[or-roots] Marcus Whitman and the Indians (from aunt Charlotte's book)

[DAVIESW739 at aol.com]

One day in November a man rode down to the ferry landing on the opposite bank 
of the river. He rode a horse that was steaming wet with sweat that lathered 
and streaked across his shoulders and flanks. We were living then in the house 
that Father had built on the very brink of the river, so that we might be 
near the ferry, and we saw the man stop at our gate and heard him call to Father 
and the boys.

  The picture of that little group is clear in my memory, the upturned faces, 
and the stranger leaning down from his saddle, his bridle rains held tightly 
in his one hand while with the other, he pointed toward the high Cascade Range 
Mountains, but it was to something far beyond them that the stranger was 
pointing. It was toward Wa-i-i-lat-pu, and before night had come, every man of our 
family except Father, was following the directions of his pointing finger, 
not only our boys, but every able bodied man in our country was riding to the 
rescue of fifteen or twenty young women held prisoner in the Cayuse Indian 
Village, and to avenge the brutal massacre of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman and many others, 
who were at the Mission.

  But all that has been written many times. There are many printed versions, 
some of them quite contradictory. A great deal of jealousy existed among the 
Methodist, Presbyterian and Catholic Missions. While this, of course, had 
nothing at all to do with the massacre, itself, it did undoubtedly have influence 
upon the various accounts of it. These pages are only concerned with that part 
of it that came to me directly from the lips of children, who were spared and 
young women, who were carried away and held for a time in the Indian Village. 
Miss Bewely, who taught our school was one of these girls.

  So all of our boys and most of our few neighbors,went at once when the news 
was carried to us. The Cayuse Indians were bloodthirsty and savage, with a 
degenerate half-breed to act as "go-between" and tell them of plots and wrongs. 

  Dr. Whitman had given the Indians medicine when scarlet fever was raging 
among them. Many of them died, and the half-breed told them that he had heard 
the Missionaries plotting to kill them all off, that the white people might have 
all that great country to themselves. He told them that the Doctor's medicine 
was poison.

  I learned to know and understand the Indian as few people were able to 
understand them even in those early times. I know that they were crafty, cruel and 
altogether untrustworthy. I was only a child and I learned to talk to them in 
their own tongue, I learned to speak it as well as they spoke it themselves. 
I was about them a great deal and I heard and understood many things that were 
not intended for me, and I know and can say positively that I never saw an 
Indian that was helped in any way whatsoever by the Mission influence.

  The terrible butchery at the Whitman Mission was a fair illustration of 
this. The killing was not done by the savage tribe as a whole, but by the very 
Indians that Doctor Whitman taught and fed and trusted. All that was ever done 
in the way of converting those savages, was money, time and lives wasted. I 
knew and loved Dr. Whitman. I knew that he gave everything in human power even 
his life, itself, and I know that it was a vain and useless sacrifice. When the 
Doctor sat at the Mission house table, measuring out the powders for 
Te-lo-kite's sick child, he knew that his time was measured to the very last grain of 
sand in the glass. The treacherous Indians struck him before he had arisen from 
his chair. The slaughter was begun. Miss Bewely told me about it and she 
stood beside him when he was killed. Eliza Spaulding told me about it. She was 
only twelve. She caught her little apron and pulled it over her face, she could 
not bear to see them kill her. She waited for a time for the blow of the 
tomahawk then pulled the apron aside, they seemed to have overlooked her, as a 
matter of fact, their grievance was not against the children. I do not remember 
that any of them were killed.

  Many of the Indians loved and were loyal to individuals. It was the Mission 
work as a whole that I have in mind when I say that the Indians were in no 
way benefitted.

  My Father got on well with our Indians. If he made them a promise, he kept 
it. If he promised a sack of wheat or a beating, the Indian who knew him, was 
morally certain that he would get it. Our Indians, however, were quite unlike 
the inland tribes. They were indolent, glad to escape anything that savored of 
work, even trouble took some effort. The men often beat their squaws, but 
beyond that, they were quite peaceable.

  Although the Indian trouble throughout the Northwest seemed to center about 
the various Missions, there was a general unrest brewing everywhere. So it 
was decided to send someone to Washington to ask the Government to send troops 
to us.

  Joe Meek was finally chosen to go. He was said to be a cousin of President 
Polk. He had been in the country a long while even when we came. He had an 
Indian wife and a family of half-cast children. He was a typical soldier of 
fortune, tall, handsome and well educated. Shortly after his return, he came to our 
house. I remember hearing him tell about his trip and his visit to his 
cousin, the President. He told of a dinner given in his honor. There were many 
distinguished guests present. He told us that they asked him to carve the turkey. 
He asked "Will you have a backwoods carve" of course they would. So he took the 
big bird in his hands and tore it apart. I listened and laughed with the 
rest, I was only a little girl, but it shocked me and I did not think as well of 
him. I have a feeling now, that it was probably not altogether true.When I 
first saw Mrs. Whitman, she was on her way to the Mission at Walla Walla and had 
Joe Meek's little daughter, Helen, with her. Helen was later sent east to be 
educated. She was unusually gifted and her Father was always very proud of her.



Walt Davies
Cooper Hollow Farm
Monmouth, OR 97361
503 623-0460 
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