Posted on 06/03/2024 2:01:22 PM PDT by CheshireTheCat
On this date in 1850, five Cayuse were publicly executed in Oregon City for the Whitman Massacre.
Beginning in earnest in the 1830s, Anglo settlement in the Oregon Country presented for the native inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest the same Hobson’s choice that had confronted tribes further east long before: resist or accommodate.
The New York-born couple Marcus and Narcissa Whitman* were two of the most notable figures among the hundreds, and then thousands, of settlers pouring into the territory every year. In 1836, they founded on the banks of the Walla Walla River a Christian mission to the nomadic Cayuse who roamed the territory. It’s in present-day Washington State, which was then part (with the current U.S. states of Oregon and Idaho) of a single frontier territory collectively known as Oregon.
The Whitmans’ early settlement, offering medicine, education, and (of course) proselytizing, proved a success at first; it would become for several years a waypoint on the developing Oregon Trail....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
Interesting. I was born in Whitman county, Washington. It’s nowhere near Oregon City so I don’t know where the Whitmans actually lived.
I also lived in Oregon City, OR when I was a year older, so that makes it even more interesting
My GG grandparents arrived in Uniontown WA by wagon train in 1867.
The winners write the history, the Injuns waited too long to unite and fight. THAT should be the lesson for MAGA supporters today.
Keep hoping and waiting, and WE ALL will be hanging, or languishing in dank dark cells.
The mission was in Walla Walla, WA. There is a National Historic Site (park/museum) at the site.
A nice place to visit if you are in Walla Walla. We checked out some other local museums too. I was born in Seattle but never knew that Walla Walla was a bigger deal than Seattle for a long time.
https://www.nps.gov/whmi/index.htm
Walla Walla: the town so nice they named it twice
I have read about the Whitman massacre. A book I have(MASSACRES OF THE MOUNTAINS by Dunn Jr) tries to bring in the Catholic Church priests as part of the plot to drive the Whitmans out of the area as both Canada and the US claimed it. One Hudson Bay trading post operator resigned his position when he received orders not to sell to the Whitmans, believing it was unjust to leave them without supplies. There is a lot never told about such things and I will leave it at that. Look it up for yourself.
My wife and I took a three-day wine tasting trip to Walla Walla, WA in March this year that was a lot of fun. We were celebrating her birthday.
We were strolling around downtown Walla Walla looking for a place to eat and stopped into the Whitman Hotel and ate at the restaurant there. It had just undergone an expensive remodel and we among the first diners during its first week after reopening. The chef is fantastic. Great meal.
It was the name of the hotel that intrigued me, so I looked up "Whitman" and learned about the Whitmans. The Whitman Mission National Historic Site where they were massacred by the Cayuse Indians is just west of Walla Walla.
Wiki -->
On November 29, 1847, Dr. Marcus Whitman, his wife Narcissa Whitman, and 11 others were slain by Native Americans of the Cayuse. The mission site commemorates the Whitmans, their role in establishing the Oregon Trail, and the challenges encountered when two cultures meet.BTW, "The Palouse" is spectacular in early spring with the winter wheat coming up...In 1836, a small group of Presbyterian missionaries traveled with the annual fur trapper's caravan into Oregon Country. Among the group, Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Hart Spalding became the first white women to travel across the continent.
A measles outbreak in November 1847 killed half the local Cayuse. The measles also broke out in the Mission but more white settlers survived. Some of the Cayuse blamed the devastation of their tribe on Dr. Whitman and Mrs. Whitman. They were killed along with eleven others; forty-seven other mission residents were taken hostage. The deaths of the Whitmans shocked the country, prompting Congress to make Oregon a U.S. territory, and precipitated the Cayuse War. Five Cayuse were hanged for murder; see Cayuse Five.
The Cayuse were a long ways from the Apaches.
In 1845, a trapper / guide named Steven Meeks led a group of pioneers away from the main Oregon Trail. He claimed to know of a shortcut with good game and water and it would avoid the Cayuse Indians. It went into the high desert of Oregon and the party suffered severe privations, lack of food, and lack of water. A number of them perished.
A very good movie titled "Meek's Cutoff" chronicles the party that Meek led. It's an interesting study of leadership in difficult conditions. Quite a few members of the Meek group figured out he was a humbug and really didn't know the country.
The movie strives to recreate life on the trail and has minimal dialog at first and little background music. It may not be for everybody, but I really enjoyed it.
??? that’s a Cayuse...
All five Cayuse Indians were condemned in the end, and executed by prominent early pioneer and lawman Joe Meek. Joe was the younger brother of Stephen Meek who I wrote about.
Among the dead was Meek’s daughter by his first wife, Helen Mar Meek, age 10, who died in captivity. Meek traveled to Washington, D.C., with the news of the killings (known as the Whitman massacre) and the ensuing Cayuse War. Leaving in early January 1848, Joseph Meek, George W. Ebbert, and John Owens made the difficult winter trip, arriving in Saint Joseph, Missouri on May 4, 1848 and proceeding to Washington by steamboat and rail.So Stephen Meek lost his niece to the Cayuse when she was being held hostage and his brother, Joe Meek, supervised the execution of the indians who had taken Joe's daughter captive.While in Washington, where he met with President James K. Polk (whose wife Sarah Childress Polk, was Meek's cousin), he argued forcefully for making the Oregon Country a federal territory. The following spring, Joseph Lane was appointed Territorial Governor and Meek was made Territorial Federal Marshal. Meek served as Territorial Marshal for five years. In 1850 as Marshal, he supervised the execution of five Cayuse Indians found guilty of the Whitman massacre.
I had no idea there was a Cayuse helo!
all army helicopters are names after Indian tribes...
When I was a kid, we had a book of stories about the early days of the Oregon Territory. One of the stories was about the Whitman massacre. I wish I could remember the title of the book so I could reread it.
I was born in Colfax, but my family lived in Palouse. From there we moved to Oregon city, and two of my sisters were born there. And since both my parents were from Colorado we moved back there. But I graduated from high school in Mount Vernon Washington and went to college in Ellensburg.
I believe there’s a Christian College named Whitman College as well somewhere over there, Spokane I think.
I’m surprised that the mission was in Walla Walla. I was thinking it would be south of the Spokane area, since that is where Whitman County is.
If I ever make it to Walla Walla again, I will have to visit.
Yep, Whitman College is just north of Spokane. Very pretty campus. We know a few kids who have graduated from there.
What are Anglos? Aren't they also called honkies and crackers?
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