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Documentary, Ken Burns; The West -Part 2 Empire Upon the Trails
Documentary Full The West Part-1 The People
Link: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9q10uq
#TheWest #Documentary #KenBurns #Empire #USEmpire
Documentary Full The West Part-1 The People
Link: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9q10uq
#TheWest #Documentary #KenBurns #Empire #USEmpire
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00:00The American realizes that progress is God.
00:00:19The destiny of the American people is to subdue the continent,
00:00:23to rush over this vast field to the Pacific Ocean,
00:00:28to change darkness into light and confirm the destiny of the human race.
00:00:36Divine task, immortal mission,
00:00:40the pioneer army perpetually strikes to the front.
00:00:45Empire plants itself upon the trails.
00:00:50William Gilpin.
00:00:51The End
00:01:16¶¶
00:01:46By 1821, two young republics claimed most of the West.
00:01:57The vast territory Thomas Jefferson had bought from France
00:02:01gave the United States claim to nearly half of it,
00:02:05while the newly established Republic of Mexico
00:02:07held the Southwest and California.
00:02:12England still had outposts in the Pacific Northwest,
00:02:16while a host of Indian nations held fast to their lands
00:02:22and challenged each other for more.
00:02:27By 1821, no one knew who would control the West's seemingly infinite spaces,
00:02:34what language would be dominant,
00:02:37whose god would be worshipped,
00:02:40what the West's destiny would be.
00:02:46But the Americans were already moving West,
00:02:52content, at first, to make their way in other people's worlds.
00:02:59Mountain men began it,
00:03:02following icy streams into the Rockies in search of furs,
00:03:05while others, who called themselves Latter-day Saints,
00:03:12fled to the West, hoping to find sanctuary.
00:03:16A devout young woman from upstate New York,
00:03:20who hurried West to save the souls of Indians,
00:03:23in the end, could not even save herself.
00:03:26A Tennessee politician,
00:03:30whose career was ruined by drink and scandal,
00:03:33would get a second chance in the Mexican province of Texas.
00:03:39While a Virginia family,
00:03:42accustomed to following a restless dream
00:03:44of better times over the next horizon,
00:03:47very nearly destroyed itself,
00:03:50trying to reach the continent's farthest shore.
00:03:52But regardless of their reasons for going West,
00:03:58once they got there,
00:03:59the Americans soon determined to make the West,
00:04:02all of it, their own.
00:04:07It is our manifest destiny
00:04:10to overspread the continent allotted by Providence
00:04:14for the free development
00:04:16of our yearly multiplying millions.
00:04:21John L. O'Sullivan
00:04:23Americans' reach exceeds their grasp.
00:04:32Americans can't do what they might like to do.
00:04:36But the time is coming.
00:04:38This is a country that is going to grow
00:04:41more and more powerful.
00:04:43Its ambition is already there.
00:04:46And there is going to come a time by mid-century
00:04:48where, in fact, it can't fulfill its ambition.
00:04:51And when that time is reached,
00:04:53the West will be an entirely different place.
00:04:55You be asked to go
00:05:15to the east
00:05:15and the east
00:05:20One winter in the early 1830s, a cold and hungry mountain man named Joe Meek stumbled
00:05:32into a landscape unlike anything he had ever seen.
00:05:38The whole country was smoking with the vapor from boiling springs and burning with gases
00:05:45issuing from small craters, each of which was emitting a sharp whistling sound.
00:05:53Like that place the old Methodist preacher used to threaten me with.
00:05:58But the warmth of the place was most delightful after the freezing cold of the mountains.
00:06:06So if it was hell, it was a more agreeable climate than I had been in for some time.
00:06:12Joe Meek.
00:06:16It was the Yellowstone Plateau, and Joe Meek was one of the first white men to see it.
00:06:24Born in Washington County, Virginia, Meek, like hundreds of other young men eager for adventure,
00:06:30had run off to the west.
00:06:35He would spend 11 years in the mountains, trapping and trading for furs, traveling relentlessly,
00:06:42fishing into corners of the west his country did not yet own, in search of easy money.
00:06:49Hats.
00:06:50Hats was the name of the game.
00:06:54The carriage trade was the thing that set the standard of fashions.
00:06:59The carriage trade was nothing more than the rich driving around in their carriages in Boston
00:07:03or London or Paris or Quebec or Montreal, and whatever they wore, everybody else wanted to wear.
00:07:09Well, they were wearing beaver hats, and thus it made a demand for beaver.
00:07:14Indians had been exchanging animal pelts for European trade goods for more than two centuries.
00:07:21Now, companies representing Russia, England, Mexico, and the United States were locked in fierce competition
00:07:29for the western fur trade and hired the mountain men to do the work.
00:07:36There were black trappers as well as white.
00:07:40Men from Scotland, England, and Mexico, even native Hawaiians.
00:07:47In Oregon, a third of the trappers were Iroquois and Delaware Indians from the east.
00:07:54French trappers outnumbered Joe Meek and his fellow Americans four to one.
00:08:02They could make thousands of dollars, but they usually squandered it all at the yearly rendezvous,
00:08:08where they gambled, drank, and traded stories about their exploits in the mountains.
00:08:13It was a very, very dangerous life.
00:08:19They were killed by Blackfoot Indians.
00:08:21They were killed by grizzly bears.
00:08:23And maybe most devastating of all, they were killed by Mother Nature.
00:08:27You imagine what it would be like coming up out of a stream, setting a trap in November,
00:08:32buckskins, up to your armpits in water, and working a stream all day long in those kind of conditions.
00:08:39Those men died of fever. They died of pneumonia.
00:08:42How many men died on some unknown stream in the Rocky Mountains?
00:08:46Never heard of again.
00:08:48You know, there was a common understanding in the fur trade.
00:08:51If you didn't show up at a rendezvous, you were considered dead.
00:08:55During more than a decade in the mountains,
00:08:58Joe Meek had struggled alongside his fellow trappers to survive.
00:09:03He had narrowly escaped death at the hands of the Blackfeet,
00:09:07touched one grizzly with his bare hand on a dare,
00:09:10and been mauled by another.
00:09:13But in the end, he had no money to chauffeur at all.
00:09:17And suddenly, his livelihood had disappeared too.
00:09:22The demand ceased for beaver.
00:09:25And the reason being is, is the carriage trade chose to go with silk hats instead of beaver hats.
00:09:32I'd say by the middle of the 1830s, the beaver trade was coming to an end.
00:09:37There was no longer the demand.
00:09:42The era of the mountain men had ended, almost as quickly as it had begun.
00:09:49Some guided American explorers fanning out across the west.
00:09:54Others led the growing stream of wagon trains that now rolled over the trails the mountain men had helped to chart.
00:10:02But Joe Meek had had enough of wandering.
00:10:07He took his Nez Perce wife and their children and went all the way west.
00:10:13He settled near a British trading post in the disputed land of Oregon.
00:10:18There, Meek went into politics and began to talk with other American settlers
00:10:25about making the Pacific Northwest part of the United States.
00:10:31I want to live long enough to see Oregon securely American,
00:10:38so I can say that I was born in Washington County, United States,
00:10:43and died in Washington County, United States.
00:10:48Joe Meek.
00:10:50I'd say that I need my men.
00:10:52We the left in the blue pool.
00:10:53We have maps of past –
00:11:06and if you know the blue pool of people and I might be able to live long enough,
00:11:07of Palin 되는 Wall to I crystal 코 Chris as the US Opera's Metropolitan
00:11:12We have maps of the past.
00:11:22Not a history in the way that most of us understand history,
00:11:28but places like Bear Butte, Medicine Wheel, Devil's Tower.
00:11:35These are things that we can identify with in terms of time and experience.
00:11:45Oh, yes, my grandmother would say, yes, we were there.
00:11:49We were there in the Black Hills at one time.
00:11:52We know about Zoai, Devil's Tower.
00:11:55And she said it, you know, as if she had been there.
00:11:57And I think in her mind's eye, it was there and very clearly defined.
00:12:05The arrival of the horse in the early 1700s
00:12:17had allowed the Kiowa to migrate eastward from the Rocky Mountains
00:12:21out onto the Great Plains.
00:12:25They claimed as their own the best winter hunting grounds, the Black Hills,
00:12:31and its landmarks became part of their religion.
00:12:35But by the early 1800s, new people had arrived from the east,
00:12:42challenging the Kiowa for the Black Hills.
00:12:46They were the Cheyenne.
00:12:50And behind them came the Lakota, known by whites as the Sioux.
00:12:55Among the Lakota, a man named Lone Dog painted a record of his people on a buffalo hide,
00:13:06marking each winter by depicting what they remembered most vividly about the year just passed.
