Dreams of El Dorado

by H. W. Brands

  Fortunately a rescue team appeared the next day. A party carrying flour on mules and driving a small herd of cattle arrived from the Willamette settlements. The cattle were slaughtered and the flour was distributed, and new life and hope were injected into the battered emigrants.

  But it came at a price, and the price caused Thornton to conclude that everything that had befallen the emigrants since meeting Jesse Applegate had been part of a cynical profiteering plan. Applegate and others in the Willamette settlements had goods to sell, and they sought customers. Perhaps Applegate hadn’t foreseen the extent of the suffering his plan would cause, but he certainly benefited from it. He had lured the emigrants to their ruin, depriving them of everything but what they could carry in their money belts, that he and his friends might relieve them of that. “He first reduced us to the verge of starvation that he might thus be enabled to gather up the last dollar that remained to us,” Thornton said.

  Thornton and his wife eventually reached the settlements. They built new lives and attained what Thornton deemed a substantial portion of happiness. But he never forgave Jesse Applegate.

  24

  DESPERATE FURY

  AS HARD AS THE EMIGRATION WAS ON THE EMIGRANTS, IT was even harder on the native peoples of Oregon. The newcomers carried new diseases, which sorely afflicted the Indians. “In the fall of 1847 the emigration over the mountains brought the measles,” Catherine Sager remembered. Catherine Sager was one of seven children who had lost their parents in the 1844 emigration and landed, as orphans, on the doorstep of the Whitmans, who had taken them in. She was twelve years old in 1847 and, with many at the mission, contracted measles that autumn. “Whitman’s large family were all sick,” she said, speaking of the extended household. She added, more significantly, “The disease was raging fearfully among the Indians, who were rapidly dying. I saw from five to six buried daily.”

  The measles epidemic appeared the coup de grace for the Cayuse. For decades the tribe had been declining, from other introduced diseases and from intertribal competition. The decline figured largely in their hostility toward the Whitmans, embodiments of the changes that were dooming them. By early 1847 the Cayuse numbered no more than a few hundred. The measles epidemic threatened to wipe them from the face of the earth. “It was most distressing to go into a lodge of some ten or twenty fires,” Henry Spalding wrote, “and count twenty or twenty-five, some in the midst of measles, others in the last stage of dysentery, in the midst of every kind of filth, of itself sufficient to cause sickness, with no suitable means to alleviate their inconceivable sufferings, with perhaps one well person to look after the wants of two sick ones. They were dying every day; one, two, and sometimes five in a day.”

  Some of the Indians blamed the new emigrants for bringing this final plague; others blamed Marcus Whitman. The Indians noted that though whites became ill like the Indians, the whites generally recovered while the Indians died. Whitman ministered to both groups; his medicine saved the whites but not the Indians. Observation of this fact, coming amid the flood of immigrants to Oregon, made plausible the arguments of some in the tribe that Whitman was killing the Indians to make room for the whites.

  Another element added to the Indians’ distrust. For some years Whitman had used arsenic to kill wolves that preyed on the mission’s domestic animals. On at least one occasion Indians had eaten poisoned meat left out for the wolves, and become violently ill. They had recovered, thanks to Whitman’s intervention, but the incident lodged in the memory of the Cayuse, who regarded Whitman as one whose medicine could kill as well as heal.

  A small group of the Cayuse concluded that Whitman had to be killed before he wiped out their tribe. Their conclusion drew strength from stories circulated by a mixed-race man named Joe Lewis, recently arrived at Waiilatpu. Lewis had come with a group of emigrants but been stranded at Waiilatpu after alienating the others in his party. Marcus Whitman, recognizing Lewis’s corrosive influence on those around him, tried to move him along. Lewis thereupon began spreading tales about Whitman that fit the Cayuse narrative of blame. The story that did the most damage to Whitman had Lewis improbably lying on a settee in Whitman’s own house, apparently napping. Lewis asserted that he overheard Whitman speaking to Henry Spalding and Narcissa. Lewis said that Spalding asked Whitman why he didn’t kill off the Indians faster. Whitman responded that they were dying fast enough. The old ones would perish this autumn; the young ones would die the next spring. Lewis told this story to a council of the Cayuse, warning them that if they didn’t kill Whitman and Spalding, they all would die.

