Whitman massacre

“ The result of that "missionary wedge," and investigation, has taken from the Hudson's Bay Company half of its Indian dominion. To whom must we look for cause? Certainly not to the beaver trappers, hunters, traders, casual sailors, nor diplomatists, as the two great countries did not settle it till eleven and one-half months be fore the Whitman massacre, and at that time there were in the country five hundred men brave enough to overcome the savage element, and as many more to defend the homes of the American settlers. ”

“ This being the thirty-seventh anniversary of the Whitman massacre, it seems not an inappropriate time in which to answer some of the aspersions cast upon the dead missionary by Mrs. F. F. Victor, through the columns of the Oregonian, in its issue of November 7th.
She therein accuses Dr. Whitman with falsehood, deception, office-seeking, trying to deprive the Indians of their lands, trying to enrich himself at their expense, and at the expense of the emigrants, yet has not one word of commendation for any act of his life. ”

“ During the same period, an Indian war following the Whitman massacre was in progress in Oregon. Before these excitements ceased, the political upheavals, beginning in 1856, culminated in 1860. Then followed the great struggle of the Civil War, when giants met in battle, and the very existence of the nation hung upon the success of the men behind the flag. ”

“ Nevertheless, without having the least intention to influence one way or the other, I feel myself obliged to tell you, that by going to war with the Cayuses, you will likely have all the Indians of this country against you. Would it be for the interest of a young colony to expose herself? That you will have to decide with your council.’”
Reader, you now have before you a full statement of the most important facts of the Whitman massacre, and of the part taken in it by “the holy fathers, the Catholic priests,” as they were styled by Mr. McBean, of Fort Nez Percés, to Mr. Kimzey and his wife. ”

“ These Indians did not murder their missionaries, but protected them, and to this day may be seen springing up some of the good seed sown by the missionaries among them forty years ago. It is not a month since I talked with a lady who is one of the children who survived the Whitman massacre. She had just returned from the old Lapwai Mission—her birthplace. She there found many of the old mission Indians who still held to the teachings of the mis sionaries. ”

“ The Whitman massacres.—Narratives of, by J. B. A. Brouillet and J. Ross Browne.—Extract from the New York Evangelist.—Statements of Father Brouillet criticised.—Testimony of John Kimzey.—Dr. Whitman at Umatilla.—Returns home.
We have before us two works purporting to give a true and authentic account of the Whitman massacre,—the one prepared by a Jesuit priest, J. B. A. Brouillet; the other by one J. Ross Browne, special agent of the United States revenue department. ”

“ Myron Eells himself was the authority on whom Elwood Evans depended for those dates, for in a "History of the Congregational Association of Oregon and Washington," by Rev. Myron Eells, we read that "The proceedings of the meetings of the Missions were either burnt or destroyed at the Whitman massacre in 1847, or at the time of the fire at Rev. Gushing Eells' in 1872." ”

“ Mowry nor any other advocate of the Whitman Saved Oregon story has ever quoted one sentence of any of the scores of pages of the contemporaneous correspondence and diaries of the mission, which establish beyond dispute that it was in a state of decadence really as early as 1839-40, and steadily suid rapidly went down from that time onward, so that if there had been no Whitman massacre the mission in all probability would soon have been abandoned, as the Methodist Mission to the Oregon. Indians had already been. ”

“ Whitman's beautiful, long, golden hair. They collected the bones and again buried them, heaping the earth high and turning a wagon-box over the grave. For fifty years nothing more was done to it.
Mr. Spalding came within two miles of the Mission on Wednesday morning, when he met a Catholic father, his Indian interpreter and another Indian. Sending the two Indians ahead, the priest told Mr. Spalding of the massacre, assuring him that all the women, save Mrs. Whitman, and all the children had been spared ”

