SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

MANUSCRIPT SOURCES

Every writer who delves into the history of the Whitman Mission stands on the shoulders of Clifford M. Drury, a Presbyterian minister who was stationed in Moscow, Idaho, in the 1930s, when he began researching the lives of the members of the Oregon Mission of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Drury was indefatigable in tracking down letters, documents, and ephemera—from a pair of Marcus Whitman’s saddlebags to a charred doorsill from the burned Mission House at Waiilatpu. Parts of his treasure trove ended up in the Marcus and Narcissa Whitman Collection and the Sager Family Collection at Whitman College and Northwest Archives, Walla Walla. Whitman College holds Narcissa’s original journal, along with five samples of hair said to have come from her head, one sample said to have come from Marcus, and two said to have come from Marcus’s mother, Alice.

Reading the original letters and journals is a visceral experience, a way of literally touching the past, but published versions have the advantage of being easier to read and infinitely more accessible. Many of Narcissa’s letters were published in Transactions of the Oregon Pioneer Association, beginning in the 1880s. Digitized, searchable editions of the Transactions are available through the Hathi Trust Digital Library (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008376302). Volumes 19 through 23 of the Transactions are particularly useful. I also relied on The Letters of Narcissa Whitman, 1836–1847 (Fairfield, WA: Ye Galleon Press, 1996).

Drury edited several important published collections of missionary diaries and letters, including the three-volume First White Women over the Rockies (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1963, 1966); reissued as Where Wagons Could Go: Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spalding (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997); On to Oregon: The Diaries of Mary Walker and Myra Eells (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998); and The Mountains We Have Crossed: Diaries and Letters of the Oregon Mission, 1838 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999). Drury also edited More about the Whitmans: Four Hitherto Unpublished Letters of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman (Tacoma: Washington State Historical Society, 1979), and The Diaries and Letters of Henry H. Spalding and Asa Bowen Smith Relating to the Nez Perce Mission, 1838–1842 (Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1958).

While living in Moscow, Drury cultivated a special relationship with the president of nearby Washington State University in Pullman. As a result, the Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections Department at WSU holds a wealth of missionary materials. I made particular use of the Marcus and Narcissa Whitman Papers, the Clifford Merrill Drury Papers, the Henry Harmon Spalding Papers, and the Elkanah and Mary Richardson Walker Papers.

The vast records of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) are housed at Houghton Library, Harvard University. The collection includes eighty-three boxes of correspondence regarding the board’s North American Indian missions from 1803 to 1883. I focused on ABC 18.5.3, “Mission to the Oregon Indians,” and ABC 18.5.5, “Oregon Indians, Miscellaneous.” All quotations from the collection are used with permission from the Houghton Library and the United Church of Christ Wider Church Ministries. The ABCFM’s Annual Reports were published in the Missionary Herald. Digitized, searchable editions are available through the Hathi Trust (HathiTrust.org). Archer Butler Hulbert and Dorothy Printup Hulbert included letters from Marcus Whitman, Samuel Parker, and others involved in the missionary enterprise in their three-volume Marcus Whitman, Crusader (Denver: Stewart Commission of Colorado College and the Denver Library, 1936, 1938, 1941), part of their eight-volume Overland to the Pacific.

OTHER SOURCES

Acceptance of the Statue of Marcus Whitman Presented by the State of Washington. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1955. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.aa0011977105&view=1up&seq=9.

Addis, Cameron. “The Whitman Massacre: Religion and Manifest Destiny on the Columbia Plateau, 1809–1958.” Journal of the Early Republic 25, no. 2 (Summer 2005): 221–58.

Avery, Mary W. Washington: A History of the Evergreen State. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1965.

Baird, Dennis, Diane Mallickan, and W. R. Swagerty, eds. Encounters with the People: Written and Oral Accounts of Nez Perce Life to 1858. Pullman: Washington State University Press, 2015.

Bancroft, Hubert Howe. The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume 29: History of Oregon, Volume 1, 1834–1848. San Francisco: History Co., 1886.

——. The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume 30: History of Oregon, Volume 2, 1848–1883. San Francisco: History Co., 1888.

Boyd, Robert T. The Coming of the Spirit of Pestilence: Introduced Infectious Diseases and Population Decline among Northwest Indians, 1774–1874. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999.

——. People of The Dalles: The Indians of Wascopam Mission. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996.

Brouillet, J.B.A. Authentic Account of the Murder of Dr. Whitman and Other Missionaries, by the Cayuse Indians of Oregon. Portland, OR: S.J. McCormick, second edition, 1869. https://archive.org/details/authenticaccount00brou.

Catlin, George. Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians, 2 volumes. London: Tosswill and Myers, 1841.

——. My Life amongst the Indians. London: William Clowes and Sons, 1867.

Cebula. Larry. Plateau Indians and the Quest for Spiritual Power, 1700–1850. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003.

Clarke, Samuel A. Pioneer Days of Oregon History. Volume 2. Portland, OR: J.K. Gill Company, 1905. https://archive.org/stream/pioneerdaysofore02clar#page/n3/mode/2up.

