{"product_id":"unsettled-groundisbn-9781632172501","title":"Unsettled Ground","description":"\u003cb\u003eA highly-readable, myth-busting history of the Whitman Massacre—a pivotal event in the history of the American West—that includes the often-missing Native American point of view.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In 1836, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, devout missionaries from upstate New York, established a Presbyterian mission on Cayuse Indian land near what is now the fashionable wine capital of Walla Walla, Washington. Eleven years later, a group of Cayuses killed the Whitmans and eleven others in what became known as the Whitman Massacre. The attack led to a war of retaliation against the Cayuse; the extension of federal control over the present-day states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming; and martyrdom for the Whitmans. Today, however, the Whitmans are more likely to be demonized as colonizers than revered as heroes. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eUnsettled Ground\u003c\/i\u003e, historian and journalist Cassandra Tate takes a fresh look at the personalities, dynamics, disputes, social pressures, and shifting legacy of a pivotal event in the history of the American West.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e“[Tate] tells the Cayuse’s side of the story with empathy and clarity . . . a meticulously researched book\u003ci\u003e.\u003c\/i\u003e”\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Seattle Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eWashington State Book Award Finalist\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eUnsettled Ground \u003c\/i\u003eis both the gripping adventure story of a cross-continental journey and a cultural exploration of the collision of two very different ways of life. . . . Told with depth and insight, Tate’s account is a prism that allows us to see the multiple dimensions of a classic frontier conflict.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Peter Stark, author of \u003ci\u003eAstoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“I consider \u003ci\u003eUnsettled Ground\u003c\/i\u003e one of the most important Northwest history books ever written.”\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e—John Hughes, Chief Historian, Washington Secretary of State \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Even well-read aficionados of Western history will be surprised and perhaps dismayed by Tate’s comprehensive and masterfully layered narrative.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Shannon Applegate, author of \u003ci\u003eSkookum: An Oregon Pioneer Family’s History and Lore\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eLiving Among Headstones: Life in a Country Cemetery\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“In this overdue era of righting unbalanced histories, Cassandra Tate reexamines a deadly tragedy from the nineteenth-century American West. \u003ci\u003eUnsettled Ground\u003c\/i\u003e is a riveting blend of intricate research, fresh cultural perspective, and first-rate storytelling.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Dave Boling, author of\u003c\/b\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eGuernica\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \u003cb\u003eand The Lost History of Stars\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“....by turns moving, evenhanded and lyrical in its evocation of time and place.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Seattle Times\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"In this moment when we as a nation grapple with systemic racism and injustice, \u003ci\u003eUnsettled Ground \u003c\/i\u003eis a timely book.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Pacific Northwest Quarterly\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A highly readable, myth-busting, fact-based story. [A] tale for all who love the West, its history and its truths.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e—The Inlander\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Balanced and deeply researched.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e—Crosscut\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eCASSANDRA TATE is a Seattle-based writer and editor. A former journalist, she earned a Ph.D in American history at the University of Washington in 1995. She is the author of \u003ci\u003eCigarette Wars: The Triumph of \"The Little White Slaver.