“ The Whitman massacre began November 29, 1847, and continued several days thereafter. Dr. Marcus Whitman had established his mission at Waiilatpu, near the present city of Walla Walla. He had Peter Skene Ogden 371 erected a crude flour mill, and he cultivated land near his mission. He was a brave man, who showed his quality by living at his mission after threats by the Indians, and after he was warned by Dr. McLoughlin of danger from the Indians. Dr. McLoughlin knew the Indians and their character better than any other man who ever lived in the Oregon Country. ”

“ In her diary she says, but in no complaining mood: "Situated as we are, our house is the Missionaries' tavern, and we must accommodate more or less all the time. We have no less than seven families in our two houses; we are in peculiar and somewhat trying circumstances; we cannot sell to them because we are missionaries and not traders."
And we see by the record that there were no less than seventy souls in the Whitman family the day of the massacre. ”

“ To the great credit of loyal pioneers of Oregon who knew Whitman and his work, upon the fiftieth anniversary of his death erected a stately marble column above the grave and secured five acres of ground about it, while the Christian people of Walla Walla built a little Memorial Mission Church at the place of the massacre. ”

“ WAR MEASURES TO PROTECT THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY.
A British war vessel, The Modest, was kept at Vancouver, and bastions and careful defences attached to that establishment but a short time before the Whitman massacre commenced. Rev. Father Demers has given us another statement to confirm our position, and enlighten us on the policy of the Hudson's Bay Company in strengthening the fort. Page 148, "Catholic Church in Oregon," he says: "It is false that the company had anything to fear from the Indians ”

“ Whitman in Washington. There are few men who could, under the circumstances, after the lapse of thirty-nine years, speak more positively as to the identity of a comparative stranger. Mr. Ramsey has left yet better marks by which to identify the missionary whom he met in Washington, when he says he recollects lamenting the death of the man whom he met there, when he heard of the massacre. The mascre occurred less than five years after the time that Dr. Whitman is claimed to have been in Washington, and Mr. Ramsey recollects, at that time, of having commented on his recollection of the doctor. ”

“ Whitman went to the sash door and looked out to see what had become of those around the beef. She stood there watching, when Frank Iskalome, a full blooded Indian, shot her in the left breast, through the glass. Sister Elizabeth was standing beside her and heard her exclaim, "I am wounded; hold me tight." The women took hold of her and placed her in a chair; then she began to pray that "God would save her children that soon were to be orphaned and that her dear mother would be given strength to bear the news of her death."
Finally Mr. Rogers suggested that they all go up stairs for safety. ”

“ Whitman was accustomed to attend the Indians when sick, and these labors, undertaken in the purest benevolence, were ultimately the cause of his death; for, the measles having broken out among them, and great numbers, especially of the children, dying, their suspicions were directed towards this devoted and able missionary.
In the war which ensued the Cuyuses suffered severely, were deprived of great numbers of horses, compelled to relinquish their white captives, and to surrender to well-deserved death some of the most active in the massacre. ”

“ Oregon Historical Society Quarterly.
94 ROBERT H. BLOSSOM
myself for my country and to procure such regulations and laws as will best secure both the Indians aftd white men in their transit and settlement intercourse."
THE WHITMAN MASSACRE.
The first few years of missionary work was very encourag- ing. It was not long, however, before a spirit of hatred for the whites manifested itself. On November 29, 1847, occurred the horrible massacre of Dr. Whitman, his wife and twelve other persons. Mrs. Whitman was the only woman killed. ”

“ Some of them were men who had made themselves odious to right-thinking people of all parties by their intemperate zeal against foreign-born colonists and the catholic religion, basing their arguments for know-nothing principles upon the alleged participation in the Whitman massacre of the catholic priesthood. ”

“ Mission of the A. B. C. F. M. p. 33-72. Takes a middle ground in regard to Whitman's influence. Says that he did not save Oregon or any part of it, but that he did exercise a very real and potent political influence. Bound typewritten copy.
Contained in the University of Washington Library, Seattle, Washington.
Pringle, Catherine Sager. The Whitman massacre. 109p.
Mrs. Pringle was one of the Sager girls adopted by Doctor and Mrs. Whitman. She was a grown girl at the time of the massacre. A few years after the massacre she committed her recollections of it to paper. ”

