The Columbia Region.—Through the influence of Catholic Caughnawaga and of some
of the employes of the Hudson's Bay Co., many individuals among the tribes of
the Columbia River, particularly Flatheads and
Nez Percé,
had adopted the principles and ceremonials of the Christian religion as
early as 1820, leading later to the request for missionaries, as already
noted. The first mission of the Columbia region was established in 1834 by
a party tinder Rev. Jason Lee, for the Methodists, on the east side of the Willamette at French Prairie, about
the present Oregon City, Oregon. In 1840 it was removed to Chemeketa, 10 miles
farther up the river. Other stations were established later at The Dalles of the
Columbia, Oregon, by Revs. Lee and Perkins, in 1838; near Pt Adams, at the mouth
of the Columbia, Oregon, by Rev. J. H. Frost, in 1841; and at Ft Nisqually on
Puget Sound, Washington, by Rev. J. P. Richmond in 1842. The tribes most directly
concerned at the four stations, respectively, were the Kalapuya, Wasco, Clatsop,
and Nisqualli, all in process of swift decline. For various reasons no
success attended the project. The children in the schools sickened and died;
one missionary after an other resigned and went home; and Lee, as
superintendent in charge, so far neglected his duties that in 1844 he was
deposed and the church board, after investigation, ordered the discontinuance
of the work, which had already cost a quarter of a million dollars. The Dalles
station was bought by the Presbyterians, who now entered the same field (see
Bancroft, Hist. Oregon., i, 1886).
In the fall of 1836 the Presbyterians, under the leadership of Rev. Marcus
Whitman, established their first mission in the Columbia region at Waiilatpu,
now Whitman, on Walla Walla River, south east Washington, in territory claimed by the Cayuse
tribe. The site had been selected by an advance agent, Rev. Samuel Parker, a few
months earlier. Rev. H. H. Spalding, of the same party, about the same time,
established a mission among the Nez Percé at Lapwai, on Clearwater
River, a few
miles above the present Lewiston, Idaho. Early in 1839 a second station was
begun among the Nez Percé at Kamiah, higher up the Clearwater, but was
discontinued in 1841. Revs. E. Walker and C. C. Eells established themselves at
Chemakane, north east Washington, on a lower branch of Spokane River, among the Spokan.
The Spokane, whose chief had been educated among the whites, proved friendly,
but from the very beginning the Cayuse and a considerable portion of the Nez
Percé maintained an insulting and hostile attitude, the Cayuse particularly
claiming that the missionaries were intruders upon their lands and were in
league with the immigrants to dispossess the Indians entirely. In consequence
the Kamiah station was soon abandoned. At Waiilatpu, the main station, Whitman
was more than once in danger of personal assault, the irritation of the Indians
constantly growing as the flood of immigrants increased. In consequence of the
continued opposition of the Cayuse and the Nez Percé, the mission board in 1842
ordered the abandonment of all the stations but Chemakane. Whitman then crossed
the mountains to New York to intercede for his mission, with some degree of
success, returning the next year to find his wife a refugee at one of the lower
settlements, in consequence of the burning of a part of the mission property by
the Cayuse, who were restrained from open war only by the attitude of the
Government agent and the Hudson's Bay Co.'s officers. In the summer of 1847 the
Cayuse and neighboring tribes were wasted by an epidemic of measles and fever
communicated by passing immigrant trains, all of which made Waiilatpu a
stopping point. Two hundred of the Cayuse died within a few weeks, while of the
Nez Percé the principal chief and 60 of his men fell victims. A rumor spread
among the Cayuse that Whitman had brought back the disease poison from the east
and unloosed it for their destruction. The danger became so imminent that,
actuated partly also by
the opposition of the mission board, he decided to abandon Waiilatpu and remove
to the former Methodist station at The Dalles, which he had already bought for
his own denomination. At the same time he began negotiations with the Catholics
for their purchase of Waiilatpu. Before the removal could be made, however, the
blow fell. On Nov. 29, 1849, the Cayuse attacked Waiilatpu mission, killed Dr
and Mrs Whitman and 7 others and plundered the mission property. Within a few
days thereafter, before the Indians dispersed to their camps, 4 others of the
mission force were killed, making 13 murdered, besides 2 children who died of
neglect, or 15 persons in all. The rest, chiefly women, were carried off as
prisoners and subjected to abuse until rescued by the effort of the Hudson's Bay
Co., a month later. The Catholic Bishop Brouillet, who was on his way from
below to confer with Whitman about the sale of the mission property, was one of
the first to learn of the massacre, and hastening forward was allowed to bury
the dead and then found opportunity to send warning to the Lapwai mission in
time for Spalding and his party to make their escape, some of them being
sheltered by friendly Nez Percé, although the mission buildings were plundered
by the hostiles. The Spokan chief, Garry, remained faithful and gave the people
at Chemakane mission a bodyguard for their protection until the danger was past.
