The massacre became a decisive episode in the U.S. settlement of the Pacific Northwest, causing the United States Congress to take action declaring the territorial status of the Oregon Country.

Sahaptin nations came into direct contact with white colonizers several decades before the arrival of the members of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM).

Reports from the period note that members of the Umpqua, Makah, and Chinookan nations faced threats of destruction through white-carried illnesses, as the natives had no immunity to these new infectious diseases.

Historian Cameron Addis recounted that after 1840, much of the Columbian Plateau was no longer important in the fur trade and that: ... most of its people were not dependent on agriculture, but traders had spread Christianity for thirty years.

When Catholic and Protestant missionaries arrived they met Indians already content with their blend of Christianity and native religions, skeptical toward farming, and wary of the whites' apparent power to inflict diseases.

Parker hired a translator from Pierre-Chrysologue Pambrun, manager of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) trading post Fort Nez Percés.

He wanted help in consulting with the elite of the Liksiyu (Cayuse) and Niimíipu (Nez Perce) in order to identify particular places for missions and Christian proselytizing.

HBC Chief Factor Dr. John McLoughlin advised against the missionaries residing on the Columbia Plateau, but offered material support for their venture regardless.

Whitman lacked sizable stockpiles of gunpowder, tobacco, or clothing, so he had to assign most labor to Hawaiian Kanakas (who had settled after working as sailors) or whites.

Additionally, the initial plowing of the Waiilatpu farm was done primarily with draft animals loaned by a Cayuse noble and Fort Nez Percés.

Narcissa complained that the kitchen was "always filled with four or five or more Indians--men especially--at meal time ... " and said that once a room was established specifically for Indigenous that the missionaries would "not permit them to go into the other part of the house at all ... ".

"[11] The Cayuse who visited the Whitmans found Narcissa's haughtiness and Marcus' refusal to hold sermons in the mission household to be rude.

"[8] Cayuse men continued to complain to HBC traders of Whitman's refusal to pay for using their land and of his preferential treatment of incoming white colonists.

These measures were intended to delay the use of the wood resources, as a settler in the Willamette Valley had suggested to the noble that he would establish a trading post in the vicinity.

"[12] Aghast at the demands, Whitman told Tiloukaikt that "I never would give him anything ... "[12] During the start of 1842, Narcissa reported that the Cayuse leaders "said we must pay them for their land we lived on.

[17] After Demers left the area in 1840, Whitman preached to assembled Cayuse on several occasions, saying that they were in a "lost ruined and condemned state ... in order to remove the hope that worshipping will save them.

Whitman had opposed closing the Waiilatpu Mission, as suggested by Asa Bowen Smith in 1840, because he thought it would allow "the Catholics to unite all the [Pacific] coast from California to the North ... "[18] Religious strife continued between the two Christian denominations.

[citation needed] Whitman and his fellow missionaries urged the adjacent Plateau peoples to learn to adopt European-American style agriculture, and settle on subsistence farms.

Green that " ... although we bring the gospel as the first object we cannot gain an assurance unless they are attracted and retained by the plough and hoe ... "[22] In 1838, Whitman wrote about his plans to begin altering the Cayuse diet and lifestyle.

This was from Cayuse taking the produce, to safeguard the patch Gray stated that he " ... put a little poison ... in order that the Indians who will eat them might be a little sick ... "[24] During the winter of 1846, Young was employed on the mission sawmill.

Robert Heizer said that "This measles epidemic, as an important contributing factor to the Whitman massacre, has been minimized by historians searching for the cause of the outrage.

Bitter from discriminatory treatment in the East, Lewis attempted to spread discontent among the local Cayuse, hoping to create a situation in which he could ransack the Whitman Mission.

Catherine Sager, who had been with Narcissa in another room when the attack occurred, later wrote in her reminiscences that "Tiloukaikt chopped the doctor's face so badly that his features could not be recognized.

[31] Additional persons killed were Andrew Rodgers,[32] Jacob Hoffman, L. W. Saunders, Walter Marsh,[33] John and Francis Sager,[34][35] Nathan Kimball,[36] Isaac Gilliland,[37] James Young,[38] Crocket Bewley, and Amos Sales.

[43] One month following the massacre, on December 29, on orders from Chief Factor James Douglas, Ogden arranged for an exchange of 62 blankets, 62 cotton shirts, 12 Hudson's Bay rifles, 22 handkerchiefs, 300 loads of ammunition, and 15 fathoms of tobacco for the return of the 49 surviving prisoners.

The pageant's success was due, in part to the popularity of the theatrical form during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which held certain commonalities with other spectacular events, such as world's fairs and the arcades.

The Pageant contributed to a narrative that divine providence had ensured the success of European settlers over Native Americans in the conquest of western lands.

But local businesses worked with the Chamber of Commerce to provide special train service to the area, which included "sleeping car accommodations for all who wish to join the party", for a round-trip fare of $24.38.

Although Spalding had "periodic bouts of irrationality" and "fellow missionaries wrote countless letters about his erratic, spiteful, and annoying behavior," he was able to persuade the US Senate to print an official pamphlet in 1871 about Whitman.

Spalding falsely claimed that Whitman had in 1842 travelled by horse across the country to the White House to warn president John Tyler of a British, Catholic, and Native American plot to "steal" Oregon.