The leaders in the massacre, Tilcokait, Tahamas, Ouichmarsum,
Klvakamus, and Sichsalucus were arrested and hung at Oregon City,
just before the author reached there. In 1850 one of the most
miserable of the villains, Tarntsaky, was killed while being
arrested. My room-mate in Oregon in 1850, the late Samuel Campbell of
Idaho, spent the winter and spring of 1847 at the Whitman Mission,
and never tired in telling of the lovely Christian character of Mrs.
Whitman, of her kindness and patience to whites and Indians alike.
She had retained the same glorious musical voice, and life wherever
she went was filled with what Matthew Arnold would call "sweetness
and light." Mr. Campbell said while he was a prisoner at Grand Ronde,
old Tarntsaky one day boasted in his presence that he took the scalp
from Mrs. Whitman's head, and told him of the long, golden, silky
hair. He said, "Prisoner as I was, it was all I could do to keep my
fingers from his throat." The many tribes around sided with the
Cayuse, except the Nez Perces, and the whole land was closed to white
settlers for over ten years, as the state government deemed it
impossible to protect the scattered settlements.
_The Result_
The final result was that the tribes engaging in the war were all
removed to distant reservations, and forty thousand square miles of
rich territory were opened to settlement. Thus the great sacrifice
resulted for the good of the people. The work of the American Board
in sending missionaries to Oregon has sometimes been called "a
disaster" and "failure." Was it? What could have been grander work
for any Christian man than Whitman's brave part in saving the whole
great territory to the Union? Patriotism is a part of Christianity,
and an important part. That man is a feeble Christian who does not
love his home and fatherland.
The American Board never claimed, or received, a moiety of the reward
deserved, because of its poor estimate of the great work done at
that time by its servants. Well did Dr. Frank Gunsaulus say:
"Marcus Whitman was more to the ulterior Northwest than John
Harvard has ever been to the Northeast of our common country."
Two names which shine brightest upon the pages of English history are
Dr. Robert Livingstone and Dr. John McKenzie, both missionaries, and
both poor men. Their eminent services were along much the same lines
as those of Dr. Whitman--services to the whole people and the nation.
Dr. McKenzie made three trips to London before he could persuade the
English authorities to plant their flag over Bechuanaland, the flower
and wealth of all South Africa. But how England and English people
have ever since loved to do honor to both these noble men! Dr.
Whitman, by his eminent and heroic service, laid the American people
under as great a debt of gratitude, and I simply point to facts
already narrated to sustain that position. Have the people of the
United States done their simple duty to its noble martyrs?
_The Benefits to the Indians_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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