Elkanah Walker.
Cushing Eells.
Myra Eells.
747-534 O-64-3 ALL: WHITMAN COLLEGE
The Cayuse and other tribes of the Columbia Plateau made their first contact with Christianity through fur traders. Many of the employees of the Hudson’s Bay Company were Roman Catholics—French Canadians and Iroquois. Although the company did not at first bring priests into Oregon for its employees, the Indians learned a little about the new faith from these Hudson’s Bay men. Also, the Hudson’s Bay Company sent a few Indian boys to an Anglican mission school at the Red River Settlement in Canada.
These were the Indians among whom the Whitmans settled. Proud of their heritage, the Cayuse were yet interested in new things and the new ideas that the Whitmans introduced. Because of their age-old beliefs, they were not willing to completely surrender their own way of life.