Crabtree, Jennifer. Whitman Mission Administrative History. Seattle: US Department of the Interior, 1988.

Curtis, Edward S. The North American Indian. Volume 8. Norwood, MA: Plimpton Press, 1911.

Delaney, Matilda J. Sager. A Survivor’s Recollections of the Whitman Massacre. Spokane, WA: Esther Reed Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, 1920.

Dietrich, William. Northwest Passage: The Great Columbia River. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.

Douglas, David. Journal Kept by David Douglas during His Travels in North America, 1823–1827. London: W. Wesley & Son, 1914.

Drury, Clifford M. Henry Harmon Spalding. Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1936.

——. Marcus Whitman, M.D.: Pioneer and Martyr. Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1937.

——. Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and the Opening of Old Oregon. 2 volumes. 1973; reprint, Seattle: Northwest Interpretive Association, 2005.

——. On to Oregon: The Diaries of Mary Walker and Myra Eells. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998.

——. Where Wagons Could Go: Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spalding. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997.

Edwards, G. Thomas. The Triumph of Tradition: The Emergence of Whitman College, 1859–1924. Walla Walla: Whitman College, 1992.

Eells, Myron. Marcus Whitman, Pathfinder and Patriot. Seattle: Lowman and Hanford Co., 1909.

Farnham, Thomas J. Travels in the Great Western Prairies, the Anahuac and Rocky Mountains and in the Oregon Territory. 2 volumes. London: Richard Bentley, 1843.

Feathers, Joseph J. S. These Are the Nez Perce Nation. Lewiston, ID: Lewis-Clark Normal Press, 1970.

Furtwangler, Albert. Bringing Indians to the Book. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005.

Garth, Thomas R. “A Report on the Second Season’s Excavations at Waiilatpu.” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 40, no. 4 (October 1949): 295–315.

Glassley, Ray Hoard. Pacific Northwest Indian Wars. Portland, OR: Binfords & Mort, 1953.

Gray, William H. A History of Oregon, 1792–1849, Drawn from Personal Observation and Authentic Information. Portland, OR: Harris and Holman, 1870.

Gwartney, Debra. I Am a Stranger Here Myself. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2019.

Harmon, Alexandra. Indians in the Making: Ethnic Relations and Indian Identities around Puget Sound. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

Hines, Gustavus. Life on the Plains of the Pacific; Oregon: Its History, Condition and Prospects. Buffalo, NY: Geo. H. Derby, 1852.

Hulbert, Archer Butler, and Dorothy Printup Hulbert, eds. Marcus Whitman, Crusader. 3 volumes. Denver: Stewart Commission of Colorado College and the Denver Library, 1936, 1938, 1941. Part of Overland to the Pacific. 8 volumes. 1932–41.

Hunn, Eugene S. Nch’i-Wana “The Big River”: Mid-Columbia Indians and Their Land. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1990.

——, ed. Čáw Pawá Láakni / They Are Not Forgotten: Sahaptian Place Names Atlas of the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla. Seattle: University of Washington Press and Tamástslikt Cultural Institute, 2015.

Jeffrey, Julie Roy. Converting the West: A Biography of Narcissa Whitman. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.

Johansen, Dorothy O. Empire of the Columbia: A History of the Pacific Northwest. Second edition. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.

——, ed. Robert Newell’s Memoranda: Travles in the Teritory of Missourie; Travle to the Kayuse War; Together with A Report on the Indians South of the Columbia River. Portland, OR: Champoeg Press, Inc., 1959.

Jones, Nard. The Great Command: The Story of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and the Oregon Country Pioneers. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1959.

Josephy, Alvin M., Jr. The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1965; reprint, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.

Kane, Paul. Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts, 1859.

Karson, Jennifer, ed. Wiyaxayxt / Wiyaakaa’awn / As Days Go By: Our History, Our Land, and Our People: The Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla. Pendleton: Oregon Historical Society Press and Tamástslikt Cultural Institute, 2006.

Kelman, Ari. A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling over the Memory of Sand Creek. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.

Lansing, Ronald B. Juggernaut: The Whitman Massacre Trial, 1850. Portland, OR: Ninth Judicial Circuit Historical Society, 1993.

Lavender, David. Land of Giants: The Drive to the Pacific Northwest. 1956; reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979.

Lee, Daniel, and Joseph Frost. Ten Years in Oregon. New York: J. Collard, 1844.

Limerick, Patricia. The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1987.

Lister, Kenneth R. Paul Kane the Artist: Wilderness to Studio. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum Press, 2010.

Lockley, Fred. Oregon Trail Blazers. New York: Knickerbocker Press, 1929.

Mann, Barbara Alice. The Tainted Gift: The Disease Method of Frontier Expansion. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2009.

Merrill, Arch. Upstate Echoes. New York: American Book–Knickerbocker Press, Inc., 1950.

Miller, Christopher L. Prophetic Worlds: Indians and Whites on the Columbia Plateau. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003.

