Marcus Whitman The way west
why did Whitman make his way west?
why did Whitman make his way west?
On May 25, 1836, the Whitmans, and a group of other missionaries including Henry and Eliza Spalding, joined a caravan of fur traders and traveled west. The fur company caravan was led by the mountain men Milton Sublette and Thomas Fitzpatrick. The fur traders had seven covered wagons, each pulled by six mules. An additional cart drawn by two mules carried Milton Sublette, who had lost a leg a year earlier and walked on a "cork" one made by a friend. The combined group arrived at the fur-traders' annual rendezvous on July 6. The group established several missions as well as Whitman's settlement at a Cayuse settlement called Waiilatpu (Why-ee-laht-poo) in the Cayuse language, meaning "place of the rye grass". It was located just west of the northern end of the Blue Mountains. The present-day city of Walla Walla, Washington developed six miles to the east. The settlement was in the territory of both the Cayuse and the Nez Perce tribes. Whitman farmed and provided medical care, while Narcissa set up a school for the Native American children. In 1843, Whitman traveled east, and on his return, he helped lead the first large group of wagon trains west from Fort Hall, in southeastern Idaho. Known as the "Great Emigration", it established the viability of the Oregon Trail for later homesteaders. Not having much success with converting the Cayuse, the Whitmans gave more attention to the settlers. They took in children to their own home and established a boarding school for settlers' children. CANNOTANSWER
The group established several missions as well as Whitman's settlement at a Cayuse settlement
Marcus Whitman (September 4, 1802 – November 29, 1847) was an American physician and missionary.

In 1836, Marcus Whitman led an overland party by wagon to the West. He and his wife, Narcissa, along with Reverend Henry Spalding and his wife, Eliza, and William Gray, founded a mission at present day Walla Walla, Washington in an effort to convert local Indians to Christianity. In the winter of 1842 Whitman went back east, returning the following summer with the first large wagon train across the Oregon Trail. The new settlers encroached on the Cayuse Indians living near the Whitman Mission and were unsuccessful in their efforts to Christianize the Tribe. 

Following the deaths of many nearby Cayuse from an outbreak of measles, some remaining Cayuse accused Whitman of murder, suggesting that he had administered poison and was a failed shaman. In retaliation, a group of Cayuse killed the Whitmans and twelve other settlers on November 30, 1847, an event that came to be known as the Whitman Massacre. This led to continuing warfare between settlers and Indians which reduced the Cayuse numbers further.

Early life
On September 4, 1802, Whitman was born in Federal Hollow, New York to Beza and Alice Whitman. After Beza's death when Whitman was seven, he was sent to Massachusetts to live with his uncle.

Whitman dreamed of becoming a minister but did not have the money for such schooling. He returned to New York as a young man. He studied medicine for two years with an experienced physician under the form of apprenticeship approved then, and received his degree from Fairfield Medical College in New York. He practiced medicine for a few years in Canada but was interested in going to the west.

Missionary
In 1835, Whitman traveled with the missionary Samuel Parker to present-day northwestern Montana and northern Idaho, to minister to bands of the Flathead and Nez Perce nations. During this journey, he treated several fur trappers during an outbreak of cholera. At the end of their stay, he promised the Nez Perce that he would return with other missionaries and teachers to live with them.

Parker and Whitman were present for the 1835 Rocky Mountain Rendezvous.

Marriage and family
In 1836, Whitman married Narcissa Prentiss, a teacher of physics and chemistry. She had also been eager to travel west as a missionary, but she had been unable to do so as a single woman. They had one daughter, Alice Clarissa, born On March 14, 1837, the first Anglo-American child born in Oregon Country. She was named after her grandmothers.  She drowned in the Walla Walla River at age two.

As settlers came in increasing numbers, the Whitmans took in eleven orphaned children, including the adoption of the Sager orphans. They also established a kind of boarding school for settlers' children at their mission.

The way west
On May 25, 1836, the Whitmans, and a group of other missionaries including Henry and Eliza Spalding, joined a caravan of fur traders and traveled west. The fur company caravan was led by the mountain men Milton Sublette and Thomas Fitzpatrick. The fur traders had seven covered wagons, each pulled by six mules. An additional cart drawn by two mules carried Milton Sublette, who had lost a leg a year earlier and walked on a "cork" one made by a friend. 

The combined group arrived in time for the fur-traders' annual Rocky Mountain Rendezvous.

