Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/366

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CHAPTER XIII.

THE CATHOLIC MISSIONS—MORE OF THE PRESBYTERIANS.

1838–1847.

Call of the French Canadians—Coming of Blanchet and Demers—The Vicar-general among the Cayuses—St Francis Xavier on the Cowlitz—Protestant and Catholic Rivalry—Langlois and Bolduc—The Jesuits in the North-west—Labors of Father De Smet—Point and Mangarini—St Marys on the Bitter Root— Mission of the Sacred Heart—De Vos and Hoeken—Jesuit Reënforcements—Blanchet Made Archbishop—St Pauls—Affairs at Waiilatpu and Lapwai—Insolence of the Savages—Whitman's Winter Journey to the East—His Treatment by the Board—Return and Disappointment.

After the free French Canadians of the Valley Willamette had become fairly settled in their new home, they found time to turn their attention to the moral and educational advancement of their little community. Their first effort in this direction was made July 3, 1834, when they wrote to J. N. Provencher, bishop of Juliopolis in the Red River settlement, asking that religious teachers might be sent to Oregon. The arrival of the Methodist missionaries early in 1835 made the Catholics more anxious than ever to have among them instructors of their own faith, and on the 23d of February they addressed a second appeal to the bishop. To these petitions Provencher replied by enclosing to McLoughlin a letter of advice and consolation, in which he regretted that no priests could be spared from the Red River settlement, but promised to obtain help from Europe or Canada as soon as possible.

The following year the governor and a committee

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