00:13:13He began at the center of a spiral with the winter of 1800,
00:13:17when 30 Lakota, represented by 30 straight lines, were killed in battle with the Crow.
00:13:26Over the ensuing winters, Lone Dog recounted horse raids and buffalo hunts.
00:13:31But the events most often noted on his buffalo hide were the numerous wars his people fought as the Lakota moved west,
00:13:50with the Mandan, Pawnee, and Arapaho,
00:13:54with the Blackfeet, Assiniboine, Crow, and Shoshone.
00:13:58The Black Hills have around them, in the late 18th and early 19th century,
00:14:05this incredible swirl of people,
00:14:07that people are fighting, contesting for buffalo grounds,
00:14:11and the driving figures in all this are always going to be the Lakotas.
00:14:16The Lakotas are pushing other people out.
00:14:19The Lakotas are spreading west after the herds.
00:14:21The Lakotas are the people in motion.
00:14:23The Lakotas weren't always there, but they make the Black Hills the center of their world.
00:14:32Our name for the Black Hills is Wamakha Ogananka Echante.
00:14:39Echante is the heart of.
00:14:42Wamakha Ogananka, I translate, the heart of everything that is.
00:14:48Everything material, everything spiritual.
00:14:51But it's the center of the universe.
00:15:03We were a warrior society.
00:15:06And that's very much a part of our culture.
00:15:10We have an expression that whoever didn't fear us hated us.
00:15:15And we took great pride in the fact that everyone either hated us or feared us.
00:15:23The Cree people, in their stories, would say,
00:15:26when the crow were coming to fight, we sent our little boys to fight.
00:15:31When the Mandan were coming, we sent the old men.
00:15:34When the Sioux were coming, we painted our faces for death and prepared to die.
00:15:39For nearly 300 years, since the days of Coronado,
00:16:00Spanish-speaking people had called much of the West their home.
00:16:04They raised vast herds of cattle in the fertile valleys of California,
00:16:10built cathedrals and towns of adobe along the Rio Grande in New Mexico.
00:16:16And in the sprawling northern province of Texas,
00:16:19where Comanches and Kiowas controlled the open plains,
00:16:23they clustered around a handful of Catholic missions.
00:16:26But wherever they lived, they felt neglected by Mexico City,
00:16:32more than a thousand miles away.
00:16:36The people of the frontier were, by and large,
00:16:41anti-government, anti-institutional church.
00:16:44They were very happy being left on their own to defend their property,
00:16:49to live their own lifestyles without intervention of a far-off government.
00:16:53The Spanish colonists, their motto was,
00:16:58God is in heaven, the Pope is at the Vatican,
00:17:00the King is in Madrid, the Viceroy is in Mexico City,
00:17:04and to hell with you, I'm in San Antonio.
00:17:09For generations, foreigners had been kept out of the isolated northern provinces.
00:17:15Then, after the Republic of Mexico won its independence in 1821,
00:17:20it announced that Americans were now welcome in Tejas, Texas.
00:17:27Mexico had had what seemed like a good plan.
00:17:30How to get settlers and colonists into Texas
00:17:34to make sure it was a settled territory
00:17:36that the United States would have to back off from.
00:17:40The Mexican population doesn't really have a surplus
00:17:42that can provide that kind of settlement,
00:17:44so it seemed like a good idea.
00:17:45It's one of those moments of hindsight where you think,
00:17:48oh, watch out for this one.
00:17:53This village has been settled by Mr. Stephen F. Austin,
00:17:57a native of the United States of the North.
00:18:02Its population is nearly 200 persons,
00:18:05of which only 10 are Mexicans.
00:18:07The Americans are, in general, in my opinion,
00:18:12lazy people of vicious character.
00:18:15Some of them cultivate their small farms,
00:18:17but this task they usually entrust to their Negro slaves,
00:18:21whom they treat with considerable harshness.
00:18:25In my judgment,
00:18:26the spark that will start the conflagration
00:18:28that will deprive us of Texas
00:18:30will start from this colony.
00:18:32Lieutenant Jose Maria Sanchez.
00:18:37In 1821,
00:18:40an ambitious ex-newspaperman from Missouri
00:18:42named Stephen F. Austin
00:18:44settled 297 American families
00:18:48and their slaves
00:18:49on the Brazos River in East Texas.
00:18:53In exchange for the land,
00:18:55they agreed to convert to Catholicism
00:18:57and swear allegiance to the Republic of Mexico.
00:19:00Under the same terms,
00:19:04Mexico granted others the right to settle in Texas.
00:19:09But soon, the plan began to backfire.
00:19:13Thousands of American squatters now came,
00:19:17carving out their own homesteads
00:19:19without anyone's permission.
00:19:22I think it was an opportunity for adventure for them.
00:19:25A lot of people came to Texas
00:19:29because they were running from the law
00:19:31or running from a bad family situation,
00:19:34a bad marriage.
00:19:36Texas was filled with,
00:19:39shall we say, fringe society.
00:19:41But it was also filled with a lot of people
00:19:45who really did want something more than what they had
00:19:49and thought they might find it on the frontier.
00:19:52Dirt-poor debtors came.
00:19:55So did land speculators,
00:19:57fugitives,
00:19:58lawyers,
00:19:59and a tall 39-year-old Tennessean
00:20:06with a decidedly mixed reputation.
00:20:10Raised by his widowed mother
00:20:11and informally adopted by the Cherokees,
00:20:15he had distinguished himself in the War of 1812,
00:20:18served in Congress,
00:20:20and was now governor of Tennessee.
00:20:21Many assumed that he,
00:20:24like his mentor Andrew Jackson,
00:20:26would one day be president.
00:20:29His name was Sam Houston.
00:20:35I think that he was probably
00:20:37one of the most difficult,
00:20:38the most irascible,
00:20:40the most principled,
00:20:42the most opinionated man
00:20:44in American history.
00:20:47He was found buoyant.
00:20:49He wore vests that were furry
00:20:52and he would have on a jacket
00:20:55and on top of that an Indian blanket.
00:20:58He was the first man to wear beads
00:20:59on the floor of the United States Senate.
00:21:01I liked that.
00:21:04But after his young wife abruptly left him,
00:21:08Houston resigned the governorship
00:21:09without explanation,
00:21:11began drinking heavily,
00:21:13and fled to live with his Cherokee friends.
00:21:16His career in the United States seemed over.
00:21:22Sam Houston headed for Texas.
00:21:29An eagle swooped down near my head
00:21:32and then soaring aloft with wildest screams
00:21:34was lost in the rays of the setting sun.
00:21:37I knew that a great destiny
00:21:39waited for me in the West.
00:21:43Sam Houston.
00:21:43Sam Houston.
00:21:43Sam Houston.
00:21:46There were now nearly 35,000
00:21:50American-born immigrants
00:21:52and their slaves in Texas,
00:21:54ten times the number
00:21:56of Spanish-speaking Tejanos.
00:21:58Despite growing tensions
00:22:00and despite their many differences,
00:22:03both groups agreed on one thing.
00:22:06They resented taking orders
00:22:07from far-off Mexico City.
00:22:09Then, in 1835,
00:22:16General Antonio López de Santa Anna
00:22:18was elected president of Mexico.
00:22:22At first,
00:22:23he promised to restore greater autonomy to Texas.
00:22:28Instead,
00:22:29Santa Anna declared himself dictator,
00:22:31the Napoleon of the West,
00:22:33and when Texans rebelled
00:22:35and talked of independence,
00:22:37he led an army north,
00:22:405,300 men
00:22:41flying a black flag
00:22:43that meant no quarter.
00:22:45Let each man come with a good rifle
00:22:51and 100 rounds of ammunition
00:22:53and come soon,
00:22:56Sam Houston.
00:22:58Because of his past military experience,
00:23:02Sam Houston was put in command
00:23:03of Texan forces.
00:23:05He called for more men
00:23:07from Texas
00:23:08and from the United States.
00:23:10In Washington,
00:23:13President Andrew Jackson
00:23:14ordered a policy
00:23:15of strict neutrality.
00:23:17He wanted to buy Texas,
00:23:19not fight a war over it.
00:23:22But Texas meetings
00:23:23were held all over the country.
00:23:27Eager young men
00:23:28signed up by the battalion.
00:23:35In San Antonio,
00:23:37146 men
00:23:39gathered at an old Spanish mission
00:23:42called the Alamo
00:23:43to stop Santa Anna's army.
00:23:46Houston believed the Alamo
00:23:48was impossible to defend
00:23:49and ordered it blown up.
