Oregon Missionaries

The Oregon missionaries were collectively the religious-minded pioneers who settled in the Oregon Country of North America starting in the 1830s with the intent of converting local Native Americans to Christianity. Such missionaries had an enormous influence on the early settlement of the region, establishing institutions that became the foundation of United States settlement of the Pacific Northwest.

In 1834, New York Methodist minister Jason Lee came to the Oregon Country as the first of these missionaries. The party was called the Wyeth-Lee Party as Lee had contracted with Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth, who was going on his second trading expedition, to accompany him. The party set out on April 28, 1834 with the fur caravan of Captain William Sublette, which included naturalists John Kirk Townsend and Thomas Nuttall. Lee built a mission school for Indians in the Willamette Valley at the site present-day Salem, Oregon. The school later became Willamette University, the oldest university on the West Coast.

In 1836, four Presbyterian ministers missionaries came to the Oregon Country to start another mission. This group was made up of Narcissa Whitman and her husband Marcus Whitman, a doctor, who were both from New York. Another couple, Henry Harmon Spalding (who had been jilted by Narcissa) and his wife Eliza were also part of the group. Narcissa and Eliza were the first white women to cross the Rocky Mountains.

The Whitmans reached the Walla Walla River on September 1, 1836 and founded a mission to the Cayuse Indians at Waiilatpu in the Walla Walla Valley, in present-day state of Washington. The Spaldings found a mission to the Nez Perce Indians at Lapwai in present-day Idaho.

The success in converting Native Americans to Christianity was varied. In some cases, the Indians were very suspicious of the missionaries, and this suspicion only increased when many of the Indians contracted disease, which they blamed on the presence of the missionaries.

Pioneer history of Oregon (1806–1890)

Topics	American Fur Company Columbian Exchange Executive Committee Ferries Hudson's Bay Company Oregon & California Railroad Oregon boundary dispute Oregon Country Oregon Lyceum Oregon missionaries Oregon Spectator Oregon Territory Oregon Trail Oregon Treaty Organic Laws Pacific Fur Company Provisional Government

Events	Astor Expedition Treaty of 1818 Russo-American Treaty Willamette Cattle Company Champoeg Meetings Star of Oregon Whitman massacre Cayuse War Donation Land Claim Act Holmes v. Ford Rogue River Wars Constitutional Convention Modoc War Great Gale of 1880

Places	Applegate Trail Albina Barlow Road Canemah Champoeg Elliott Cutoff Fort Astoria Fort Dalles Fort Vancouver Fort William French Prairie Linn City Meek Cutoff Methodist Mission Oregon City Oregon Institute Philip Foster Farm Thomas and Ruckle Road Tualatin Academy Whitman Mission Willamette Trading Post

People	George Abernethy Jesse Applegate Ira Babcock Sam Barlow François Blanchet Tabitha Brown Matthew Deady Abigail Scott Duniway Thomas Lamb Eliot Philip Foster Peter French Joseph Gale Cornelius Gilliam David Hill Chief Joseph Joseph Kellogg H.A.G. Lee Jason Lee David Thomas Lenox Asa Lovejoy John McLoughlin Joseph Meek Ezra Meeker James D. Miller John Minto Robert Newell Joel Palmer Osborne Russell Sager orphans Levi Scott Henry Spalding Elijah White Marcus Whitman Narcissa Whitman Geo. H. Williams Ewing Young William Vandevert

Transportation	Columbia Lot Whitcomb Canemah Colonel Wright Gazelle Oregon Steam Navigation Company

Oregon history	pre-Pioneer Pioneer

Famous quotes containing the words oregon and/or missionaries:

“The Oregon [matter] and the annexation of Texas are now all- important to the security and future peace and prosperity of our union, and I hope there are a sufficient number of pure American democrats to carry into effect the annexation of Texas and [extension of] our laws over Oregon. No temporizing policy or all is lost.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)

“It was very agreeable, as well as independent, thus lying in the open air, and the fire kept our uncovered extremities warm enough. The Jesuit missionaries used to say, that, in their journeys with the Indians in Canada, they lay on a bed which had never been shaken up since creation, unless by earthquakes.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)