01x03 - Oregon Trails

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What would cause you to
leave your family and your home

and travel to a place

where almost no one
speaks your language?

No one looks like you.

Your customs are foreign,

and where if you get in trouble,

no one you know is around to help.

For many, what drove them
west was the promise of land.

For a few, it was their faith,

and that's what moved
Christian missionaries Narcissa

and Marcus Whitman to
travel across the continent.

Their journey along the Oregon trail

will inspire thousands to follow,

and spark a fateful
encounter with a native nation

that redefines the pacific northwest.

People live on myths,

and the myths that really
stick in the American experience

are the myths of the west.

The mountains were taller,
the deserts were harsher.

The snows were deeper.

American west conjures
wonder, possibility, opportunity.

The figure of the mountain man.

Notorious outlaws.

The cowboy.

The discovery of gold in California.

This train of wagons
trailing across the prairie.

Everybody has a reason
for wanting this land.

But most of that land
was already occupied.

We have been residents
for more than 10,000 years.

But this is a clash of two different ways

of seeing life itself,
fighting for the future

of your homeland on the one side,

and fighting for the
destiny of the new republic

on the other side.

The history of the
west is a creation story.

It's a creation of what we
think of as modern america.

The west is a place
where anything is possible.

It is the essence of the American dream.

The core of this is, what
are we to be as a nation?

The reckoning is coming.

The west is this canvas

on which American dreams
become larger than life.

The year is 1836,

the final year of Andrew
Jackson's presidency.

The us now has 24 states

and four territories stretching

across the Mississippi river,

but the Americans have
their eyes on the pacific coast.

California is part of Mexico,

but Oregon country is up for grabs.

Settlement had been continuous

from the Virginia coastline,

the Massachusetts coastline,
even across the Mississippi.

Then you run into this arid region,

from the edge of the
great plains till you get

to the rainy side of the
mountains in Oregon.

And so in the 1830s, the settlement has

to make this big jump if you're gonna,

if you're farmers looking for land.

This is the green place beyond
the great American desert

where if you can just get there,

there's a possibility of a life ahead.

Oregon country stretches

from the continental
divide to the pacific coast,

and from the northern edge

of California all the way up to Alaska.

Britain and america both lay claim

to the region simply
for having explored it.

In 1792, fur trader Robert
gray was the first American

to navigate into the Columbia river,

which he named after his ship.

Britain traces its claim to the voyage

of captain James cook, who
sailed to Vancouver in 1778,

but after the two nations
clash in the w*r of 1812,

neither side wants to fight again.

And so in 1818, they agree

to jointly occupy the pacific northwest.

The British have a much
bigger settlement imprint

on the west coast.

The Hudson bay company was one

of these Canadian fur companies

that has a fairly elaborate infrastructure

in the Oregon country.

The us doesn't have much at all.

There was this national incentive

to put Americans on the ground there.

If the place fills up with Americans,

then the United States is
gonna have a better claim

than the British.

The first men to arrive in Oregon country

are explorers, trappers, and traders.

They send back stories of fertile lands,

rich and natural resources.

You could get land cheap in the west,

and you could get land in Oregon free.

You could just go out there and claim it,

because Americans at
that time did not recognize

that the native American
peoples living on any territory

had title to the land.

The expansive land that was known

to our people was millions
of acres from the source

of the Columbia river in
British Columbia to the ocean.

We're the only people in that landscape

who have been residents
for more than 10,000 years.

For Americans, the most direct route

to the pacific coast
is an arduous journey.

Over land across two mountain ranges.

Do you have the
courage to make the trip?

But then the missionaries begin to arrive.

There's a series of
events toward the end

of the first third of the 19th century.

It's called the second great awakening.

It's the revival of
Evangelical christianity,

a belief in the literal
veracity of the gospels

and the Bible, but also a call

to bring others to the Christian faith.

It really inflames a lot of individuals,

and you're excited to
take all of this fervor,

all this fire, all this passion,

and disseminate the
word into foreign lands,

and at that particular time,

foreign land was anything
west of the Mississippi.

The whole idea is to convert the Indians.

Now, if in fact they also
facilitate the settlement

of Oregon by other white
people, I mean that's good too.

Missionaries are hearing a story that,

to them, is so delicious.