  Joe Lewis attracted followers, and together they plotted the murder of the missionaries and the destruction of the mission. Their plan unfolded during the last days of November 1847. Whitman was called away to treat some ailing Cayuse at their camp on the Umatilla River. “The night was dark, and the rain beat furiously upon us,” wrote Henry Spalding, who accompanied Whitman on the journey. Spalding said the two men reflected on the decade they had spent in Oregon and the troubles they were experiencing at present. Whitman said he was willing to leave if the Indians demanded his departure, but they hadn’t done so yet. They arrived at the lodge of Stickus, a Cayuse chief who had been helpful and friendly in the past. Stickus warned Whitman that Joe Lewis and a Cayuse named Tamsucky had been talking angrily against him. Stickus urged Whitman to be careful.

  Whitman did what little he could for the sick and turned back toward Waiilatpu. Spalding, who had injured his leg when his horse slipped and rolled on the rain-drenched trail, stayed behind. Whitman reached home several hours after sunset on Sunday evening, November 28. Narcissa, weary from tending the several sick children in the house, was asleep. The two oldest Sager children, John and Francis, were keeping watch. Whitman woke Narcissa to say he was home and sent the Sager boys to bed. Catherine Sager, herself sick, was lying on the settee in the main room, drifting in and out of sleep. “He examined the patients one after the other,” Catherine recalled. “Coming to Helen”—Joe Meek’s daughter—“he spoke and told his wife, who was lying on the bed, that Helen was dying. He sat and watched her for some time, when she rallied and seemed better. I had noticed that he seemed to be troubled when he first came home, but concluded that it was anxiety in reference to the sick children.”

  Whitman summoned Narcissa from the bedroom, saying he wanted to talk. “He related to her what Stickus had told him that day,” Catherine remembered. He remarked that he had heard that the Cayuse were holding councils each night. This didn’t seem good.

  Catherine had tried to keep quiet while listening, but Whitman’s message and demeanor caused her to start. “Observing that I was restless, he surmised that I had overheard the conversation. By kind and soothing words he allayed my fears and I went to sleep.” Catherine added, “I can see it all now and remember just how he looked.”

  CATHERINE SLEPT THE NIGHT AND WOKE TO A COLD FOG OUTSIDE. Whitman maintained watch, and though Catherine thought he seemed more serious than usual, nothing else drew her notice.

  The family soon learned that more Indian children had died during the night. Their parents were bringing the bodies to the mission for burial. Whitman went to meet the grievers and conduct the funeral; he was surprised that none but the immediate relatives were in attendance. But there was a cow being butchered near the mill, and he supposed that the prospect of fresh beef might have drawn others to that location.

  He returned about noon to the house, where he found Narcissa nervous. She had continued to try to keep Indians out of the house, but on this morning they had pushed their way in. “The kitchen was full of Indians, and their boisterous manner alarmed her,” Catherine recounted. “She fled to the sitting room, bolting the door in the face of the savages who tried to pass in.”

  It wasn’t Narcissa they wanted to see; it was Marcus. They pounded on the door and demanded to speak to the doctor.

  Marcus and Narcissa exchanged glances. He tried to reassure her, saying he would calm the Indians d
own. But he didn’t want to take chances on her safety. “Dr. Whitman told his wife to bolt the door after him,” Catherine recalled. Whitman went through the door into the kitchen, and Narcissa bolted it.

  She stood at the door, listening. Nothing more than voices, not especially loud, came from the other side of the door. She crossed the room, picked up Henrietta Sager, and cradled the little girl in her arms. She sat down to rock the child to sleep. Meanwhile the older children lined up to take a bath in a washtub. Margaret Osborn, the wife of a man who worked at the mission, had been sick and was staying with the Whitmans; she entered the living room from her adjoining bedroom. She found a seat near Narcissa.

