medicines: you came to kill us, and you stole our land You promised to pay me every year, and you do not give me anything. You better go; if the wife dies, you too will die. "Cayuse men continue to complain to HBC merchant Whitman's refusal to pay for using their land and preferential treatment of the incoming white colonies.
In particular, the Cayuse leader blocked Gray's felling for buildings in Waiilatpu. He demanded payment for wood and firewood collected by the missionaries. These measures are intended to delay the use of timber resources, as settlers in the Willamette Valley have advised the nobles that he will establish a trading post around him. During 1841, Tiloukaikt kept his horses inside the Waiilatpu farm, making Whitman's feud rise as the horses destroyed the corn.
Whitman claimed that the farm was special for missions and not for horses on horseback. Tiloukaikt tells the doctor "... that this is his land, that he grew up here and that the horse only eats the growth of the land, and demands me what I have paid him for the land." Calm down with that claim, Whitman told Tilokaikt that "I will never give him anything..." In early 1842, Narcissa reported that the Cayuse leaders "said we should pay them for the land we live in." A common complaint is that Whitman sold the wheat to the settlers, while not giving to the Cayuse land holders and requesting payment from them for using his grain mill.
Conversion attempts
The Catholic Church sent two priests in 1838 from the Red River colony to take care of the spiritual needs of both local Native and Catholic settlers. FranÃÆ'§ois Norbert Blanchet and Demer Modeste arrived at Fort Nez Percà ©  © on 18 November 1839. It started a long-lasting competition between ABCFM and Catholic missionaries to turn the Sahaptin peoples into Christianity. While Blanchet and Demers were at the trading post for a day, they preached to the Walla Wallas and Cayuse gathering. Blanchet would later allege that Whitman had ordered local residents not to attend their services. Whitman contacted McLoughlin's agent to denounce Catholic activity. McLoughlin replied saying he was not watching the priests, but would advise them to avoid the Waiilaptu area.
Competing missionaries compete for the attention of the noble Cayuse Tawatoy. He was present when the Catholic priests held their first Mass at Fort Nez Percà © Å © s. Demers returned to the trading post for two weeks in the summer of 1839. One of Tawatoy's sons was baptized at this time and Pambrun was named his godfather. According to Whitman, the Catholic priest forbade Tawatoy to visit him. While Tawatoy occasionally visits Whitman, he avoids Protestant religious services. Also the village chief gave the Catholics a small house that Pambrun built for him, to use for religious services.
After Demers left the area in 1840, Whitman preached to collect the Cayuse on several occasions, saying that they were in a "destroyed and damned country... to eradicate the hope that worship would save them." When he faces the threat of violence for rejecting the power of worship, Whitman keeps telling the Cayuse that their interpretation of Christianity is wrong.
Whitman opposed the closure of the Waiilatpu Mission, as suggested by Asa Bowen Smith in 1840, because he thought it would allow "Catholics to unite all [Pacific] beaches from California to the North..." The religious dispute continued between two sectarian Christians. The Cayuse and related natives "were brought under papal influence," according to the ABCFM board, "show little confidence in the ceremony of the imaginary system." Despite this claim, in 1845 the council acknowledged that no Cayuse had officially joined the churches run by ABCFM missionaries.
Henry Spalding and other anti-Catholic ministers later claimed that Whitman's murder was sparked by Catholic priests. According to their records, Catholics might have told Cayuse that Whitman had caused illness among their people and incited them to attack. Spalding and other Protestant ministers suggest that Catholics want to take over the Protestant mission, which Whitman rejected to sell to them. They accused Fr. Pierre-Jean De Smet became such provocative party.
Agriculture
Whitman and his fellow missionaries urged the nearby Plateau to learn to adopt European-American farming, and settled on subsistence farming. This topic is a common theme in their submission to the Secretary of ABCFM, Pdt. David Greene. Trying to persuade Cayuse to abandon the seasonal migration they spent most of Whitman's time. He believes that if they will cultivate their food supply through agriculture, they will remain around Waiilaptu. He told his superiors that if the Cayuse family would abandon their habit of moving out during the winter, he could spend more da'wah time among them. In particular, Whitman told Rev. Green that "... though we make the gospel our first object, we can not obtain certainty unless they are attracted and held back by the plow and the hoe..."
In 1838 Whitman wrote of his plan to begin changing Cayuse's diet and lifestyle. He asked to be supplied with a large inventory of agricultural equipment, so he could lend it to the interested Cayuse. He also needs a machine to use in a grain mill to process every wheat produced. Whitman believes that grinding would be another incentive for the Cayuse people to remain near Waiilaptu. To grant him the freedom of secular duties, Whitman began asking that a farmer be hired to work in his office and advise Cayuse.
