Kate and Sue McBeth, Missionary Teachers to the Nez Perce

The Nez Perces, however, were at a turning point in their history. They were armed adequately with guns and could acquire whatever goods they wanted from whites. Their strength, and the sources of their supplies, gave them confidence that they could hold their own on contested buffalo grounds, even in the territory of their enemies. The trade goods they acquired on the plains and at the posts were steadily enriching their material lives, and no one threatened their villages or their customs. Their wealth and their geographic position close to the plains helped increase their status as the strongest and most influential people of the Plateau.

But in this heyday the seed of a disruptive change was being planted. The closeness with white Americans was affecting some Nez Perces. A dependence on the whites was growing, and a few Nez Perces curried favors and gifts from them and almost seemed as if they wanted to live and be like the whites themselves. On March 1, 1933, a Methodist publication in New York City carried a dramatic article about four Indians who had journeyed from the Rocky Mountains to St. Louis in 1831, allegedly seeking information about the white man’s religion. Those Indians were Nez Perces. Although the article was based largely on misunderstanding, it was to have profound effects on all the Nez Perce people. . . .

Many Nez Perces have maintained that before the coming of whites, their ancestors did believe in a supernatural being above all other spirits, a single God, who was the Creator and Maker of the universe. Whether this stemmed from the existence of a pre-contact cult with Christian influences is not known. When Lewis and Clark and the trappers and traders finally did reach the Northwest, the Nez Perces began to hear at first hand of the whites’ religious beliefs, seeing some of the more devout explorers and fur men at prayer and watching them read from their Bibles. In the countries of the Spokans and Flatheads and while traveling with the fur brigades, Nez Perces met Catholic French-Canadian and Iroquois Indian trappers who told them of their beliefs. And at fur posts like Fort Nez Perces [located 12 miles below the confluence of the Snake and the Columbia Rivers], they became familiar with the observance of the Sabbath and Christmas, when a flag flew from the flagpole and the fur men shaved, dressed differently, celebrated, and did no work. The whites’ religion undoubtedly aroused curiosity and interest among some Nez Perces, particularly the prestige-seeking headmen and chiefs, who understood from their own system of vision quests and guardian spirits that achievement of secular goals came from supernatural power. Nevertheless, for more than two decades in the 19th century, Christianity seems to have mead little or no impact on the Nez Perces.

Then a dramatic train of events occurred. In 1825 the Hudson’s Bay company sent sons of important Spokan and Kutenai headmen to an Anglican mission school at Red River, at present-day Winninpeg, Canada. After four years of Christian training, they returned to their homes, speaking English, dressed like whites, and carrying Bibles. They became sensations in their villages, and throughout the winter of 1829-30, both of them . . . lectured and preached forcefully to large groups of Indians from many Plateau tribes, including the Nez Perces.

The youths’ readings from the bible and explanations about the Ten Commandments, the need to observe Sunday, and other basic Christian teachings made a great impression on their Nez Perce listeners. Viewing this knowledge of a relationship to the supernatural world, different from their own, as a source of the white men’s economic and social power, an envious perhaps of its acquisition by the Spokans and Kutenais, some Nez Perce headmen quickly became desirous of possessing the information, especially a copy of the Bible, the book that seemed to contain all the instructions they would need to know. As a result, when the Hudson’s Bay Company announced that its fur men would escort more young Indians to the Red River mission for training in 1830, the Nez Perces eagerly sent two youths. One, whom the whites named Ellice . . . was the grandson of the prominent old war chief, Red Grizzly Bear. The next year, 1831, in an even more significant development, four venturesome Nez Perce warriors from a buffalo-hunting band, whose home villages were on the upper Clearwater, joined a group of American fur traders . . who were returning from Utah to Missouri. In St. Louis, they met William Clark, who had become Superintendent of Indian Affairs, . . . and they created the impression that they had been sent by their people to seek Bibles and teachers of Christianity for their tribe. Their precise motives will never be known. . . . Two of the Nez Perces, Wep-tes-tse-mookh Tse-mookh (Black Eagle) and Ka-ow-poo (Man of the Dawn), contracted a white man’s illness in St. Louis and died and were buried there. The other two started back west up the Missouri . . . in March 1832 on an American Fur Company steam boat. George Catlin, also a passenger on the vessel, painted their portraits in clothes some Sioux Indians had given them. Soon afterward, another of the Nez Perces, Ta-weis-se-sim-nihn (No Horns), died aboard the ship. The fourth, Heh-yookts Toe-nihn (Rabbit Skin Leggings), finally rejoined his band on the western Montana plains and was killed in a battle with the Blackfeet. He seems, however, to have informed the band members that white teachers with copies of "the book" would soon be coming to instruct them.

On their own, meanwhile, many Nez Perce headmen and chiefs were leading their bands in adopting some of the Christian practices. . . . Beginning in 1830, a cult showing pronounced Christian influences spread among the bands and other Plateau tribes. American fur men, meeting groups of Nez Perces, were astounded by certain newly adopted practices that indicated a genuine Christian piety. . . .

To many trappers, the Indians seemed ripe for Christianity. All that the Nez Perces had heard from the French Canadians and Iroquois and seen around the fur company camps and posts was now reflected in the newly emerged cult. Nathaniel Wyeth, another American trader, repeatedly wrote in his journals of Nez Perces "praying, dancing & singing." Sunday there was a "parade of prayer . . . nothing is done Sunday in the way of trade with these Indians nor in playing games." . . . Prayers were common morning and evening, and a blessing was asked at every meal. The inspiration for the cult, . . . may have been a more Christian-influenced revival of the pre-contact "prophet cult," . . . but the motives were secular, an attempt by headmen and others to acquire increased standing and success by sharing the seemingly more powerful supernatural ideas of the white men. . . .

In the east, at the same time, news of the St. Louis visit of the four Nez Perces had been spread excitedly by the religious press, and various denominations began a race to respond to the Indians’ "appeal" for missionaries. (pp. 57-61)