Unsettled Ground Quotes

“These people who came west to “civilize” the heathen—what made them decide to do that? To me it’s completely irrational to go into somebody else’s country and try to tell them how to think, how to pray, how to live, how to raise their children. —Roberta Conner, director, Tamástslikt Cultural Institute”
― Cassandra Tate, Unsettled Ground: The Whitman Massacre and Its Shifting Legacy in the American West

“Retribution or Revenge?” Visitors are asked to ponder whether the attack was “justified legal retribution, an act of revenge, or some combination of both.”29”
― Cassandra Tate, Unsettled Ground: The Whitman Massacre and Its Shifting Legacy in the American West

“Glorifying the pioneers was a way to justify what had been done in the past and perhaps ease anxieties about the future—the solidity of stone and metal suggesting that the sons and daughters of the pioneers would continue to prevail.”
― Cassandra Tate, Unsettled Ground: The Whitman Massacre and Its Shifting Legacy in the American West

“It was a reminder that the past is a moving target, filtered through perspectives and values that change over time. Heroes and martyrs stand on shaky pedestals, even when, as in the case of Marcus Whitman, the pedestal is a seven-ton block of granite.”
― Cassandra Tate, Unsettled Ground: The Whitman Massacre and Its Shifting Legacy in the American West

“In those days, when Indians killed whites, it was a “massacre”; it was a “battle” when whites killed Indians.”
― Cassandra Tate, Unsettled Ground: The Whitman Massacre and Its Shifting Legacy in the American West