\"\u003c\/i\u003e Her work has been published in \u003ci\u003eSmithsonian, Columbia Journalism Review\u003c\/i\u003e, and other national magazines, and she has contributed more than 200 articles to HistoryLink.org, the online encyclopedia of Washington State history. She is a former Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.Marcus Whitman was a Protestant missionary who might have been\u003cbr\u003eonly a historical footnote had not he, his wife Narcissa, and eleven\u003cbr\u003eothers been killed by Cayuse Indians during an attack on his mission\u003cbr\u003enear present-day Walla Walla, Washington, in 1847. Instead, he\u003cbr\u003ebecame one of the most memorialized figures in the Northwest. A\u003cbr\u003ecounty, a college, a national forest, half a dozen public schools, and\u003cbr\u003enumerous other enterprises—from an upscale hotel in Walla Walla to\u003cbr\u003ea church in Des Moines—carry his name. The Washington legislature\u003cbr\u003eonce considered a measure to rename the iconic Mount Rainier in\u003cbr\u003ehis honor. His former mission is a National Historic Site. His statue\u003cbr\u003estands in the National Statuary Hall in the Capitol Building in\u003cbr\u003eWashington, DC, nine feet of gleaming bronze on a seven-ton block\u003cbr\u003eof polished granite, depicting a muscular, buckskin-clad frontiersman\u003cbr\u003ewith a ripped torso and linebacker thighs. He appears to be striding\u003cbr\u003eresolutely along an unbroken trail, one foot higher than the other,\u003cbr\u003ebuckskin fringe and kerchief flying, a Bible in one hand, saddlebags\u003cbr\u003eand a scroll in the other. His strong jaw is neatly bearded, his flowing\u003cbr\u003elocks topped by a beaver-skin hat. If the National Statuary Hall had a\u003cbr\u003ehunk contest, he’d be the winner, hands down.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe statue embodies Whitman’s place in the mythology of the\u003cbr\u003eWest, not the realities of his life. The only feature that can be verified\u003cbr\u003eas historically accurate are the saddlebags, which were copied from a\u003cbr\u003epair used by Whitman when he was an itinerate physician in upstate\u003cbr\u003eNew York. He left them behind when he was appointed a missionary\u003cbr\u003ein 1835. They ended up a century later in the collections of\u003cbr\u003ethe Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia. Sculptor Avard\u003cbr\u003eFairbanks, who was commissioned to create the statue in 1950, studied\u003cbr\u003ethem when he was designing what is otherwise a fanciful depiction\u003cbr\u003eof Marcus Whitman. Even the quotation carved into the granite\u003cbr\u003epedestal—“My Plans Require Time and Distance”—is a paraphrase\u003cbr\u003eof something Whitman wrote, not his exact words.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe bronze Whitman was unveiled on May 22, 1953. More than\u003cbr\u003ethree hundred people attended the ceremonies, including most of\u003cbr\u003eWashington State’s congressional delegation, dozens of other dignitaries,\u003cbr\u003efour distant descendants of the Whitman family, and one dove,\u003cbr\u003ewho flew in through a window and fluttered around throughout the\u003cbr\u003eservices.1 Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, a graduate of\u003cbr\u003eWhitman College in Walla Walla (and eventual liberal icon), gave\u003cbr\u003ethe main dedication speech. He described Whitman as a “dynamic\u003cbr\u003eman of boundless energy” who “brought thousands into the region\u003cbr\u003ebeyond the old frontier.” Like most of the other speakers, Douglas\u003cbr\u003eemphasized Whitman’s role in promoting the settlement of the West\u003cbr\u003eby whites, praised his vision and fortitude, called him a martyr, and\u003cbr\u003edeplored the “treachery” of the Indians who killed him. Washington\u003cbr\u003egovernor Arthur Langlie was unable to attend but sent word that “it\u003cbr\u003eis a privilege for the citizens of Washington . . . to offer to the people\u003cbr\u003eof the United States this visible monument to one who lived humbly\u003cbr\u003eand died nobly in pursuit of happiness and freedom for his fellow\u003cbr\u003emen.” Langlie said that Whitman had made “tragic sacrifices,” he\u003cbr\u003ehad “died a martyr,” and “America honors itself by honoring him.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe story of the “Whitman Massacre” was a standard part of\u003cbr\u003ethe curriculum for schoolchildren throughout the Northwest in the\u003cbr\u003e1950s. I was introduced to it as a sixth-grader in Seattle. It was a\u003cbr\u003esimple tale, with sharply defined heroes and villains and thrilling\u003cbr\u003etouches of mayhem and gore. Marcus and Narcissa Whitman were\u003cbr\u003ebrave, noble pioneers who came west to “save” Indians. It was never\u003cbr\u003eclear to me what the Indians were being saved from, or whether they\u003cbr\u003ewanted to be saved, or what they thought about the missionaries,\u003cbr\u003eor why they attacked the mission, but they were not the focus of\u003cbr\u003ethe story that we were told. The emphasis was on the white people.