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The Whitman Massacre
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In this episode, we dive into the haunting and tragic story of the Whitman Mission near Walla Walla, where Protestant missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman sought to convert the Cayuse people while navigating growing cultural tensions on the Oregon frontier. As disease spread along the Oregon Trail in 1847, mistrust deepened after measles devastated Native communities, leading many Cayuse to blame Marcus Whitman when his medical treatments failed to save their people. On November 29, 1847, tensions erupted into the deadly Whitman Massacre, leaving 13 mission members dead and sparking a chain of events that reshaped the future of the Oregon Territory forever.
⚠️ Content Warning: This episode includes references to abuse, trauma, and death. Listener discretion is advised.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Beneath the Evergreens'
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Beneath the Evergreens, where murder, mysteries, and mayhem lurk in the shadows of the Pacific Northwest. I'm Jess. And I'm Anna. From haunted forests and unsolved disappearances, to true crime cases buried deep in the moss and the mist, we're digging into the dark secrets hiding under the evergreens.
00:00:19
Speaker
Each episode will explore real cases, eerie encounters, and the legends that keep the Pacific Northwest up at night. So grab your flashlight, lock your doors, and join us beneath the evergreens.
Podcast Release Day Humor
00:00:53
Speaker
Welcome, welcome, everyone. Hello, hello. beautiful Friday afternoon. As I'm editing these, um every time we say happy Friday afternoon and these come out like Sunday nights, Monday mornings, I'm like, people are probably like, actually, no, thank you.
00:01:11
Speaker
My week is actually starting. Please stop telling me it's Friday. Well, happy Monday, everyone. Happy Monday. i hope you have a great day at work if you work on Mondays.
00:01:21
Speaker
Yeah. Great start to the week. Great the Happy spending it with us. Yes. Thanks for being
Exploring Walla Walla
00:01:27
Speaker
here. We appreciate you all. So Jess, have you ever been to Walla Walla?
00:01:33
Speaker
I have partaken Walla Walla. Partaken? i have partaken in Walla Walla. love the area. They're downtown. Well, I haven't extensively gone around Walla Walla, but they're downtown area.
00:01:47
Speaker
It reminds me of like stepping back to 1950s a little bit. Just go architecture and that kind of stuff. And it's it's very beautiful. It is so beautiful. Did you see the the buses? They look like older trolleys. That's so cool. I love it. It's very picturesque. Also the wineries on every corner.
00:02:03
Speaker
oh my gosh. It's amazing. We just got back from there. yeah And oh my God. I love it. It was my first time ever going. I've never been to like that part of the state before. um i think it's my second favorite area.
00:02:15
Speaker
It is beautiful in a way that it that the West isn't. it's Yeah. So the West side is very green, lush, soft is would describe it. But then over on the East, it's like tans, harsh, but in a beautiful way. as say it almost i kind of would to describe it a little differently. I feel like West side is a little bit like harder. like I think of all like the rock structures and the mountains. When i think of the East, I think of like...
00:02:45
Speaker
almost like hay and grass and just like softer tanner warmer probably yeah literally it is warmer but just like the colors feel warmer as well yes yes it is a very it's a very it's they're definitely two very different places but they're yeah there's something about walla walla that is just so beautiful I feel like it was a cool mixture of both. Like it was still pretty green, but it was like very much that East side feel.
00:03:10
Speaker
I was, I'm like kind of obsessed that I'm already planning my next trip back there. Like maybe I'll just get my summer home here when i you know, make that money. Hopefully question mark.
Listener Shoutouts
00:03:25
Speaker
and not ah Well, before we get started on our story, I do have a shout out. want to shout out one of my most favorite people in the world, Nina. Ooh, they are some of our best listeners. Um, thank you guys for always tuning in. Love. i just love all the feedback and love chatting with you guys. So thank you. Hi, Nina. Hi, Simon. I hear secondhand about you guys all the time. You're wonderful. Also, I hear Simon is the buffest baby um in the world right now. So go Simon.
00:03:55
Speaker
Yes, he is. Yes, he is. He's on his way. He's going to be the the monster of the the preschool. I love it. He's going to be benching 500 pounds at two years old.
