Cayuse War

Cayuse War
Part of the American Indian Wars
Date 1847–1855 Location Oregon Country and Oregon Territory Result United States victory
Belligerents
United States	Cayuse
Commanders and leaders
Cornelius Gilliam Henry A. G. Lee James Waters	Chief Five Crows War Eagle
Strength
500 militia

The Cayuse War was an armed conflict that took place in the Northwestern United States from 1847 to 1855 between the Cayuse people of the region and the United States Government and local American settlers. Caused in part by the influx of disease and settlers to the region, the immediate start of the conflict occurred in 1847 when the Whitman Massacre took place at the Whitman Mission near present day Walla Walla, Washington when fourteen people were killed in and around the mission. Over the next few years the Provisional Government of Oregon and later the United States Army battled the Indians east of the Cascades. This was the first of several wars between the Indians and American settlers in that region that would lead to the negotiations between the United States and Indians of the Columbia Plateau, creating a number of Indian reservations.

In 1836, two missionaries—Marcus and Narcissa Whitman—founded the Whitman Mission among the Cayuse Indians at Waiilatpu, six miles west of present-day Walla Walla, Washington. In addition to evangelizing, the missionaries established schools and grist mills and introduced crop irrigation. Their work advanced slowly until in 1842, Marcus Whitman convinced the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to provide support. Returning the following year, he joined approximately a thousand settlers traveling to Oregon Territory.

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