A Survivor's Recollections of the Whitman Massacre

A Survivor's Recollections of the Whitman Massacre by Matilda Sager Publisher: Emereo Classics, 2013 The Original Classic Edition ISBN is 9781486485628 / 1486485626 Paperback 7.5 x 9.7 inches, 20 pages On November 29, Tiloukaikt, Tomahas, Kiamsumpkin, Iaiachalakis, Endoklamin, and Klokomas, enraged by Joe Lewis' talk, attacked Waiilatpu. According to Mary Ann Bridger (the young daughter of mountain man Jim Bridger), a lodger of the mission and eyewitness to the event, the men knocked on the Whitmans' kitchen door and demanded medicine. Bridger said that Marcus brought the medicine, and began a conversation with Tiloukaikt. While Whitman was distracted, Tomahas struck him twice in the head with a hatchet from behind and another man shot him in the neck. The Cayuse men rushed outside and attacked the white men and boys working outdoors. Narcissa found Whitman fatally wounded; yet he lived for several hours after the attack, sometimes responding to her anxious reassurances. Catherine Sager, who had been with Narcissa in another room when the attack occurred, later wrote in her reminiscences that "Tiloukaikt chopped the doctor's face so badly that his features could not be recognized." Narcissa later went to the door to look out; she was shot by a Cayuse man. She died later from a volley of gunshots after she had been coaxed to leave the house. Additional persons killed were Andrew Rodgers, Jacob Hoffman, L. W. Saunders, Walter Marsh, John and Francis Sager, Nathan Kimball, Isaac Gilliland, James Young, Crocket Bewley, and Amos Sales. Peter Hall, a carpenter who had been working on the house, managed to escape the massacre and reach Fort Walla Walla to raise the alarm and get help. From there he tried to get to Fort Vancouver but never arrived. It is speculated that Hall drowned in the Columbia River or was caught and killed. Chief "Beardy" tried in vain to stop the massacre, but did not succeed. He was found crying while riding toward the Waiilatpu Mission. The Cayuse took 54 missionaries as captives and held them for ransom, including Mary Ann Bridger and the five surviving Sager children. Several of the prisoners died in captivity, including Helen Mar Meek, mostly from illness such as the measles. Henry and Eliza Spalding's daughter, also named Eliza, was staying at Waiilatpu when the massacre occurred. The ten-year-old Eliza, who was conversant in the Cayuse language, served as interpreter during the captivity. She was returned to her parents by Peter Skene Ogden, an official of Hudson's Bay Company. One month following the massacre, on December 29, on orders from Chief Factor James Douglas, Ogden arranged for an exchange of 62 blankets, 62 cotton shirts, 12 Hudson's Bay rifles, 22 handkerchiefs, 300 loads of ammunition, 15 fathoms of tobacco for the return of the 49 surviving prisoners. The Hudson's Bay Company never billed the American settlers for the ransom, nor did the latter ever offer cash payment to the company. ----------------------- Finally available, a book of the original classic edition of A Survivor's Recollections of the Whitman Massacre. It was previously published by other bona fide publishers, and is now, after many years, back in print. This is a new edition of this culturally important work by Matilda Sager, which is now, at last, again available to you.