Mithun, Marianne. The Languages of Native North America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Morrison, Dorothy N. Outpost: John McLoughlin and the Far Northwest. Portland: Oregon Historical Society Press, 1999.

Morrow, Honore Willsie. We Must March: A Novel of the Winning of Oregon. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1925.

Moulton, Gary, ed. The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Electronic Text Center, Lincoln Libraries, University of Nebraska. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005. http://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/journals.php?id=1806-09-04.

Mowry, William A. Marcus Whitman and the Early Days of Oregon. New York: Silver, Burdett and Company, 1901.

Neuberger, Richard L. Our Promised Land. New York: Macmillan Company, 1938.

Nixon, Oliver W. How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon: A True Romance of Patriotic Heroism, Christian Devotion and Final Martyrdom. Chicago: Star Publishing Company, 1895.

——. Whitman’s Ride through Savage Lands. Chicago: Winona Publishing Company, 1905.

Original Minutes of the Official Proceedings at the Council in Walla Walla Valley, Which Culminated in the Stevens Treaty of 1855. Portland, OR: US Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1953. www.lib.uidaho.edu/mcbeth/governmentdoc/1855council.htm.

Palmer, Joel. Journal of Travels over the Rocky Mountains, 1845–1846. Volume 30 of Reuben G. Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, 1748–1846. Cleveland, OH: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1906.

Parker, Samuel. Journal of an Exploring Tour beyond the Rocky Mountains. Published by the author. Ithaca, NY, 1840.

Penrose, Stephen B. “The Romance of a College.” Whitman College, Walla Walla, 1894. https://arminda.whitman.edu/object/arminda30156.

Pringle, Catherine Sager. “Account of Overland Journey to Oregon in 1844: Life at the Whitman Mission: the Whitman Massacre,” ca. 1860. Originally published as “On the Plains in 1844.” In S. A. Clarke, Pioneer Days of Oregon History. Volume 2. Portland, OR: J. K. Gill, 1905. Republished as Across the Plains in 1844, multiple publishers and editions.

Ross, Alexander. Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1849.

——. The Fur Hunters of the Far West. Edited by Milo Milton Quaife. 1855; reprint, Chicago: Lakeside Press, 1924.

Ruby, Robert H., and John A. Brown. The Cayuse Indians: Imperial Tribesmen of Old Oregon. 1972; reprint, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005.

——. The Spokane Indians: Children of the Sun. 1970; expanded edition, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006.

Sager, Catherine, Elizabeth, and Matilda. The Whitman Massacre of 1847. Fairfield, WA: Ye Galleon Press, 1981.

Saunders, Mary. The Whitman Massacre: A True Story by a Survivor of This Terrible Tragedy Which Took Place in Oregon in 1847. 1916; reprint, Fairfield, WA: Ye Galleon Press, 1977.

Stark, Peter. Astoria: Astor and Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire: A Tale of Ambition and Survival on the Early American Frontier. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2015.

Stern, Theodore. Chiefs and Change in the Oregon Country: Indian Relations at Fort Nez Percés, 1818–1855. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 1996.

——. Chiefs and Chief Traders: Indian Relations at Fort Nez Percés, 1818–1855. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 1993.

Thompson, David. David Thompson’s Narrative. New York: Greenwood Press, 1968. Originally published as David Thompson’s Narrative of His Explorations in Western America, 1784–1812. Toronto: Champlain Society, 1916.

Thompson, Erwin N. Shallow Grave at Waiilatpu: The Sagers’ West. Portland: Oregon Historical Society, 1969.

Thornton, Russell. American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History since 1492. 1987; reprint, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990.

Townsend, John K. Narrative of a Journey across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River and a Visit to the Sandwich Islands, Chili, &c. with a Scientific Appendix. Philadelphia: Henry Perkins, 1839.

Trafzer, Clifford E. Yakima, Palouse, Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla, and Wanapum Indians: An Historical Bibliography. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1992.

Vibert, Elizabeth. Traders’ Tales: Narratives of Cultural Encounters in the Columbia Plateau, 1807–1846. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000.

Victor, Frances Fuller. The River of the West. Hartford, CT: Columbian Book Company, 1871.

Warren, Eliza Spalding. Memoirs of the West: The Spaldings. Portland, OR: March Printing Company, 1916.

West, Elliott. The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

White, Elijah. Concise View of Oregon Territory and Its Colonial and Indian Relations. Washington, DC: T. Bernard, 1846.

Whitman, Narcissa. The Letters of Narcissa Whitman, 1836–1847. Fairfield, WA: Ye Galleon Press, 1996.

Wilkes, Charles. Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, during the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842. Volume 4. Philadelphia: C. Sherman, 1844.

Woodbridge, Ross. “Are These the Whitmans?” The Whitman Alumnus: Whitman College Bulletin 73, no. 5 (February 1970): 2–6.

Young, F. G., ed. “Journal and Report by Dr. Marcus Whitman of His Tour of Exploration with Rev. Samuel Parker in 1835 beyond the Rocky Mountains.” Oregon Historical Quarterly 28, no. 3 (September 1927): 239–57. www.jstor.org/stable/20610386.