00:23:51But the men inside,
00:23:53including an alcoholic adventurer
00:23:55named Jim Bowie
00:23:56and a former Tennessee congressman
00:23:59named Davy Crockett,
00:24:00decided on their own
00:24:02to stay and fight.
00:24:03On February 24th, 1836,
00:24:12Santa Anna reached San Antonio
00:24:13and demanded
00:24:15that the Alamo's occupants
00:24:16surrender
00:24:17or be annihilated.
00:24:20Its commander,
00:24:21William Barrett Travis,
00:24:23answered with a cannon shot.
00:24:25The Mexicans
00:24:26settled in for a siege.
00:24:30Travis scribbled out
00:24:31an urgent plea
00:24:32for reinforcements
00:24:33and entrusted it
00:24:35to a 30-year-old captain
00:24:36of the Texas army,
00:24:38a Tejano
00:24:39named Juan Seguin.
00:24:41He slipped through
00:24:42the Mexican lines
00:24:43and delivered the call
00:24:45for help.
00:24:49Meanwhile,
00:24:49in a run-down farmhouse
00:24:51in the tiny settlement
00:24:53of Washington-on-the-Brazos,
00:24:5459 men,
00:24:56including three Tejanos,
00:24:58declared Texas
00:24:59an independent republic
00:25:00and hammered out
00:25:02a constitution
00:25:03modeled after that
00:25:04of the United States.
00:25:06But there would be
00:25:08no reinforcements
00:25:09for the Alamo.
00:25:10Houston still considered
00:25:12it folly
00:25:12for his outnumbered army
00:25:14to fight Santa Anna there.
00:25:16At 5 a.m.
00:25:26on the morning
00:25:26of March 6, 1836,
00:25:29after 13 days of siege,
00:25:32Santa Anna's bugler
00:25:33blew the diguello,
00:25:35the signal for death
00:25:36in the bullring.
00:25:412,600 Mexican soldiers
00:25:44charged the Alamo.
00:25:46into a hail
00:25:47of Texan gunfire.
00:25:49At least 600 Mexican soldiers
00:25:52died that morning,
00:25:54though Santa Anna
00:25:55would officially admit
00:25:56to just 70 deaths
00:25:58among his men.
00:26:00But the odds
00:26:01proved overwhelming.
00:26:03In a matter of hours,
00:26:05the Alamo was taken.
00:26:08And in the end,
00:26:09all its defenders,
00:26:11Americans and Tejanos alike,
00:26:13lay dead.
00:26:16What is important
00:26:17about the Alamo
00:26:18is not the number of men
00:26:19or who they wore
00:26:20or the various personalities,
00:26:21but the fact that this small group of men
00:26:24chose to defend an impossible position
00:26:28against a superior number
00:26:30and held it for 13 days.
00:26:31They chose this place knowing that it would mean sure death.
00:26:43The killing went on.
00:26:49Santa Anna took a second fort called Goliad.
00:26:53Its defenders were pirates, he said,
00:26:56foreigners intent on stealing Mexican territory.
00:27:00He ordered 300 men,
00:27:03most of them Americans,
00:27:04to be shot
00:27:05and their corpses burned.
00:27:11Our garrison was taken and massacred.
00:27:15If such conduct is not sufficient
00:27:17to arouse the patriotic feelings
00:27:19of the Sons of Liberty,
00:27:21I know not what will.
00:27:23Rather than be driven out of this country,
00:27:26I will leave my bones to blanch
00:27:28on the plains of Texas.
00:27:31Private G.A. Giddings.
00:27:34Santa Anna pushed on.
00:27:38Now, all that stood between him
00:27:41and the defenseless settlements
00:27:43in East Texas
00:27:44was a small, poorly trained army
00:27:47of volunteers
00:27:48and their erratic
00:27:49and unpredictable commander,
00:27:52Sam Houston.
00:27:53A Wayacan is your guardian spirit.
00:28:20And from this guardian spirit
00:28:22you get your power.
00:28:25And I collected about 16 of them.
00:28:28And the most interesting that I have
00:28:30is the one of my fathers
00:28:32because there were different animals
00:28:34that talked to him at the same time.
00:28:37And each one of them
00:28:38gave him this certain thing.
00:28:40The chipmunk said,
00:28:41well, I'll give you
00:28:42a lot of good, fast movements.
00:28:44You will be a quick person.
00:28:46And the badger says,
00:28:47I will give you steadfastness.
00:28:49You will be strong.
00:28:52And the dog said,
00:28:54I'm going to give him love
00:28:56and friendship.
00:28:57I'm going to be with him
00:28:58all the time.
00:29:00And that was his guardian spirit.
00:29:08Back in 1831,
00:29:10four Indians,
00:29:11including three Nez Perthes
00:29:13from the tribe
00:29:14who had helped Lewis and Clark
00:29:16survive their time
00:29:17in the Pacific Northwest,
00:29:19traveled eastward,
00:29:21over the mountains
00:29:21and across the plains,
00:29:23nearly 2,000 miles
00:29:25to St. Louis.
00:29:27They had come, they said,
00:29:29because they had heard
00:29:30of a black book
00:29:31that gave whoever possessed it
00:29:33additional power and prestige.
00:29:35They were looking for the Bible
00:29:39and they thought
00:29:41that they would get
00:29:42power from it,
00:29:44just like that they would get
00:29:45from their Wayakin.
00:29:48A highly embellished account
00:29:50of the Indians' journey
00:29:52made its way
00:29:53into the Protestant missionary press.
00:29:56The Nez Perthes, it said,
00:29:58were pleading for salvation.
00:29:59In the spring of 1836,
00:30:11a small party of missionaries
00:30:13responded
00:30:13and began the long trek
00:30:16from Missouri
00:30:16to the British trading post
00:30:18of Fort Vancouver
00:30:19along a route
00:30:21that would soon be called
00:30:22the Oregon Trail.
00:30:27In the desert,
00:30:29let me labor
00:30:31On the mountains,
00:30:33let me tell
00:30:34How he died,
00:30:37the blessed Savior
00:30:38To redeem a world
00:30:41from hell
00:30:43Let me hasten
00:30:45Let me hasten
00:30:47For in heathen lands
00:30:50to dwell
00:30:51Among the Christian pioneers
00:30:57were Dr. Marcus Whitman
00:30:59and his young wife
00:31:00Narcissa
00:31:01who, from her earliest childhood,
00:31:04had dreamed
00:31:05of becoming a missionary.
00:31:07She had married Whitman
00:31:09specifically to go west
00:31:10and spread the word of Christ
00:31:13to those in need of it.
00:31:16Our desire now
00:31:18is to be useful
00:31:18to these benighted Indians,
00:31:20teaching them
00:31:22the way of salvation.
00:31:23It is a great responsibility
00:31:25to be pioneers
00:31:27in so great a work.
00:31:29It is with cautious steps
00:31:30that we enter on it.
00:31:33Narcissa Whitman
00:31:34Narcissa Whitman
00:31:34Well, I don't think she really knew
00:31:44what she was going out to do
00:31:46in the West.
00:31:47She'd grown up reading,
00:31:49consuming voraciously
00:31:51the literature
00:31:52of the missionary movement
00:31:53of her day
00:31:54and she thought
00:31:56she was going out
00:31:58to live out
00:32:00a scenario
00:32:00that she had really read about.
00:32:03That is,
00:32:03she would arrive,
00:32:05hopefully be welcomed,
00:32:06and somehow bring about
00:32:08this monumental conversion
00:32:09of the people
00:32:11with whom she worked.
00:32:12she had no real ideas
00:32:15at all
00:32:15as to what the West
00:32:16was like
00:32:16or what missionary work
00:32:17would be like.
00:32:30While other missionaries
00:32:31went to the Nez Perce,
00:32:34the Whitman settled
00:32:34at a place
00:32:35called Wailapu
00:32:36on the north bank
00:32:38of the Walla Walla River
00:32:39in the land
00:32:40of the Cayuse.
00:32:42Things did not go well
00:32:44for the Whitmans.
00:32:46Tilukekd,
00:32:47a Cayuse chief,
00:32:48welcomed them
00:32:49but wondered
00:32:50why they failed
00:32:51to offer gifts
00:32:52as was the Cayuse custom.
00:32:55His people
00:32:56could not understand
00:32:57why the Whitmans
00:32:58insisted
00:32:59they must completely
00:33:00abandon
00:33:01their own faith.
00:33:03And they were insulted
00:33:05when Narcissa
00:33:06barred them
00:33:07from her parlor.
00:33:10The Indians said
00:33:11they would worship
00:33:12in our new house.