They hear that four Indians

from the pacific northwest
traveled to St. Louis

to get more information
about christianity.

If somebody says,
"bring the gospel to us,"

how, as a good Evangelical
Christian, how can you say no?

We weren't looking for a different god.

We were looking for the
source of the white men's power

that allowed them to
have these technologies

that we did not have, their
g*ns and their metal kettles

and their steel traps, you name it.

The christians mistakenly believe

that the native visitors
speak for all indigenous people

of the pacific northwest.

The call to mission sounds
out across the eastern states.

For Narcissa prentiss, a young
woman in upstate New York,

it strikes a chord.

She leads revivals, she
teaches Sunday school,

and so she becomes
very dedicated to the idea

that a missionary vocation

is really the right thing for her.

She writes a letter requesting support

from the church mission board.

The American board of

commissioners for foreign missions

would gather money to
support protestant missions

to spread the gospel abroad,

but also in the American
west on the frontier.

In 1836, women had
so few rights in america.

They could not own
property if they were married.

They could not write a legal contract,

and the most important
thing is they could not vote,

which meant that they
couldn't change their lot in life.

This is why it's so
incredible that Narcissa,

as a single woman, was planning to go

by herself over to Oregon.

The missionary board tells Narcissa

they will not send a
woman into Indian country

unless she is married.

Marcus Whitman is a 32-year-old doctor

in upstate New York.

He is an Evangelical Christian.

But he's bored by being a doctor.

There's no excitement in it.

He applies to the
American missionary board,

and they're not too keen on
sending him out as a single man.

And so they encourage
him to get married,

and he finds a suitable
candidate in the figure

of Narcissa prentiss.

You need a husband, I need a wife.

And so they get
together, they get married,

and then they present
themselves to the mission board.

And the mission board
at this point can't say no.

It's a 3,000 mile journey
to Oregon country.

The day after their wedding,

Marcus and Narcissa leave the comfort

and safety of western New York,

and travel to Liberty, Missouri,

a town on the western
edge of American settlement.

They had to go by horse and wagon,

and then they had to go by canal barges,

move sometimes on sleighs,
and then when the horse

and wagon didn't work,
they'd have to walk.

They're subject to the heat
and the rain and the snow.

It's incomprehensible.

Narcissa kept a journal of her travels.

I think I shall endure the journey well,

perhaps better than any of the rest of us.

It seems to me now that we

are on the very borders of civilization.

They go with another couple,

reverend Henry spalding
and his wife Eliza.

It's a seven-month journey.

In the early 1830s,
there really wasn't much

of a trail to Oregon.

It was a trapper's trail. You
couldn't get a wagon over it.

And so it was really a
tough, tough journey.

Marcus Whitman
recognizes that the only way

that Christian civilization as he perceives

is gonna be planted in Oregon is,

and this is crucial, when you
can get women to come out,

because if it's just the fur traders,

if it's just the explorers,

they don't create a settled society.

So Marcus Whitman
gets it in his head he

is going to find a wagon road.

The wagon was considered crucial,

because a wagon was
the moving Van of its era.

Just imagine how
difficult it would be to go

to Oregon in a cart.

But if this delicate example
of American female virtue

could do it, I guess the door's open.

So the people who become
missionaries, first of all,

they're utterly convinced
of the importance

of what it is they're doing.

So this can give them
courage to do things

that most people don't do,
because with this mindset,

when you encounter some
dangerous situation, say,

what's the worst that can happen to me?

I'll get k*lled. I'll die and go to heaven.

Traveling along traditional native trails,

missionaries Narcissa and
Marcus Whitman slowly traverse

the great plains on their
way to Oregon country.

Narcissa's view of what was in store

for her was really very idyllic.

She didn't imagine traveling by wagon.

There's no shocks, and you
are jostled from pillar to post.

It can be hot, it can be
cold, it can be raining,

it can be thundering, it can be lightning.

You can be smashing through
ruts, over rocks, over stumps.

It goes on and on and on.

Since we have been here,

we have made our tent
large enough for us all

to sleep under, quite a little family.

One of the great ironies is that Marcus

and Narcissa Whitman travel west,

along with Henry spalding,

a man Narcissa had rejected
in a proposal of marriage,

and he's sleeping in the same tent

with the whitmans on their honeymoon,

a time when they
conceived their only child.

