studying Oregon's history and the catholic ladder and protestant ladder

I wanted to do more, however, to understand what the Catholic and Protestant Ladders were. I knew they were visual teaching tools to bring the Gospel to the Native Americans, but the pictures on the Oregon History Project web page really don't explain them in enough detail. So, I had to search further. Here is what I found.*

[The best easily-accessible recent treatment of the ladders is in Albert Furtwangler's 2005 book Bringing Indians to the Book, 138-147.]

The Catholic Ladder--1842

Apparently Blanchet's Catholic Ladder went through some iterations, since the photo on the OHP's web page doesn't comport fully with the following photo, found online here. This Ladder was found at Fort Nisqually and was originally in the possession of Mr. Edward Huggins, the last Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company Post when it was transferred to the US. Let's see if I can reproduce it here.

Interpreting the Catholic Ladder

This ladder represents what theologians would call "salvation history." Though there are certain pictorial representations along the side, it mostly consists of bars and dots, as you can see. The explanations on the left and right of the Ladder are no doubt added later but the images are usually rather straightforward. Let's see if we can "read" the Ladder. We smile with the literalness of the Ladder. At the bottom are a series of circles representing, probably, the sun, moon and stars (and not "Heaven" or "Angels" as someone has typed in). On the left are two lines, one of which represents Adam and one is Eve, supplemented by a small sprig of a branch (representing the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil) and a figure at the left, which is, no doubt, the serpent. We go up the Ladder and see three lines on the left, representing the three children of Adam and Eve. Adam dies when Enoch, a righteous man, is alive.

Time does not permit a full exposition of this Ladder, but I want to focus on two things: (1) what "moves" the Ladder along historically and (2) a few interesting ideas or events that are noted on the Ladder. (1). Each horizontal line represents a century, and the centuries are grouped in bundles of 10 lines (a millennium). Four millennia there were, in the literal reading of the Bible, from Adam to Christ. Then, the 33 dots above the 40 lines represent the 33 years of Christ's life. Note that the dates are not "drawn to scale." After the crucifixion we resume the horizontal lines, which now represent centuries of the history of the Christian Church. Note that a branch goes off from the 16th line, which then withers. What is it? Of course, this is a Catholic's depiction of "withered" Protestantism, even if Blanchet had gotten the wrong century for the Reformation (it was in the 16th century--i.e., the 15th line). Nevertheless, we get to the 18th line (1800) and then there are 42 dots, each representing a year of the 19th century, up until 1842, when the Ladder was made. Off to the left are two vertical lines, representing the two Catholic missionaries who are hard at work with the Indians. Thus, the meeting on the Cowlitz prairie in 1842 is linked in this simple diagram all the way to the creation of the world. Pretty imaginative, I would say.

(2). Time would fail to discuss what Blanchet puts in and what he excludes from the history of the Church, and such a task really isn't very necessary. I find it interesting that he puts in "Anna and Joachim," whom no one really knows about. They were, according to legend, the parents of Joseph (father of Jesus), but they are not referred to in the Bible. Then, he includes, on the same line, St. Augustine of England (and not the big St Augustine--of Hippo) and St. Peter's in the Vatican. These two people/events were separated from each other by 1000 years or more, but Blanchet puts them on the same line. After all, the important things are NOW and BIBLICAL TIMES. Finally, the three Protestants are identified as Luther, Calvin and Henry VIII, a rather unusual triad, but I suppose they fit together in that they each spearheaded the Reformation in different lands.

Conclusion

So interesting was the Catholic Ladder that the Protestants felt they had to imitate the Catholics. The next essay moves to that subject, and then advances our discussion yet further into the early missions in Oregon.

1973