Paul & Tara Visit the National Parks: October 2025

Visited: May 2024

Nearby city: Walla Walla, WA

On November 29, 1847, tensions between a Christian missionary and the Cayuse tribe erupted in a shocking act of violence that negatively impacted US-Native American relations in the Pacific Northwest for generations.

For hundreds of years, the Cayuse peoples lived on the Columbia Plateau along the Snake River in what is now southeastern Washington. Starting in the late 18th century, the Cayuse interacted and traded with fur trappers/mountain men from France, Britain, and eventually, the United States. Lewis and Clark passed through the area on their celebrated expedition to the Pacific Ocean.

In 1835, Samuel Parker, the famous Presbyterian minister and missionary, traveled throughout the region to scout potential locations for missions to convert Native Americans to Christianity. Accompanying him was a Marcus Whitman of New York. Whitman had aspirations to become a minister, but was unable to afford the schooling. Whitman studied medicine instead, and practiced medicine in Canada for a few years before traveling west with Parker.

Parker and Whitman met with the Cayuse tribe and negotiated the building of a mission on Cayuse lands known as Waiilatpu (meaning "place of the rye grass"), about six miles west from the site of the present-day city of Walla Walla. In exchange for allowing the mission to be built on Cayuse land, Parker promised that, each year, the mission would receive a large shipment of goods, a portion of which would then be given to the tribe at no cost. Additionally, Whitman would teach the Cayuse tribe agricultural techniques, cultivation, and the Christian faith.

A year later, in 1836, Whitman returned to the area with his wife, Narcissa Prentiss Whitman, a teacher from Plattsburgh, New York, and they built the mission. They traveled west with two other Presbyterian missionaries, Henry and Eliza Spalding, who settled a mission among the Nez Perce tribe near what is now the city of Lewiston, Idaho. Narcissa and Eliza were likely the first Anglo-American women to travel to the Pacific Northwest overland.

The missions consisted of two homes, a gristmill, and a blacksmith shop. None of the original buildings are standing today, but their footprints are still visible.

Relations between the Whitmans and the Cayuse tribe became rocky almost immediately. An economic downturn in the fur trade led to much less supplies delivered to the mission as Parker had originally promised. The Cayuse tribe's requests for payment in exchange for materials used to construct the mission and the missionaries use of land were rebuffed by Whitman.

The Cayuse found Marcus and Narcissa to be haughty and unwelcoming. The Whitmans would not allow the Cayuse to attend worship services in the mission. As Narcissa wrote:

"[The Natives] are so filthy they make a great deal of cleaning wherever they go. We could not have them worship there for they would make it so dirty and fill it so full of fleas that we could not live in it. We have come to elevate them and not to suffer ourselves to sink down to their standard."

-Narcissa Whitman, in a letter to a Mrs. H.K.W. Perkins, May 2, 1840

Marcus also objected to the Cayuse's practicing of mixing their indigenous beliefs with Christianity. Eventually, Marcus felt that any further proselytizing was hopeless and wrote to a Rev. Greene on October 15, 1840 that the Cayuse were in a "lost, ruined, and condemned state" and that he did not believe that any amount of worshipping would "save" them.

An 1841 incident, in which horses belonging to a Cayuse chief destroyed Whitman's maize crop, further exacerbated tensions.

Relations continued to deteriorate when the Whitman mission became a popular stop along the Oregon Trail from 1843-1847. Thousands of settlers heading to the Willamette Valley stopped to rest at the mission on their journey further west. Marcus would sell wheat and other goods to the passing immigrants, gestures he would not extend to the Cayuse. The Whitmans opened their home to the pioneers, with some staying for extended period of times, or even settling on Cayuse lands. These encroachments led the Cayuse to greatly distrust the Whitmans and the ever growing number of settlers.

the Oregon Trail passed through the mission site

Things came to a breaking point in autumn of 1847, when a measles outbreak decimated the region. Marcus, as a doctor, treated both settlers and the Cayuse for the disease, but the Cayuse (who had never been previously exposed to measles and therefore, did not have natural immunity) succumbed to the disease at a much higher rate than the white settlers. This led to rumors among the tribes that Marcus was deliberately poisoning the Cayuse. The tribe's laws and customs called for the slaying of a medicine man who gave bad medicine.

On November 29, 1847, a group of Cayuse men ambushed Marcus at the mission, killing him. A young Mary Ann Bridger (daughter of famed mountain man Jim Bridger) survived the attack. She later recounted that the Cayuse lured Marcus out of the mission by asking for medicine. As Marcus was distracted, a Cayuse struck him in the head from behind with a hatchet. Other Cayuse men waiting outside then rushed the mission and other outbuildings, attacking men and boys who were working at the shop and in the fields. In all, fourteen settlers were killed by the Cayuse that day: Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, 11 other adults, and one child.

The Cayuse took 54 settlers (who were residing at the mission at the time) captive and held them for ransom. The Cayuse held them prisoner for one month (some of the prisoners died in captivity, most from measles or other illness). On December 29, Peter Skene Ogden, a high-ranking official of the Hudson's Bay Company, arranged an exchange of blankets, shirts, handkerchiefs, rifles, ammunition, and tobacco for the return of the 49 remaining prisoners.

As news of the incident (dubbed the "Whitman massacre") spread, shocked settlers in the Willamette Valley sought protection from the federal government. Although the US had settled its disputed claim over the region with Great Britain a few years prior, the US government had no official presence or jurisdiction in the area. That quickly changed in light of the events, and Congress officially organized the Oregon Territory on August 14, 1848.

The large territory covered the entirety of the present-day states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and portions of Montana and Wyoming. The territorial Governor and provisional legislature immediately authorized the raising of companies of volunteers to fight the Cayuse. These militias were later joined by the regular US Army and they waged war against the Cayuse. Many Cayuse fled and hid in the Blue Mountains south of the mission.

In 1850, two Cayuse chiefs (Tiloukaikt and Tomahas), who had been present at the attack, and three other Cayuse men consented to go to Oregon City (the capital of the territory) to be tried for the murder of Marcus Whitman. After a two-day trial, all five men (referred to as "The Cayuse Five") were found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. The Cayuse Five were executed on June 3, 1850. It is reported that Tomahas' final words were: "Much like your savior Jesus Christ gave himself to you, we are giving ourselves up for our people in order to stop the war."

The Cayuse War would continue for another five years when finally, in 1855, the Cayuse surrendered and signed the Treaty of Walla Walla. The Cayuse ceded their ancestral homeland and agreed to move to a reservation shared with the Umatilla and Walla Walla tribes near the present-day town of Pendleton, Oregon. Approximately 300 Cayuse peoples live in or near the reservation to this day.

In the decades that followed their deaths, the Whitmans were venerated by Anglo-Americans as martyrs. The incident was used by the government to justify policies of manifest destiny and military hostilities against Native Americans Tribes throughout the American West for the rest of the 19th century.

Stop at the Visitor Center to learn about these events and watch the interpretive video. Take your time as you walk the grounds (about a 2-mile walk).

an obelisk was placed on the hill overlooking the mission on the 50th anniversary of the incident, November 27, 1897. Seven of the survivors attended the ceremony.