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America's Hidden History | Jason Lee and The Whitmans

November 7, 2019

27:30

America's Hidden History

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America's Hidden History | Jason Lee and The Whitmans

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(tense music)
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- [Narrator] Modern historians have revised, rewritten,
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and even deleted entire chapters of American history.
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So what are we missing?
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What happened to the history that didn't make the books?
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Join historian David Barton, Tim Barton, and special guests
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as they uncover they uncover the facts
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some historians don't want you to know.
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This is "America's Hidden History."
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(intense music)
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- We're up in the mountains in the northeast
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of the U.S. where the individual we're talking about,
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the hidden hero of today's episode, comes from, Jason Lee.
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Now, Jason Lee was a founder of Oregon,
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but the reason he actually even went west
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from these New England mountains all the way
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out to Oregon was largely
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because of his Christianity.
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- Yeah, Jason Lee had an interesting story.
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His father was a soldier in the American Revolution,
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and his father actually moved into Canada,
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Quebec, Canada, and when they're in Canada,
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when Jason's only three years old, his father dies,
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and so at that point, the kids are on their own,
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and by the time Jason's 13, he's actually taking care
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of himself, he's self-sufficient,
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comes back to Massachusetts and he gets an education,
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and he decides he wants to be a minister,
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and he becomes a minister for the Wesleyan Methodists,
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and March of 1833, he came across an article
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in the Christian Advocate magazine
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that changed the course of his life.
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- But, let me back up because Lewis and Clark
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made a famous expedition, they went west,
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and this was the early 1800's.
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Well, Lewis and Clark made many Indian friends
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along the way.
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In fact, Clark goes and lives with Indians
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for several years.
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Well, he comes back, he's now in charge of Indian affairs
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for the U.S.
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Well, there was a group of Indians,
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and they decided there's something that we really need.
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They'd encountered some missionaries.
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In fact, there was a couple boys from their tribe
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who'd gone and then been trained by ministers,
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and they boys came back and were telling them about
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the God of the universe, and they said,
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we need to know more.
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There were hundreds of people who wanted to respond,
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who wanted to help, and so actually,
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over the next several years, even decades,
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there's a huge missionary movement of people saying,
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well, the Indians want to know the Bible,
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and they want to know about Christianity,
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we should go tell them.
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Jason Lee reads that account and says,
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I want to be the ones to go help.
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- He was one of the first guys to make the decision to go,
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and so what he did was he grabbed his nephew,
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and he and his nephew made the 3.000 mile journey
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across what eventually becomes the Oregon trail,
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and he becomes the first Protestant missionary
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to go from the east to the west.
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(intense music)
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- We're in Salem, Oregon and behind us is
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a First United Methodist Church of Salem,
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and the reason we're in front of it is because
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that church is there because of Jason Lee.
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Now, when we left Jason Lee, he was on his way out,
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and he was part of a big company
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that was coming out west.
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It took them several months making the journey
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to get out here, and they didn't actually come here.
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They actually went to Fort Vancouver,
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and Fort Vancouver at that time was a well-established fort,
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it's where safety was, so their company goes
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to Fort Vancouver, but the reason Jason Lee was coming,
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and the men that were with him,
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they wanted to be missionaries.
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We want to share the gospel, we want to reach the lost,
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so they were looking for a place where they could do that.
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Well, when they got here, they discovered
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that the Indians that had come to Vancouver,
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their tribe was fairly a nomad people
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and they weren't really established in a certain region.
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He said, well, then I'm not really sure where we need to go,
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so he starts looking.
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Well, where are there natives that need to hear the gospel?
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And it was at this point, they found the direction
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they needed to go.
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- Yeah, when they recently arrived, they were going to stay
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around Fort Vancouver.
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Now, there's a couple problems with that.
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One is, that was the center for Hudson Bay Company,
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and Hudson Bay Company was a British company
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that wanted all of the Pacific northwest to themselves.
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They wanted all the resources, all the furs,
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all the everything, and they had a monopoly on that,
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and so, here these guys end up in their region
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and that's really not what they want.
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In addition to that, as they started the ministry
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right there around, they found it was really
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a fairly unhealthy place and a lot of the Native Americans
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there were a lot more hostile and violent
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than in other places, so they came south
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into the Willamette Valley, the Willamette River,
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that's here around Salem,
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and so they sit up here and they started ministering.
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They started ministering to the Indians
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and they started schools and they did all the things
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you would expect missionaries to do,
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and it really was going well in so many ways,
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and then Jason says, well, you know,
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we really need to see this more of an organized area,
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because there's a lot of potential here.
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We got a lot of good ministry going on,
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why don't we set up and try to organize a territory here
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in this big great interesting United States?
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In addition to that, he says, you know,
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this being reliant on the Hudson Bay Company,
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this is not good.
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We need to be independent as a mission here,
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and so he helped form what's called
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the Willamette Cattle Company, and what they did was
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they went down to California,
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which at that time was Mexico,
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and they drove 750 cattle north back here,
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and 40 horses, and they got set up with their own ability
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to have their own food and provide their own milk
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and provide everything, and so they're starting to
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become independent, and now that they've got this going,
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they think, you know, this is a good time
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to go get some help.
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- There were other people that had joined,
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a few in number along the way.
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In fact, one of the groups that came,
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there were three young women that were in the group,
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and one of the young women, he met and thought,
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okay, this one's really impressive,
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she needs to be a Mrs. Lee,
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and he married her very shortly after she arrived,
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but they recognize, we still are gonna need a lot of help
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which is where they decide, let's go back east
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and let's try to get some help.