\u003cbr\u003eMarcus was strong and handsome; Narcissa was beautiful and saintly;\u003cbr\u003ethey were “massacred” by brutal, ungrateful “savages.” I was left with\u003cbr\u003ean indelible image of Narcissa’s long, white throat being slashed by a\u003cbr\u003eknife, sending a river of blood down the front of her billowing gown.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eActually, she was shot, but memory and story and history and\u003cbr\u003efact have a fluid relationship. Heroes rise and fall to the rhythms of\u003cbr\u003ewhat scholars call “the politics of memory.” New facts are revealed,\u003cbr\u003eold ones dissected, and stories reshaped (and sometimes forgotten\u003cbr\u003ealtogether) as political and social conditions change. The initial\u003cbr\u003enarrative, or “memory,” about the Whitmans—as told by whites—\u003cbr\u003eemphasized their religiosity. It reflected the evangelical values of\u003cbr\u003edominant voices in the mid-nineteenth century, a time of intense\u003cbr\u003ereligious revivalism in the United States. By the end of the century,\u003cbr\u003eafter two major economic crises and associated social and political\u003cbr\u003eupheavals, a new version of the story had emerged. Grounded in nostalgia\u003cbr\u003efor an idealized past, it celebrated the Whitmans as heroic pioneers\u003cbr\u003ewho had helped a young, expansionist nation realize its dreams\u003cbr\u003eof Manifest Destiny. A competing narrative, one that included the\u003cbr\u003evoices and perspectives of the Cayuse and other indigenous peoples,\u003cbr\u003ebegan to develop in the late 1960s. Books such as Dee Brown’s Bury\u003cbr\u003eMy Heart at Wounded Knee and films such as Soldier Blue and Little\u003cbr\u003eBig Man helped foster public interest in uncovering the history of the\u003cbr\u003eWest from Indian points of view.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the 1980s the National Park Service, which operates the\u003cbr\u003eWhitman Mission National Historic Site, stopped commemorating\u003cbr\u003ethe annual anniversary of the attack on the mission; redesigned its\u003cbr\u003edisplays to give more attention to the Cayuse and a more balanced\u003cbr\u003eassessment of their interactions with the Whitmans; and phased out\u003cbr\u003euse of the word “massacre” in favor of more neutral language. The\u003cbr\u003eword appeared five times in a four-page brochure distributed by the\u003cbr\u003ePark Service in the late 1950s. In contrast, it was not used at all in\u003cbr\u003ebrochures available in 1997, the 150th anniversary of what instead\u003cbr\u003ewas called the Tragedy at Waiilatpu. Today the tendency is to see the\u003cbr\u003eIndians, not the missionaries, as the martyrs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe seem to live in a binary world, where the lines between good\u003cbr\u003eand bad are clearly drawn, without much room for nuance. For more\u003cbr\u003ethan a century after their deaths, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman were\u003cbr\u003evenerated by non-Indians as heroic pioneers who had given their lives\u003cbr\u003eto bring Christianity and “civilization” to the West. In more recent\u003cbr\u003eyears, however, they’ve been demonized as cultural imperialists and\u003cbr\u003eagents of genocide. They received too much credit in the first instance,\u003cbr\u003eand too much blame in the second. They were complicated, imperfect\u003cbr\u003epeople: idealistic but culturally arrogant, courageous but inflexible;\u003cbr\u003eand it was the way they died, more than what they did in life, that\u003cbr\u003eguaranteed them a place in the history of the Northwest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Whitmans left comfortable homes in upstate New York\u003cbr\u003ein 1836 to become missionaries in what was then called Oregon\u003cbr\u003eCountry—a vast region (consisting of the present-day states of\u003cbr\u003eWashington, Oregon, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming)\u003cbr\u003ethat relatively few Americans had ever seen. They were joined by\u003cbr\u003eanother missionary couple, Henry and Eliza Spalding. They reached\u003cbr\u003etheir destination after an arduous, seven-month, three-thousandmile\u003cbr\u003ejourney. Narcissa and Eliza were the first women known to have\u003cbr\u003ecrossed the continent from coast to coast. They traveled much of the\u003cbr\u003eway on horseback, riding sidesaddle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhitman established a mission on Cayuse land at a place he\u003cbr\u003ethought was called Waiilatpu (pronounced “way-EE-let-pu”). Henry\u003cbr\u003eSpalding picked a site 120 miles to the northeast, at Lapwai, among\u003cbr\u003eNez Perce Indians in present-day Idaho. Relations between the\u003cbr\u003eWhitmans and their hosts were initially cordial, but disappointment\u003cbr\u003eand disillusionment built up over time, on both sides. The Whitmans\u003cbr\u003eexpected the Cayuse to be eager to convert to Christianity, take up\u003cbr\u003efarming, and live like white people. The Indians were interested in\u003cbr\u003esome aspects of the newcomers’ culture and religion but only to supplement,\u003cbr\u003enot replace, their traditional beliefs and way of life. Longsimmering\u003cbr\u003etensions erupted in violence on November 29, 1847,\u003cbr\u003eending with the deaths of the Whitmans and eleven other Americans.