The Cayuse began harvesting the various planted areas originally given to them by Whitman. Nonetheless, they continue their traditional winter migration. The ABCFM stated in 1842 that the Cayuse was still "... addicted to wandering life". The council says that the natives "do not tend to change their way of life..." During the winter of 1843-44, the food supply became short among the Cayuse people. As ABCFM tells us:
The novelty of working for themselves and fulfilling their own desires seems to have passed; while papal teachers and other missionary opponents seem to have managed to make them believe that missionaries should feed them and clothing and fulfill all their wishes.
Increased tension
An additional contrast between Whitman and Cayuse is the use of poison by missionaries. John Young, an immigrant from the United States, reported two special cases that made the relationship tense. In 1840, he was warned by William Gray of melon mission missions, which were larger than they were poisoned. It's from the Cayuse that picks up the crop, to protect the patch Gray says that he "... put a little poison... so that the Indians who will eat it may be a little sick..." During the winter of 1846, Young was hired at a mission sawmill. Whitman gave him instructions for placing poisoned meat in the area around Waiilatpu to kill the Northwestern wolf. Some Cayuse eat the deadly flesh, but survive. Tiloukaikt visits Waiilatpu after people recover, and says that if any sick Cayuse person has died, he will kill Young. Whitman reportedly laughed when told about the conversation, saying he had warned Cayuse several times of the contaminated meat.
Measles broke out around Sutter's Fort in 1846, when a Walla Wallas party was there. They brought the contagion to Waiilatpu when they ended their second Walla Walla expedition, and claimed life among their party. Shortly after the expedition reached home, the disease appeared among the general population around Walla Walla and quickly spread among the tribes in the central Columbia River.
In the 1940s, historians no longer regarded the measles epidemic as the main cause of killing in Waiilaptu. Robert Heizer said that "This measles epidemic, as an important factor in the Whitman massacre, has been minimized by historians seeking the cause of the anger."
The Cayuse involved in the incident previously lived on the Waiilatpu mission. Among the many newcomers to Waiilatpu in 1847 were Joe Lewis, a mixed race of Iroquois and a white descendant of "half-tail." Bitter's discriminatory treatment in the East, Lewis attempted to spread dissatisfaction among the local Cayuse, hoping to create a situation where he could rob the Whitman Mission. He told Cayuse that Whitman, who tried to treat them during the measles epidemic, did not try to save them but poisoned them. The Plateau of Columbia believes that doctors, or shamans, can be killed in retaliation if the patient dies. It is likely that Cayuse held Whitman responsible for many deaths and therefore felt justified in taking his life. The Cayuse is afraid that he has treated them with strychnine, or that someone from Hudson Bay Co. had injected strynin into the drug after Whitman gave it to the tribe.
Violent outbreak
On 29 November, Tiloukaikt, Tomahas, Kiamsumpkin, Iaiachalakis, Endoklamin, and Klokomas, angered by Joe Lewis's chatter, attacked Waiilatpu. According to Mary Ann Bridger (Jim Bridger's mountain boy), a mission watchdog and eyewitnesses for the event, people knocked on Whitman's kitchen door and demanded drugs. Bridger says that Marcus took the medicine, and started a conversation with Tiloukaikt. While Whitman was distracted, Tomahas hit him twice in the head with an ax from behind and another man shot him in the neck. The Cayuse people rushed out and attacked white men and boys working outside. Narcissa found Whitman badly wounded; but he lived for several hours after the attack, sometimes responding to his anxious beliefs. Catherine Sager, who was with Narcissa in another room when the attack occurred, then wrote in her memory that "Tiloukaikt cut off the doctor's face so badly that his face is unrecognizable."
Narcissa then goes to the door to look out; he was shot by a Cayuse man. He died later from gunfire after he was persuaded to leave home. Additional people killed were Andrew Rogers, Jacob Hoffman, L. W. Saunders, Walter Marsh, John and Francis Sager, Nathan Kimball, Isaac Gilliland, James Young, Crocket Bewley, and Amos Sales. Peter Hall, a carpenter who had worked at home, managed to escape from the massacre and reached Fort Walla Walla to raise the alarm and get help. From there he tried to go to Fort Vancouver but never arrived. It is thought that Hall drowned on the Columbia River or was captured and killed. Chief "Beardy" tried in vain to stop the massacre, but to no avail. She was found crying while boarding the Waiilatpu Mission.
The Cayuse takes 54 women and children as prisoners and holds them for ransom, including Mary Ann Bridger and five surviving Sager children. Some of the prisoners died in captivity, including Helen Mar Meek and Louisa Sager, usually due to diseases such as measles. Princess Henry and Eliza Spalding stayed at Waiilatpu when the massacre took place. Eliza returned to her parents by Peter Skene Ogden, an official of the Hudson Bay Company.