00:33:14We told them
00:33:15our house
00:33:15was to live in
00:33:16and we could not
00:33:17have them worship there
00:33:18for fear
00:33:20they would make it
00:33:20so dirty
00:33:21and full of fleas
00:33:22that we could not
00:33:22live in it.
00:33:25I think Narcissa
00:33:27really didn't like them
00:33:28at all
00:33:28and that she saw them
00:33:31as everything that was
00:33:33the polar opposite
00:33:35of what she loved
00:33:36and valued.
00:33:38The kinds of words
00:33:39that she uses
00:33:40savage, ignorant,
00:33:42lazy,
00:33:44heathenish,
00:33:47the way she called
00:33:48her mission station
00:33:50a dark and savage place
00:33:52give you some sense
00:33:53of this emotional response
00:33:54to people
00:33:55whom she couldn't
00:33:56understand
00:33:57who frightened her
00:33:59and who wouldn't change
00:34:00in the ways
00:34:00that she really thought
00:34:01they ought to change
00:34:03for their own good.
00:34:07Narcissa had given birth
00:34:08to a daughter,
00:34:10Alice.
00:34:11But at age two
00:34:12the little girl
00:34:13drowned in the river
00:34:14next to the mission.
00:34:17Grieving and lonely
00:34:18Narcissa sometimes
00:34:20went two years
00:34:21without a letter
00:34:22from home.
00:34:24Each day
00:34:25she and the other
00:34:26missionary wives
00:34:27in the region
00:34:28paused to pray
00:34:29for each other
00:34:30and their families.
00:34:33I've always found it
00:34:34to be very poignant,
00:34:37a sign of their loneliness
00:34:39and how difficult it was
00:34:41and how they tried
00:34:42to communicate
00:34:43with one another
00:34:44through their spirits.
00:34:51During their first years
00:34:54the Whitmans managed
00:34:56to convert
00:34:56one Scottish visitor,
00:34:58one French-Canadian Catholic
00:34:59and several Hawaiian laborers
00:35:02who worked for the mission.
00:35:04But they failed
00:35:05to make a single convert
00:35:07among the Cayuse.
00:35:15Never was I
00:35:16more keenly sensible
00:35:18to the self-denials
00:35:19of a missionary life.
00:35:21Even now
00:35:22while I am writing
00:35:23the drum
00:35:24and the savage yell
00:35:25are sounding
00:35:26in my ears
00:35:27every sound of which
00:35:29is as far
00:35:30as the east
00:35:31is from the west
00:35:32from vibrating
00:35:33in unison
00:35:34with my feelings.
00:35:36Dear friends
00:35:37will you not
00:35:39sometime think
00:35:39of me almost alone
00:35:41in the midst
00:35:42of savage darkness?
00:35:51General Huston, sir,
00:35:58the enemy
00:36:00are laughing you
00:36:01to scorn.
00:36:03You must fight them.
00:36:05You must retreat
00:36:05no further.
00:36:07The country expects
00:36:08you to fight.
00:36:10The salvation
00:36:11of the country
00:36:12depends on your doing so.
00:36:14David Burnett,
00:36:16president of Texas.
00:36:17After the Alamo fell
00:36:21and Santiana
00:36:23ordered all prisoners shot
00:36:25he had said
00:36:26he was going to
00:36:27kill everybody
00:36:29that's opposing
00:36:29the Mexican government.
00:36:32There's terrific panic
00:36:33over the country
00:36:34and they have a family
00:36:36that could
00:36:37got their belongings
00:36:39together
00:36:39in a buggy
00:36:40or a wagon
00:36:41or whatever
00:36:41to bear the horseback.
00:36:42Some didn't have
00:36:43any vehicles.
00:36:44Walk and carry
00:36:45what you could,
00:36:46drag it
00:36:46or put it
00:36:47on a mule
00:36:48and the families
00:36:50just abandoned
00:36:51their homes
00:36:52and that was called
00:36:54the runaway scraper
00:36:56and they were trying
00:36:57to get across
00:36:57the Sabine River
00:36:58to get into New Orleans
00:36:59before they got killed.
00:37:05The fledgling government
00:37:07of Texas retreated
00:37:08to the little town
00:37:09of Harrisburg.
00:37:10There,
00:37:11they demanded
00:37:12that Sam Houston
00:37:13stand and fight.
00:37:15But Houston
00:37:16kept his own counsel
00:37:17pouring over
00:37:19Caesar's commentaries
00:37:20on war
00:37:21gnawing
00:37:22on the raw ears
00:37:23of corn
00:37:24with which he filled
00:37:25his saddlebags.
00:37:28Had I consulted
00:37:29the wishes of all
00:37:30I should have been
00:37:31like the ass
00:37:31between two stacks
00:37:33of hay.
00:37:34I consulted no one.
00:37:36I held no counsels
00:37:37of war.
00:37:38If I err
00:37:39the blame is mine.
00:37:41Houston and his small army
00:37:46were in full retreat
00:37:47zigzagging across Texas
00:37:49keeping just out of range
00:37:51of the advancing Mexicans.
00:37:54Rumors spread
00:37:55that alcohol
00:37:56had undercut his courage.
00:37:58Settlers jeered him
00:37:59from the roadside.
00:38:00And the men under him
00:38:03said he is a coward.
00:38:05And Sidney Sherman,
00:38:06the colonel,
00:38:06tried to replace him.
00:38:08Sam Houston said,
00:38:09anybody that tries
00:38:10to remove me
00:38:10through this command,
00:38:11I'll execute him
00:38:12on the spot.
00:38:15For more than a month,
00:38:17Santa Anna pursued
00:38:18Houston's elusive army.
00:38:21Then,
00:38:22the Mexican general
00:38:23made a mistake.
00:38:24He divided his troops
00:38:26and veered off
00:38:27in hopes of capturing
00:38:28the provisional government.
00:38:32Houston slipped up
00:38:33behind him
00:38:34at a bend in a river
00:38:35called the San Jacinto.
00:38:38April 21st, 1836.
00:38:41We are in preparation
00:38:42to meet Santa Anna.
00:38:44It is the only chance
00:38:45of saving Texas.
00:38:47We go to conquer.
00:38:49It is wisdom growing
00:38:51out of necessity
00:38:51to meet the enemy now.
00:38:53Santa Anna's army
00:38:56was surrounded by water
00:38:57on three sides.
00:38:59Houston's 800 men
00:39:00moved into position
00:39:01on the 4th.
00:39:04There were trees there.
00:39:08Houston had men
00:39:09up in those trees
00:39:10watching them
00:39:10and calling down to him
00:39:12what they're doing.
00:39:13He says,
00:39:13the cavalry over there
00:39:14have taken their
00:39:15saddles off.
00:39:17They're taking their
00:39:17horses to drink.
00:39:18This is siesta time.
00:39:20It's 3.30
00:39:21and most of the Mexicans
00:39:22are having their siesta.
00:39:23Houston immediately
00:39:24ordered them to line up.
00:39:30Trust in God
00:39:31and fear not,
00:39:32he told his men.
00:39:34Remember Goliad.
00:39:36Remember the Alamo.
00:39:39Houston led the charge
00:39:40himself,
00:39:41swinging his saber.
00:39:43His horse fell,
00:39:45hit five times.
00:39:47Houston climbed
00:39:48onto another horse.
00:39:50It, too, was killed.
00:39:52And this time,
00:39:53Houston's right leg
00:39:54was splintered
00:39:55by a musket ball.
00:39:57But Santa Ana's army
00:39:58was on the run.
00:40:01The Texans
00:40:02and the company
00:40:02of Tejanos
00:40:03under Juan Seguin
00:40:04were right behind them.
00:40:07The fighting lasted
00:40:09just 18 minutes.
00:40:10But the slaughter
00:40:17went on
00:40:18for another hour.
00:40:19When it was all over,
00:40:36600 Mexican soldiers
00:40:38lay dead.
00:40:39Nearly 700 more
00:40:40had surrendered.
00:40:42The surprise
00:40:43had been so complete,
00:40:45the blow so sudden
00:40:46that only six Texans
00:40:49died during the Battle
00:40:50of San Jacinto.
00:40:53Santa Ana himself
00:40:55was made
00:40:55Sam Houston's prisoner
00:40:57and forced to sign
00:40:59a piece of paper
00:41:00ceding Texan independence.
00:41:05Now, there were
00:41:06three independent republics
00:41:08in North America.
00:41:09Mexico,
00:41:11the United States,
00:41:13and, under President
00:41:14Sam Houston,
00:41:16the new Republic of Texas.
00:41:23The loss of Texas
00:41:25will inevitably result
00:41:27in the loss of New Mexico
00:41:28and the Californias.
