The Protestant Mission to the Oregon Territory
Bill Long 7/28/06
Introduction
This and the next few essays provide a crucial primary text not elsewhere available on the Internet as well as my interpretive comments regarding the beginning of the Protestant Missions to the territory explored first by Lewis & Clark in 1805-1806. A recent book by a Scholar in Residence at my own university (whom I, regrettably, have not met) helped set the stage for these comments. I am indebted, thus, to Albert Furtwangler's 2005 Bringing Indians to the Book (U of WA Press), for sorting through some of the primary documents, even if my emphasis might differ from his.
Setting the Stage
Everyone knows that the 1830s were the decade in which the Protestant (as well as Catholic) Missions "discovered" the Oregon Territory and, hearing the "Macedonian call" to evangelize, sent missionaries to this area. The first large settlements of Europeans to this area didn't begin until the Oregon Trail wagon train of 1843; before this time one only had hunters and trappers; representatives of the Hudson's Bay and Northwest Companies; some explorers and geographers and a few enterprising and visionary businessmen. The missionaries came in the 1830s, beginning with Jason Lee and his nephew in 1834.
Fewer know that it was a story that appeared in the March 1, 1833 edition of a Methodist publication (the Methodist Church was known, in those days, as the Methodist Episcopal Church), the Christian Advocate and Journal and Zion's Herald [You can see how the press for consolidation of newspapers didn't begin in the 1980s!], which stimulated these evangelization efforts. This 1833 story tells of a visit of 4 members delegated by a Flathead tribe to visit General William Clark (of Lewis & Clark fame), who was an Indian agent in St. Louis, in order to inquire about the White Man's "book" which supposedly narrated knowledge of the White Man's God.
It turns out that the 1833 story in the Christian Advocate was not the only near-contemporaneous record of the visit of these four Native Americans to St. Louis. A contemporary account by the new Catholic Bishop of St. Louis, the Rev. Joseph Rosati, written in French, spoke of their visit to "General Clark" as well as their pleasure at seeing the Catholic Church. These Natives appeared to Rosati to be well acquainted with aspects of Catholic Christianity (making signs of the cross, for example), but there is no indication in Rosati's report that they came to ask for the White Man's "book" or that they were members of a tribal delegation. In other words, the two nearly contemporaneous records of the meeting of these four Native Americans with Clark give different emphases, even if, in my judgment, they tell a largely consistent story. The only person who could adjudicate between the two, General Clark himself, never published anything about this meeting. He did, however, generally affirm the truth of the version that appeared in the Christian Advocate.
Thus, we have a little bit of a problem in trying to figure out exactly who came asking for what in which year. The reason that the latter is initially unclear is that the Christian Advocate story of March 1, 1833 published a February 18, 1833 letter from Gabriel T. Disoway, a major financial backer of the Methodist Missionary Society, which told about a letter he had received from William Walker on January 19, 1833 (also published in the story) in response to his letter of "the previous November." The impression can be given that Walker was reporting on events that just happened. But we need not import a mistake into anyone's words here. Disoway might not have learned of Walker's 1831 visit until some time in 1832, thus leading to the November 1832 inquiry of Walker. Thus, a January 1833 date for Walker's letter is reasonable (and not misdated). Indeed, Walker may not have returned to Ohio until early 1832 as it was. In addition, Rosati's report to his flock was for the calendar year 1831. Thus we are safe to conclude that the visit of the four Natives to St. Louis was in Fall 1831.
Uncertainties
But here is where we have to admit some uncertainties. We don't know, for example, who precisely these four men were, even though names are given not only in some scholarly accounts but also on a 2003 monument dedicated to them by the Nez Perce tribe located in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis (all accounts agree that two of the four Natives died while in St. Louis and were interred there). I am still confused as to which tribe they came from. Furtwangler assumes that they were Nez Perce, even though the account in the Christian Advocate talks about "Flatheads." But there probably was little accurate knowledge of Indian tribes beyond the Rockies at that moment. Just as the 18th century maps of the Pacific Northwest are wildly inaccurate, so the early 19th century "Indian Maps," so to speak are equally indistinct.
Of course, knowing what we know now about the diversity of Native American cultures in the Pacific Northwest, it was arguably of paramount importance for the readers of the Christian Advocate article to have more detailed information about who was requesting information from whom so that you could "focus" your missionary efforts more effectively. But this is misreading the past and importing into those times an anachronistic view of missionary work which didn't enter into that world until the early 20th century. Though the nineteenth century missionaries may have been anthropologists of a sort, they certainly didn't bring sophisticated cultural tools along with them. They had a call from God to bring the Gospel to these people; that the people had initiated interest in the church or a "book," was seen as a confirmation of their religious longings. Who could delay in sending out, as quickly as possible, the message of salvation?
Thus, we are on "solid ground" only on the notion that Four Natives, possibly from what we now would call Central Idaho, came to Clark in Fall 1831 to inquire about the White Man's religion. Protestant accounts would, no doubt, have read this to mean that they were asking for a "book" (even though the Natives were illiterate), while the Catholic account can be forgiven for stressing the Native interest in the Catholic sacraments. In any case, they came to William Clark because he was a great "bridge" figure between the two cultures, and because he could probably direct the Natives to people that might help them.
With this background in mind, I now will copy the article as it appears in an appendix to Furtwangler's book, which reprints ithe Christian Advocate letters.
1988
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