The Oregon Trail: How Christianity Carved a New Path West

Oregon. Washington. Idaho. Parts of Montana and Wyoming.

It’s nearly 300,000 acres of majestic, rugged land known as the Oregon Territory, a part of the larger Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The infamous Oregon Trail snakes through this vast estate, connecting the Great Plains to the Pacific Ocean. Thousands of westward wagons once traveled its corridors and canyons, leaving behind etchings, belongings, and graves. Today it’s scored by interstates and roads, towns and cities.

But who started the trail? And for what reason?

The Oregon Trail story originates with four Indians—two Flathead and two Nez Perce—who traveled over two thousand miles to visit “their great father” William C. Clark. The famed explorers Meriwether Lewis and Clark encountered the Nez Perce and Flathead Indians in their crossing of the Bitterroot mountains on their way to the Pacific Ocean in 1805. In 1831, Clark was the governor of the Missouri territory and an agent to the Indians, handling disputes, relationships, conflicts and other questions.

That’s why these four natives came to faraway St. Louis to meet with Clark.

The Indians wanted to understand more about the “book to Heaven” that allowed people to “live forever with the Great Spirit.”

Unfortunately, their journey to visit Clark was not easy. They all got sick along the way. One died prior to arrival.

At this point, there are a varying accounts of what happened next. This is one of them.

The remaining three Indians found Clark at his home. Upon learning of their quest, Clark kindly gave them a tour of town and showed them a cathedral…but offered no answers. When two more Indians died, the remaining chief desperately pled Clark for insight. Don’t send us back “blind…broken and empty,” he begged. A young man overheard this Indian’s request to Clark, wrote his words and mailed it back east to a friend. The friend shared the request with another friend. And then another. Eventually the Indian request was published as an article titled “Wise Men from the West” for the Christian Advocate journal (March 1833).

The story inspired eastern Christian churches. Who would go West to teach the natives interested in Christianity?

America, at the time, was in its “Second Great Awakening.” A period of great religious revival and fervor that spread like a wildfire across the young nation. Churches were full. Revivals were popular. Fresh forms of “non-denominational Christianity” and “restoration movements” (to restore ancient Christianity) were finding root. The Methodist church, thanks to its promotion of a program called “Sunday School”–that taught kids how to read and write through using the Bible–was particularly influential.

Consequently, when this article about Indians in the western frontier was published it caught the attention of those looking to do missionary work. One of those men was a Methodist named Jason Lee, who traveled West to Oregon to eventually build a mission near Salem.

A New York physician named Marcus Whitman was another inspired missionary…and he was ready.

From his youth, Marcus wanted to be a clergy man. However, the schooling was too expensive and so he settled upon medicine. Nevertheless, Whitman hungered for the adventures of mission work. Consequently, in 1835, he traveled with Henry Spalding to Montana and Idaho to scope out the situation. The missionaries purposely visited the Flathead and Nez Perce tribes. From their efforts, some Indians converted to Christianity. The Nez Perce invited the men to live among them and they promised to return.

Meanwhile another New Yorker in the east was equally excited about the news out West.

Narcissa Prentiss was also a product of the Second Great Awakening.

All her life she felt called to mission work and attended Franklin Academy in Pittsburgh to prepare for the vocation. Then she met Marcus in 1835, after his return from the West. His convictions and stories inspired Narcissa. Their common interest in mission work led to marriage on February 18, 1836.

A month later Marcus and his new bride Narcissa headed West.

This time they blazed a new trail deep into the Oregon Territory along with Henry and Eliza Spalding. Narcissa and Eliza became the first white women to travel west of the Rocky Mountains,…and Narcissa kept a journal of her experiences. Once in Oregon country, the Whitmans opted to split from the Spaldings to establish a mission north in Walla Walla, WA. Instead of the Nez Perce, the Whitmans worked among the Cayuse (who had never met them, never invited them to their land and were surprised they stayed). The Spaldings moved north to establish a mission among the Nez Perce.

For the next decade the Whitmans lived, worked, and churched among the Cayuse tribes of eastern Washington.

They proved the perfect power missionary couple. As a teacher, Narcissa taught the Cayuse how to read and write. Meanwhile Marcus tended to their health, treating wounds, disease, and aging. Through their Christian service, the Whitmans evangelized a few Cayuse, but generally found the work difficult, exhausting and bearing little fruit.

In time, some of the Cayuse grew suspicious of the Whitmans–particularly Narcissa–when she limited access to particular rooms at their mission. Narcissa was tired of the fleas the Indians carried and did not want them inside the bedrooms. The Cayuse viewed her behavior as inhospitable.

In 1842, Marcus returned east to raise funds for his mission.

Christianity was spreading, Whitman preached, and there was great need for additional Christians to teach, lead, serve and comfort. The idea proved unpopular. Most easterners viewed settling the Oregon Territory as pointless. It was desolate, worthless…and few cared about the Indian. One southern senator chortled he “would not give a pinch of snuff for the whole territory.”

But Marcus was not deterred. Whitman recruited a group of “Christian soldiers”–over 200 wagons and several hundred people strong–to head back to Oregon along the path he had charted in 1836.