00:41:31Little by little,
00:41:32our territory
00:41:33will be absorbed
00:41:34until only
00:41:36an insignificant part
00:41:37is left to us.
00:41:39Our national existence
00:41:41will end
00:41:42like those weak meteors
00:41:44that from time to time
00:41:46shine fitfully
00:41:47in the firmament
00:41:48and disappear.
00:41:52Jose Maria Tornelli Mendeville.
00:42:04In the early morning hours
00:42:11of November 14th, 1833,
00:42:13one of the largest
00:42:15meteor showers in history
00:42:16lit up the night sky
00:42:18over North America.
00:42:23Lone Dog and his Lakota band
00:42:26watched it
00:42:26on the Northern Plains
00:42:28and remembered 1833
00:42:30as the year the stars fell.
00:42:34On the Southern Plains,
00:42:39a large band of Kiowa
00:42:40were camped
00:42:41in the Wichita Mountains
00:42:42where they had been driven
00:42:44when the Cheyenne and Lakota
00:42:45took over the Black Hills.
00:42:49And they were awakened
00:42:51by the light
00:42:52of falling stars.
00:42:55And they ran out
00:42:57into the false day
00:42:59and were terrified.
00:43:01They thought the world
00:43:01was coming to an end.
00:43:02You can imagine
00:43:03something like that happening
00:43:07directly overhead,
00:43:08this havoc in the night sky.
00:43:11And so it's very much
00:43:12in their blood memory.
00:43:16I think the Kiowas
00:43:17took the falling stars
00:43:18as a sign.
00:43:20It was an omen.
00:43:22And bad things followed.
00:43:24You can start counting
00:43:26the catastrophes.
00:43:40Soon, the Kiowa noticed
00:43:41a new people coming from the East,
00:43:56moving on to the Southern Plains.
00:43:59The settlers built towns,
00:44:01churches, schools.
00:44:03Some of them owned slaves.
00:44:05But these newcomers
00:44:07were Indians, too.
00:44:10Cherokee,
00:44:11one of many peoples
00:44:12from the East,
00:44:13forced into the West
00:44:14by the federal government.
00:44:17No Eastern tribe
00:44:19had struggled harder
00:44:20or more successfully
00:44:21to make white civilization
00:44:23their own.
00:44:25For generations,
00:44:27the Cherokee had lived
00:44:28side by side
00:44:29with whites in Georgia.
00:44:30They had devised
00:44:33a written language,
00:44:35published their own newspaper,
00:44:37adopted a constitution
00:44:38and the Christian faith.
00:44:42But after gold
00:44:43was discovered
00:44:44on their land,
00:44:46even they were told
00:44:47they would have to
00:44:48start over again
00:44:49in the West.
00:45:00My friends,
00:45:04circumstances
00:45:05render it impossible
00:45:06that you can flourish
00:45:07in the midst
00:45:08of a civilized community.
00:45:11You have but one remedy
00:45:13within your reach,
00:45:14and that is
00:45:15to remove to the West,
00:45:17and the sooner you do this,
00:45:20the sooner will commence
00:45:21your career of improvement
00:45:22and prosperity.
00:45:25Andrew Jackson.
00:45:26Early in the 1830s,
00:45:32Congress had created
00:45:33a huge new Indian territory,
00:45:36which was to stretch
00:45:37from Texas
00:45:38to the Middle Missouri River.
00:45:41It was meant to be
00:45:42a barrier
00:45:43to white expansion,
00:45:45a place the Indians
00:45:46were promised
00:45:46they would have
00:45:47to themselves
00:45:48forever.
00:45:54Another way in which
00:45:55the West was going
00:45:56to solve America's problems
00:45:57was that it looked like
00:45:58the place where
00:45:58you could put Indians.
00:46:00There's all that space.
00:46:02Put them there.
00:46:04Move them.
00:46:04Move them to the West.
00:46:06Take them across
00:46:06the Mississippi River,
00:46:07and posterity
00:46:08can figure this one out.
00:46:09Posterity can inherit
00:46:11our dilemma.
00:46:11One by one,
00:46:29Indian peoples were removed
00:46:31to the West.
00:46:33The Delaware,
00:46:34Ottawa,
00:46:35Shawnee,
00:46:36and Potawatomi.
00:46:38The Sack and Fox,
00:46:40Miami and Kickapoo.
00:46:42The Choctaw,
00:46:44Chickasaw,
00:46:45Creek,
00:46:45and Seminole.
00:46:47In all,
00:46:48some 90,000 Indians
00:46:50were relocated.
00:46:53The Cherokee
00:46:54were among the last to go.
00:46:57Some reluctantly agreed to move.
00:47:01Others were driven
00:47:02from their homes
00:47:02at Bayonet Point.
00:47:03Almost 2,000 of them
00:47:06died along the route
00:47:07they remember
00:47:08as the Trail of Tears.
00:47:12The Cherokee
00:47:13are probably
00:47:15the most tragic instance
00:47:17of what could have succeeded
00:47:18in American Indian policy
00:47:20and didn't.
00:47:22All these things
00:47:22that Americans
00:47:23would proudly see
00:47:24as the hallmarks
00:47:26of civilization
00:47:27are born to the West
00:47:29by Indian people.
00:47:30They do everything
00:47:32they ask
00:47:33except one thing.
00:47:34What the Cherokees
00:47:35ultimately are,
00:47:36they may be Christian,
00:47:38they may be literate,
00:47:39they may have a government
00:47:40like ours,
00:47:41but ultimately
00:47:42they're Indian.
00:47:44And in the end,
00:47:45being Indian
00:47:46is what kills them.
00:47:47The Mormons
00:47:59are a tribe of locusts
00:48:01that still threatens
00:48:02to scorch and wither
00:48:04the herbage
00:48:05of a fair and goodly
00:48:06portion of Missouri
00:48:07by the swarm
00:48:08of emigrants
00:48:09from their pestilent hive
00:48:10in Ohio and New York.
00:48:14Samuel Owens, 1837.
00:48:17They called themselves
00:48:21the Church of Jesus Christ
00:48:23of Latter-day Saints.
00:48:25The world called them
00:48:26the Mormons,
00:48:28after the Book of Mormon,
00:48:30which their founder,
00:48:31Joseph Smith,
00:48:32said he had translated
00:48:34from a set of golden plates
00:48:36he had been divinely guided
00:48:38to discover.
00:48:40The book said
00:48:41that Jesus Christ
00:48:42had preached in America
00:48:44after the resurrection
00:48:45and would return
00:48:46when a new,
00:48:48true church
00:48:48was established.
00:48:51Everywhere they went,
00:48:53the Mormons gathered converts.
00:48:56And everywhere they went,
00:48:58they made enemies.
00:49:01If we were of the world,
00:49:04I believe that the people
00:49:05would love us well enough
00:49:06to let us remain
00:49:07somewhere in the state.
00:49:09But they hate us,
00:49:10despise us,
00:49:11and persecute us.
00:49:14And when they kill us,
00:49:16they verily think
00:49:17they do God's service.
00:49:20Elizabeth Haven Barnow.
00:49:27Angry mobs,
00:49:28who considered them heretics,
00:49:30drove the Mormons
00:49:31from New York,
00:49:32then Ohio,
00:49:33and then Missouri,
00:49:35where the governor himself
00:49:37ordered them
00:49:37to leave the state
00:49:38or be exterminated.
00:49:41In Illinois,
00:49:43Joseph Smith
00:49:44bought a small settlement,
00:49:46renamed it Nauvoo,
00:49:47and turned it
00:49:48into the second biggest city
00:49:49in the state.
00:49:51He started work
00:49:53on a great temple,
00:49:54outfitted his own private army,
00:49:57began to practice polygamy
00:49:58in secret,
00:49:59and announced
00:50:00he was running
00:50:01for president
00:50:01of the United States.
00:50:05When Smith destroyed
00:50:07the printing press
00:50:07of a man
00:50:08who dared
00:50:08criticize him,
00:50:10he was jailed,
00:50:11and then murdered
00:50:12by an anti-Mormon mob.
00:50:15Unless they abandoned Illinois,
00:50:17his followers were told,
00:50:19the same fate awaited them.
00:50:27We face a crisis
00:50:29of extraordinary
00:50:30and thrilling interest.
00:50:32The exodus of the nation,
00:50:34of the only true Israel,
00:50:36from these United States
00:50:38to a far distant region
00:50:39of the West.
00:50:41Wake up,
00:50:42wake up,
00:50:43dear brethren,
00:50:44to the present
00:50:45glorious emergency
00:50:46in which the God of Heaven
00:50:48has placed you
00:50:49to prove your faith
00:50:50by your works.