Pregnancy on that trip was one

of the most dangerous things
that could happen to you.

There's no stopping for you
if you have morning sickness.

There's no stopping for you
if you have a miscarriage.

And so that's the kind of thing
that creates extra pressures

for women on these
long, long migrations.

The whitmans and the spaldings

cross the rocky mountains
by way of the south pass,

a route favored by the shoshone people.

In July of 1836, Narcissa

and Eliza become the
first American women

to make this journey
over the continental divide.

As they travel west, they
meet for a rendezvous

in what is now Wyoming.

It's south pass in the rockies.

Once a year,

miles from the edge
of American settlement,

a temporary city Springs up,
populated by French, British

and American fur trappers and traders,

and hundreds of native
Americans from across the plains.

These rendezvous are where

all these independent
fur trappers show up.

You know, drinking, gambling, fighting,

whoring, the whole thing.

You can imagine with some
missionaries showing up

at a rendezvous, their
mouths must have dropped

in utter shock to see what went on.

At the rendezvous,

Narcissa befriends a legendary
mountain man named Joe meek.

Mountain men like Joe meek

could help tell the whitmans where to go,

how to get there, give
them local knowledge.

And so the mountain men
became a very important link

between the tribes and
the settlers who came.

As they approach Oregon country,

the missionaries find their path

is more treacherous than ever.

Before noon, we began to descend one

of the most terrible
mountains for steepness

and length I have yet seen.

It was like winding stairs in its descent,

and in some places,
almost perpendicular.

Once they reach the blue mountains

in Oregon country, they are
forced to abandon their wagons

and continue on horseback.

And finally, after almost


they get their first glimpse of
what will be their new home.

They're exhausted, they're
running low on provisions,

and they come over the crest
of the last mountain range,

and they look down and they
have this great sense of relief.

We've made it.

It must have been absolutely amazing

after such an arduous
journey, and realizing that this

is where you're gonna have your baby,

and you're thinking to yourself,

"I've come to bring
the light of true religion,

and the sun will shine on my efforts."

And you might not be right.

In the fall of 1836, Marcus

and Narcissa settle in the foothills

of the blue mountains near walla walla.

Henry spalding squabbles
almost the entire trip

with Marcus Whitman.

And when they arrive
in the pacific northwest,

they really can't stand each other,

and they decide to live 120 miles apart.

The spaldings settle
among the Nez Perce

in the lapwai valley.

Meanwhile, Narcissa and
Marcus make their home

near the cayuse, four
days away by horseback.

The Nez Perce warn
the white missionaries

that it's probably dangerous
to live among the cayuse.

For one thing, it's very
dangerous for a doctor,

'cause the cayuse have
this longstanding tradition

of k*lling medicine men who fail.

For the cayuse, like
many native peoples,

medicine man is a sacred practice.

When you can't deliver results,
the cayuse demand justice,

and the penalty for that is death.

Despite the warnings they
receive about the cayuse,

the whitmans embrace
their missionary work.

Marcus builds the mission

with several hired hands from
the Hudson's bay company.

They call it waiilatpu,

in the cayuse language,
the place of the rye grass.

Funded by the missionary
board in the east,

it will include a mission
house, a school, and a farm.

Narcissa gives birth to her daughter Alice

in march of 1837, just
about five, six months

after they set up
housekeeping at their mission.

Narcissa is thrilled when
she welcomes her little girl

into the world, and so is Marcus.

Now we have a child
born in the promised land.

At the mission in the early days,

the whitmans have good
relations with the cayuse.

The local chief, or head
man, his name is tiloukaikt,

is seen as a benevolent,
a sort of a kind uncle.

He comes to see little Alice,

and in general, the reception

for the whole family is very hopeful.

Tiloukaikt gave her an Indian name,

called her cayuse girl.

That's how it translated.

And he calls her that
because she is a sign to us

that we will have good times
ahead, good fortune ahead.

We have young children,
they have young children,

and it is a family now.

Unlike the fur trappers
who came before them,

the whitmans want to change the way

the cayuse live and what they believe.

So for indigenous people,

christianity wasn't
necessarily a threat initially,

because it's like, the great spirit,

well, that kind of makes sense,

and we'll incorporate
that into our belief systems

until it doesn't work for us anymore.