The “Oregon Trail” was born.

Soon their western route (and news of fertile land in the Willamette Valley [Portland, OR]) inspired additional wagon trains to form and follow. Many were also filled with missionaries.

The Whitmans continued to work among the Cayuse…but now saw a greater need to serve the emigrant. The hazards of the Trail killed one out of every ten emigrants. The number on killer was disease (small pox, measles, cholera). Consequently, once wagon trains crossed the Blue Mountains there were many families that had lost a parent. Some had lost both.

Consequently, the Whitmans opened their mission and established a home and school for widows and orphans. 

This shift in focus from the Indian to the emigrant didn’t sit well with the Cayuse. Their homeland was filling up with white people, many who came not to serve the Indians but to start a new life on a patch of ground in Oregon. The Cayuse were slowly being pushed out of their native lands…and began to despise the Whitman Mission. It was a symbol of white aggression.

Nevertheless, it didn’t take long for gold-seekers, outlaws, frontiersmen, gamblers, and politicians with greed (not God) on their minds to spark problems.

Skirmishes between the Indian and white emigrants increased. Disease continued to spread among the Indians. Lacking immunity, these deadly viruses spread quickly, with lethal results.

In 1847 a measles epidemic spread through the area, infecting both the white and Indian.

Marcus Whitman, at great risk to his own health, doctored both the infected white and Indian. While he had some success with the whites, many of the sick Indians died from the disease.

The Cayuse tribe–and their chief named Tiloukaikt–grew suspicious and angry. Their tribe, especially the children, had been decimated by measles and they blamed the “medicine man” Whitman. Some even spread false rumors that he intentionally infected the Cayuse to exterminate them According to Cayuse tradition, Whitman was a “healer who couldn’t heal” and needed to be eliminated.

On November 29, 1847, a band of Cayuse warriors massacred Marcus and Narcissa Whitman along with eleven other settlers.

The Cayuse then torched the buildings, destroyed property, and kidnapped dozens of women and children–holding them hostage for a month. This event sparked a manhunt and a wider conflict known as the Cayuse War (1847-1855). Eventually five Cayuse confessed to the crime and were tried, convicted and hung in Oregon City (1850).

But while the Whitman mission was gone, their legacy was not.

Twelve years later, a seminary to train ministers was established in Marcus’ name. Today that college still exists as Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA. In his youth Marcus dreamed of becoming a clergyman but family and money dissuaded him. Instead, he apprenticed medicine for two years to become a doctor. God used Marcus’ medical skills and Narcissa’s teaching abilities to serve the Indian. And while there are differing interpretations on the motives, methods and success of their mission, one thing cannot be denied.

Christianity is why the Oregon Trail was pioneered.

It wasn’t carved by gold seekers, outlaws or easterners seeking new land as much as by an army of Christians committed to serve, teach and nurse the natives. They came to settle Oregon and Washington for God.

Many modern western histories miss this religious element. And too many historians blame all white men for atrocities against the Indian, but these claims lack merit. In reality, the West was also settled by Christians who came not for gold, land, power, or escape…but rather to selflessly evangelize, minister, and educate those in need…and that included the Indian. From Jason Lee’s Methodist mission in the Willamette valley to Catholic missions like St. Ignatius in Montana, the mountain and Pacific Northwest was largely populated, from the beginning, by Christians sent to serve.

But even the Cayuse couldn’t murder the Whitman cause completely.

A half century after the Cayuse burned down the Whitman mission, a remnant of Christian Cayuse invited another white missionary to come to their lands. His name was Jimmy Cornelison and this diminutive missionary proved popular. The Cayuse adored the short pastor–nicknaming him “Little White Man.” Hundreds of people–Indian and white–converted to Christianity as a result of his long ministry in the Pendleton, OR area. To this day the work of Cornelison can be seen in the disciples he left behind.

In 1923, President Warren G. Harding summarized this first emigrant expedition:

“Never in the history of the world has there been a finer example of civilization following Christianity. The missionaries led under the banner of the cross, and the settlers moved close behind under the star-spangled symbol of the nation.”

Harding’s words certainly reflect the greater western myth of “manifest destiny” that many historians now denounce. However, the genesis of the Oregon Trail cannot be denied.

The origin story, even with its variations involving William Clark, sparked a missionary movement to the West.

As Henry David Thoreau penned, “Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free.“.

 

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SOURCES:

1. Warren G. Harding’s “Address in Meacham, Oregon” on July 3, 1923: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/address-meacham-oregon
2. How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon by Oliver W. Nixon, M.D., LL.D. (Chicago: Star Publishing Company (1895). Available for download at Google books.
3. Marcus Whitman: Pathfinder and Patriot by Rev. Myron Eells, D.D. (Seatte: The Alice Harriman Company (1909). Available for download at Google books.
4. Transactions of the 19th Annual Reunion of the Oregon Pioneer Association (Portland, OR: A. Anderson & Co), 1893. Contains the complete journal of Narcissa Whitman. Available for download at Google books.
5. The Oregon Missions by James W. Bashford (New York: Abingdon Press, 1918). Available for download at Google books.
6. Little White Man by Rick Steber (Bonanza Publishing, 2017).