00:50:53Brigham Young.
00:50:58Now the Mormons
00:50:59pinned their hopes
00:51:00on a big,
00:51:01Vermont-born carpenter
00:51:02named Brigham Young,
00:51:04one of the church's
00:51:05twelve apostles.
00:51:09He had read
00:51:10explorer's reports
00:51:11of the Valley
00:51:12of the Great Salt Lake
00:51:13and saw it
00:51:14as a perfect sanctuary
00:51:16for his saints,
00:51:18sheltered by the
00:51:19Wasatch Mountains,
00:51:20beyond the boundaries
00:51:21of the United States.
00:51:23He would take
00:51:24his people there.
00:51:27In early 1846,
00:51:28some 10,000
00:51:31Latter-day Saints
00:51:32began leaving
00:51:33their homes
00:51:33for the West.
00:51:39Now concerning
00:51:40this strange people
00:51:42I'm now going to sing
00:51:43for the way
00:51:44they have been treated
00:51:46I think it is a sin
00:51:48and sing-t-re-ary-ary-ay,
00:51:50sing-t-re-ary-ary-oh
00:51:52They have been
00:51:53driven from
00:51:54their homes
00:51:55and away
00:51:56from Nauvoo
00:51:57for to seek
00:51:58another home
00:51:59in the wilderness
00:52:00anew,
00:52:01sing-t-re-ary-ary-ay
00:52:03and sing-t-re-ary-ary-oh
00:52:05Brigham Young's got
00:52:07their homes
00:52:08changed another home
00:52:10American Moses, and I think that's pretty accurate.
00:52:14He took a persecuted religious sect,
00:52:19and he took them into the wilderness
00:52:22and built a new place for them to live in the desert.
00:52:29And in going through these trials as they went to the west,
00:52:34it made the Mormons see themselves as divinely separated
00:52:40from everyone else and divinely protected.
00:52:44And Brigham Young is the one who made that happen.
00:52:56By winter, the Mormons had reached the west bank
00:52:59of the Missouri River.
00:53:02But they were still nearly 1,000 miles from their destination.
00:53:08There, they built a makeshift town they called Winter Quarters,
00:53:12where 700 of them died in the bitter cold.
00:53:22The next spring, Brigham Young himself led forth a small group
00:53:27to select the site on which all would settle.
00:53:30He called it the Pioneer Band.
00:53:34In late July, they got their first glimpse
00:53:37of the valley of the Great Salt Lake.
00:53:43We gazed with wonder and admiration
00:53:46upon the vast, rich, fertile valley,
00:53:49the grandest and most sublime scenery
00:53:52probably that could be obtained on the globe.
00:53:55We contemplated that in not many years,
00:54:00the valley would be converted into orchard, vineyard, gardens,
00:54:05and fields by the inhabitants of Zion.
00:54:12We have traveled 1,500 miles to get here.
00:54:16And I would willingly travel 1,000 miles farther
00:54:20to get where it looked as though a white man could live.
00:54:28The Mormon people were looking for isolation,
00:54:32where they could practice their spiritual beliefs freely.
00:54:36And when they stepped foot into the Great Basin,
00:54:39they found the isolation they were looking for.
00:54:42You can imagine Great Salt Lake seeing this huge body of water
00:54:46and dipping down with cupped hands for a drink of refreshment,
00:54:52only to be repulsed.
00:54:53I think that appealed to the Mormons
00:54:55because no one else would bother them.
00:54:59Their very first day in the valley,
00:55:01the Mormons dug a fresh water irrigation ditch
00:55:04and started planting potatoes.
00:55:07And soon, Brigham Young was pacing off the streets
00:55:11and squares of the great city he planned to build in the desert.
00:55:17We have been thrown like a stone from a sling,
00:55:21and we have lodged in the godly place
00:55:24where the Lord wants his people to gather.
00:55:28If the Lord should say by his revelation this is the spot,
00:55:31the saints would be satisfied if it was a barren rock.
00:55:56My father's name was Henry Sager.
00:55:59He moved from Virginia to Ohio, and then to Indiana,
00:56:02and from there to Missouri.
00:56:05In the month of April 1844,
00:56:07my father got the Oregon fever, and we started west.
00:56:13Henry Sager had moved his growing family
00:56:16four times in as many years,
00:56:18always a little farther west,
00:56:21in search of land that was more fertile and less expensive.
00:56:25By 1844, the Sagers were in St. Joseph, Missouri,
00:56:30restless and ready to move again.
00:56:352,000 miles to the west was the Oregon country.
00:56:40The United States claimed it.
00:56:42So did Great Britain.
00:56:44But the United States had the people to settle it.
00:56:47Eastward, I go only by force,
00:56:51but westward, I go free.
00:56:55The future lies that way to me.
00:56:58I should not lay so much stress on this fact
00:57:00if I did not believe that something like this
00:57:02is the prevailing tendency of my countrymen.
00:57:06I must walk toward Oregon,
00:57:08and not toward Europe.
00:57:11Henry David Thoreau.
00:57:131,000 Americans had made their way to Oregon in 1843 alone.
00:57:2110,000 more would follow over the next four years.
00:57:25Henry Sager was determined to join them.
00:57:30He signed on with a group called the Independent Colony.
00:57:34300 people in 72 wagons.
00:57:38Most were families, like the Sagers and their six children.
00:57:43Mr. Sager was very keen to go west.
00:57:47And his wife, Naomi, was pregnant.
00:57:50And she was not just beginning her pregnancy.
00:57:53She was along.
00:57:54And she was more reluctant to go,
00:57:57but go they did with all their children.
00:58:03In late April,
00:58:05the Independent Colony crossed the Missouri River
00:58:08and set out on the Oregon Trail.
00:58:10In what is now eastern Kansas,
00:58:17spring rains turned the prairies to mud
00:58:19and made river crossings dangerous.
00:58:23The children, confined to their covered wagon
00:58:26for mile after lurching mile,
00:58:29grew seasick.
00:58:31One night in camp,
00:58:33while warming themselves,
00:58:34they huddled too close to the flames
00:58:36and their bedclothes caught on fire.
00:58:42Five weeks out,
00:58:44Naomi Sager gave birth to her seventh child,
00:58:47a baby girl.
00:58:50On July 4th,
00:58:52the caravan rested near the Platte River in Nebraska,
00:58:55and a young couple in the wagon train
00:58:57used the occasion to get married.
00:59:00The weather was fine,
00:59:04and all seemed to enjoy themselves.
00:59:06There were several musical instruments in the company,
00:59:09and these sounded out clear and sweet
00:59:11on the evening air,
00:59:13while gay talk and merry laughter
00:59:15went on around the campfire.
00:59:18Catherine Sager.
00:59:19Farther on,
00:59:28they forded the South Platte,
00:59:30and Henry Sager lost control of his oxen.
00:59:33The wagon overturned,
00:59:35and Naomi was injured,
00:59:37but they kept going.
00:59:41In late July,
00:59:42they passed Chimney Rock and Scott's Bluff
00:59:45in what is now western Nebraska.
00:59:47One afternoon,
00:59:52young Catherine,
00:59:53age nine,
00:59:54tried to hop off the wagon.
00:59:57The hem of my dress
00:59:58caught on an axe handle,
01:00:00precipitating me under the wheels,
01:00:03both of which passed over me
01:00:04before Father could stop the oxen.
01:00:07A glance at my limb dangling
01:00:09in the air as he ran
01:00:10revealed to him
01:00:12the extent of the injury I had received,
01:00:14and in a broken voice he exclaimed,
01:00:17My dear child,
01:00:19your leg has broke all to pieces.
01:00:26For the remainder of the trip,
01:00:29Catherine either rode
01:00:30in the jolting wagon
01:00:31or hobbled along beside it
01:00:33on crutches.
01:00:34They kept moving
01:00:44beyond Fort Laramie
01:00:46to Independence Rock
01:00:47where the emigrants
01:00:50carved their names
01:00:51as proof
01:00:53of their individual passing.
01:00:55on August 23rd,
01:01:12the Sager's wagon
01:01:13crossed South Pass
01:01:14and the Continental Divide.
01:01:17Now they were beyond
01:01:18the boundaries
01:01:19of the United States
01:01:20and in Mexican territory.
01:01:24Oregon was still weeks away.
01:01:26A sickness called camp fever
01:01:50struck the caravan.
01:01:51Two women died,
01:01:56then a little girl.
01:02:00Then Henry Sager fell ill.
01:02:03We crossed the Green River
01:02:05and camped on the bank.
01:02:07Looking upon me
01:02:08as I lay helplessly
01:02:09by his side,
01:02:10he said,
01:02:11Poor child,
01:02:13what will become of you?