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- And so they get back east,
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and what he did was he went to Congress.
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He said, hey, you guys need to know
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there's a great territory out there
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and we've come up with a plan to organize this
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so we can have this territory,
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and so he lets Congress know about this great potential
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that's out there, but at the same time,
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he is looking for more help,
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and so he starts traveling for the next year,
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going all around that region saying,
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hey, look at the great potentials out there,
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and so after about a year of recruiting,
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they return back to Oregon and he's got 51 folks with him.
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- And it's worth pointing out that while he was gone,
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during this two year period, he actually got word
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that his wife had died during childbirth,
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so he actually married, at this time,
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it was his second wife, and so she ends up going with him
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back to Oregon, although she died shortly after, as well.
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This was a very trying time for him.
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Nonetheless, he did find 51 people to come back with him,
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and they really kind of changed things a little bit
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when they got back.
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- Yeah, they called it the Great Reinforcement,
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and when they got back, they've still got the mission,
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it's been developed really well,
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and they said hey, let's build a church,
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and that's what we have behind us.
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So, this is the church that was built when Jason Lee
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returned from that time in Washington, D.C.
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- But when they got here, they didn't just build the church.
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In fact, there was a lot of things that they got involved in
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and there's a little more to the story we need to tell you.
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(intense music)
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- We're standing outside the Oregon state capitol,
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and here is a statue of Jason Lee.
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Now, after Jason and the group returns in 1841,
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they get the church built and the spiritual side of things
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are really thriving, and Jason starts saying,
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now we need to make this self-sustaining,
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we need to get this strong, and so they
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start building gristmills, they start building sawmills.
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In addition to that, they say, you know,
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if all these settlers going to come in,
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if this going to be a new territory, we need education here,
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and so they found what is now known as Willamette University
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and then he says, and we have to be better organized,
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and so he presides over the organizational meeting
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of the territory, and then three years later
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is there for the organizational meeting
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of the government in the territory.
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So, he does a great job of making this a very sustainable,
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very strong territory in the United States.
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- Now, there was some accusations against him
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when it came to the mission work because
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people saw what he was doing for the territory
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and they said, wait a second, if you're spending time
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working on the territory,
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how are you going to be an effective minister of the gospel?
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Well, the conflict got bad enough that some of these
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other guys working the mission begin writing back
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to the mission board in the east.
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He had to go back to the east to give an account
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for all these accusations, and when he got there,
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he had a defense for every single thing
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that was against him, and well the board hears and they go,
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oh, well you have good reasons for everything.
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Okay, we exonerate you from all the charges against you,
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but Jason, we already sent a replacement out,
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and while you were coming east, he was going west,
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he's already there.
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We can't just pull him at this point,
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so he's going to be the head of the mission
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but you're not in trouble anymore.
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Well, that's kind of a mixed thing for Jason Lee
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because he's the one that founded the mission.
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He gets appointed out in the east to represent
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the Oregon territory, but before he goes very far with that,
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he actually gets sick and dies shortly after.
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He never makes it back to Oregon again,
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but the reason he has a statue here is because
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Oregon became a state largely because of the work
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of Jason Lee,
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the mission out here, largely the work of Jason Lee,
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and what made Jason Lee special wasn't that
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he was a politician or businessman or frontiersman
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or woodsman, they said simply, he was someone who loved God
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and who wanted to serve people
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and he gave everything he had.
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There's no doubt, when you look at heroes
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from American history,
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Jason Lee certainly is one of those hidden heroes
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of American History.
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(easy music)
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- We've got an early biography over here
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and it's called "Jason Lee, the Prophet of New Oregon."
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We've also got a very great portrait of him, right there,
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and it's cool that they highlighted the fact
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that he was there for a reason.
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He was there to spread the Christian religion
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and the good news to the inhabitants of the area,
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but what's really cool is, we've got a newspaper.
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This is The Globe newspaper, it's out of Washington, D.C.,
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and this is in 1838, when Jason Lee comes back,
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travels from coast to coast again,
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and it says that some missionary meetings recently held
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in this city, Washington, D.C., had been rendered
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particularly interesting by the presence
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of the Reverend Jason Lee, one of the earliest missionaries
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to that region.
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So, he's back, doing the good work, having other people,
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encouraging other people to follow them out there
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to also help spread the good news of the gospel.
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(intense music)
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- We're up in the northeast, actually talking about
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two people who really are known for helping blaze
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the Oregon trail, but it was two Christian missionaries,
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Marcus and Narcissa Whitman.
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Now, they were both from the state of New York.
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They both were people who end up becoming Christians,
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and actually are from a region that was known as
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the burned-over region, because the fire of revival
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had spread so much through New York,
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they thought, there's nothing left to burn,
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we've all been revivaled.
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- And they have parallel tracks, very different stories,
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but you start back with Narcissa.
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She's born in 1808, and Marcus is born six years
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earlier in 1802.
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Now, they lived about 40 miles apart,
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really didn't know each other,
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but they're both very passionate about the Lord.
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As a matter of fact, Narcissa had her first experience
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with the Lord when she was 11 years old.