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe attack was a pivotal event in Northwest history. One immediate\u003cbr\u003eeffect was the passage of a long-delayed bill establishing the\u003cbr\u003eTerritory of Oregon, a measure that extended federal authority over\u003cbr\u003ethe region. The bill had been stalled for more than two years by a\u003cbr\u003edebate over whether slavery would be permitted in the new territory.\u003cbr\u003eIn the end, it was not. Meanwhile, the superintendent of Indian\u003cbr\u003eaffairs issued an order declaring that the Cayuse had “forfeited” their\u003cbr\u003erights to their ancestral homelands. He encouraged settlers to file\u003cbr\u003eclaims to Cayuse lands and stipulated that the claims would not be\u003cbr\u003eundercut by any future treaties with the Indians. The “massacre”\u003cbr\u003ebecame a rallying cry for a two-year war of harassment and retribution\u003cbr\u003eagainst not only the Cayuse but any Indians suspected of being\u003cbr\u003eallies of or sympathetic to the Cayuse. Finally, in the spring of 1850,\u003cbr\u003efive Cayuses surrendered to the territorial government in Oregon\u003cbr\u003eCity and were hanged, after a brief, cursory trial.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Whitman story was burnished and romanticized for\u003cbr\u003egenerations after their deaths, at least in the version told by non-\u003cbr\u003eIndians, but it has now largely faded from public memory. Although\u003cbr\u003eWhitman retains his place in the National Statuary Hall—at least\u003cbr\u003eas of this writing—and his name remains attached to monuments,\u003cbr\u003eplaques, and highway signs from upstate New York to the Northwest\u003cbr\u003ecoast, many people don’t know who he was.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis book takes a new look at the Whitmans, the Cayuse, and\u003cbr\u003ethe shifting legacy of the events at Waiilatpu. One of my goals is\u003cbr\u003eto slice through the myths, lies, and misconceptions that have built\u003cbr\u003eup around the story over the past 170 years. Narcissa Whitman did\u003cbr\u003enot have her throat sliced, as I once imagined. She was not scalped,\u003cbr\u003eas Richard Neuberger, then a young freelance writer and later a US\u003cbr\u003esenator from Oregon, reported in 1938, in particularly lurid prose\u003cbr\u003e(“Narcissa’s blond scalp eventually dangled against the greasy thigh\u003cbr\u003eof a Cayuse warrior”).3 She was not “shot a dozen times . . . men\u003cbr\u003ewhipping her laid-bare back while she was still breathing,” her head\u003cbr\u003e“a cracked melon,” as in a scene conjured by an Idaho writer in\u003cbr\u003e2019.4 Marcus Whitman did not convince the US government to\u003cbr\u003efend off British claims to the Northwest and thereby “save” Oregon\u003cbr\u003eCountry for American settlers. The Cayuse attack on the Whitman\u003cbr\u003eMission was not unprovoked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe key figures in this tale were neither heroes nor villains but\u003cbr\u003esimply human beings, caught in a web not entirely of their making.\u003cbr\u003eTheir lives played out in ways that profoundly shaped the history of\u003cbr\u003ethe Northwest and continue to influence it to this day. What follows\u003cbr\u003eis, to the best of my research and knowledge, an evenhanded account\u003cbr\u003eof what happened and why, and how the narrative changed with each\u003cbr\u003enew generation of storytellers. It’s a complex tale of arrogance, fortitude,\u003cbr\u003enaïveté, and misunderstandings. It can be seen as a singular\u003cbr\u003eAmerican tragedy but also as representative of the tangle of cultural\u003cbr\u003emyopia and conflict that marked each wave of American incursion\u003cbr\u003einto the West.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy dissection of the story begins with the incident that wrapped\u003cbr\u003eMarcus and Narcissa Whitman in a cloak of martyrdom and put\u003cbr\u003etheir names in the history books and on the roadside markers: the\u003cbr\u003eNovember 1847 attack at Waiilatpu.","brand":"Sasquatch Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304643449061,"sku":"NP9781632172501","price":24.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781632172501.jpg?v=1730758009","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/unsettled-groundisbn-9781632172501","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}