The group established several missions as well as Whitman's settlement at a Cayuse settlement called Waíilatpu (Why-ee-laht-poo) in the Cayuse language, meaning "People of the Place of the Rye Grass". It was located just west of the northern end of the Blue Mountains.  The present-day city of Walla Walla, Washington developed six miles to the east. The settlement was in the territory of both the Cayuse and the Nez Perce tribes. Whitman farmed and provided medical care, while Narcissa set up a school for the Native American children.

In 1842, Whitman traveled east, and on his return, he accompanied the first large group of wagon trains west. Known as the "Great Emigration", the 1843 expedition established the viability of the Oregon Trail for later homesteaders. Not having much success with converting the Cayuse, the Whitmans gave more attention to the settlers. They took in children to their own home and established a boarding school for settlers' children.

Massacre

The Cayuse resented the encroachment of white settlers. More significantly, the influx of settlers in the territory brought new infectious diseases to the Indian Tribes, including a severe epidemic of measles in 1847. The Native Americans lack of immunity to Eurasian diseases resulted in high death rates, with children dying in large numbers. The Whitmans cared for both Cayuse and white settlers, but half of the Cayuse died and nearly all the Cayuse children perished. Seeing that more whites had survived, the Cayuse blamed the Whitmans for the devastating deaths among their people.

The Cayuse tradition held medicine men personally responsible for the patient's recovery. Their despair at the deaths, especially of their children, led the Cayuse under Chief Tiloukaikt to kill the Whitmans in their home on November 29, 1847.  Warriors destroyed most of the buildings at Waiilatpu and killed twelve other white settlers in the community, kidnapping many children and forcibly marrying them in certain cases. The events became known among white settlers as the Whitman Massacre. The Cayuse held another 53 women and children captive for a month before releasing them through negotiations. These events, and continued white encroachment, triggered a continuing conflict between the settlers and the Cayuse that became known as the Cayuse War. Five Cayuse were hanged for murder; see Cayuse Five.

Historians have noted contemporary accounts of competition between the Protestant missionaries and Catholic priests, who had become established with Jesuit missions from Canada and St. Louis, Missouri, as contributing to the tensions. The Roman Catholic priest John Baptiste Brouillet aided the survivors and helped bury the victims. Two days later Brouillet encountered Rev. Henry H. Spalding on his way to the Whitmans', told him what had happened, and warned him that he might be in danger. Spalding later wrote a pamphlet stating forcefully that the Catholic priests, including Father Brouillet, had incited the Cayuse to massacre.

Spalding's version of the disaster was printed and reprinted, sometimes at taxpayer expense, for the next half-century.

Legacy

Whitman is commemorated by Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington,  the Wallowa–Whitman National Forest, Mount Rainier's Whitman Glacier, and numerous schools, including Marcus Whitman Middle School in Port Orchard, Washington; Marcus Whitman Junior High School in Seattle, Washington; and Marcus Whitman Central School in Rushville, New York, his hometown. His mission is preserved as Whitman Mission National Historic Site.  While the name is not used much now, the road from Penn Yan, New York to Rushville, New York was formerly called the Marcus Whitman Highway.

The Washington State Legislature has declared the fourth day of September as Marcus Whitman Day. A bronze tablet in Wheeler, New York commemorates his 1828-1835 practice as a medical doctor in that town.  In 1977, he was inducted into the Steuben County (NY) Hall of Fame.
Walla Walla has a Marcus Whitman Hotel and Conference Center.  

In 1953, the state of Washington donated a statue of him by the sculptor Avard Fairbanks to the National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol, but April 14, 2021, Governor Jay Inslee signed legislation to remove it replace it with a statue of Native American leader Billy Frank Jr.  An identical one stands at the edge of the campus of Whitman College.

Historical importance

Marcus Whitman's alleged political influence over the United States' claim to the Oregon country, as well as his purported leadership role in the emigration, were greatly exaggerated in the decades following his death, leading to great controversy in popular and academic literature.

After Whitman's death, Spalding energetically promoted the idea that Marcus Whitman had traveled east to Washington in order to "save" the Oregon Territory from British control by convincing the United States to send settlers to contest claims of British governance. In 1901, Yale University historian Edward Gaylord Bourne convincingly disproved this revision of history, using the historical record to demonstrate that Whitman's trip back east was motivated by his desire to maintain the mission to convert the Native American tribes of the Northwest to Christianity, and that he returned with settlers who were Protestant in order to promote (Protestant) Christianity.

