Then follow a few facts about Oregon but not a word on the political question or Whitman's trip to Washington. According to Love joy's recollection[1] Whitman felt that the Board disapproved of his action in coming east. Of this there is no record. Yet the self-defensive tone of his later letters reflects the same impression. In such a conjuncture what more effective defence could he have made than to show the urgency of the political crisis in Oregon and in Washington?
Whitman's journey, in fact, was measurably successful, and the requests of the mission were granted. The minute in regard to his project for an emigration was: "A plan which he proposed for taking with him, on his return to the mission, a small company of intelligent and pious laymen, to settle at or near the mission station, but without expense to the Board or any connection with it, was so far approved that he was authorized to take such men, if those of a suitable character and with whom satisfactory arrangements could be made, can be found."[2]
Such was Whitman's plan of emigration,[3] and how different from the legendary proposal to Tyler and Webster to take out a thousand emigrants! The fact that Whitman returned in company with the emigration of 1843 has been transformed by legend into the accomplishment of a previously announced purpose to organize and conduct such a body of emigrants. The emigration which he planned he
- ↑ Gray's Oregon, 326; Nixon, 311. This is confirmed by the recollections of Dr. Geiger, and Perrin B. Whitman, Eells' Marcus Whitman, 4 and 13.
- ↑ Records of the Prudential Committee. Cf. Report of the A. B. C. F. M. for 1843, 169-173; Missionary Herald, Sept. 1843, 356.
- ↑ He seems to have made it public in a measure before leaving Oregon. At any rate Hines refers to "the departure of Dr. Whitman to the United States with the avowed intention of bringing back with him as many as he could enlist for Oregon" as having alarmed the Indians. It was also rumored that the Nez-Percés had despatched one of their chiefs to incite the Indians of the buffalo country to cut off Whitman's party on his return. Hines's Oregon, Auburn and Buffalo, 1851, 143. Hines's narrative is based on his diary at the time.
in-law from Shawnee Mission, May 28, 1843: "My plan, you know, was to get funds for founding schools and have good people come along as settlers and teachers." Trans. Oregon Pioneer Association, 1891, 178.
