The Whitman Tragedy – Part 2
Rev. H. H. Spalding
For decades after the tragedy at the Whitman Mission, writers, preachers and others sought to place blame for the event itself and for the underlying causes. Resentments against the Hudson’s Bay Company and religious prejudices often colored narratives, and led to charges of cowardice or malice.
Square in the middle of these disputes was Rev. H. H. Spalding, a colleague of the Whitmans. While there was often tension between the two families, the Whitmans and Spaldings were also colleagues and a support system in a stressful situation. Years after the event Spalding demonstrates a very personal and theological agenda in his series of lectures which were printed in the Walla Walla newspaper in 1866. Links to all the lectures can be found on the Moments in History page of the digital newspaper collection.
Fr. Brouillet
In response, Hudson’s Bay employee, William McBean, takes great exception to the accuracy of Spalding’s characterization of events in letters to the newspaper’s editor. See Moments in History.
Another, more studied, viewpoint comes from Fr. Brouillet, the Catholic priest who first discovered the massacre and helped to bury the dead. His brief book, published in 1869, also attempts to refute Spalding’s accusations against the Catholics by gathering statements and letters from people present in the territory at the time and involved in the events, and by trying to analyze the underlying causes. See an Authentic account of the murder of Dr. Whitman and other missionaries in Classics in Washington History.
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