“ Whitman. The Indians of the Cayuse tribe to whom the murderers belonged, were assured that the only way in which they could avoid a war with the whites was to deliver up the chiefs who had been engaged in the massacre, to be tried and punished according to the laws of the whites. Of the two hundred Indians implicated in the massacre, five were given up to be dealt with according to law. These were the five chiefs, Te-lou-i-kite, Tam-a-has, Klok-a-mas, Ki-am-a-sump-kin, and I-sa-i-a-cha-lak-is. ”

“ There is no evidence that white men directly instigated the massacre or took a part in its horrors. While there is evidence of a bitter animosity existing among the Jesuit priests toward the Protestant Missionaries, and their defense of the open charges made against them is lame; yet the historical facts are not sufficient to lay the blame upon them.
Nor is it necessary to hold the leading officials of the Hudson Bay Company responsible for the crime as co-conspirators. There are always hangers-on and irresponsible parties who stand ready to do the villain's work. ”

“ He also said that he was satisfied that the Indians came with the intention of killing all of them. In a few days Mr. Hindman returned with help and they moved to Oregon City.
Perrin clerked in Allen McKinley's store during the winter and in the spring went as interpreter with a company of Volunteers to seek out and punish the perpetrators of the massacre. After the Volunteers returned, he married Priscilla Parker, a daughter of Sam Parker of Salem, Oregon, and took up a farm near Salem. He and his family lived there until the United States military authorities went to Fort Lapwai. ”

“ The service for which Peter Skene Ogden is best known in Oregon was his ransom of the survivors of the Whitman massacre in December, 1847. It is probable that no other man, with the possible exception of Dr. Robert Newell, of Champoeg, could have accomplished this rescue. The Indians had known Mr. ”

“ Spalding's family and Miss Bewley should all be brought in. During the time of the parley small bands of Indians were constantly passing the Mission, going to and from the place of treaty-making. One party in passing thought to play a joke on those who were guarding us and shot off their guns, making quite a commotion and causing our captors to think that the "Boston men" were at hand. They began to grab up some of the children to kill them ”

“ Hastings, Langsford W. New description of Oregon and California. Cinn. Rulison. 1857. C1849. p. 21, 54, 60. Hastings stayed at the mission over Sunday, got provisions, etc. Describes the mission and says that the burning of the mill while Whitman was in the East was accidental.
Hawthorne, Julian, editor. History of Washington. 2v. N. Y. Am. Hist. Pub. Co. 1893. v. i, p. 366-370; v. 2, p. 105-132. Biography in v. 1. Whitman massacre in v. 2, written by G. D. Brewerton. Blames Catholics for the massacre. ”

“ When the news of the massacre was taken to Fort Vancouver, Peter Skeen Ogden, the chief factor, declared he must take goods and go to the rescue of the women and children before the volunteers could go up there; he believed that if the Indians thought the volunteers were to attempt a rescue, that they would kill all their prisoners, for they well knew that they deserved punishment for their dastardly deeds. With no prisoners toTwenty-Five hamper them, they could perhaps elude any pursuing band of volunteers. ”

“ It was a severely hard trip in the storm and sleet that comes in the spring in that country; the roads were rough and the nights cold. Not long after this experience he was stricken with slow paralysis and was confined to his bed most of the time for six years before his death. When Perrin Whitman passed on to his reward, a civilizing influence that helped to make the great Northwest safe for the white man went out. He was all that an honest man should be. ”

“ Whitman ever took any part in any political movement in Oregon; save and except as his great effort to bring in settlers to secure the country to the United States may be called political. As soon as he could leave the emigrants, he hurried home to his Mission, and at once took up his heavy work which he had laid aside eleven months before. He went on building and planting, and sowing and teaching; the busiest of busy men up to the very date of the massacre. ”