The Walla Walla Massacre, also referred to as the Whitman Massacre is an event that occurred in 1847 in what was at the time Indian Territory in the state of Oregon, inhabited by the Cayuse Native American tribe. A small group of whites had lived among the Cayuse for over a year, until measles broke out and they were notified that they would need to leave or else they would be killed. A minister by the name of Whitman refused to go, despite a request made also by the governor. He and his missionary were killed, resulting in a war between the whites and Cayuse which lasted for some months.

It has been contested that the Roman Catholic priests who informed the Cayuse that Whitman was the cause of the disease, did so in order to take over his Protestant station, which he had refused to sell to them.

A few years later, when the settlers insisted the matter was yet unresolved, the new governor, General Joseph Lane, took a group to go back to the Cayuse and demanded their surrender. The head chief attempted to explain why they had killed the whites, and that the following war had resulted in a greater loss of his own people than the number killed at the mission. The explanation was not accepted, so three Cayuse men volunteered to go back to Oregon City (then capital of Oregon), to be tried for murder. Although it was more than suspected that the witnesses in the trial had not been present at the massacre, the three Native Americans were found guilty and publicly hanged.

References

• "Sequel to the Walla Walla Massacre" Army and Navy Journal 1 Nov 1879 -as cited on p. 407 of A Century of Dishonor by Helen Hunt Jackson, pub 1887, LCCN: 02-15270
• Gray, William Henry. A history of Oregon, 1792-1849, drawn from personal observation and authentic information … Harris& Holman, 1870. pp.464 [1]