Converting the West

by Julie Roy Jeffrey

Narcissa Whitman and her husband, Marcus, were pioneer missionaries to the Cayuse Indians in Oregon Territory. Very much a child of the Second Great Awakening, Narcissa eagerly the burgeoning evangelical missionary movement. Following her marriage to Marcus Whitman, she spent most of 1836 traveling overland with him to Oregon. Narcissa enthusiastically began service as a missionary there, hoping to see many "benighted" Indians adopt her message of salvation through Christ. But not one Indian ever did. Cultural barriers that Narcissa never grasped effectively kept her at arm's length from the Cayuse. Gradually abandoning her efforts with the Indians, Narcissa developed a different ministry. She taught and counseled whites on the mission compound, much as she had done in her own church circles in New York. Meanwhile, the growing number of eastern emigrants streaming into the territory posed an increasing threat to the Indians. The Cayuse ultimately took murderous action against the Whitm