At this noon rest many matters were discussed by the caravan leaders. Whitman and one or two others had been chosen to decide disputes between the different members of the party. Orders for the good of the caravan would be given out at this time, and Dr. Whitman would visit any who were sick and advise with the various families as to new difficulties they had met with.
When dinner was eaten and the teams rested the march was resumed, and continued until sundown, when the scouts picked out the best camping place for the night. The wagons were driven into a great circle, fastened each to each, and the cattle freed to seek a pasture; tents were pitched, fires started, and all hands were busy. The scene was almost like a small frontier town.
The caravan was divided into three companies, and each of the companies subdivided into four watches. Each company had the duty of acting as sentries for the camp every third night, and each watch took its turn. The first watch was set at eight o'clock in the evening, just after the evening meal. For a short time there would be talking, perhaps singing, or the music of the violin or flute. Usually, however, the day's traveling had been hard and trying, and at an early hour the emigrants went to sleep.
Late in the summer of 1843 Whitman's pioneers left the mountains behind them, and came down into the valleys watered by the tributaries of the Columbia River. As they approached the missionary settlement at Wai-i-lat-pui a band of Cayuse and Nez Percés Indians came to meet them, bringing pack-mules loaded with supplies. Few messengers could have been more welcome. They told Whitman that his wife and friends were still at the little clearing where he had left them almost a year before, and were eagerly looking forward to the arrival of the new settlers. The leader thought that the caravan could finish its journey without him now, so he chose one of his most reliable Indian guides, Istikus, and placed him in charge of the company. Whitman himself hurried on to the mission. Back of him rolled the long train of canvas-covered wagons that had traveled so far over prairies, rivers, and mountains. Almost a thousand men, women, and children were coming into this far western section of the continent to settle and hold the country for the United States.
Whitman's ride changed the situation. No more statesmen could speak of the impassable mountains or the impossibility of taking settlers' wagons into Oregon. Before Whitman left Washington Daniel Webster sent a message to England stating that the United States would insist on holding all territory south of the forty-ninth degree of latitude. When President Tyler was told that a caravan of nearly a thousand people under Whitman's leadership had started for Oregon, a second and more positive message to the same effect was sent to England. All over the United States men were now demanding that their government should claim the country as far as the Pacific coast, and one great political party took as its watchword the motto, "Oregon, fifty-four, forty,—or fight," referring to the degree of latitude they wanted for the boundary line. The Hudson's Bay Company, finding so large a colony of pioneers settling among them, was forced to give over its efforts to hold the northwest entirely for itself. In time the English statesmen agreed to the claims of the United States, and on July 17, 1846, a treaty was signed, fixing the boundary between Canada and the United States at the forty-ninth degree, which gave Oregon to the Republic.
The settlers prospered, and the little missionary colony near the Walla Walla River grew in size. Whitman resumed his work among the Indians, and seemed to win their friendship. There seemed no reason why the native tribes and their white friends should not live in peace in such an undeveloped country. After a time, however, fear or greed or false leaders stirred up certain Indians and sent them on the war-path against their friends. No one knew the real cause for the outburst, but on November 29, 1847, a band of the Cayuse crept down on the little cluster of houses at Wai-i-lat-pui and killed fourteen of the white settlers. Marcus Whitman was one of the first to fall. He was in his house, with several Indians as usual in the room with him. One was sitting close to him, asking for some medicine, when another came up behind and struck him with a tomahawk. These two then gave the signal, and their allies in other houses fell upon the white men and women. After the massacre forty men, women, and children were carried away from the valley by the Indians, but most of them were later rescued by the Hudson's Bay Company and sent back to their homes. Other white settlers joined forces and marched against the treacherous Cayuse, but the latter fled through the country, scattering into different tribes, and the leaders of the attack were not captured until nearly two years later.
Daniel Webster had said in the Senate: "What do we want with the vast, worthless area, this region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts, of shifting sands and whirlwinds of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs? To what use could we ever hope to put these great deserts, or these endless mountain ranges, impenetrable, and covered to their base with eternal snow? What can we ever hope to do with the western coast, a coast of three thousand miles, rock-bound, cheerless, and uninviting, and not a harbor on it? What use have we for such a country?" But though many great statesmen agreed with Webster a simple missionary who had been to Oregon looked into the future, saw the value of the vast expanse, and had the courage and determination to ride across the continent for aid, and then bring back a thousand settlers to help him realize his dream. Marcus Whitman is one of the noblest examples of that great type of pioneers who won the western country for the United States.