See also
 Jason Lee (missionary)

References

External links
 Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and the Opening of Old Oregon by Clifford M. Drury at Whitman Mission National Historic Site
 Whitman at the Architect of the Capitol
 The West: "Marcus & Narcissa Whitman", 2001, BS
 The Marcus Whitman Trail Route Historical Marker

1802 births
1847 deaths
Physicians from Oregon
Cayuse War
Presbyterian missionaries in the United States
Oregon Country
Oregon pioneers
Oregon Trail
People from Rushville, New York
Pre-statehood history of Washington (state)
American Presbyterian missionaries
People murdered in Washington (state)
Washington (state) pioneers
Religious leaders from Washington (state)
"Song of the Open Road" is a poem by Walt Whitman from his 1856 collection Leaves of Grass. It has 15 sections, each with 3-4 stanzas.

Synopsis 
The poem can be split in two parts, Sections 1-8 and Sections 9-15. 

The Open Road es una película de comedia-drama de 2009 escrita y dirigida por Michael Meredith. Está protagonizada por Justin Timberlake, Kate Mara, Jeff Bridges y Mary Steenburgen y producida por Anchor Bay Entertainment. El cantante de country Lyle Lovett y Harry Dean Stanton también forman parte del reparto.[1] El rodaje comenzó en Hammond (Luisiana) en febrero de 2008 y continuó en Memphis (Tennessee), en el Whataburger Field de Corpus Christi (Texas), en Houston (Texas) y en otros lugares del sur de Estados Unidos.[2] La película se estrenó de forma limitada el 28 de agosto de 2009.

Key Concepts 
The historical context found in “Song of The Open Road” is describing the westward expansion of the United States, “ an era characterized by the call of adventure and opportunity for those courageous enough make the journey west, i.e. to follow the open road,” (Kreidler). Kreidler discussed how Whitman was greatly influenced by politics and political movements. Using the westward expansion as inspiration in this piece allowed for Whitman’s audience to better understand and relate to this poem.
Whitman also incorporates some religious contexts, like referencing Swedenborgianism. Kreidler explains that, “Swedenborgianism espoused a belief that a spiritual component existed within every living and material being. Swedenborg also believed that every part of the body held a particular communication with the Divine.” In Whitman’s poem the readers can see this belief when he starts to introduce the “Song” in Section 7, “Here is the efflux of the soul; / The efflux of the soul comes from within through embower'd gates, ever provoking questions.”

Symbolism 
In Whitman’s poem, the reader can find symbolism through the journey of life and the open, democratic society of that time. In the first 8 sections of the poem, Whitman observes the freedoms in life shown through the open road, “Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road; Healthy, free, the world before me; The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.” Whitman wants his readers to feel free while reading this, and he wants them to know that he wrote this poem to ensure the feeling of freedom upon them.

The Ending
Whitman ends his poem “with the persona awaiting an affirmative response from his reader” (Kummings). The narrator in his poem reaches his hand out to the reader and asks them to join him on the journey. Whitman added this as his poem ending to make the reader question, “will they join him on this journey through the open road?”(Kummings). It is almost as if the narrator doesn’t want to complete the journey of life on his own; he wants the company. This is not a common approach in poem endings, but Whitman also wants to make his readers question, “do you want to complete the journey alone, or do you want to accompany someone for the rest of your life's journey?” By leaving his readers questioning their life choices, Whitman is able to help them figure out their life in a way.

References

 
 
 

1856 poems
Poetry by Walt Whitman Franklin Evans; or The Inebriate, is a temperance novel by Walt Whitman first published in 1842.

Plot overview
Franklin Evans; or The Inebriate: A Tale of the Times, the first novel written by Walt Whitman, is the rag-to-riches story of Franklin Evans. Franklin Evans starts as an innocent young man, leaving Long Island to come to New York City for the opportunity to better himself. Being young and naïve, he is easily influenced by someone whom he befriended (Colby) and eventually becomes a drunkard. He tries many times to abstain from alcohol but does not succeed until after the death of his two wives. Franklin Evans takes you through a journey of a young man living and learning through his mistakes, picking up life lessons along the way.

