Image: Tom Skeen / Walla Walla Union-Bulletin via AP
A statue of Marcus Whitman stands on city property just outside the Whitman College campus in Walla Walla, Washington.
For generations Marcus Whitman has been widely viewed as an iconic figure from early Pacific Northwest history, a venerated Protestant missionary who was among 13 people killed by the Cayuse tribe near modern-day Walla Walla, Washington, in 1847.
But this past year has seen a continued reappraisal of Whitman, whose actions have increasingly been viewed as imperialistic and destructive.
The Washington Legislature voted to strip his likeness from the US Capitol. Students at Whitman College in Walla Walla demonstrated recently to demand another Whitman statue be removed from campus. A new book says a well-known story about Whitman’s efforts to save the Northwest from British rule was fabricated.
Along the Columbia River, Making a Monument of the Land
In the Pacific Northwest, Maya Lin’s ‘art landscapes’ celebrate the river’s partnership with Native American tribes.
The Listening Circle amphitheater at Chief Timothy Park is on an island in the Snake River near Clarkston, Wash.Credit.via Confluence Project
By Alex V. Cipolle
This article is part of our latest
, which focuses on reopening, reinvention and resilience.
On a spring morning, the Vancouver Land Bridge appears to be a bridge alive, lush with native plants fluttering in the wind as joggers follow its wavy path. Its long arc about a third of a mile weaves and soars over Highway 14, reconnecting the Columbia River with the ancient Klickitat Trail, said to have been used by Northwest tribes for millenniums.