Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 37.djvu/187

Rh with unwillingness of citizens to enlist in the military service, engendered controversies and delayed the pacification of the interior Indians. Mr. Carey gives the best narrative of the campaigns of that period.

Agriculture, horticulture and livestock, roads and steamboats, are subjects of narrative; also manners and customs, individual and family and community life.

Mr. Carey has made good use of the source materials which have become available in recent years, and of the opportunities afforded by passing time to reach impartial conclusions. To save from delay of narrative, he has no references in footnotes; all such are in the back of the book.

The volume contains 373 pages of text, 20 of chapter notes and references, and 106 of index to volumes I and II.

Henry Harmon Spalding, by, Caxton Printers, Ltd., Caldwell, Idaho, 1936, 438 pages, $3.

author:Henry Harmon Spalding was a Protestant missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to the Nez Perce Indians, in what was known as the Oregon Mission, 1836–47. The work of the mission ended (but not that of Spalding) with the Whitman massacre, a vivid account of which occupies thirty pages of this book. These, together with 220 pages preceding, may be classified as a history of the mission as well as a biography of its, in many respects, most prominent member. The first seventy pages contain preface, chapter list and details of Spalding's earlier life and education. The final seventy-five pages relate the events of the last twenty-seven years of his career; and also include bibliography, sources and index. This analysis indicates a lack of balance, which the author endeavors to explain. As a history the book contains not a little prime material both as to personnel and events in the form of excerpts from, and references to, original documents. The controversial "Whitman-Saved-Oregon" story is admitted to be a fiction of Spalding's mind.

As biography the life story is exceedingly intimate and abounds in small details; but weakens toward the end, suggesting a hurried finish. As far as possible the author has copied verbatim from original letters and records. He is to be commended for the evident intent to be fair by stating faults as well as good traits. He reveals that Spalding was not the only one who caused trouble in the missions and that in actual achievements in the field he was the most successful member. Perhaps not enough is said concerning Spalding's mental obsession from childhood, which was notably increased by the terrible experiences at the time of the massacre, and which manifested itself in exaggerated opinions and statements, and affected his entire career. A devoted, courageous wife is given due credit for a share in their work among the Nez Perces.

The author is a Presbyterian clergyman writing about a Presbyterian missionary and with very natural sympathies for his subject. His theory as to an organized delegation of four Nez Perce Indians to Saint Louis in 1831 in search of religious instruction can be assigned to such sympathy. The letters of Spalding, after his arrival among the Nez Perces, are entirely silent as to any such Indian delegation, and the records of the Hudson's Bay Company apparently show that Spokane Garry did not return to his tribe until 1832.

Some errors in names and references are incidental and not vital. Some titles mentioned in the bibliography are worthless as authority.