00:04:08
Speaker
I love it. He's so cute. So cute. Love that little kid.
The Story of Marcus Whitman
00:04:14
Speaker
Alrighty. Well, are you ready to jump right into our story for this week? I am more than ready. Let's do this.
00:04:20
Speaker
So my question earlier about Walla Walla was very targeted because that is where our story for this week takes a place. i love it. If you can't tell, I'm very much of a one track mind and I was thinking about the whole time. Walla Walla.
00:04:34
Speaker
Prior to going there, I feel like I didn't know too much about it. Like I knew that there was wineries, knew that the like the state penitentiary was there. Kind of that was it. Right. I thought ah I always thought it was like this was little interesting corner of the the state.
00:04:46
Speaker
But one thing that I also heard about it was Whitman College. Didn't know much about Whitman. Didn't really know what the name meant. If there was someone named Whitman or if it was just a cool name that that that that they decided on for the school. But once we were over there, found out a little bit more about Marcus Whitman and actually his story and kind of relation to the the area. For those of you that don't know, just outside of the city of Walla Walla, there is the National Historic Site of the Whitman Mission. So if you're ever over there, definitely jump out there. There's i mean, there's wineries right next to it, too. So it's kind of a fun little jaunt in between getting a glass of wine. But it's this really cool site that was actually the home of the mission. So a standard mission, right? You have people of one religion coming to a new area to basically spread their religion and try to convert people.
00:05:36
Speaker
In the 1830s, Marcus Whitman, along with a couple other people and his wife, came out to the, well, technically was the Oregon Territory at that time, via the, almost the Oregon Trail, kind of the the general path of the Oregon Trail before it was actually the Oregon Trail, it came out here to spread Protestantism, essentially.
Challenges in the Oregon Territory
00:05:56
Speaker
They found this beautiful grassy knoll outside of what we can now consider downtown Walla Walla, And the remnants are actually still there today. So you can go out to this National Historic Site and you can see where the stones are left from where their houses and their structures are. There's actually a really cool area where they have ah like a big wagon like they would have used in the Oregon Trail times.
00:06:18
Speaker
And kind of a recreated part of the Oregon Trail. So you can like walk down it and kind of feel like you're back in those times. Without getting dipped in dysteria and whatever the hell else.
00:06:29
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Oregon Trail. Yeah. Well, it was funny enough when we were there, I actually had a bit of a cold. It felt very authentic, actually. i love it That actually sounds really fun.
00:06:41
Speaker
It was, it's very, very cool. And the area has done a really great job of placards up so you can read about everything that went on to happen at the mission. And there was a lot of things that went on there that I genuinely had no idea about.
00:06:54
Speaker
So I wanted to share it with you all today. Whitman, Marcus Whitman, he was the the kind of the key missionary in this whole thing. So he actually studied to be a doctor in New York before he joined the mission.
00:07:07
Speaker
And then he was eventually assigned out towards the Oregon Territory. With another reverend, Henry Spaulding. So it was Whitman, Spaulding, both of their wives, and one other man. They were the five that came out and really started this trail. okay So it took them about nine-ish months to make it from the East Coast all the way to the Oregon Territory um in present-day Walla Walla. I just have to give a shout-out to the women that traveled for nine months in those dresses and those skirts.
00:07:37
Speaker
Oh, my God. Right? oh Yikes. Yeah. likes yeah Yeah, so they they they left in um February of 1836. And that was a really unpleasant time to be especially on the East Coast. yeah And then they arrived in the Columbia plate Plateau later that fall. okay So, I mean, they really saw the whole turning of events. But they were also, like, in the plateau, like, in the the West, in, like, the hottest time of the year, which I imagine was not a ton of fun. No, with no AC. Yikes.
00:08:12
Speaker
Yes, no hasty in that time, unfortunately. like, no, miserable.
00:08:19
Speaker
So the kind of the whole point of this mission, like I said, it was to spread Protestantism um specifically to the local local native native populations. At this time, there was not a ton of white people. really in the Oregon territory broadly. These were kind of some of the first settlers, if you will. So specifically this mission, their goal was to stay near the Cayuse people in Walla Walla, in the Walla Walla region, Walla Walla Valley, and convert them to Christianity.