When the whitmans arrive,
they think their ways have

to be followed before the
native Americans can be saved.

So that involves settling
down, becoming farmers,

cutting their hair, stop
dancing, stop gambling.

They want us to give up the way of life

that has sustained us for
more than 10,000 years.

The expectation is that we
should be as much like them

as possible in all factors of our life.

We should be prim and proper.

We should not travel to gather our foods.

We should stay in one
place and grow our foods.

We should not take up with the trappers

and traders in the way that we have,

and everything they want us
to change is not in our nature.

Life at the mission settles
into a routine of work

and worship, until one
day, tragedy strikes.

The worst possible thing happens

when Alice is not quite three years old.

Marcus and Narcissa don't notice

that their daughter has wandered away.

So Alice is on her own,

and she's playing at the water

before anybody realizes

that they haven't seen
her for a few minutes.

And the alarm is raised
that Alice is missing,

and everyone begins to look for her.

And that's when they find

that she has drowned
in the walla walla river.

The body is recovered

and it's brought back to the family.

Tiloukaikt has known
her since she was born.

She's special to him,

and he's very sad to present
this little girl to her mother.

The loss of her daughter changes her.

Her moroseness characterizes
her relationship more

and more with our people.

Narcissa becomes very
annoyed with the fact

that the cayuse come
and go from the compound,

come and go out of her home
when she was despondent

and would rather just be to
herself and deal with her grief.

To make matters worse,

the whitmans are failing
to convert the cayuse.

Marcus and Narcissa
Whitman only manage

to baptize two people in the entire time

that they are running this mission.

Two.

Meanwhile, the spaldings are having

more success with the Nez Perce.

The competition between Henry

and Marcus sours into a bitter rivalry.

They don't like each
other, they're jealous.

They write tattling letters
back to the board in Boston.

And these letters, there
are hundreds of these letters,

in fact, most of them
tattling on each other.

They're behaving in
a most UN-Christian,

UN-adult kind of way.

And so the board finally decides,

we're gonna pull the plug.

But Marcus refuses to accept

the mission board's decision.

With winter fast approaching,

he leaves Narcissa in October of 1842,

and begins the 3,000
mile journey back east

to plead his case in person.

Setting out from Oregon country,

late in the fall of 1842,

missionary Marcus
Whitman makes his way east

across the continent.

At the end of a harrowing
six-month journey,

he arrives in Boston
in threadbare clothes

and throws himself on the
mercy of the mission board.

They give him one last chance.

Whitman returns from
Boston by way of St. Louis,

and in St. Louis, there is
a large wagon train formed.

He didn't organize it,

but he ends up becoming
its defacto head man.

He shows them that wagons
can, in fact, cross the rockies

and several hundred
American settlers come.

It opens the way for
almost exponential growth.

Seven years have passed since Marcus

first set off for Oregon country.

This time he is one of
the many making the trek.

In 1843, more than a
thousand Americans

are bound for Oregon country.

Economic conditions in
the east are driving more

and more Americans into the west.

There's a financial panic
in 1837 that throws a lot

of people out of work,
and people in the east,

for whom life wasn't going so well,

they always thought they
could start over again in the west.

Much has changed since
the Whitman's first trip.

Back then, Marcus had been
forced to abandon his wagon

when the trail became
too rocky and narrow.

But the trail has been
widened and extended

by Narcissa's friend
from the rendezvous,

mountain man Joe meek.

Now wagon trains can make
their way over the blue mountains

past the Whitman mission,

and further west
toward the pacific coast.

Joe meek's path becomes the last leg

of the legendary Oregon trail.

Most of these Americans who head west

are utterly clueless about
how big this continent is,

and utterly shocked
when they get out there.

There are people who are
trying to carry their furniture,

and eventually, the
Oregon trail becomes littered

with dining room sets, and
pianos, and rocking chairs,

and all sorts of things

that these eastern settlers
think they're gonna take

with them on this westward journey.

They encounter great difficulties,

but they're gonna get
there no matter what.

When families go west, then you know

that the western settlement is serious.

In late September 1843,

Marcus returns to Oregon country.

After more than a year apart,

Narcissa and her husband are reunited.

The great migration
gives them a new purpose.

