“The liberal arts school was named after 19th Presbyterian missionaries named Whitman who were killed by Cayuse Indians enraged by measles inadvertently spread by newly arrived settlers. There are no plans evidently to rename Whitman, which was originally founded as a Congregationalist seminary but long since has shed any church affiliation.”

Whitman College in Washington state is abandoning its supposedly “divisive” and imperialistic “Missionaries” mascot in favor of a more “inclusive” successor, at the recommendation of its “Mascot Working Group.” Another “working group” will nominate that successor, subject to ratification by the “college community.”

The liberal arts school was named after 19th Presbyterian missionaries named Whitman who were killed by Cayuse Indians enraged by measles inadvertently spread by newly arrived settlers. There are no plans evidently to rename Whitman, which was originally founded as a Congregationalist seminary but long since has shed any church affiliation.

According to the Mascot Working Group, the Missionaries “can be interpreted as honoring the imperialistic policies and actions of the western movement in North America in the 19th and early 20th centuries.” The Group also fretted the mascot “implies an inappropriate association with the Christian church” and “that ‘missionaries’ has religious imagery that is not appropriate for a secular college,” even scaring off “highly qualified potential applicants.”

Additionally, the Missionaries were deemed “offensive to members of Native American cultures whose ancestors were the victims of that movement.”

In the same spirit, Whitman’s school newspaper, The Pioneer, is also name changing, no longer wanting to celebrate the “arrival of white invaders” or “settler-colonialism and white supremacy,” preferring instead to serve a “diverse, tolerant and curious community.” How likely will politically correct Whitman truly seek to be “diverse, tolerant and curious?”

The original Missionaries themselves seem to have been sacrificial, brave, earnest, flawed but well-meaning people. Marcus and Narcissa Whitman opened their mission to the Cayuse in the 1830s. As a doctor, he offered medical help. As a teacher, she taught children. Their own only child drowned. Narcissa went blind. Their evangelism wasn’t well received, and reportedly the tribe thought their ways “haughty.” In later years the Whitmans focused more on arriving settlers, and they took in 11 orphans of immigrants, adopting 7 German siblings. Husband and wife helped both Indians and whites during the epidemic, but were among 14 pioneers killed in 1847 by Cayuse warriors, several of whom would later hang, including a chief. Also among the dead were two of the adopted children, with three more dying in Cayuse captivity. A statue of Marcus Whitman represents Washington state in the U.S. Capitol.

It’ll be interesting to see whom or what the college named for the Whitmans chooses as its new “inclusive” mascot. Under current academic political correctness, in which all are divided into different competing racial and gender grievance groups, what exactly is unifying except condemnation of the purported “oppressor?”

The poor Whitmans doubtless made their mistakes but they tried to help people of different races, at the sacrifice of their family and own lives. Non-Christian and non-religious people can appreciate that missionaries like the Whitmans elevated humanity with education and medical care, transmitting a humane ethos based in a God who cares about all people.

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