paigeol's review
4.0
Tells a very important story, but tells it poorly at times and meanders a lot (maybe trying to find filler?). People from the area or who went to Whitman should definitely read it. Wish I could recommend it to everyone.
pagesofpins's review
3.0
Pacific Northwest natives would do well to know about how the history of the Whitmans was distorted, and once the story was out, how it became legend.
acarman1's review
5.0
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.
bookwormie's review
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
I'm amazed at the quality of detail in his writing and research of primary sources done for this book about Anglo expansion in the PNW in their failed attempts to convert Cayuse, Nez Perce, Umatilla, and Walla Walla to Calvinism and the iniquities these tribes faces up to the present. If you live in that area or Oregon, I highly encourage you to read this book! Our generation hasn't been exposed to the Whitman myth and hopefully with education of this historical revisionism we can prevent it from becoming a believed lie once again. Warning: you will be sick to your stomach and frowning a lot reading this.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Cultural appropriation, Violence, Religious bigotry, and Genocide
miguelf's review
4.0
The author makes a very convincing case for the fabrication of the myth behind Whitman and Spalding’s supposedly brave exploits. That said, is it any wonder that missionary types in the 1830’s were not up to much good and embellished their deeds to the point of incredulity, all the while with the native population receiving the very short end of the stick? It didn’t take much to convince this reader of that, yet the book almost goes a tad overboard in the documentation. As a 15 year resident in Oregon I had never even heard of them before (save Whitman College) so it’s not as if they had wide notoriety; however, the author has packed in a lot of other historical information about Oregon that was also quite interesting.
socraticgadfly's review
challenging
dark
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Great book by Harden.
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. This is well-researched with many pages of footnotes, and well written.
Even before the Manifest Destiny part, unscrolling the original tale in order, per Harden’s research?
Methodist missionary Henry Kirke White Perkins, serving 160 miles west of Whitmans, noted the unsuitedness of Narcissa in particular on temperament and the Whites-first angle of Marcus, writing just 6 months after the trial of the five Cayuses, in a letter to Narcissa's sister. This ties in with Cayuse complaints about Whitmans profiting from living on their land, but paying no rent.
Harden notes the martyr-like mentality of Narcissa from her early, pre-married, desire to be a missionary. Looks at letters and such from her as documenting this.
He also how depressed she became after loss of her toddler child, and seemingly never fully recovered. If she was unsuited before, she certainly was after this.
He also notes the racism of "extinguishment" of Indian land claims, as part of discussing Washington-Indian tribes relationships for 175 years.
Notes the ridiculousness of the various treaties by Gov. Stevens of Washington, next.
He also tackles the Calvinism of Spauldings and Whitmans and how that drove their particular missionizing mindset. He contrasts this to Catholicism of priests also doing conversions in area. Harden may oversell the Catholics' "letting civilization ride light" as well as letting the religious process ride light. The 1680 Pueblo Revolt, and the Spanish in California, show that the Franciscans, at least, where they could, did also consider civilizing part of converting. The "black robes" coming from France may have been more enlightened. But, they were also thinner in numbers. That’s not enough for a quarter-star ding; it’s a minor matter of note, though.
This by no means “spoils” the twists and turns of myth vs reality, nor of how the myth was used and sold in support of many issues.