  “She had scarcely sat down when we were all startled by an explosion that seemed to shake the house,” Catherine said. “The two women sprang to their feet and stood with white faces and distended eyes.” Their alarm was contagious. “The children rushed out doors, some of them without clothes.” Narcissa set Henrietta down and called the children back inside. She started toward the kitchen door, through which Marcus had gone, but changed her mind. “She fastened the door and told Mrs. Osborn to go to her room and lock the door, at the same time telling us to put on our clothes,” Catherine remembered. “All this happened much quicker than I can write it.”

  The meaning of the explosion sank in. “Mrs. Whitman then began to walk the floor, wringing her hands, saying, ‘Oh, the Indians! the Indians! they have killed my husband, and I am a widow!’” Catherine said.

  Mary Ann Bridger, a mixed-race daughter of Jim Bridger, also living with the Whitmans, had seen what happened in the kitchen. Finding the kitchen door to the living room locked, she had run around the house and come in an outside door. “Her face was deathly white,” Catherine remembered. “We gathered around her and inquired if father was dead. She replied, ‘Yes.’”

  One of the workers who had been butchering the cow came in the same door, his arm obviously broken. “Mrs. Whitman,” he said through pain and shock, “the Indians are killing us all.”

  Narcissa pulled herself together. She brought a pitcher of water for the wounded man. She went around the house and locked all the doors to the outside. Then, steeling herself, she unlocked the kitchen door and opened it. “As she did so several emigrant women with their small children rushed in,” Catherine recalled. Narcissa pushed past them.

  She found Marcus lying in his own blood on the floor of the kitchen. She began dragging him toward the main room. “One of the women went to her aid, and they brought him in. He was fatally wounded, but conscious. The blood was streaming from a gunshot wound in the throat. Kneeling over him, she implored him to speak to her. To all her questions he whispered ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ as the case might be.”

  More loud reports outside the house caught the attention of all inside. “The roar of guns showed us that the bloodthirsty fiends were not yet satisfied,” Catherine recounted. Narcissa stole a glance through the window. “Oh, that Joe Lewis is doing it all!” she said. Hardly had she spoken when Lewis reached the door and asked to be admitted. Narcissa demanded to know what he wanted. He said nothing and went away.

  Andrew Rogers, another mission employee, ran toward the house, chased by Indians. “He sprang against the door, breaking out two panes of glass,” Catherine said. “Mrs. Whitman opened the door, and let him in, and closed it in the face of his pursuers, who, with a yell, turned to seek other victims. Mr. Rogers was shot through the wrist and tomahawked on the head; seeing the doctor lying upon the floor, he asked if he was dead.” Marcus Whitman retained sufficient consciousness to murmur that he wasn’t, yet.

  The schoolteacher at the mission, L. W. Saunders, had heard the guns and run to the house to see what was happening. He tried to get in, but Narcissa, not wanting to risk opening the door again, waved him off. He started to retreat. “He was seized by a savage who had a large butcher knife,” Catherine wrote. “Mr. Saunders struggled and was about to get away when another burly savage came to the aid of the first. Standing by Mrs. Whitman’s side, I watched the horrid strife until, sickened, I turned away.”

  As she did, she heard another rifle shot. “A bullet came through the window, piercing Mrs. Whitman’s shoulder. Clasping her hands to the wound, she shrieked with pain, and then fell to the floor.”

  Catherine sought to do something. “I ran to her and tried to raise her up,” she recounted. Narcissa shook her head. “Child, you cannot help me,” she said. “Save yourself.”

  The other children watched in horror. “We all crowded around her and began to weep.” Narcissa thought only of them. “She commenced praying for us, ‘Lord, save these little ones.’ She repeated this over many times.”

  The other adults in the room now took charge. “Mr. Rogers pushed us to the stairway.” Catherine hesitated. “I was filled with agony at the idea of leaving the sick children and refused to go.” Rogers quickly figured out how to get her to move. “Taking up one of the children, he handed her to me, and motioned for me to take her up. I passed her to some one else, turned and took another, and then the third and ran up myself.” Rogers returned to Narcissa. He lifted her to her feet and half-carried her upstairs, where he laid her on a bed.