00:08:47
Speaker
So Whitman, while he was very determined and very impassioned by his faith, he wasn't the best best at converting the Cayuse to Protestantism. But he was able to use a lot of his knowledge as a physician to help the kind of common ailments and things like that.
00:09:05
Speaker
So you kind of became a bit of a trusted figure in the area. And initially the relationship between the missionaries and the Cayuse people was quite good. That is refreshing. Yeah. So they were able to work together. and The Whitmans even had a daughter while they were there and the daughter grew up with the, with the the native people. And she was even given a name by the Cayuse people. So it was really kind of a cool relationship at the very beginning.
00:09:30
Speaker
However, as the years went on, things continued to begin to sour. You had kind of the expectation of the settlers that came over that, you know, our way of life is better and the native population just needs to adopt that.
00:09:43
Speaker
They need to basically kind of change who they are and be be more like us. likes Right? Exactly. And, you know, yeah, maybe there was things that the native population took and said, okay, maybe we can like put these in tandem with our our current customs, right? Like, It's not a lack of wanting to find a better way to do things. It is the our way is the best way. And so you should do it this way.
00:10:06
Speaker
And that's where a lot of that trouble started. Yeah. let's How about let's just be collaborative. Maybe we take some of their insights and portray it or take it on ourselves as well. Exactly. Exactly. Like I think there's a lot of room to grow when you meet new people. And there's a lot of hubris in just believing that your way is the best way just because of i don't know, whatever prejudice you may have.
00:10:30
Speaker
By roughly 1847, the Oregon Trail was gaining more and more traction. It was like genuinely a trail at this point. There was almost 4,000 people that had come to the west via the Oregon Trail, which just pausing for a second.
Cultural Tensions and Disease
00:10:45
Speaker
That is so many people. That's lot. with that they brought many a disease many a like goods many wagons so many things and they were starting to kind of overrun the native population and that added to the souring relationship the native population kept saying see these people are taking our land why are you bringing more people over here um there's just no room no space and they also wanted to begin you know like charging rent like saying hey you're staying on this land this is our land you need to buy this land from us and it kind of feels like it formed a bit of a double standard wait the natives were saying that or the white people that were coming over okay we're saying that i mean i feel like that's reasonable i totally yeah agree but it feels like that double standard of like as settlers we now own this land and we can charge other people rent but god forbid you charge us yeah that's wild was yeah not not a great look
00:11:42
Speaker
So anyways, like I said, disease came with a lot of these people that were coming over from the east. And measles was probably the biggest epidemic that came. That just it ravaged through all of the settlers and also all of the the native tribes in the area. And it was just killing people so quickly and kind of one by one people were dropping.
00:12:02
Speaker
So like I said, Marcus Whitman was a physician by trade. So he was both taking care of the settlers that came over. Kind of by this point, he had moved away from missionary work and was doing a lot of just like welcoming people, trying to set up new settlements, things like that. At this point, he had been in the Oregon Territory for almost 10 years now. Oh, wow. little over 10 years, actually.
00:12:22
Speaker
Yeah. So he was like pretty much a part of everything that was going on. and was kind of a leader of all the other settlers. Yeah. So as a physician, he was leading, he was taking care of people, but a lot of the native tribes began to notice that the his work, it seemed to work better on the white settlers and not necessarily the native population.
00:12:43
Speaker
And from afar, right, I wasn't there. I yeah can't explicitly say what happened. Maybe it was something with the practices that he had, right? There was something about the antibodies that the settlers had that he was able to treat better. Or maybe it was negligence, right? yeah We really don't know.
00:12:59
Speaker
But the custom of the Cayuse was that if a medical professional had patients die, if he was considered guilty of their death and could be put to death. Wow, that is harsh.
00:13:13
Speaker
It's very much like an eye for an eye, you know? But, like, also... And I'm not saying this advocating that we kill physicians when their patients die. But it also, you know, you are going to take care of every single person that is entrusted with your, like is given to you with a very much a sense of urgency and a respect for their life. Yeah. Like you care. It's not like today where you have a 15 minute appointment and if you feel like you're dying, they're like, oh, well, you're young, you're fine.
