Asa Shinn Mercer: Western Promoter and Newspaperman, 1839-1917 by Lawrence M. Woods

people began to suspect thattheypossessed only thepower toharm. By 1847, when the Whitman killings forcedmost missions to close, Plateau Indians had largelyrejectedChristianity. Cebula passes on theopportunity to extend his analysis into the reservation period ? a time of significantmissionary activity ? and readers familiar with Prophetic Worlds will find few surprises inhis narrative. He tells the storywell, however, and adds some important insightsof his own. In addition to incorporat ingmaterial on the Jesuits,he challenges the idea (introduced by anthropologist Leslie Spier and accepted byMiller) that Plateau Indians perceived the firstEuropeans as supernatural beings. On the contrary,Cebula reveals,Native people had extensive intelligence concerning the arrival ofwhites and regarded them "not as spiritsormessengers from the spiritworld, but asmen like themselves, though important and powerful" (p. 50). Thus, he injects ameasure of rationality into the extreme ideological position takenbyMiller while also anticipating some of Colin Calloway's recent work inOne VastWinter Count: The Native American West beforeLewis and Clark (2003). Plateau society had changed substantiallyby 1805,and thepeople who greeted the explorers "knew far more about Europeans than any European knew of them" (p. 44). Plateau Indians and theQuest for Spiritual Powerwill not settle thedebate between idealist andmaterialist views ofNative behavior. It isan accessible contribution to the literature,though, and itwould make a useful supplemental text incourses on Northwest, Native American, and religious history. Asa ShinnMercer: Western Promoter andNewspaperman, 1839-1917 By Lawrence M. Woods Arthur H. Clark, Spokane, Wash., 2003. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. 238 pages, $32.50 cloth. Reviewed by Floyd J. McKay Western Washington University,Bellingham MERCER ISA FAMILIARNAME in thePuget Sound region,butmost appearances of thenames can be traced toAsa ShinnMercer's older brothers, Thomas and Aaron. Asa spent some of his early years in Seattle, where he claimed (in somewhat of an exaggeration, ac cording to LawrenceWoods) to have been the firstpresident of theUniversity of Washington, but he left more of a mark in other regions, primarilyTexas and Wyoming, his last two states of residence. Newspaper editors on thewestern frontier were usually hustlers, willing to slant theirstories in order to promote a cause, a political party, or, frequently, themselves. Mercer was no exception, and his newspapers inOregon, Texas, andWyo ming were openly associated with causes and organizations generally related to agriculture. In thePacificNorthwest,Mercer's most no table effort was the recruitment and transport ofyoung women ("Mercer's Belles") fromNew England to provide mates for male pioneers in thePuget Sound region.Along theway,Mercer hustled Secretaryof War U.S. Grant forshipping, got support fromEdward EverettHale, forged a contract of convenience with Ben Holladay, and tangledwith theformidable feministorator Anna Dickinson ? quite remarkable forsome one well short of his thirtiethbirthday. Mercer's brief stay inOregon (1867-1876) was marked by his indictment for smuggling liquor fromCanada while he was a U.S. Cus 330 OHQ vol. 105, no. 2 toms Service collector (the chargewas dropped afterfourhung juries) and his founding of the Oregon Granger inAlbany in 1873.The Granger found a niche market among members of the agrarian organization, but its focus was too narrow tobe profitable andMercer sold itafter less than a year. The Granger and the "Mercer's Belles" ex pedition showMercer as a truepromoter, brash and opportunistic, using whatever contacts he couldmake topush his project one step further, usually in an unsuccessful attempt tomake a fortune. Woods, relating Mercer's many careers and promotions, concludes: "The listboggles the mind, and theunlikelihood of itallmounts up when one considers that these experiences weremostly financed by others'money" (p.225). Along theway,Mercer was? inaddition tohis editing, teaching, and customs work? a ship salvager, surveyor, tobacco farmer, immigration promoter, and cattle rancher. Mercer's history in theNorthwest was a prelude to his most significant contributions, as a pioneer newspaperman and promoter in Texas andWyoming, which were stillwild and open country inthe lastdecade of thenineteenth century.The Texas andWyoming years, from 1878until his death in 1917at age seventy-eight, put him in the middle of an untamed and often violent region as the frontier closed. Mercer published four small weeklies in Texas cattle country, conveniently switching his longtime Republican registrationtoDemocratic tofit into thepredominant politics of thenew state.Texas was beginning toboom, and newspapers seemed to spring from every tinyhamlet. In...

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