Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/237

Rh ests of this whole region centered here as in no other place. The various cur- rents of travel that were to determine the ultimate destiny of this region passed this way as at that time they passed nowhere else. Dr. Whitman proved to be the man for the place ; quick to grasp the significance of the situation and bold and prompt to seize and use its opportunities.

The life of Whitman in Oregon falls into two well marked periods. The first of these, extending from the establishment of the mission in 1836, to October, 1842, was the period of his distinctively missionary work. The second, extending from that eventful year to his death in 1847, was marked by a wider activity in which, while keeping the interests of his mission and the welfare of his Indians as his central object, he yet exerted well-directed efforts toward furthering the nation's interests in the Oregon country.

Dr. Whitman's conception of his mission to the Indians and the persistence with which he strove to carry it out, are indicative of the character of the man. His ideal for the Indians was that they should become not only Christians, but peaceful and thrifty citizens. With this ideal before him he at once set about to instruct them in the faith and morality of the Christian religion, to give them an elementary education in their own tongue, and to instruct them in agriculture and other arts of a peaceful and settled life. His efforts toward these ends in this earlier period promised a fair measure of success. As the fruit of his and Mrs. Whitman's patient instruction and consistent daily lives a few of the natives were brought to embrace the Christian religion ; some of whom commanded the highest respect of the white men by their lives of consistent piety and integrity. A school was early established, and though maintained under the utmost difficulties, enrolled considerable numbers of the Indians, reaching at one time an enrollment of more than one hundred. Agriculture too was taught, with promising results. More than one immigrant and early traveler on visiting the mission remarked on the prosperous appearance of the mission farm, and observed with special interest the well cultivated farms of the Indians that surrounded it.

The attitude of the Cayuse Indians among whom Dr. Whitman settled, toward Dr. Whitman and his work changed toward the end of this period. The mission had been established on the invitation of prominent men of the Indian tribes, and the missionaries and their wives had been made welcome. But from the fall of 1839 to the end of this period the feelings of the Indians show a change from that of cordial good will to one of suspicion and faultfinding, which issued in the later years in threats, and even in over acts of violence. Several things contributed to this charge of attitude. One was the indirect influence of the Catholic missionaries who had come into the region in 1839. This arose not from hostility on the part of the missionaries personally, toward the Protestant missionaries, but it was an inevitable result of their variant teaching, unsettling the minds of the Indians, and still further, from a policy differing from that tof the Protestant missions, in following the Indian in his roaming life and not insisting on his settling in one place to a life of industry. The treatment, too, by the missionaries, of their wives, as on an equality with themselves, offended the leading Indians, as being a constant rebuke to their own conduct, and as tending to cause in their wives restlessness and discontent. Finally, the coming of the white settlers in such numbers as to attract the attention of the Indians and awaken their fears that they should be dispossessed of their lands by the white men, contributed to this growing spirit of hostility toward the Protestant missions. The situation of the mission on the highway of immigration of that period made it peculiarly open to this influence. In a letter of May 2, 1840, Mrs. Whitman writes:

"A tide of immigration appears to be moving this way rapidly. A great change has taken place even since we entered the country, and we have no reason to believe it will stop here. Instead of two lonely American females we now number fourteen, and soon may twenty or forty more, if reports are true. We are emphatically situated on the highway between the states and the Columbia river."