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One of those waves of revival came through
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and she committed herself to the Lord,
00:11:13.180 --> 00:11:14.270
became a Christian, and then about,
00:11:14.270 --> 00:11:17.020
actually about when she's 16, the second wave of revival
00:11:17.020 --> 00:11:19.170
comes through and she says, not only am I a Christian,
00:11:19.170 --> 00:11:22.080
I want to be a missionary,
00:11:22.080 --> 00:11:23.220
and so she starts reading every magazine she can
00:11:23.220 --> 00:11:26.060
get a hold of on missions,
00:11:26.060 --> 00:11:27.270
and she grew up in a rural area of New York
00:11:27.270 --> 00:11:30.020
which meant she had to know how to do a lot of everything,
00:11:30.020 --> 00:11:32.170
and by the way, she's one of the first women
00:11:32.170 --> 00:11:34.140
in that entire area to get an academic education,
00:11:34.140 --> 00:11:37.080
which really prepared her very well
00:11:37.080 --> 00:11:39.110
for what they're going to have to do out west
00:11:39.110 --> 00:11:40.240
where she does have to do everything by herself
00:11:40.240 --> 00:11:42.190
and needs a good education,
00:11:42.190 --> 00:11:44.030
and then you have Marcus, who lives in a different area.
00:11:44.030 --> 00:11:45.280
Now, he became a Christian at a young age, too,
00:11:45.280 --> 00:11:48.020
and so by the time he's 18, he wants to go into the ministry
00:11:48.020 --> 00:11:50.260
and his parents say, no, you don't want to go
00:11:50.260 --> 00:11:52.260
into the ministry, you want to be a doctor.
00:11:52.260 --> 00:11:54.200
I want to be a doctor?
00:11:54.200 --> 00:11:55.180
You want to be a doctor.
00:11:55.180 --> 00:11:56.260
Well that decision for them was kind of easy,
00:11:56.260 --> 00:11:59.000
it took you about seven years to become a minister,
00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:01.090
only took you three years to become a doctor.
00:12:01.090 --> 00:12:03.050
So, he becomes a medical guy and he's really good
00:12:03.050 --> 00:12:05.070
in the region, people really love him.
00:12:05.070 --> 00:12:06.220
He really does a great job of being a physician,
00:12:06.220 --> 00:12:09.120
and he decides he wants to be a medical missionary,
00:12:09.120 --> 00:12:12.230
and so he applies to be a medical missionary
00:12:12.230 --> 00:12:14.270
but they say, ah, sorry, we don't take unmarried guys,
00:12:14.270 --> 00:12:18.140
sorry about that.
00:12:18.140 --> 00:12:19.210
About the same time, he comes across a guy
00:12:19.210 --> 00:12:21.100
named Samuel Parker.
00:12:21.100 --> 00:12:22.230
The Reverend Samuel Parker had read an article
00:12:22.230 --> 00:12:25.130
in a March 1833 magazine that talked about Indians out west.
00:12:25.130 --> 00:12:30.010
- Yeah, and actually that article got circulated
00:12:30.010 --> 00:12:31.190
all over the U.S., all over the early colonies,
00:12:31.190 --> 00:12:34.050
all over these early states,
00:12:34.050 --> 00:12:35.190
so people are singing, the article was about four Indians
00:12:35.190 --> 00:12:38.110
who had come from the Oregon and Washington territory.
00:12:38.110 --> 00:12:41.000
They go 2.000 miles down to Missouri
00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:44.090
and they actually came in search of the Great Book.
00:12:44.090 --> 00:12:46.180
Well, the Great Book they were looking for
00:12:46.180 --> 00:12:47.280
was the Bible.
00:12:47.280 --> 00:12:49.120
They wanted someone that could explain the Bible to them,
00:12:49.120 --> 00:12:51.060
that could explain the gospel to them,
00:12:51.060 --> 00:12:52.120
explain about the great Creator to them,
00:12:52.120 --> 00:12:54.190
and they wanted somebody to come out to their tribes.
00:12:54.190 --> 00:12:56.280
Well, as Christians begin to find out,
00:12:56.280 --> 00:12:59.030
they said, well we should do something.
00:12:59.030 --> 00:13:00.180
Hundreds of people said, we want to get involved,
00:13:00.180 --> 00:13:02.270
and they begin an influx of missionaries
00:13:02.270 --> 00:13:04.290
wanting to go west.
00:13:04.290 --> 00:13:06.140
Well, this is part of that article that was read.
00:13:06.140 --> 00:13:08.070
- Yeah, and so Dr. Parker sees that and says,
00:13:08.070 --> 00:13:10.030
I want to be one of those guys, I want to go west.
00:13:10.030 --> 00:13:12.020
Who wants to go with me?
00:13:12.020 --> 00:13:13.160
And so he started holding meetings all over that
00:13:13.160 --> 00:13:15.160
burned-out district, and saying,
00:13:15.160 --> 00:13:16.270
who wants to go to mission work with me,
00:13:16.270 --> 00:13:18.240
and so he was preaching one night in Narcissa's church
00:13:18.240 --> 00:13:21.240
where her family was and she heard that and she said,
00:13:21.240 --> 00:13:23.290
I want to go, and so when she applied, they said,
00:13:23.290 --> 00:13:26.130
sorry, we don't take single ladies as missionaries.
00:13:26.130 --> 00:13:29.200
So, you got Marcus who wants to go,
00:13:29.200 --> 00:13:31.220
Narcissa who wants to go, they're both single,
00:13:31.220 --> 00:13:33.120
and that's a problem.
00:13:33.120 --> 00:13:35.050
- Yeah, it was kind of like this marriage of convenience,
00:13:35.050 --> 00:13:37.010
almost, I don't know how it unfolded,
00:13:37.010 --> 00:13:38.190
but we know they end up getting together.