00:13:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And especially it works when you have smaller groups, right? They're more ingrained with the culture. And you don't have these wild diseases coming out of nowhere that will immediately kill you. you know i share that as the kind of the lens in which the Cuyus were seeing what was happening. I would assume there's like a lot of anger too. It's like these people are coming in, they're taking our resources, they're taking our land. Now there's like this unknown diseases that we've never seen before. And then this white doctor and all these white people have probably been exposed to this type of stuff before. So like you said, antibodies.
00:14:15
Speaker
He's able to cure them, but then not cure the native population. Like I would also start being a little. Exactly. And there's no context for any of this, right? Like this is the first time that has happened um in their history.
The Whitman Massacre
00:14:30
Speaker
So that's all leads to this really horrible relationship forming between the Cayuse and the Whitman mission. So in on November 29th, 1847, a group of Cayuse men came to the mission and demanded medicine from Marcus Whitman.
00:14:47
Speaker
So the account that I'm going to portray next comes from someone who was at the mission at the time this happened, someone that was in the house. Again, this is someone's portrayal of what happened. I don't know if it actually happened or not.
00:15:00
Speaker
But the witness said that when Whitman turned around to grab some medicine from a cabinet, one of the men stabbed him in the back. This began what is now known as the Whitman Massacre. So in total, 13 people died from the Whitman mission, and the survivors of the attack were then held for ran for ransom at the mission, basically requesting money from the Hudson Bay Company for their freedom. Yikes.
00:15:24
Speaker
So yes, it was a really horrible turn of events. And the motive is for all we know, the motive was the people dying, right? And the kind of almost eye for an eye approach.
00:15:36
Speaker
And however, there's not a ton of information on what happened and why everyone else was killed. Was it they were fighting back in the start of kind of a war? Or was there something else going on that is not reported?
00:15:48
Speaker
One of the things that I always like to think about in times like this is that quote unquote, the winner writes the right history, right? So from their perspective, it was completely unprovoked, right? There was no real reason for this attack.
00:16:01
Speaker
But I do imagine people don't just act out out of nowhere. Yeah. Right. There was something else happening. I think that something else that's happening is like their whole their lands are going away. Their whole traditions are going away. They're being forced into these boxes.
00:16:18
Speaker
It sounds like at least that was the primary goal. for sure. And then all of a sudden they're essentially under attack by these diseases that they've never I'm sure they're scared.
00:16:29
Speaker
The person who says that they can heal them isn't. Like, i I kind of see why tensions would arise. Yeah. Exactly. I think it's the, for me, it's the like, the 12 other people that died, you know?
00:16:41
Speaker
I understand the one given that context, but I feel like there was something else happening that everyone else had to die. Well, it's also the Wild West still back then, right? So, and there's a huge prejudice against Native Americans. I'm guessing if one person, and if you're acting as a tribe, if one person kills someone and then all everyone else in the mission is like, oh my gosh, we're gonna take you out.
00:17:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's no, that's completely fair. So this is what is now known as the Whitman massacre.
Aftermath and Historical Impact
00:17:15
Speaker
So again, if you go out to Walla Walla at the historic site, there is a memorial for the massacre. You can kind of actually see roughly where it happened. And there's a large monument to the people that passed away up on the hill.
00:17:28
Speaker
Interesting. Interesting. However, kind of going back out to history. So word was taken back to the federal government at this time about the massacre and what happened. Now, at this point, Oregon, Washington, none of this is actually part of the United States. It's just a separate territory due to some disputes with Great Britain.
00:17:48
Speaker
So when people in Washington find out found find out about this, excuse me, the Oregon Territory became a federal entity which allowed their government to essentially control it without making it an actual state at that point.
00:18:04
Speaker
So the government demanded that the men who took part in the attack be arrested and charged. So it took a lot of negotiations and roughly a lot of time, right? because one, you had to send people as delegates. You couldn't just yeah pick up a phone and call. So people were traveling back and forth And after negotiations with the chief of the Cayuse tribe, the chief decided to send five of their men to Oregon City, which was kind of deemed like a county or a state seat where they were put on trial.
