Missionaries Come to the Pacific Northwest

In 1831, two neighboring tribes west of the Rocky Mountains, the Nez Perce and the Flathead, sent a delegation of their tribesmen to St. Louis, Missouri to seek Captain Clark (of the Corps of Discovery - Lewis & Clark Expedition) and technology. Their desires were misinterpreted, and it was believed that they were seeking religion. Their understanding of Christianity was slight, but perhaps they equated it with the power and technology they saw among the Euro-Americans. Word spread quickly about these visitors from the west and within a matter of a few years missionaries were on their way to the Oregon Country.

This call from the West was immediately heard by various churches in the United States. Several missionary organizations became active in finding men and women to send to the Pacific Northwest as missionaries. Among them were the Missions Society of the Methodist Church; the Roman Catholic Order of the Society of Jesus, and the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, then supported by the Presbyterian, Congregational, and Dutch Reformed Churches.

The first to respond was the Methodist's Mission Society. In 1834 Jason Lee and four associates joined the Wyeth Expedition and headed for the Northwest. Lee selected a site in the Willamette Valley, and a mission was established close to present-day Salem, Oregon. Reinforced by 13 new workers in 1836 and 50 more in 1838, the Methodists began to build missions at The Dalles, the Clatsop Plains, Fort Nisqually, the Falls of the Willamette, and Chemeketa--now Salem. Their work among these coastal tribes was not very successful. New diseases brought by the whites were fatal to these tribes, and consequently the number of Indians along the Willamette and lower valleys was rapidly declining.

As early as 1834 French Canadian employees of the Hudson's Bay Company had petitioned the Catholic Bishop in western Canada for priests. At first the Hudson's Bay Company refused to help priests come to the Oregon country, but in 1838 it agreed to transport Catholic missionaries across the Rocky Mountains provided that no missions were established south of the Columbia River. The Reverend Blanchet became the vicar-general of the new area. He was joined at Fort Vancouver by Father Modeste Demers. The restriction of where they could establish missions was eventually removed and Catholic missions sprung up throughout the Oregon country.

In 1836, Marcus Whitman and the Reverend Henry Spalding answered the call from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. They located their missions among the Cayuse Indian tribe (Waiilatpu, or Whitman Mission) and the Nez Perce tribe (Lapwai). For 11 years they worked among the Indians. Then, in 1847 the cultural differences became insurmountable. During a measles epidemic, the Whitman Mission ended in violence, also ending the other American Board missions in the Northwest.

As with the fur trade, and later Oregon Trail, the missions represented one aspect of American expansion into the West.

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Last modified on: January 31, 2004