00:13:38.190 --> 00:13:40.140
- And they get married, and the very next day
00:13:40.140 --> 00:13:43.010
they set out together to go to the Oregon territory,
00:13:43.010 --> 00:13:46.040
and they went across a trail that people had been across
00:13:46.040 --> 00:13:48.120
before but never had an Anglo woman ever crossed
00:13:48.120 --> 00:13:50.270
into the Rockies, so she becomes the first,
00:13:50.270 --> 00:13:53.100
and never had a wagon gone across that trail,
00:13:53.100 --> 00:13:55.100
and they took a wagon and took all their gear
00:13:55.100 --> 00:13:57.200
with them and everything.
00:13:57.200 --> 00:13:59.040
So, they really kind of opened up what became known
00:13:59.040 --> 00:14:01.190
as the Oregon trail, and they showed it's possible
00:14:01.190 --> 00:14:03.190
for families to come from the east and go west,
00:14:03.190 --> 00:14:06.040
and they actually kind of blazed a trail like this
00:14:06.040 --> 00:14:08.160
that went west, but that's just a part of their story.
00:14:08.160 --> 00:14:12.110
(intense music)
00:14:12.110 --> 00:14:15.010
So when Marcus had made his trip west to explore,
00:14:24.120 --> 00:14:27.090
he came right along this trail.
00:14:27.090 --> 00:14:29.130
Now, it didn't look like this yet,
00:14:29.130 --> 00:14:30.280
this is the Oregon trail, this is what it looked like
00:14:30.280 --> 00:14:32.250
after all the wagons followed him,
00:14:32.250 --> 00:14:34.230
but he came along here and he ended up
00:14:34.230 --> 00:14:36.130
here in Wyoming.
00:14:36.130 --> 00:14:37.270
Now, they've come with a couple named the Spaldings,
00:14:37.270 --> 00:14:40.230
and so as they're coming along,
00:14:40.230 --> 00:14:42.180
Narcissa keeps a journal of everything that's happening,
00:14:42.180 --> 00:14:45.040
and she crosses through the trail here.
00:14:45.040 --> 00:14:48.220
Now, Narcissa in her notes records that it was really
00:14:48.220 --> 00:14:51.140
a different thing for her because,
00:14:51.140 --> 00:14:53.280
as they would meet these Indian tribes,
00:14:53.280 --> 00:14:55.290
Indians had never before seen a white woman,
00:14:55.290 --> 00:14:58.080
and this is something new, and so the ladies would stay
00:14:58.080 --> 00:15:01.160
in the wagon and they would raise the covers of the wagon,
00:15:01.160 --> 00:15:03.220
look and point, oh look at these,
00:15:03.220 --> 00:15:05.250
we've never seen anything like this.
00:15:05.250 --> 00:15:07.130
When she gets out west, her journal's actually published
00:15:07.130 --> 00:15:10.130
back east, and when that journal is published,
00:15:10.130 --> 00:15:13.160
all of a sudden, interest goes up in the east, said,
00:15:13.160 --> 00:15:15.150
hey, these women made it west and they made it in a wagon,
00:15:15.150 --> 00:15:19.140
we can do that, too,
00:15:19.140 --> 00:15:21.020
and so by the thousands, people started coming west,
00:15:21.020 --> 00:15:24.020
and that's where you get the Oregon trail,
00:15:24.020 --> 00:15:26.110
following the trail that really Marcus and Narcissa
00:15:26.110 --> 00:15:28.260
had publicized, all these wagons going to west
00:15:28.260 --> 00:15:31.230
to find a new life.
00:15:31.230 --> 00:15:33.050
(intense music)
00:15:33.050 --> 00:15:35.250
- We're standing beside Register Cliff in Wyoming,
00:15:43.040 --> 00:15:45.050
and if you notice there's actually a lot of names
00:15:45.050 --> 00:15:47.140
inscribed along this cliff,
00:15:47.140 --> 00:15:49.160
and this was part of the Oregon trail.
00:15:49.160 --> 00:15:51.150
For hundreds of years it seems that people have come along
00:15:51.150 --> 00:15:54.170
and carved their name, maybe to let people know
00:15:54.170 --> 00:15:56.120
they were here, but this was one of the stops
00:15:56.120 --> 00:15:58.110
for the Whitmans along the Oregon trail.
00:15:58.110 --> 00:15:59.260
- It was.
00:15:59.260 --> 00:16:01.070
Now, after the Whitmans made it out to the west
00:16:01.070 --> 00:16:02.180
and the Spalding family was with them,
00:16:02.180 --> 00:16:04.040
their purpose was to be missionaries
00:16:04.040 --> 00:16:05.200
to Native Americans, and so the Spaldings went one way,
00:16:05.200 --> 00:16:08.000
set up a mission, Marcus and Narcissa set up their mission,
00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:11.010
and their mission was for the Cayuse Indians,
00:16:11.010 --> 00:16:13.010
and so for the next several years,
00:16:13.010 --> 00:16:14.240
the mission's operating, it's running,
00:16:14.240 --> 00:16:16.200
it's doing its missionary work,
00:16:16.200 --> 00:16:18.020
and then in 1842, Marcus gets word
00:16:18.020 --> 00:16:20.210
from the American Board of Commissions and Foreign Missions,
00:16:20.210 --> 00:16:22.250
who originally funded them and sent them out there,
00:16:22.250 --> 00:16:25.060
they said, hey, we've decided we're not liking
00:16:25.060 --> 00:16:27.180
what's going on, we're going to cut your funding,
00:16:27.180 --> 00:16:29.110
because word had gotten back to them from some naysayers
00:16:29.110 --> 00:16:32.010
that said, oh, that work is not worth anything,
00:16:32.010 --> 00:16:34.000
and Marcus is going no, because if they cut the funding,
00:16:34.000 --> 00:16:36.260
that essentially cuts the missionary work going on.