00:18:32
Speaker
Ultimately, they were all found guilty and sentenced to hanging. So, yes it was complicated. All in all, the massacre was just what we historically have deemed the massacre occur was one thing, but also the the retribution, if you will.
00:18:51
Speaker
I don't think at any side it was, like, Justice was never really served, especially knowing that, you know, in the next 40 years, both areas would become states. And really that massacre set off horrible relationships between the settlers coming into the states and the native tribes that had been there for ages and ages. yeah And I wonder how many... who We say that there's like this Whitman massac cure massacre, which is devastating, and horrible. 13 people is a lot of people to lose a life and that's not okay. But I also wonder how many native Americans also lost their life that it was just unwritten in history. Exactly.
00:19:30
Speaker
Exactly. If the tides had turned, would we be, we'd have so many other massacres, right? It wouldn't, it wouldn't just be one massacre here and one massacre there.
00:19:42
Speaker
It's just sad and devastating all around.
Modern Reflections on the Whitman Mission
00:19:46
Speaker
It very much is. It very much is. But honestly, one of the highlights for me was walking through the historic site. It looked like a lot of the narrative was told from the perspective of of the Cayuse tribe.
00:19:59
Speaker
So it was really kind of refreshing to see that. And having it framed as... kind of the intrusion of the settlers and the missionaries coming into the area and just trying to disrupt the way of life. I feel like it's an kind of a so refreshing shift in history. I feel like, you know, 50 years ago it would have been very different. I mean, hell, it was very different. There was a lot of things in the Walla Walla Valley to commemorate the massacre um and very much framed it from the perspective of the the white settlers. yeah So seeing it kind of shift the other way is really cool. Yeah. Where it's like, ah we are the victims. We did nothing wrong.
00:20:32
Speaker
Instead of like, hey, we had some ownership in this, but it was very unfortunate that these people who were eventually, they were trying to help became part of the fallout. Exactly. Exactly. That is really cool, though. I didn't realize they had a a whole memorial to this.
00:20:49
Speaker
Yeah, it was incredibly fascinating. um Honestly, we just kind of stumbled upon it. It's a really beautiful, there's like a kind of like some, don't want to say hikes, like little walks you can do through it. And it's kind of a guided tour. There's placards everywhere as you wind through the the park and walk along the trail. i love that.
00:21:07
Speaker
Really cool. Highly recommend anyone over in Walla Walla. Go check it That sounds beautiful. Is the tribe still in that area? or um i don't know for certain i do believe so at least generally in the like the walla walla valley um because there were quite a few different tribes kind of um scattered throughout the area one thing i do appreciate about washington state is in the recent decades we've tried to bring back native american like who owned this land first and like like trying to remember a little bit I don't think it's necessarily enough but I do appreciate that we at least are trying to do that but remembrance piece because there's so many tribes that lived up here oh yeah and especially I think when you think of the entire country right okay when I was in Pennsylvania for some time I never saw many like references to the native populations there wasn't
00:21:59
Speaker
Yeah, it wasn't really anything that denoted where people were at or what the basis for the life that
Washington's Recognition of Native History
00:22:05
Speaker
was there. But I do think it is pretty special that in Washington we do have a lot of that. And again, like you said, it's not nearly enough. But i think I do think that it's it's cool and it is like a nice thing.
00:22:18
Speaker
This is a great story. Thank you so much. Thank you. Absolutely. Hope we're getting back to our Washington State history roots on this podcast. Yes. Next week, I'm going to have a another history lesson. So it should be pretty fun. I'm pretty excited about it. It's also in the eastern part of the state. o So it should align pretty closely with this one.
Conclusion and Recommendations
00:22:41
Speaker
But yes, Walla Walla, beautiful. 10 out of 10 would recommend the wineries over there.
00:22:46
Speaker
Absolutely. Delicious. Love it. Love it so very much. Can't wait to go back. All right. Well, that's it for today's dive into the dark corners of the Pacific Northwest.
00:22:59
Speaker
If you love the stories or shivered a little, be sure to subscribe and follow so you don't miss what's lurking beneath the evergreens next time. Thanks for joining us on Beneath the Evergreens. We appreciate you diving into the mysteries with us.
00:23:11
Speaker
Until next time, keep your eyes open and your doors locked.