Cayuse People - History

History

The Cayuse Indians are a nomadic tribe that occupied territories at the heads of the Walla Walla, Umatilla, and Grande Ronde Rivers and from the Blue Mountains to the Deschutes River in Washington and Oregon. The tribe has always been closely associated with the neighboring Nez Percé and Walla Walla. They were considered linguistically independent. The Cayuse were known for their bravery and constant battles with the Snake and other smaller tribes. There were few pure-blood Cayuse left in 1851; intermarriage, largely with the neighboring Nez Percé, had become widespread enough that even the language was dissipating. In 1855, the Cayuse joined the treaty by which the Umatilla Indian Reservation was formed, and since that time have resided within the reservation's limits. Their number was officially reported as 404 in 1904; this number may be misleading, as a count in 1902 failed to discover a single pure-blooded Cayuse on the reservation and found the language almost extinct. The tribe gained wide notoriety in the early days of the white settlement of the territory. In 1838, a mission was established among the Cayuse by Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa, at a site about seven miles from the city of Walla Walla. In 1847, measles brought by a rapid influx of white settlers killed off a large part of the tribe, and the Cayuse were convinced the missionaries were the cause. This, along with growing animosity due to cultural differences, resulted in the Cayuse attacking the missionaries, murdering Whitman, his wife and thirteen others. They captured 54 women and children and held them for ransom. They also destroyed the mission. This attack began the Cayuse War. For one month three of the young girls were raped repeatedly, and the rest of the captives were forced to work and make clothing for the tribe. The hostages were released when the Hudson's Bay Company brokered an exchange of 62 blankets, 63 cotton shirts, 12 Hudson Bay rifles, 600 loads of ammunition, 7 pounds of tobacco and 12 flints for the return of the now 49 surviving prisoners. The Cayuse eventually lost the war and were forced to share a reservation with the Umatilla while the whites moved onto their land.