01Biography
Marcus Whitman trained as a doctor in New York and went west in 1836 with his new wife, Narcissa, as a missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. They built a mission at Waiilatpu, in Cayuse country near present-day Walla Walla, Washington. When the Board ordered some of its Oregon missions closed, Whitman rode east in the winter of 1842 to 1843 and persuaded it to keep them open.
He traveled back with the great emigration of 1843, urged the families to keep their wagons past Fort Hall, and guided them as far as the Grande Ronde. After that the mission became a resting place for emigrants, and the Whitmans made little progress in converting the Cayuse.
02Why they matter
Helped guide the 1843 wagon train west of Fort Hall and made his mission a resting place for emigrants in Cayuse country.
03How they died
In 1847 measles swept through Cayuse country. Whitman's treatment seemed to help white patients far more than Cayuse ones, and many Cayuse died, especially children. Under Cayuse law a healer whose patients died could be held responsible, and Whitman had been warned. On November 29, 1847, a small group of Cayuse men killed him and Narcissa at the mission, and 11 more people were killed that day and in the days after.
04Legacy
The killings set off the Cayuse War and helped push Congress to create Oregon Territory in 1848. The story that his ride east 'saved Oregon' for the United States is a legend that historians disproved in 1901. The mission site is now Whitman Mission National Historic Site, where the park works with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation to tell the Cayuse side of the story.