00:16:36.260 --> 00:16:39.060
So, this is winter time, he gets the word.
00:16:39.060 --> 00:16:41.230
He hops on horseback, he takes off back to the east coast
00:16:41.230 --> 00:16:44.240
in winter, is crossing the Rocky Mountains,
00:16:44.240 --> 00:16:47.020
crossing the high peaks, crossing all the stuff that passes
00:16:47.020 --> 00:16:49.200
in winter time.
00:16:49.200 --> 00:16:50.270
He made it back to the east coast.
00:16:50.270 --> 00:16:52.140
He said, guys you don't understand what's happening here.
00:16:52.140 --> 00:16:54.030
Let me tell you,
00:16:54.030 --> 00:16:55.170
and they said, oh, that's, yeah, we do want to fund that,
00:16:55.170 --> 00:16:57.230
so they reinstated his funding,
00:16:57.230 --> 00:16:59.110
so he gets on horseback and now is coming
00:16:59.110 --> 00:17:01.130
back out west, and as he gets about halfway across the
00:17:01.130 --> 00:17:04.040
United States he comes on a group that's debating
00:17:04.040 --> 00:17:06.140
whether they should go to the Oregon territory or not.
00:17:06.140 --> 00:17:09.210
I don't think we can get wagons there
00:17:09.210 --> 00:17:11.210
and I don't know if we can get women there,
00:17:11.210 --> 00:17:13.050
and it's going to be really hard,
00:17:13.050 --> 00:17:14.200
and he says guys, I've been over the trail several times,
00:17:14.200 --> 00:17:16.180
I can help get you there,
00:17:16.180 --> 00:17:18.110
and so as he talked to them, said yeah, bring your wagons,
00:17:18.110 --> 00:17:21.190
they started off, and there was 120 wagons,
00:17:21.190 --> 00:17:24.110
there was 1.000 people, and there were several thousand
00:17:24.110 --> 00:17:26.240
head of cattle, and so Marcus leads them across
00:17:26.240 --> 00:17:30.050
what is now known as the Oregon trail,
00:17:30.050 --> 00:17:32.180
and this is one of the locations where the settlers,
00:17:32.180 --> 00:17:35.030
and they did this for decades,
00:17:35.030 --> 00:17:36.160
is they would come across anywhere they could find a place
00:17:36.160 --> 00:17:38.140
to give some kind of a sign that they had been there,
00:17:38.140 --> 00:17:41.000
that was word for their family that might come after,
00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:43.070
because there's no communication out here,
00:17:43.070 --> 00:17:44.210
there's no mail, there's no telegraph.
00:17:44.210 --> 00:17:46.140
You don't know if your family made it or not.
00:17:46.140 --> 00:17:48.090
You don't hear from them,
00:17:48.090 --> 00:17:49.240
and so settlers coming out would try to find places
00:17:49.240 --> 00:17:52.050
where they could carve their name in the rock
00:17:52.050 --> 00:17:53.260
and leave a message and that's part of what's here.
00:17:53.260 --> 00:17:55.290
So, Marcus brings that entire group out.
00:17:55.290 --> 00:17:58.030
He gets them out in the Oregon territory,
00:17:58.030 --> 00:18:00.140
and they were quite a remarkable group,
00:18:00.140 --> 00:18:02.170
at least that's the word from those who lived among them.
00:18:02.170 --> 00:18:04.170
- Although the trek was very difficult-
00:18:04.170 --> 00:18:06.210
- It was. - Not an easy thing to do,
00:18:06.210 --> 00:18:08.070
months, in fact, tens of thousands of people died.
00:18:08.070 --> 00:18:10.280
This was not an easy thing to do,
00:18:10.280 --> 00:18:13.000
but the Whitmans certainly helped lead a big group
00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:15.210
and blaze that trail out to Oregon.
00:18:15.210 --> 00:18:17.170
- Yeah, eventually you had 400.000 Americans come along
00:18:17.170 --> 00:18:21.080
the Oregon trail, and that's really why you ended up
00:18:21.080 --> 00:18:24.170
with the states of Idaho.
00:18:24.170 --> 00:18:26.070
You ended up with the states of Oregon,
00:18:26.070 --> 00:18:27.230
the states of Washington,
00:18:27.230 --> 00:18:29.050
because so many Americans made it out there,
00:18:29.050 --> 00:18:30.190
they made it into territories.
00:18:30.190 --> 00:18:31.290
They eventually become states,
00:18:31.290 --> 00:18:33.200
but that's largely because of the trailblazing work
00:18:33.200 --> 00:18:35.280
of Marcus Whitman.
00:18:35.280 --> 00:18:37.050
(intense music)
00:18:37.050 --> 00:18:39.250
We're at the Whitman Mission in Walla Walla, Washington.
00:18:49.290 --> 00:18:52.230
After the Whitmans had come across the trail that later
00:18:52.230 --> 00:18:55.120
became known as the Oregon trail,
00:18:55.120 --> 00:18:57.080
and while this is not their wagon, they would have come
00:18:57.080 --> 00:18:59.120
in something like this.
00:18:59.120 --> 00:19:01.000
So, after they reach here, it's right here beside us
00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:03.100
that they form the mission,
00:19:03.100 --> 00:19:05.070
and they formed it among the Cayuse Indians,
00:19:05.070 --> 00:19:07.200
and then they start finding things didn't go the same
00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:11.100
as what they had planned.
