Oregon Mission (1831-1846) began as an effort by the Methodist Episcopal Church to convert the native Indians of the far west to Christianity. This mission, under the leadership of Jason Lee, largely failed in its initial goal, but played a significant role in the westward expansion of the United States of America. The Oregon Mission helped to define the current national boundaries between the northwestern continental United States and Canada.

The beginning

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According to legend, in 1831, four Nimi'ipuu (Nez Perce) Indians walked from the Oregon Territory to St. Louis, Missouri in hopes of meeting with General William Clark, the Indian agent at St. Louis. Upon meeting, they told Gen. Clark that they had come from the land of the setting sun in order to learn about the Christian’s book and the white man’s God. General Clark gave them religious instruction but did not give them a Bible. They were overheard by a man named William Walker. He wrote an article for a Christian magazine and started a wave of missionaries that would travel to Oregon Country and try and convert the "awaiting" indians. They also happened to meet a Methodist of the Wyandot tribe who had been sent to St. Louis on business by the United States government. The Indians returned to Oregon disappointed. They were unaware of the stream of events that they had set in motion.

This unknown Wyandot Methodist sent letters that stimulated the Methodist Episcopal Church to begin the first transcontinental mission in America. News of the event was published in the Christian Advocate and Journal in New York, and Christian sympathy was aroused for the inquisitive unbelievers. President Wilbur Fisk of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut was the first leader to rise to the call. He played the key role in securing and preparing Jason Lee for a mission to Oregon Territory.

Jason Lee was a young teacher from Ontario, Canada and was involved in missionary work to Indians in that region. He answered Dr. Fisk’s call. Lee traveled to Boston awaiting further instructions. Bishop Elijah Hedding ordained Lee into the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, now the United Methodist Church, and charged him to the so far nonexistent Oregon mission. The now Rev. Lee left Boston for St. Louis in March 1834.

Leaving Independence, Missouri on April 24, 1834, the historic missionary pilgrimage headed across the large stretch of unbroken wilderness to Fort Vancouver. On this Methodist mission, he was assisted by his nephew, Rev. Daniel Lee, and two laypersons, Cyrus Shepard from Boston, and P. L. Edwards from Missouri. They traveled with a group of about seventy men, mostly hunters and fur traders. Lee and his companions arrived at Fort Vancouver, headquarters for the British Hudson’s Bay Company, in what is now Washington State, near Portland, Oregon. It is often said that on September 28, 1834, Rev. Jason Lee preached the first Protestant sermon on the Pacific coast yet, to be precise, he was perhaps fifty miles from the Pacific coast.

The Mission and Westward Expansion

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They located the mission in the Willamette Valley and called it Mission Bottom. Missionaries untrained in manual labor slowly built log cabins and a school. Lee remarked, “Men never worked harder or performed less.” In the first year, there were fourteen Indian students in the mission school.. Seven of these students died and five ran away. In 1836, there were twenty-five Indian students and sixteen died. One of the surviving Indians converted to Christianity. Indians in the Willamette Valley were dying at a horrendous rate. Retrospectively, it appears that this might have been due to new diseases unwarily brought to the area by the new immigrants. The mission began to form branches.

When a first wave of Americans arrived it is curious that they were greeted by two Canadians; Dr. John McLoughlin, Chief of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who was under orders to discourage white settlers, and Rev. Jason Lee who was most responsible for establishing white settlements, organizing schools, and creating government. Fortunately, Dr. McLoughlin was personally sympathetic to the newcomers. These first arrivals were mostly explorers, traders, mountain men, and missionaries. Hudson’s Bay Company did not want settlers in the region for business and political reasons explained below.

In March of 1836, Rev. Lee wrote to Dr. Fisk telling of the need for tradesmen and farmers. He complained that there was little time for the business of religion. This resulted in reinforcements being sent in 1837 and 1838. After the 1838 reinforcements arrived, Lee moved back to New England.

Lee returned to Oregon with the Great Reinforcement of 1840. He had worked hard to recruit new settlers for his mission. He had 50 people, including needed tradesmen, teachers, and physicians. With this arrival, the population of Mission Bottom was forty adults and fifty children. In 1841, serious flooding resulted in relocation of the community and the Indian Manual Training School from Mission Bottom to Mission Mill, a site within present day Salem, Oregon. In July 1843, Rev. George Gary replaced Rev. Jason Lee. The church expenses were excessive for the limited success of the missions. Rev. Gary closed most of the mission branches.

The International Politics

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During these events the entire territory of what is now Oregon, Washington, and Idaho were claimed jointly by Great Britain and the United States, with economic activity and settlement and other investment by citizens and companies of both sides allowed. This arrangement was to continue indefinitely until both nations agreed on how it should be divided or transferred. Neither country was much interested in taking control, as they were unsure of continued national financial gains through fur trading. John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company and the much larger British Hudson’s Bay Company were the primary interests there. As Hudson’s Bay Company grew due to its long-term presence and goodwill among the native peoples, the territory for most of the period was under de facto British administration. This was limited largely, however, to its trading posts and forts and the small settlements which grew up around them.

The Methodist missionaries sent three petitions to Congress requesting that the United States extend its jurisdiction into this area. Jason Lee toured the country in a crusade to encourage people to settle in the Oregon Territory. In 1843 alone, over one thousand settlers traveled the vast plains and mountains to make their home in Oregon. At that time, this represented the largest migration across the Rockies in history.

The joint jurisdiction of the Northwest between the United States and Great Britain, which began in 1818, ended in 1846 with the Oregon Treaty. The American migration had settled the issue. The boundary between the United States and Canada was fixed at the 49th parallel, where it remains today. Sadly, the task of converting the Indians was less fruitful. Nevertheless, the Methodist Episcopal Church grew to meet the needs of the growing republic and played a large role in its increase.

Remnants

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Mission Mill grew to become Salem, Oregon. Some of the original structures may be seen at Mission Mill Museum located in that city. The Oregon Institute, established in 1844 to educate the white children of Mission Mill, evolved into present-day Willamette University. A city street and a cemetery in Salem bear the name of Jason Lee. A statue of Jason Lee stands in the U. S. Capitol Building’s Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C. as one of the two statues allotted to the state of Oregon.

Bibliography

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• Hines, Gustavus History of the Oregon Mission, Buffalo: George H. Derby and Company, 1850.
• Smith, Sarah Gilbert White, et al. The Mountains We Have Crossed: Diaries and Letters of the Oregon Mission, 1838, University of Nebraska, 1999.
• Luccock, Halford, and Hutchinson, Paul The Story of Methodism, The Methodist Book Concern, 1926.
• Lowewenberg, Robert J. Equality on the Oregon Frontier: Jason Lee and the Methodist Mission, 1834-1843, University of Washington Press, 1976.
• Brosnan, Cornelius J. Jason Lee, Prophet of New Oregon, Academy Books, 1985.
• Ludwig, Charles Jason Lee, Winner of the Northwest, Fromm International, 1993.
• National Park Service Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, Last accessed April 30, 2004. http://www.nps.gov/fova/history.htm
• End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center Jason Lee’s Mission to Oregon, Last accessed April 30, 2004. http://www.endoftheoregontrail.org/road2oregon/sa06JasonLee.html

Historical regions and territories of the United States | History of North America | History of United States expansionism | Religious history of the United States