As a result of the Indian war which followed the Presbyterian missions in the
Columbia region were abandoned. During the brief period that the station at
Kamiah had continued, the missionary Rev. Asa Smith had "reduced the Nez Percé
dialect to grammatical rules." In 1839 the Lapwai mission received a small
printing outfit with which Spalding and his assistants printed small primers,
hymns, and portions of scripture in the language of the tribe by the aid
of native interpreters. A Spokane primer of 1842, the joint work of Walker
and Fells, is said to have been the third book printed in the Columbia
River region.
As we have seen, the first Christian teaching among the tribes of the Columbia
region had come from the Catholic employees of the Hudson's Flay Co., through
whose efforts many of the Nez Percé, Flatheads, and others had voluntarily
adopted the Christian forms as early as 1820, and some years later sent
delegates to St Louis to stake requests for missionaries, to which the
Methodists were first to respond. In 1838 Father Francis Blanchet and Modeste
Demers arrived at Ft Vancouver, Washington, on the Columbia, from Montreal, to minister' particularly to the French employees of the
Hudson's Bay Co., having visited the various tribes farther up along the river en
route. In the next year St Francis Xavier mission was established by Blanchet on
the Cowlitz, in west Washington, and St Paul mission at the French settlement
on the lower Willamette, at Chainpoeg, Oregon, while Father J. B. Bolduc, afterward
the pioneer missionary on Vancouver Island, began. preaching to the tribes on Puget
sound. In 1841 the Jesuit de Smet had founded the mission of St Mary among the
Flatheads in west Montana (see Interior States), while a companion Jesuit, Father
Nicholas Point, established the Sacred Heart mission among the Coeur d'Alenes in
Idaho.
In 1844 de Smet brought out from Europe a number of Jesuits and several sisters
of the order of Notre Dame. Regular schools were started and the tribes on both
sides of the river as far up as the present Canadian boundary were included
within the scope of the work. In the meantime Blanchet had been made archbishop
of the Columbia territory and had brought out from Quebec 21 additional
recruits—Jesuits, secular priests, and sisters—with which reinforcements 6 other
missions were founded in rapid succession, viz: St Ignatius, St Francis Borgia,
and St Francis Regis, in Washington, among the Upper Pend d'Oreilles, Lower Pend
d'Oreilles, and Colvilles, respectively, with 3 others across the line in
British Columbia. Of these the first named was the principal station, in charge
of the Jesuit Fathers De Vos and Accolti. In the summer of 1847 Father N. C.
Pandosy and 3 others, the first Oblate fathers in this region, established a
mission at Ahtanam among the Yakima in east Washington; Father Pascal Ricard,
Oblate, founded St Joseph on the Sound near the present Olympia; and in October
of the same year, after some negotiation for the purchase of the Presbyterian
establishment under Whitman at Waiilatpu, Father John Brouillet arrived to start
a mission among the Cayuse. Hardly had he reached the nearest camp, however,
when the news came of the terrible Whitman massacre, and Bronillet was just in
time to bury the dead and send warning to the outlying stations, as already
detailed. The project of a mission among the Cayuse was in consequence
abandoned. In the next year the secular Fathers Rousseau and Mesplee founded a
station among the Wasco, at The Dalles of Columbia River, Oregon. Work was attempted
among the degenerate Chinook in 1851, but with little result. Father E. C. Chirouse,
best known for his later successful work at Tulalip school, began his labors
among the tribes of Puget Sound and the lower Columbia about the same period.
With the exception of the Wasco and Chinook, these missions, or their
successors, are still in existence, numbering among their adherents the
majority of the Christian Indians of Washington and south
Idaho. At the Tulalip school 'The Youth's Companion,' a small journal in the
Indian language, set up and printed by the Indian boys, was begun in 1881 and
con-ducted for some years. Father Louis Saintonge, for some years with the
Yakima and Tulalip missions, is the author of several important linguistic
contributions to the
Chinook jargon and the Yakima language. Father Pandosy also
is the author of a brief 'Grammar and Dictionary' of the Yakima.
