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From HISTORY This Week: How the Whitman Murders Redefined the American West

From HISTORY This Week: How the Whitman Murders Redefined the American West

First America vor 1 Monat

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We're sharing an episode from History This Week.

May 30, 1855. Five thousand Native Americans come to Walla Walla
to negotiate a treaty. However, it’s not exactly a fair
negotiation—the territorial governor basically tells these tribes
that they have no choice but to live on reservations in order to
maintain peace. This moment comes in the wake of a violent time
in the Pacific Northwest, a period started by the killing of
Christian missionaries—namely, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman—by the
Cayuse tribe. In the wake of their deaths, the Whitmans are
portrayed throughout the United States as martyrs; the Cayuse, as
a problem to be dealt with. But in reality, the backstory behind
these murders is a lot more complicated. How did things go so
wrong between the Cayuse and the Whitmans? And how did these
missionaries’ deaths lead to a massive expansion of the United
States?

What happened this week? Go to htwpod.com or find HISTORY This
Week wherever you get your podcasts.

Special thanks to Bobbie Conner, director of the Tamástslikt
Cultural Institute; and Blaine Harden, former correspondent for
the Washington Post and author of Murder at the Mission: A
Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the
American West.

We also consulted another great book putting this episode
together, Unsettled Ground: The Whitman Massacre and Its Shifting
Legacy in the American West by Cassandra Tate.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.