00:19:11.100 --> 00:19:12.260
For example, the Cayuse turn out to be a nomadic people,
00:19:12.260 --> 00:19:15.070
and they're not here all the time,
00:19:15.070 --> 00:19:16.250
they're moving around from place to place, so-
00:19:16.250 --> 00:19:18.160
- And that is a big culture shock if you're from the east,
00:19:18.160 --> 00:19:20.220
because you build a house and you never leave, right?
00:19:20.220 --> 00:19:23.090
And so, I'm going to come and we're going to minister
00:19:23.090 --> 00:19:25.120
to people that have never heard the gospel,
00:19:25.120 --> 00:19:26.160
I'm going to build a house,
00:19:26.160 --> 00:19:28.070
and then they get up and move and you're like,
00:19:28.070 --> 00:19:29.020
hey, where you going?
00:19:29.020 --> 00:19:30.170
That's what happened, and so when they started dealing
00:19:30.170 --> 00:19:32.200
with a different culture of a nomad people,
00:19:32.200 --> 00:19:34.200
they realized, we're going to have to change
00:19:34.200 --> 00:19:36.120
the way we look at this.
00:19:36.120 --> 00:19:37.260
- It probably affected Narcissa a whole lot more
00:19:37.260 --> 00:19:40.060
than it affected Marcus.
00:19:40.060 --> 00:19:41.150
She just wasn't able to make the transition
00:19:41.150 --> 00:19:43.190
in some ways to what was going.
00:19:43.190 --> 00:19:45.040
- She grew up in a culture where everybody kind of thought
00:19:45.040 --> 00:19:48.180
and understood the same.
00:19:48.180 --> 00:19:50.030
She got here and realized, they don't have the same ideas
00:19:50.030 --> 00:19:52.110
and attitudes that we do.
00:19:52.110 --> 00:19:54.110
It was reported that there were times when
00:19:54.110 --> 00:19:56.110
she would be out and she would come home
00:19:56.110 --> 00:19:58.080
and she would find Indians in her house,
00:19:58.080 --> 00:19:59.200
going through her stuff, and what are you doing,
00:19:59.200 --> 00:20:02.050
leave my stuff alone.
00:20:02.050 --> 00:20:03.180
Indians didn't have this idea of private property
00:20:03.180 --> 00:20:05.180
the same way that many of the settlers from the east
00:20:05.180 --> 00:20:07.090
did because Indians are communal people,
00:20:07.090 --> 00:20:09.110
they share together and they share equal
00:20:09.110 --> 00:20:11.000
and they share everything.
00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:12.140
Well, that really bothered her, that she had no privacy.
00:20:12.140 --> 00:20:14.120
She built a fence around their house and told the Indians,
00:20:14.120 --> 00:20:16.280
you can't come past this fence, this is our boundary.
00:20:16.280 --> 00:20:19.170
Well, they didn't understand that, either,
00:20:19.170 --> 00:20:21.120
and so there was great frustration with Narcissa
00:20:21.120 --> 00:20:23.150
which then got compounded because she and Marcus
00:20:23.150 --> 00:20:26.130
had a daughter, and the daughter,
00:20:26.130 --> 00:20:28.020
when the daughter was just a couple years old,
00:20:28.020 --> 00:20:29.260
the daughter tells Narcissa, mom, I'm thirsty,
00:20:29.260 --> 00:20:31.280
and so presumably Narcissa thinks, well that's fine,
00:20:31.280 --> 00:20:34.130
right, go back to the house, there's a bucket,
00:20:34.130 --> 00:20:36.270
get some water out of the bucket.
00:20:36.270 --> 00:20:38.050
Well, the daughter actually went to a river
00:20:38.050 --> 00:20:40.130
which was just beside their house.
00:20:40.130 --> 00:20:41.270
Narcissa didn't know, and the daughter didn't come back
00:20:41.270 --> 00:20:44.000
for a little bit but Narcissa wasn't worried,
00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:46.000
until an Indian came and say hey, we found your daughter
00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:48.200
and she actually drowned in the river.
00:20:48.200 --> 00:20:50.200
It totally crushed her, devastated her.
00:20:50.200 --> 00:20:52.270
She became much of a recluse and wanted
00:20:52.270 --> 00:20:55.030
to stay inside the house.
00:20:55.030 --> 00:20:56.110
Her friends were the friends who were there
00:20:56.110 --> 00:20:57.210
on the mission but she was very frustrated,
00:20:57.210 --> 00:20:59.260
and it is an interesting contrast between her and Marcus
00:20:59.260 --> 00:21:02.220
because Marcus was able to handle a lot of the environment
00:21:02.220 --> 00:21:06.020
and culture a lot better than Narcissa.
00:21:06.020 --> 00:21:08.010
- Yeah, Marcus understood, we've got vast cultural
00:21:08.010 --> 00:21:10.120
differences and this is not the kind of stuff you can change
00:21:10.120 --> 00:21:12.280
in a week or two or year or two.
00:21:12.280 --> 00:21:15.080
Now remember, he's a medical missionary,
00:21:15.080 --> 00:21:17.030
and so he's out here and he's doing medical work
00:21:17.030 --> 00:21:19.180
wherever he can.
00:21:19.180 --> 00:21:21.000
He serves the Cayuse Indians, anytime they get sick
00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:22.110
he's there to help.
