Marcus Whitman

Marcus Whitman

Marcus Whitman (born September 4, 1802 , † November 29, 1847 ) was an American doctor and missionary who was particularly active in the Oregon Country . He is famous for leading his first major trek over the Oregon Trail , making this route one of the most important settlement routes in the west of the North American continent, which has not been opened up by white settlers. Marcus Whitman was killed in the Whitman massacre .

Life

Whitman's father died when he was only seven years old. He was then raised by his uncle. It was actually his wish to become a theologian . However, he lacked the means for this time-consuming study. Instead, he devoted himself to studying medicine, which at the time only lasted two years, but then applied to an evangelical missionary organization after completing his studies . In 1835 he traveled with the missionary Samuel Parker to the northwestern area of ​​what is now the US state of Montana and to Idaho to do missionary work among the Indian tribes. Two years later he married Narcissa Prentiss, a physics and chemistry teacher . Narcissa Prentiss had also wished to travel to the west of the country as a missionary. So far, however, she has not been able to do this on her own.

In 1836, the couple joined some fur traders and other missionaries, including Henry H. Spalding , to travel west. Along the way, they founded a series of missions and settled themselves near what is now Walla Walla . The mission was thus in the settlement area of ​​the Cayuse and the Nez Percé Indians. Marcus Whitman worked on the farm while Narcissa Whitman founded a school for Native American children. In 1843 Whitman traveled east and led a large wagon trek into the area on the way back . With this deed that established the Oregon Trail , he proved that there was a relatively easy route to travel to the west of the North American continent.

The settlers arriving as a result also brought a number of diseases with them to which the local Indian peoples were not immune. This led to a measles epidemic that resulted in a large number of deaths among Indians. The Indians, who in their cultural tradition blamed their medicine men and shamans for the death of the patient, reacted to this epidemic with increasing hostility. The Canadian painter Paul Kane visited the mission in 1847 and noted in his diary the tense situation between the Indians and the settlers. A number of other incidents ultimately led to an attack by the Indians on the Whitman mission station, which has gone down in history as the Whitman massacre . In addition to Marcus Whitman and his wife, twelve other white settlers were killed in this massacre. 54 women and children were taken hostage. Thanks to the negotiating success of Hudson's Bay Company employee Peter Skene Ogden , they were released in the end.

At the couple Whitman the Whitman College and the county remember Whitman County in the US state of Washington .

literature

• Günter Schomaekers: The Wild West. LB Ahnert-Verlag, Echzell / Hessen 1972, p. 69 ff.
• Whitman, Marcus . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 28 : Vetch - Zymotic Diseases . London 1911, p. 609 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Commons : Marcus Whitman  - collection of images, videos and audio files