Turning their attention
away from the cayuse,

they focus on supporting new migrants

who stop off at the mission on their way

to the fertile lands of the
willamette valley to the west.

Often when settlers traveled west,

they lost family members, parents died,

and children were left orphans,

and the whitmans took them in.

Narcissa Whitman recognizes

she's not gonna be
converting native people,

and so she says, "I realize that I have"

to focus my efforts on
trying to bring the light

of the true religion to the
white people around me.

The influx of migrants strengthens

the america's hold on the pacific coast.

Although it is still jointly
occupied with Great Britain,

Oregon figures more and more

into america's dreams for the future,

and becomes a key part
of James polk's campaign

for president in 1844.

So James polk runs

for president on an
overtly expansionist ticket,

and he says, "we're
gonna claim all of Oregon."

After polk is elected,

Great Britain gives
into pressure by the us

and signs a treaty in 1846,

dividing Oregon country
between them at the 49th parallel.

Great Britain understood
that the sheer juggernaut

of American intention, and
willpower, and manpower,

and economic power was
going to make it impossible

for them really to maintain any claims

to Oregon without a w*r,

and they didn't want to fight that w*r.

The treaty gives the
British everything north

of the 49th parallel, plus
the island of Vancouver,

while the us gets the southern part

of Oregon country, gaining


and their first piece of the pacific coast.

But the American part of
Oregon remains unorganized

with no federal presence
and no formal government.

In the case of Oregon,

the settlers went ahead of government,

and then government
came along afterwards.

And so more people come the next year,

and more people
come the year after that.

And so the Oregon trail

then becomes the highway to Oregon.

The numbers go from like


to 4,000 the next year, to 7,000.

They're starting to outnumber
the indigenous people

of the region very quickly,

and the cayuse see the transformation,

and they don't like it.

Among the many newcomers

at the Whitman mission in


He is of mixed blood, part
French Canadian, part native.

He brings a stark warning for the cayuse.

Around the country,

native people have lost their lands.

They have been wiped out.
They have been k*lled off.

Over the previous decade and a half,

around a hundred thousand
American Indians east

of the Mississippi have
been forcibly displaced

under president Andrew
Jackson's Indian removal act.

American settlers have taken
their lands for themselves.

This news from Joe
Lewis alarms the cayuse.

With Oregon now controlled
by the United States,

they fear that settlers
will soon take their land.

Then in the fall of 1847,
an outbreak of measles tears

through the pacific northwest.

White settlers contract the virus,

but many of them
have natural resistance.

The cayuse and other
native Americans do not.

Our ways of healing are not working.

Dr. Whitman's are not working
when they're burying two,

four, and six people a day.

Whitman didn't understand
how measles worked.

His favorite prescription
was to bleed people

who were sick, which made them sicker.

He didn't really know what else to do.

Eventually disease will
k*ll nearly half the cayuse,

hitting their children hardest of all.

Marcus Whitman is not
able to save our people.

He's warned many
times. Among the cayuse,

if you practice bad medicine,

you could pay with your life.

In November of 1847,

Marcus Whitman fires
Joe Lewis from the mission

where he'd been employed as a laborer.

Lewis starts to spread
a pernicious rumor

that the whitmans are
poisoning the cayuse

so they can steal their land.

If you're one of the
Indians, you're thinking,

"boy, not only are they
affronting our beliefs,

but they're k*lling us."

Friendly cayuse warn Marcus

that his life is now in danger.

But for reasons having to
do with the stubborn nature

of Marcus Whitman
and his sense of destiny,

Whitman will not leave.

On November 29th,


That morning there was a
funeral for three cayuse children,

all victims of measles.

Among the dead children is the son

of the local leader tiloukaikt.

It is his third child to
die from the measles.

After the funeral, Marcus

and Narcissa receive
some visitors at the mission.

More than a dozen cayuse
men gather outside their door.

He admits two or three cayuse warriors,

including tiloukaikt and
another warrior named tomahas

to this mission house.

I'm sure he sensed
something was amiss,

and so he helps to get Narcissa
out of there with the child.

They engage him in conversation.

And they are there asking
Dr. Whitman about medicine.

And what they wanted to
show was that he had poisons

in his medicines.