00:21:22.110 --> 00:21:23.220
One of the things that occurred was a measles epidemic
00:21:23.220 --> 00:21:25.190
hit the Cayuse Indians, and why he helped so many,
00:21:25.190 --> 00:21:28.200
particularly the children, he didn't keep them all alive,
00:21:28.200 --> 00:21:31.210
and in the Cayuse culture, if you're a medicine man
00:21:31.210 --> 00:21:34.090
and you treat someone who's sick and they die,
00:21:34.090 --> 00:21:37.260
the family has the right to kill you
00:21:37.260 --> 00:21:39.270
because you did not heal them.
00:21:39.270 --> 00:21:43.040
Well, he didn't heal everyone he treated in the Cayuse tribe
00:21:43.040 --> 00:21:46.110
and as he and Narcissa were at home one day,
00:21:46.110 --> 00:21:49.120
right at the mission, they were sitting in kind of
00:21:49.120 --> 00:21:51.200
the living room area, a Cayuse Indian walks in behind him
00:21:51.200 --> 00:21:54.110
and buries a tomahawk right in his head,
00:21:54.110 --> 00:21:57.020
kills him right there.
00:21:57.020 --> 00:21:58.110
Another one walks through the door,
00:21:58.110 --> 00:21:59.250
points at Narcissa, shoots her, and nine others
00:21:59.250 --> 00:22:02.040
died that day at the mission.
00:22:02.040 --> 00:22:03.250
They killed 11 that day, and then two days later,
00:22:03.250 --> 00:22:05.280
they killed two more, and then they took 49 captives.
00:22:05.280 --> 00:22:10.120
Word gets back to the Federal government,
00:22:10.120 --> 00:22:12.040
and this leads to a seven year war between
00:22:12.040 --> 00:22:14.290
the Federal government and the Cayuse Indians,
00:22:14.290 --> 00:22:16.220
because for the Federal government,
00:22:16.220 --> 00:22:18.080
these are Americans out here,
00:22:18.080 --> 00:22:20.020
we're supposed to be protecting Americans,
00:22:20.020 --> 00:22:21.120
and so what happens is,
00:22:21.120 --> 00:22:23.010
the death of Narcissa and Marcus and all those with them
00:22:23.010 --> 00:22:26.240
is what led to Oregon actually becoming
00:22:26.240 --> 00:22:29.060
an official territory,
00:22:29.060 --> 00:22:30.290
and then five years later, this area where we are here
00:22:30.290 --> 00:22:33.140
became the Washington territory.
00:22:33.140 --> 00:22:35.080
Now, the Oregon territory, vast territory.
00:22:35.080 --> 00:22:37.270
It is not what we think of today of the state of Oregon,
00:22:37.270 --> 00:22:39.250
the Oregon territory was what today comprises states
00:22:39.250 --> 00:22:42.200
of Washington and Oregon, most of Idaho,
00:22:42.200 --> 00:22:45.090
parts of Montana and Wyoming, it was huge and vast,
00:22:45.090 --> 00:22:48.010
and that came to be part of the United States
00:22:48.010 --> 00:22:50.110
because of what Marcus and Narcissa did out here,
00:22:50.110 --> 00:22:53.030
and Marcus is so significant in the history
00:22:53.030 --> 00:22:55.290
of the Pacific northwest that back in Washington, D.C.,
00:22:55.290 --> 00:22:59.080
there is a law that was passed in 1863 that says
00:22:59.080 --> 00:23:02.130
every one of the states gets to display two of its heroes
00:23:02.130 --> 00:23:06.020
right here in the Federal government,
00:23:06.020 --> 00:23:07.290
the capitol, Washington, D.C.
00:23:07.290 --> 00:23:09.240
Washington state chose a statue of Marcus Whitman
00:23:09.240 --> 00:23:13.020
as one of their heroes.
00:23:13.020 --> 00:23:14.100
- Which he actually has a Bible under his hand,
00:23:14.100 --> 00:23:17.010
on his hip, which was really depicting
00:23:17.010 --> 00:23:19.120
kind of who he was, right?
00:23:19.120 --> 00:23:21.020
He and Narcissa, they were missionaries.
00:23:21.020 --> 00:23:22.250
They were people who loved God and wanted to serve people,
00:23:22.250 --> 00:23:25.060
wanted to reach the lost who have never heard the gospel.
00:23:25.060 --> 00:23:27.250
Now, ended up taking their lives, but because of the work
00:23:27.250 --> 00:23:31.060
they did is the reason Washington is a state,
00:23:31.060 --> 00:23:33.110
which is why they're honored in the U.S. Capitol
00:23:33.110 --> 00:23:35.050
by Washington, but as we look back at the legacy
00:23:35.050 --> 00:23:38.050
they leave behind, there's no doubt that these are
00:23:38.050 --> 00:23:40.260
hidden heroes of American history.
00:23:40.260 --> 00:23:43.000
(easy music)
00:23:43.000 --> 00:23:45.120
- While the Bartons are on the Oregon trail,
00:23:48.270 --> 00:23:50.080
I'm back here in the collection,
00:23:50.080 --> 00:23:51.290
figuring out and going through archives
00:23:51.290 --> 00:23:53.170
and seeing what we have about Marcus and Narcissa Whitman.
00:23:53.170 --> 00:23:56.170
This is an early biography that was written
00:23:56.170 --> 00:23:58.260
about their lives, it's called,
00:23:58.260 --> 00:24:00.030
"How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon."