Contexts

An introduction to a modern reprint of Franklin Evans, written by Christopher Castiglia and Glenn Hendler, serves as a detailed preface to the novel. It incorporates a section about Walt Whitman's early life to give readers an understanding about why he took up writing in the first place.  After his childhood, he operated a hand press for both the Long Island Patriot and the Star until his family returned to rural Long Island.  He soon began a journalistic career until becoming a teacher in 1836.  He earned a very small wage with which he was not satisfied, so he began his own weekly paper. From here, a concrete writing career began, and influential authors began to target Whitman's work, including Park Benjamin, who published Franklin Evans in his own paper.

The authors also touch on Whitman's journalism of the 1840s. They believe it represents the state of New York in a time of transition. Referencing one of Whitman's pieces of literature, they write one of his statements regarding Chatham Square: "In the middle are dray carts, coaches, and cabs: on the right, loom up small hills of furniture, of every quality, with here and there an auctioneer, standing on a table or barrel top, and crying out to the crowd around him, the merits of the articles, and the bids made for them." This statement contains a great deal of nostalgia from past times, which alludes to change in social mobility from a changing economy. 
 
Overall, Castiglia and Hendler offer a special focus on labor and social reform of the times as possible reasons for the novel. It is difficult for readers to formulate a rationale for why Whitman would write a book about a man ruining his life by indulging in intemperance.  At the time, working-class individuals who read newspapers like Benjamin's were becoming interested in tales of temperance. About 12 percent of American novels published during the 1830s concerned temperance fiction. Conforming to these social demands of the time period, Benjamin published Whitman's story in his newspaper as a continuous series. This kept readers consistently wanting to read every issue, and more buyers of Benjamin’s paper. Hendler and Castiglia mention how Whitman did indeed oppose legal restraints on alcohol consumption because he believed they would not prove effectual, and how he was not "one of those who would deny people any sense of delight."  However, some of his literature up to 1840 had been used to discourage all forms of intemperance.  Therefore, it is safe to say that Whitman only believed temperance would succeed if it was reformed. This is why Franklin Evans has been referred to as a supplement to America's temperance reform. It is Whitman's direct example of why intemperance is such a dangerous act, and needed to be rectified with regulations different from those that already were not successful.

Themes 
Success after Struggle:
Whitman conveys this theme through an entire novel of hardship.  After battling times of intemperance since he first arrived in New York, Evans finally achieves some sort of satisfaction at the end.  As a middle aged man at the conclusion of the novel, Evans states: “So, at an age which was hardly upon the middle verge of life, I found myself possessed of a comfortable property; and, as the term is ‘unincumbered’ person-which means I have no wife to love me-no children to please me, and be the recipients of my own affection, and no domestic hearth around which we might gather, as the center of joy and delight.” (Whitman 107).  Readers can see that for someone as ill-behaved as Evans, whose poor judgement lost him nearly everything in his life, amends could still be made.  He came to terms with his life and set himself on a reformed path.  It seemed as though nothing remotely good could come out of Evans's situation after lost jobs, wives, and money, but that would have taken away from Whitman's lesson that immense struggle will be balanced out with sort of success, or in Evans's case, content frame of mind.

Change is Always Possible:
Coinciding with Success after Struggle, Whitman conveys both themes in conjunction with one another.  From the moment Evans took his first drink to the countless losses he experienced throughout the duration of the novel, it was tough to have much hope for him.  He continuously chose intemperance over important aspects of life-for instance marriage.  However, with the guidance of the Marchion family and some solid effort on his part, Evans changed his life for the better.  After finally experiencing some well due good fortune, Evans displays some newfound maturity with his statement "My country relations were not forgotten by me in my good fortune.  The worthy uncle, who had kindly housed and fed me when I was quite too small to make him any repayment for that service, received in his old age the means to render his life more easy and happy.  My cousins too, had no reason to be sorry for the good-will which they had ever shown toward me.  I was never the person to forget a friend, or leave unrequited a favor, when I had the payment of it in my power." (Whitman 109).  Months and even years previous, it probably was not even possible for Evans to utter words of recognition.  After realizing his faults and making the changes for a good life, Evans takes the time to acknowledge those who made a positive mark on his life.  Even for someone with as many issues as Franklin Evans had, change is always possible.

Characters
Franklin Evans - The main character of the novel.

Colby - The first person whom Evans befriended.  He introduced Evans to music halls, theaters and taverns when he first gets to the city.  In the end of the novel Evans sees Colby being made a fool of by some children for money.  This image helps Evans reflect on what he could have become had he not quit drinking.

