The Tragic Tale of Narcissa Whitman and a Faithful History of the Oregon Trail (review)

Raised in the religious fervor of the Second Great Awakening, Narcissa Prentiss was more than ready to hit the trail West and save Indian souls for the Lord—just give her a proper missionary husband and point the way. In fact, that turned out to be the easy part, as the mission society organizer introduced her to a very willing Marcus Whitman and, after a few months separation during which he went West to scout the optimal location for conversions, they were married and made their way to Oregon in the company of the Spaldings (a somewhat dour ex-suitor and his wife). However interested the Indians may have been in the white men's religious songs and tales, they had hoped for more practical "medicine" and certainly had no intention of giving up their beliefs for a pack of condescending encroachers. Narcissa's tale therefore ended in massacre, and her distinction of being one of the first two white women to cross the continent earned her no more than a grave on the Pacific coast. Harness spends more of her narrative on historical background and details of the westward journey itself than on the unraveling relationship between the missionaries and their Cayuse "flock," but she does a creditable job tracing the convergence of personal quirks and national movements, ernest intentions and tragic misunderstandings. Her black-and-white artwork is often crammed with detail to the point of murkiness, and the timeline that runs along the bottom of the text, which laudably includes a broad range of world events, also holds some glitches (Napoleon is reported dead in 1814, only to properly reappear at Waterloo in 1815; the Alamo is depicted at the 1836 battle in its post-1850 reconstruction). The chatty tone and fast pacing—not to mention the titular promise of a very bad ending—should nonetheless keep readers thoroughly engaged. A bibliography and index are included.