One month after the massacre, on 29 December, on the orders of Chief Factor James Douglas, Ogden arranged the exchange of 62 covers, 63 cotton shirts, 12 Hudson Bay rifles, 600 ammunition loads, 7 pounds of tobacco and 12 flints for the return of 49 prisoners life. The Hudson Bay Company never charged American settlers for ransom, nor offered any cash payments to the company. They are too poor for that.
Trial
Several years later, after further violence in what is known as the Cayuse War, some settlers insist that the issue remains unresolved. The new governor, General Mitchell Lambertsen, demanded the surrender of those who carried out the Whitman mission murder. The heads were trying to explain why they killed white men, and that the war that followed (the Cayuse War) had resulted in greater losses of its own people than the number killed on missions. That explanation is not accepted.
Finally, tribal leaders Tiloukaikt and Tomahas, who had been present at the initial incident, and three additional Cayuse men agreed to go to Oregon City (then the capital of Oregon), to be tried for murder. Oregon Supreme Court Judge Orville C. Pratt presides over the hearing, with US Attorney Amory Holbrook as a prosecutor. In the trial, five Cayuse men who surrendered used the defense that it was a tribal law to kill the person who gave the bad medicine. After a long trial, Native Americans were found guilty; Hiram Straight reported the verdict as the jury's foreman twelve. Marshall The newly appointed Joseph Meek region, seeking retaliation for the death of his daughter Helen, was also involved with the process. The verdict is controversial because some observers believe the witnesses summoned to testify were not present at the time of the murder.
On June 3, 1850, Tiloukaikt, Tomahas, Kiamasumpkin, Iaiachalakis, and Klokomas were openly hanged. Isaac Keele served as executioner. An observer writes, "We have read about the heroes of all time, we never read, or believe, that the heroisms of the Indians can exist They know that to be accused must be punished, and that they will be executed in the city of Oregon the civilized... "
Birthday anniversary
How the West Won: A Pioneer Pageant took place in Walla Walla, Washington on 6-7 June 1923, and again on 28-29 May 1924. Originally conceived by Whitman College President, Stephen Penrose, 75th anniversary of the Whitman Massacre, Pageant quickly gained support throughout the larger Walla Walla community. It was produced as an allegorical theatrical spectacle and spoke with the prevailing social themes of the frontier period, such as real destiny. The Whitman massacre is presented as a small but significant piece of production in four movements: "White Man Arrives," "Indian War," "The Building of Walla Walla," and "The Future." Production includes 3,000 volunteers from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. The Pageant was directed by Percy Jewett Burrell.
"Today's contestants are our Democracy Drama!" says Burrell. He praised the benefits of the contest, citing "solidarity," "communal [artistry]," and "spirit." The success of the vote was due in part to the popularity of theater form during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which holds certain similarities with other spectacular events, such as world exhibitions and arcades. These similarities include a large number of actors/participants, multi stage/tableaux settings, and ideological propagation issues. The Pageant contributes to the narrative that divine providence has ensured the success of European settlers over Native Americans in the conquest of the western lands.
Located in Eastern Washington, 250 miles east of the ports of Seattle and Portland, Walla Walla is not an easy location to access in 1923-24. But local businesses work with the Chamber of Commerce to provide a special train service to the area, which includes "sleeping accommodations for all who want to join the party", for a round-trip fee of $ 24.38. Arrangements were made for trains to park near the amphitheater until the morning after the last show, "thus giving the cruise a hotel on wheels during their stay."
The Automobile Club of Western Washington encourages motorists to take a drive over Snoqualmie Pass due to good road conditions. "We have been told that the maintenance department of the State Highway Commission is arranging to place scraper crews on all gravel roads on the route next week and lay a new surface on the road for the special benefits of the visitors of the contest." The Pageant brings 10,000 tourists to Walla Walla every year, including regional officials such as Oregon Governor Walter E. Pierce and Washington Governor Louis F. Hart.
See also
- The Walla Walla expedition, the spread of disease that preceded the slaughter
References
- William Henry Gray, A History of Oregon, 1792-1849, taken from personal observation and authentic information... , Harris and Holman: 1870, pp.Ã, 464, MOA
External links
- National Park Service, Whitman Massacre
- Whitman Massacre
- Mary Marsh Cason - the account of the survivor
- Matilda Sager's - survivor account
- Elam Young Account
- Walla Walla Treaty Council, 1855
- Addis, Cameron. "Whitman Massacre". The Oregon Encyclopedia .
- Lansing, Robert B. "Whitman Massacre". The Oregon Encyclopedia .
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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