[140] The five Cayuses who were hung in Oregon City, June 3, 1850, as accomplices in the massacre, were all Protestants, and remained so till they received their death sentence. All the others who are known as murderers, among whom were Lumsuky, Tamahas, and the two sons of Tilokaikt, were also Protestants. Joseph Stainfield, Jo Davis, and the other half-breed, who, it is said, plundered the dead, if anything, were certainly not Catholics. Three of the condemned on the morning of the execution solemnly declared that the Catholic missionaries had nothing whatever to do with the murder. The following letter to the Bishop of Walla Walla, from the Archbishop of Oregon City, will be found interesting:
Oregon City, June 2, 1850.
The supposed Cayuse murderers will be executed to-morrow. They have abandoned Dr. Whitman’s religion and have become Catholics. I am preparing them for baptism and for death.
F. N. Blanchet,
Archbishop of Oregon City.
[141] Oregon American.
[142] Letter of R. T. Lockwood to Very Rev. J. B. A. Brouillet, V.G., Sept. 29, 1871.
[143] Toupin’s statement.