Mr. Lee - A gentleman who took a liking toward Evans.  He helped him to get a job when first getting to the city and watched his life unfold from a distance.  While on his death bed, Lee called for Evans to come see him and told him that he had left his fortune to him.  Like his late wife, Evans was a drunkard but Evans did not let it take him to his grave.  Mr. Lee felt that when Evans came to the city he should have watched over him as a father would and since he failed to do so he wanted to make up for his neglect.

Mary - Evans' first wife.  Evans and Mary are truly in love but she dies because of his neglect toward her.

The Marchion Family-  After saving their daughter from drowning, the Marchion family helps Evans when he is thrown in jail and help him, both times he tried to abstain from alcohol.

Bourne -  This is the friend whom Evans stays with when he leaves the city and reintroduces him to drink.

Margaret - She was a slave but was giving her freedom when Evans decided he wanted to marry her.  Their marriage was not very pleasant because Evans did not really love her; he only thought he did in his drunken state.  Evans' love for another woman leads her to commit murder and then suicide.

Mrs. Conway - After marrying Margaret, Evans meets Mrs. Conway and takes an instant liking to her.  He would spend more time with her than with his wife and would do anything for her.  Knowing that Evans would never say no to her, she asks for the brother of Margaret to be her servant.  Evans complies with her and causes so much anger in Margaret that she plots to kill Mrs. Conway in her quest for revenge.  When her plan backfires and her brother becomes ill and dies, Margaret decides to strangle her.  Not being able to live with the guilt, she kills herself.

Criticism
Two critics of Franklin Evans are Michael Warner and William Lulloff. In his paper, "Whitman Drunk", Warner addresses problems he has with Walt Whitman and Franklin Evans. Lulloff does the same in a shorter piece of criticism in The Walt Whitman Encyclopedia.

Whitman Drunk - Readers today often find Franklin Evans unsatisfactory because it was originally published in newspapers, Michael Warner states. When Whitman is talking about alcohol in Franklin Evans, he often seems to be thinking about something else. Most of the time, the idea of pleasure seems to be stuck in his brain. For example, he writes "Oh, fatal pleasure," not "Oh, fatal alcohol." Whitman seems to make a correlation between will and desire in his novel. Warner states that the temperance movement was one of a non-state society and Franklin Evans helped to mediate constitutive self-understanding. Commissioning fiction as propaganda had been a part of the public strategy of the temperance movement since 1836, and Whitman went along with this idea. Because of this, both the temperance movement and Franklin Evans are in a context of non-state political association. Warner argues that hardly any bad situations follow directly after the consumption of alcohol in the plot of the story. The disasters of marriage, impulse, and a creole slave becoming homicidal do not have to do with alcohol. Alcohol had so little to do with the story that Whitman had to change the title twice. The theme of the novel seems to be addiction, not alcoholism. It is not hard to hear some reference to the same-sex subculture of New York City in many passages. When talking about drunk men, Whitman focuses on the description of the men, not the alcohol they have consumed. Such sexuality is the main focus of many of Whitman's poems, too.

The Walt Whitman Encyclopedia - In this book, William Lulloff states that, at first, Walt Whitman disguised his authorship of the novel by using the pseudonym "J.R.S." This may have been because Whitman claimed to have completed the novel in three days. Whitman even included short stories that he had previously written to shorten the amount of actual writing he had to do. Some of these short stories may have been used in the sections about the Indian in chapter 2, "Little Jane" in chapter 14, and the allegorical dream in chapter 21. Lulloff states that Whitman had called his novel "damned rot—rot of the worst sort, and many people agree with this assessment. Lulloff also notes that this novel was meant to be published in newspapers, so it does not flow as a book should. This should not surprise anyone, because Whitman states in the introduction that this novel "is not written for the critics but for the people."

Notes

References 

 Lulloff, William G. "Franklin Evans; or The Inebriate." The Walt Whitman Archive. Web. November 30, 2010. <http://www.whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_81.html>.
 Warner, Michael. "Whitman Drunk." Breaking Bounds. New York: Oxford UP, 1996. 30–43. Print.
 Christopher Castiglia and Glenn Hendler, editors and authors of "Introduction" to Walt Whitman, Franklin Evans, or The Inebriate: A Tale of the Times. Durham: Duke UP, 2007.

External links 

1842 American novels
Temperance movement
Works by Walt Whitman
Novels set in New York (state)
1842 debut novels