And according to witnesses,

tomahas hits Whitman in the back

of the head with a tomahawk,

knocking him to the ground
and cracking his skull.

He's then shot in the neck.

Narcissa goes to the window to look out

and see what's happening,
and she's shot in the shoulder.

The cayuse are not going
to abandon their mission

to get rid of the whitmans.

They're able to get Mrs. Whitman

on a settee and carry it out.

Joe Lewis is one of the
carriers of that piece of furniture.

She's thrown off the settee

that she was carried out on into the mud.

She's shot, she's hacked, she's whipped,

and she dies in the mud.

When our young men decided

that the whitmans' lives should end,

they didn't realize it would bring down

on us thunder from the east
that we could not have imagined.

After k*lling the whitmans,

the cayuse continue their slaughter,

k*lling 11 more white settlers

who are living at the mission.

When word of the m*ssacre
reaches the willamette valley,

it causes rage and a
desire for vengeance.

The white people create
a militia to go to w*r.

The settlers want protection

from the federal government,

and they send Joe meek
to Washington to ask for it.

Meek makes the case that
in order to defend the lives

of American citizens,
the Oregon country needs

to become a us territory.

In August of 1848,

Oregon officially becomes a
territory of the United States.


sent west to hunt for the K*llers.

They send out a governor,
they send out the military.

It's open season on Indians
in the Oregon territory.

The ensuing conflict will come

to be known as the cayuse w*r.

The native side suffers
devastating losses.

Finally, after two years, in April of 1850,

five men turn themselves
in to stop the bloodshed.

Joe Lewis is not among these
volunteers, but tiloukaikt is.

They make statements, depositions,

and tiloukaikt says,

"did not Christ die to save his people?

So I die. We die to save our people."

The so-called cayuse five

are transported to Oregon city

and hastily tried for m*rder in a tavern,

a jury of white settlers
hands down a guilty verdict

and a death sentence.

Maybe half of all the white people

in the willamette valley come to watch it.

The five men who were
hanged in Oregon city,

we're still looking for their graves,

because we'd like to bring them home.

In 1855, just 50 years

after first welcoming American
explorers to the region,

the cayuse are forced to sign a treaty.

The terms are harsh.

They must give up their vast homeland

of over 6.4 million acres

and move onto a


shared with other tribes.

The lands they surrender
are given to American settlers.

In 1859, Oregon becomes
the 33rd state in the union.

Henry spalding, after
the death of his rival,

Marcus Whitman, becomes a
one-man propaganda machine,

and he essentially
invents the Whitman legend

for American history.

Whitman is credited

with getting the Oregon
country for the United States.

Spalding sends articles
to religious newspapers,

and eventually persuades the us senate

to publish his account
of Whitman's heroism,

elevating himself in the process.

And Marcus Whitman goes
from being a failed anonymous guy

who got k*lled to a Christ-like figure

who sacrificed his blood
so Oregon could live.

The k*lling of the whitmans

fails to stop the flood of immigrants

to the rich farmlands of Oregon.

From the 1840s through the 1860s,

over 400,000 people travel
west along the Oregon trail.

It was the greatest folk
migration in American history.

At some points, there were as many

as 12 wagons abreast
growing across this country.

So many people come
to the willamette valley

that they actually carve a
cut through the mountains

and across the prairies

that can be seen still from satellites.

The epic migration
continues by foot, by cart,

by mule, and by wagon

until the transcontinental
railroad offers travelers

a gentler way to go west.

Oregon is changed forever.

Where the cayuse once
gathered food and hunted game

and where the mountain men
once trapped animals for trade,

the varied landscape is now supplanted

by settlements and farms.

And so there is a kind of transition

from an extraction economy of furs,

and now moving into
an agrarian economy

in the pacific northwest.

We accept that our homeland

is the homeland of many people now.

Our elders always tell us there's good

and bad in everything that happens.

You have to look at both.

Of the thousand Americans

that follow the whitmans to Oregon,

few will see their deaths as
anything other than a m*ssacre.

But their story is emblematic of a pattern

that repeats across the American west,

settlers using native
resistance as an excuse

to seize their homelands,

and just as they did in Oregon,

land-hungry settlers will push into Texas

and turn a raid on one pioneer family

into a long and bloody w*r,

fought against the most
powerful native force

on the continent, the comanche empire.