00:24:00.030 --> 00:24:02.220
So, people really thought it was very important
00:24:02.220 --> 00:24:05.070
to collect what people who knew him and the writings
00:24:05.070 --> 00:24:08.080
that they were able to find, to tell the story
00:24:08.080 --> 00:24:10.120
about his life because of how important it was,
00:24:10.120 --> 00:24:13.040
and then additionally, we have an Indian tomahawk
00:24:13.040 --> 00:24:16.140
from around that period.
00:24:16.140 --> 00:24:17.230
Now, this is what they would have used,
00:24:17.230 --> 00:24:20.010
quite possibly, when Marcus Whitman was killed
00:24:20.010 --> 00:24:22.110
in that attack.
00:24:22.110 --> 00:24:24.090
So, we use, you know, the writings, books,
00:24:24.090 --> 00:24:27.030
and the artifacts to really put together and find out
00:24:27.030 --> 00:24:29.190
the true history behind these hidden heroes.
00:24:29.190 --> 00:24:32.140
(guitar music)
00:24:32.140 --> 00:24:35.010
- When I think about Jason Lee,
00:24:42.140 --> 00:24:43.190
I see some character traits in him
00:24:43.190 --> 00:24:45.030
that I really think we would benefit from today.
00:24:45.030 --> 00:24:47.250
I don't see them as visibly today as I did back then,
00:24:47.250 --> 00:24:50.000
and when he starts and he heads for Oregon
00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:52.260
and he goes out with all the passion of a missionary,
00:24:52.260 --> 00:24:55.040
here's my objective, and he gets there
00:24:55.040 --> 00:24:57.090
and has to keep shifting the way he does it.
00:24:57.090 --> 00:25:00.160
He's still got the same objective, but you know what,
00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:03.070
we need a place to be able to provide some food
00:25:03.070 --> 00:25:05.050
and materials for us, and we need cattle,
00:25:05.050 --> 00:25:07.030
and we need to be free from Hudson Bay Company
00:25:07.030 --> 00:25:08.220
and we need our own government, and so here's this guy
00:25:08.220 --> 00:25:10.240
who's trained in ministry who's doing all these
00:25:10.240 --> 00:25:12.210
other things, and today, it's like we're specialists.
00:25:12.210 --> 00:25:15.210
Well, that's not my job description,
00:25:15.210 --> 00:25:17.140
I don't do that, and think what we would not have
00:25:17.140 --> 00:25:20.210
if he had that mentality.
00:25:20.210 --> 00:25:21.270
Well, that's not my job description.
00:25:21.270 --> 00:25:23.120
- Well, one of the things that even the Bible teaches us,
00:25:23.120 --> 00:25:24.290
if you're going to be great in God's kingdom,
00:25:24.290 --> 00:25:26.180
you have to be a servant of all,
00:25:26.180 --> 00:25:27.160
and he definitely was a servant.
00:25:27.160 --> 00:25:29.040
I mean, the Whitmans, you could say the same thing.
00:25:29.040 --> 00:25:30.170
They were servants, they wanted to serve and love people.
00:25:30.170 --> 00:25:32.170
It's very cool that one of the legacies we have in America
00:25:32.170 --> 00:25:35.070
is not only just that we were a nation based
00:25:35.070 --> 00:25:38.280
on Biblical principles, but when you can see,
00:25:38.280 --> 00:25:40.260
like the Lees, like the Whitmans,
00:25:40.260 --> 00:25:43.060
when they're going out because of the Bible,
00:25:43.060 --> 00:25:45.220
sharing the gospel, and were founding these new territories
00:25:45.220 --> 00:25:49.020
and ultimately become states,
00:25:49.020 --> 00:25:50.190
how God uses people in very difficult situations,
00:25:50.190 --> 00:25:54.120
because there's no doubt for Narcissa and Marcus
00:25:54.120 --> 00:25:56.230
that this was not ideal, you know,
00:25:56.230 --> 00:25:58.140
their life was much more about,
00:25:58.140 --> 00:25:59.230
I want to do the will of God.
00:25:59.230 --> 00:26:01.100
- Look at how so much is done by people who are flexible.
00:26:01.100 --> 00:26:04.230
You know, they go in with a vision and that they have to
00:26:04.230 --> 00:26:06.250
adjust but they end up getting there,
00:26:06.250 --> 00:26:09.090
and I don't think we would be the nation we were
00:26:09.090 --> 00:26:11.160
if we didn't have these kind of flexible people
00:26:11.160 --> 00:26:14.180
willing to adjust and pick up the task
00:26:14.180 --> 00:26:17.060
and do it with all their heart,
00:26:17.060 --> 00:26:18.200
even though it wasn't what I originally planned,
00:26:18.200 --> 00:26:20.120
I mean, I think that's a kind of courage that we need.
00:26:20.120 --> 00:26:23.180
(intense music)
00:26:23.180 --> 00:26:26.080
- [Announcer] We hope you're enjoying TBN's exclusive series
00:26:30.050 --> 00:26:33.010
"America's Hidden History,"
00:26:33.010 --> 00:26:34.180
thrilling stories of ordinary and unsung Americans
00:26:34.180 --> 00:26:37.180
whom God used in extraordinary ways to shape our nation.
00:26:37.180 --> 00:26:41.010
Right now, we want to send you the entire first season
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You will learn how the scriptures played
00:27:02.260 --> 00:27:04.240
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America's Hidden History | Jason Lee and The Whitmans

America's Hidden History | Jason Lee and The Whitmans

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America's Hidden History | Jason Lee and The Whitmans

America's Hidden History | Jason Lee and The Whitmans

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