01:02:14Father expired the next morning
01:02:18and was buried
01:02:19on the bank
01:02:20of the Green River.
01:02:22His coffin hastily dug out
01:02:23of the trunk of a tree.
01:02:27Fatherless,
01:02:28the Sagers pushed on.
01:02:32At last,
01:02:33they crossed the border
01:02:34into the Oregon country.
01:02:36But on the dusty trail
01:02:38along the Snake River,
01:02:40Naomi too
01:02:41became delirious
01:02:42with fever.
01:02:42We traveled over
01:02:46a very rough road
01:02:47and she moaned
01:02:48pitifully all day.
01:02:51When we camped for the night,
01:02:53her pulse was nearly gone.
01:02:56She lived but a few moments more
01:02:58and her last words were,
01:03:01Oh, Henry,
01:03:02if you only knew
01:03:03how we have suffered.
01:03:08The children buried
01:03:09their mother
01:03:10wrapped in a bed sheet
01:03:11in a shallow grave
01:03:12along the trail
01:03:13with willow brush
01:03:15and a wooden headboard
01:03:16to mark the spot.
01:03:20The teams were then
01:03:21hitched to the wagon
01:03:22and the train drove on,
01:03:25leaving her to her long sleep.
01:03:28Thus,
01:03:29in 26 days,
01:03:31both our parents
01:03:32were laid in the grave
01:03:33and we were orphans,
01:03:35the oldest 14 years old
01:03:37and the youngest
01:03:39five months old.
01:03:48And there were
01:03:49these seven children
01:03:50left without
01:03:51any relatives
01:03:51in the world.
01:03:53The word orphan
01:03:54is almost insufficient
01:03:57to describe
01:03:58their situation.
01:03:59And, of course,
01:04:00the other thing
01:04:01to remember about them
01:04:01is that there was
01:04:02no one in the West
01:04:03waiting for them.
01:04:03So these children
01:04:04were just alone.
01:04:10It was now
01:04:11late September
01:04:12and the first snows
01:04:14were falling
01:04:14in the mountains.
01:04:16Under the care
01:04:17of other families
01:04:17in the wagon train,
01:04:19the seven Sager children
01:04:20pressed on.
01:04:21In early October,
01:04:33they reached
01:04:34Cayuse country.
01:04:36One member
01:04:37of the caravan
01:04:38rode ahead
01:04:39to the mission
01:04:39run by Marcus
01:04:41and Narcissa Whitman
01:04:42to tell them
01:04:43that a needy wagon train
01:04:44was approaching
01:04:45and to talk with them
01:04:47about adopting
01:04:48the Sager children.
01:04:49application has been
01:04:52made for us
01:04:53to take an orphan
01:04:54family of seven children
01:04:55as they have not
01:04:57a relative
01:04:57in the company.
01:04:59What we shall do
01:05:00I cannot say.
01:05:02We cannot see them
01:05:04suffer
01:05:04if the Lord
01:05:06casts them upon us.
01:05:08Narcissa Whitman
01:05:09since her own
01:05:15daughter's death
01:05:16to ease her grief
01:05:18Narcissa had taken
01:05:19in four other children
01:05:21including the daughter
01:05:22of the mountain man
01:05:23Joe Meek.
01:05:26For Narcissa
01:05:27the death
01:05:28of her daughter
01:05:30Alice
01:05:30was the beginning
01:05:32of a real collapse
01:05:35of physical
01:05:35and a psychological
01:05:36breakdown.
01:05:37and then
01:05:40when the Sager children
01:05:41arrive
01:05:42it's really
01:05:43her salvation.
01:05:44She can recreate
01:05:45a very satisfying
01:05:46domestic life
01:05:48and really
01:05:49turn her back
01:05:50on the real mission
01:05:51work that she
01:05:52came out to do.
01:05:57Husband thought
01:05:58we could get along
01:05:59with all but the baby.
01:06:01He did not see
01:06:02how we could take that.
01:06:03but I felt
01:06:06that if I must
01:06:06take any
01:06:07I wanted her
01:06:09as a charm
01:06:10to bind the rest
01:06:11to me.
01:06:13The Whitman
01:06:14sent word
01:06:15back to the wagon
01:06:16train
01:06:16that they would
01:06:17take all seven.
01:06:23A few days later
01:06:24after six months
01:06:26and two thousand miles
01:06:28Henry and Naomi
01:06:29Sager's children
01:06:30finally reached
01:06:32their new home
01:06:32in Oregon.
01:06:35Narcissa Whitman
01:06:36came out
01:06:37to meet them
01:06:38for the first time.
01:06:41She was a large
01:06:43well-formed woman
01:06:44fair complexioned
01:06:46with beautiful
01:06:47auburn hair
01:06:48nose rather large
01:06:50and large grey eyes.
01:06:53She had on a dark
01:06:55calico dress
01:06:56and a gingham sunbonnet.
01:06:57we thought
01:06:59as we shyly
01:07:00looked at her
01:07:01that she was
01:07:02the prettiest woman
01:07:03we had ever seen.
01:07:05Americans started moving west
01:07:29for all these individual
01:07:31personal reasons.
01:07:32land
01:07:34converting Indians
01:07:36furs
01:07:37but everywhere they went
01:07:40the end result was
01:07:42they wanted to make it
01:07:43into the United States.
01:07:46It didn't matter
01:07:47why they went
01:07:47once they got there
01:07:49they decided
01:07:50this place
01:07:51should be part
01:07:51of the United States
01:07:52and in doing so
01:07:54they brought
01:07:54the nation
01:07:55with them.
01:07:56The nation
01:07:56didn't send them out
01:07:58they brought
01:07:59the United States
01:08:00with them.
01:08:15The Californios
01:08:17inhabit a country
01:08:18embracing
01:08:19four or five hundred
01:08:20miles of seacoast
01:08:22with several harbors.
01:08:23with fine forests
01:08:26in the north
01:08:26the waters
01:08:27filled with fish
01:08:28and the plains
01:08:29covered with thousands
01:08:31of herds of cattle
01:08:32blessed with a climate
01:08:34than which there can be
01:08:35no better in the world.
01:08:39In the hands
01:08:40of an enterprising people
01:08:41what a country
01:08:43this might be.
01:08:45Richard Henry Dana
01:08:46By the mid-1840s
01:08:53lured by reports
01:08:54of fertile soil
01:08:55and a healthy climate
01:08:56some 3,000
01:08:58American settlers
01:08:59had filed
01:09:00through the Sierra Nevada
01:09:01mountains
01:09:02and down into
01:09:03California's
01:09:04Sacramento Valley.
01:09:07The commander
01:09:08of all Mexican troops
01:09:09in Northern California
01:09:11Mariano Guadalupe
01:09:12Vallejo
01:09:13begged Mexico City
01:09:15for the soldiers
01:09:16who he knew
01:09:16would be necessary
01:09:17to keep the Americans out.
01:09:23Vallejo belonged
01:09:24to one of the oldest
01:09:25Spanish families
01:09:26in the Americas.
01:09:28Most of the Sonoma Valley
01:09:29a quarter of a million acres
01:09:31belonged to him.
01:09:34But despite his position
01:09:36the government
01:09:37ignored his pleas
01:09:38for troops.
01:09:40It seemed to Vallejo
01:09:42and his fellow Californios
01:09:43that Mexico City
01:09:45was as distant
01:09:46and arbitrary
01:09:47as it had been
01:09:48to the people
01:09:48of Texas.
01:09:51He now found himself
01:09:52embroiled in revolts
01:09:54and counter-revolts
01:09:55and increasing calls
01:09:57for California's
01:09:58independence.
01:10:02Finally,
01:10:03the leading Californios
01:10:04gathered in Monterey
01:10:06to discuss their future.
01:10:09One man favored
01:10:10annexation by France
01:10:12since it was
01:10:13a Catholic country.
01:10:15Another thought
01:10:16California should join
01:10:17the British Empire.
01:10:19Still others
01:10:20called for a Republic
01:10:21of California.
01:10:25Vallejo had come
01:10:26to a different conclusion.
01:10:28To rely any longer
01:10:30upon Mexico
01:10:31to govern
01:10:32and defend us
01:10:33would be idle
01:10:34and absurd.
01:10:37Why should we shrink
01:10:39from incorporating
01:10:39ourselves with
01:10:40the United States,
01:10:41the happiest
01:10:42and freest nation
01:10:43in the world,
01:10:45destined soon
01:10:46to be the most
01:10:46wealthy and powerful?
01:10:49When we join
01:10:50our fortunes
01:10:50to hers,
01:10:52we shall not
01:10:52become subjects
01:10:53but fellow citizens.
