of his life out here that must not be overlooked by any student who wants to know the whole history of the prominent actors in this northwest.
Dr. Whitman was furnished by the missionary board with necessary tools, implements, seeds, grain, and clothing for two years. At Liberty, Missouri, he bought teams, wagons, some pack animals, riding horses and sixteen milk cows, and these were all under the charge of Gray and the two Indian boys who were now going back to their homes with Whitman. By hard work and energetic pushing the party got across the Missouri and out on the plains in time to join a company of one Fitzpatrick for company and mutual protection.
Here then was the first attempt of white women to cross the great American desert, as the plains of Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming were then called; and scale the Rocky mountains and penetrate the wilderness of old Oregon. It was indeed on the part of these two women an act of the greatest heroism, requiring more than ordinary courage and self-sacrifice. While thousands of women and children followed after them, it was these two women who pointed the way, set the pace and showed the world that women could accomplish the great and hazardous trip. Presbyterian writers and historians have seized upon these facts to show that these two young Presbyterian women from the state of New York, were the real pioneers of civilization in old Oregon; and well they might so claim, for it may be set down as a fact that no country is ever civilized until it has received the humanizing touch and gracious benediction of the love and self-sacrifice of consecrated woman.
It is not within the purview of this history, or the object of this chapter to follow out the movements and settlements of- this little party of devoted missionaries. It is enough to our purpose to say; that after a long toilsome and tedious journey, full of dangers and trials of every- description, they reached their promised land, that they founded a mission at Wailatpu where Whitman college is now located near the city of Walia. Walla, that they labored and toiled, taught and prayed for the Indians, as no^ others had ever done before or since, and that they were rewarded in the end by the base treachery of those they sought to save and bless, and finally murdered by the infuriated savages they had fed, clothed and taught the lessons of love and affection of the founder of Christianity. We give this picture of these devoted men and women, to show by contrast and example, the characters of the teachers and the native inborn weakness and barbarism of those they sought to lift up in the human scale. We will let the characters of Lee and Whitman stand as substantial representatives of the whole Protestant missionary effort to the Indians of this country; and from their experience and good or ill success draw what conclusions seems to be reasonable as to the real character of these Oregon Indians. And to throw further light upon the picture, and enable the reader to more perfectly understand the Indian character we will give the experience of the Catholic priests and missionaries in dealing with and teaching these same Indians, although they may have labored with other and different tribes.
The first efforts to introduce the services of the Catholic religion into the the regions of old Oregon were put forth by the French Canadians of the Willamette valley in July, 1834, just about the time Jason Lee was holding the first Protestant church services in the territory of old Oregon, at old Fort Hall. There is no evidence of any relation between these two competing, if not opposing, religious movements. Nobody in all the Oregon region, so far as the historical record shows, knew that Jason Lee was on his way out here to preach the gospel and organize Protestant Episcopal institutions. The movement of the French Canadians seems to have been purely local, and originated from the natural desire of those people to have once more the religious services of the church in which they were born and reared in at distant Montreal. These Canadians at that time, sent a request to J. N. Provencher. Catholic bishop of the Red River settlements, asking that religious teachers be sent to Oregon. The