  They hardly felt safe. “The crashing of doors informed us that the work of death was accomplished out of doors, and our time had come,” Catherine said. The Indians entered the house and battered open the door that led to the stairway. Everyone upstairs braced for the worst. A wounded man named Nathan Kimball had come up with the others; he placed an old rifle he had found in the bedroom upon the banister, with its muzzle pointing down the stairs. This deterred the attackers, who retreated out of the house.

  “All was quiet for awhile,” Catherine related. “Then we heard footsteps in the room below, and a voice at the bottom of the stairway called Mr. Rogers. It was an Indian, who represented that he had just come; he would save them”—those in the upstairs room—“if they would come down.” Rogers didn’t believe him and refused. But he couldn’t figure out how to escape, and the talking continued. “After a good deal of parleying he came up. I told mother that I had seen him killing the teacher, but she thought I was mistaken.” The Indian had a grim message. “He said that they were going to burn the house, and that we must leave it.”

  Catherine hoped to save at least her youngest sibling. “I wrapped my little sister up and handed her to him with the request that he would carry her.” The Indian initially refused. “He said that they would take Mrs. Whitman away and then come back for us.”

  Narcissa and the other women were guided down the stairs. “When they reached the room below mother was laid upon a settee and carried out into the yard by Mr. Rogers and Joe Lewis.”

  Then Lewis double-crossed Rogers and the rest. “Joe dropped his end of the settee, and a volley of bullets laid Mr. Rogers, mother and brother Francis, bleeding and dying, on the ground.”

  AMID THE ATTACK ON THE HOUSE, A GROUP OF INDIANS HAD gone to the school to seize the children there. The children had hidden in the attic of the schoolhouse but been discovered. They were brought to the main house and taken into the kitchen. “They were placed in a row to be shot,” Catherine recalled. But the leader of the group changed his mind, and the children were left unharmed, though still terrified.

  For hours the Indians debated what to do with the children and the women they hadn’t killed. They tentatively decided to keep them as hostages, guarantors against reprisal by the other whites in Oregon.

  Catherine and the others gradually realized they wouldn’t die that day, but they could do nothing for those who had been killed or were in their final agonies. “The November moon looked down, bright and cold, upon the scene, nor heeded the groans of the dying who gave forth their plaints to the chill night air,” Catherine recalled. In the darkness she heard Rogers pray for deliverance: “Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!” Then she heard no more.

  DURING THE NEXT FEW DAYS CATHERINE AND THE OTHER survivors pieced together the last moments of
Marcus Whitman and the others killed at Waiilatpu. After Whitman went into the kitchen, he was confronted by two Indians, named Tiloukaikt and Tomahas. The lodge of the former had lost three children to measles the previous night; these were the ones Whitman had buried that morning. The two men demanded that Whitman give them medicine to stop the dying. The demand was a ruse to distract Whitman, for while Tiloukaikt engaged Whitman’s attention, Tomahas pulled a tomahawk from beneath his blanket and struck Whitman in the head from behind. Whitman slumped to the floor, where Tomahas struck him again. A third Indian shot him in the neck, producing the blast Catherine and the others had heard from beyond the locked door.

  John Sager, Catherine’s oldest brother, was outside at the time of the attack. He, too, heard the shot, and he ran to the kitchen. Seeing Whitman on the floor, he fired a pistol at the Indians, evidently hitting two. The Indians fired back, wounding him fatally.

  A mission worker named Hoffman was helping to butcher the cow when he heard the shooting. Some of the Indians assaulted him, but he used his butcher’s ax to defend himself. He wounded some of his attackers yet was overpowered and killed. Catherine reported that he was disemboweled.

  The schoolteacher, Saunders, also fought back. But he lacked a weapon and too was overpowered. He was slashed with knives and shot just before reaching what he hoped would be the safety of the house. His head was bludgeoned, either before or after he died.

  One of the schoolchildren who witnessed the attacks out of doors later described the mutilation of the victims. “The bodies, or pieces of them, lay scattered all around, an arm here and a leg there,” he said. “Some of the men had their breasts torn open and their hearts taken out. I saw two Indians each with a stick and a human heart stuck upon it.”