01:10:57Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo
01:10:59The people of Texas
01:11:10have,
01:11:11with a unanimity
01:11:12unparalleled,
01:11:13declared that they
01:11:14will be reunited
01:11:15to the great
01:11:16Republican family
01:11:17of the North.
01:11:19We are cheered
01:11:19by the hope
01:11:20that they will receive us
01:11:22and hail us welcome
01:11:23into the great family
01:11:24of free men.
01:11:26Sam Houston,
01:11:28President,
01:11:28Republic of Texas.
01:11:31Sam Houston
01:11:32had always assumed
01:11:34that Texas
01:11:34would become a state
01:11:35within a few months
01:11:36of his victory
01:11:37at San Jacinto.
01:11:40But for seven years,
01:11:42Congress refused
01:11:43to grant statehood
01:11:44to Texas.
01:11:46The northern states
01:11:47feared its admission
01:11:48would tip
01:11:49the precarious balance
01:11:50of power
01:11:50toward the slave states.
01:11:54Then in 1844,
01:11:56James Knox Polk
01:11:58was narrowly elected
01:11:59president.
01:12:00He was a humorless,
01:12:02hardworking Democrat
01:12:03from Tennessee,
01:12:05utterly determined
01:12:05to expand
01:12:06the United States.
01:12:09With his support
01:12:10and a compromise
01:12:12deftly sidestepping
01:12:13the issue of slavery,
01:12:15the Republic of Texas
01:12:16became the 38th state
01:12:18in the Union.
01:12:20Sam Houston
01:12:21was named
01:12:22its first senator.
01:12:23President Polk
01:12:29now turned
01:12:29his attention
01:12:30to the Pacific Northwest.
01:12:32He threatened
01:12:33Britain with war
01:12:34unless it gave up
01:12:36its claim,
01:12:37then shrewdly negotiated
01:12:39an agreement
01:12:39that added
01:12:40what are now
01:12:41Oregon,
01:12:42Washington,
01:12:43and Idaho
01:12:43to the Union.
01:12:47But Polk
01:12:48was still not satisfied.
01:12:50He now wanted
01:12:51New Mexico
01:12:52and California.
01:12:54And when Mexico
01:12:55refused to sell
01:12:56the provinces,
01:12:57he used a border skirmish
01:12:59along the Rio Grande
01:13:00to persuade Congress
01:13:02to declare war.
01:13:03The Mexican-American War
01:13:16lasted more than
01:13:17a year and a half,
01:13:18a bloody struggle
01:13:20that cost thousands
01:13:21of lives
01:13:22and ended only
01:13:23when American troops
01:13:25finally stormed
01:13:26into Mexico City.
01:13:29In less than
01:13:31a dozen years,
01:13:32Mexico had lost
01:13:33half its territory.
01:13:36The United States
01:13:37had grown
01:13:38by more than a third.
01:13:44In Texas,
01:13:46Juan Seguin,
01:13:47who had fought
01:13:48as hard as any man
01:13:49for independence,
01:13:51was falsely accused
01:13:52of being more loyal
01:13:53to Mexico
01:13:54than to Texas.
01:13:56He was forced
01:13:57to slip south
01:13:58across the border.
01:14:00To seek refuge,
01:14:01he mourned,
01:14:01amongst my enemies.
01:14:05In California,
01:14:08Mariano Vallejo's dreams
01:14:09of a peaceful annexation
01:14:11had ended
01:14:11when American squatters
01:14:14arrested him
01:14:15in his own house.
01:14:16Our race,
01:14:18our unfortunate people
01:14:21will now have to wander
01:14:23in search of hospitality
01:14:24in a strange land.
01:14:27The North Americans
01:14:29hate us,
01:14:30their spokesmen
01:14:31deprecate us,
01:14:32and they consider us
01:14:33unworthy
01:14:34to form with them
01:14:35one nation
01:14:36and one society.
01:14:38who will be
01:14:52one nation
01:14:56and one nation
01:14:57and one nation
01:14:58will be
01:14:59to work with them.
01:15:00After 10 years in Oregon, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman had largely abandoned their work among
01:15:19the Indians in favor of helping the wagon trains that now rolled ceaselessly across
01:15:25Cayuse lands.
01:15:26I think that the Cayuse hated Narcissa, and I think that when Narcissa turned her back
01:15:38on the Indians, and when she dealt with them as sternly as she did with, I think from her
01:15:44perspective, with all the right motives, you had to tell people who were going to hell,
01:15:50that they came to really despise her.
01:15:58Way back in the early 40s, the Indians started telling the Whitmans to leave.
01:16:01If we don't like to hear this bad talk, leave.
01:16:06The Whitmans didn't go.
01:16:12Three years after the Sager children arrived, measles carried west with the emigrant trains
01:16:18swept through the Cayuse villages.
01:16:23Half the tribe died, including most of the children.
01:16:33Despite Marcus Whitman's nursing, rumors circulated among the grieving Cayuse that he was secretly
01:16:40spreading the disease, not trying to cure it.
01:16:46One afternoon, three Cayuse appeared at the door and asked to see Whitman.
01:16:53One of them was the chief, Tilukaig.
01:16:56He had once seriously considered accepting the Christian faith, but now he had lost three
01:17:02children to the white man's sickness.
01:17:06When he got inside the house, he and the others shot and hacked Marcus Whitman to death.
01:17:13Mother was standing looking out at the window when a ball came through the broken pane, entering
01:17:19her right shoulder.
01:17:21She clapped her hand to the wound and fell backwards.
01:17:27She now forgot everything but the poor helpless children depending on her, and she poured out
01:17:32her soul in prayer for them, Lord save these little ones, was her repeated cry.
01:17:44The Cayuse warriors carried the wounded Narcissa out of the house on a settee, killed her, then
01:17:50lashed her dead face.
01:17:54Then they set the hated mission buildings on fire.
01:17:58Besides Marcus and Narcissa, eleven other whites were killed before it was over, including
01:18:04the two Sager boys.
01:18:09Joe Meek's daughter, sick with measles at the time of the massacre, died soon afterwards.
01:18:18So did Hannah Sager, age six.
01:18:23The four surviving Sager girls were orphans once more.
01:18:32Frontier militia pursued the Cayuse into the mountains.
01:18:36Finally, five Cayuse warriors, including Tilukeikt, turned themselves in so that the rest of their
01:18:45people would not be hunted down.
01:18:49Before he went to the gallows, someone asked Tilukeikt why he had surrendered.
01:18:55Did not your missionaries teach us that Christ died to save his people, he answered?
01:19:01So we die to save our people.
01:19:08Surely, if the way of the pioneer is hard and beset with dangers, at least the long years
01:19:18bring at last the realization that life, patiently and hopefully lived, brings its own sense of
01:19:25having been part of the onward move to better things.
01:19:31Not for self alone, but for others.
01:19:38Catherine Sager, who had survived the massacre, would remain in Oregon, where she married a
01:19:44Methodist minister and bore him eight children.
01:19:49One more than her mother Naomi had brought into the world.
01:19:53On July 4th, 1848, in Washington, D.C., thousands turned out to see President Polk lay the cornerstone
01:20:07of the new monument, a giant stone shaft modeled after the obelisks of ancient Egypt to honor
01:20:15the nation's first president.
01:20:18George Washington's America had ended at the Mississippi.
01:20:24But now, as Polk spoke to the crowd, the American flag flew over the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas.
01:20:34Above the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe.
01:20:39Over a growing Mormon settlement in the great Salt Lake Valley.
01:20:45Spanish ranches in Sonoma, California and near the ruins of the Whitman Mission in the Pacific Northwest.
01:20:56Polk's nation was a continental United States that stretched from sea to sea and now encompassed the West.
01:21:08In only a generation, by enterprise and intimidation, by sacrifice and by outright conquest, Americans had seized it all.
01:21:23Back in the nation's capital, standing next to the president at the ceremony, was the old mountain man, Joe Meek.
01:21:35His fondest wish had come true.
01:21:37Born in Washington County, Virginia, he was now the sheriff of a brand new Washington County, in Oregon Territory.
01:21:46A month later, even more good news arrived from this newest section of the country.
01:22:02In California, on a stream named the American River, gold had been discovered.
01:22:10Nothing in the West would ever be the same again.
01:22:13If you think you can have been discovered.
01:22:14A half-day river.
01:22:28In California, on a stream you can find the same again.
01:22:29To find what you can find.
01:22:30In California, on a stream you can find the same again.
01:22:31If you think you are only one of the five to six years.
01:22:33In California, on an island you can find the same again.
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