Book
Murder at the mission : a frontier killing, its legacy of lies, and the taking of the American West / Blaine Harden.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780525561668
- ISBN: 0525561668
- Physical Description: xxxi, 432 pages : illustrations, map, portraits ; 24 cm
- Publisher: [New York] : Viking, [2021]
Content descriptions
| Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 367-416) and index. |
| Formatted Contents Note: | Introduction: The good doctor -- Act one: Kill. "Do nothing to irritate" ; "What a delightful place" ; Cayuses in the kitchen ; "Want of Christian feeling" ; "A thousand little harassing events" ; "Beastly & savage brutalities" -- Act two: Hang. "Priests wet with the blood" ; A proper trial ; Five at once ; "Seeing that they stood alone" -- Act three: Lie. Authentic account ; Collaborate ; Brother Spalding goes to Washington ; The old college life -- Act four: Expose. Skulls, bones, money ; "A defenseless little Western institution" ; Mephistopheles and the original sources ; Lost cause -- Act five: Revive. Predators ; Broke ; White people's money -- Epilogue. |
| Summary, etc.: | In 1847 Dr. Marcus Whitman, his wife, and eleven others were massacred by a group of Cayuse. The Cayuse were portrayed as murderous savages; five were executed. Whitman and Reverend Henry Spalding had headed to Washington state and Idaho on the Oregon Trail with their wives; they aimed to convert members of the Cayuse and Nez Perce tribes. As Spalding told it, after uncovering a British and Catholic plot to steal the Oregon Territory from the United States, Whitman undertook a heroic solo ride across the country to alert the President. In fact, he had traveled to Washington to save his own job. Harden exposes the hucksterism and self-interest at the root of American myth-making. --Adapted from book jacket. |
Search for related items by subject
Available copies
- 2 of 2 copies available at GRPL.
