Tag Archives: Methodist Mission

THE GREAT REINFORCEMENT – AMERICAN PUSH TO GAIN THE OREGON TERRITORY

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The Lausanne which carried members of the Great Reinforcement to the Oregon Country.
The Lausanne which carried members of the Great Reinforcement to the Oregon Country.

With a non-Native American population numbering in the low hundreds in the 1830s, the long-simmering struggle for control over the vast Oregon Country began its inexorable swing towards the United States.  Methodist missionaries doubled down on their numbers at their Willamette Mission sited a few miles north from today’s city of Salem along the Willamette River.  The Great Reinforcement brought fifty-one men, women and children from New York City all the way to the Hudson’s Bay Company fort at Vancouver. 

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MAGIC OF CHRISTIANITY – THE METHODIST MISSION TO OREGON

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Scene from Henry Eld Jr.'s Encampment on the banks of the Willamette with the Methodist Mission on the opposite side of the River - 1841 Oregon Territory - Yale Collection.
Scene from Henry Eld Jr.’s Encampment on the banks of the Willamette with the Methodist Mission on the opposite side of the River – 1841 Oregon Territory – Yale Collection.

Most stories – articles or books – discussing the Methodist Mission of Jason Lee to Oregon which lasted from 1834 until 1843, start with the same story.  The story of four Native Americans who came to St. Louis to ask Missouri governor William Clark – yes, the same “Clark” of the Lewis & Clark fame – for teachers to provide them with the power of white man’s religion. Of the Native Americans, three were of the Nez Percé tribe and one was a Flathead elder.  The two tribes were both neighbors and friends.  They reached St. Louis early in October 1831, soon after meeting with Governor Clark, also the superintendent of Indian Affairs.

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FRENCH PRAIRIE – CATHOLICISM COUNTER TO THE METHODISTS

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Graves of Etienne and Maurgerite Gregoire in the St. Louis Cemetery.
Graves of Etienne and Maurgerite Gregoire in the St. Louis Cemetery.

Canadian trappers were among the first non-Native Americans to spend extended periods of time in the nascent Oregon Country during the early years of the 19th century. Most were French speakers from rural Lower Quebec. Many took on Native American women as their wives. Common law marriages and the resultant children failed to receive recognition from either British law. Catholic priests ventured out slowly behind the trappers to bring a modicum of religious stability to those living beyond the pale of society. Most of the retired trappers settled on what is today the French Prairie.

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