Whitman Mission Attack and Cayuse War

Disease, settler migration and mistrust transformed relations around the Whitman mission. After a severe measles epidemic, Cayuse men killed members of the mission household and held women and children captive.

The provisional government organised military campaigns, and five Cayuse men were later executed. The conflict intensified settler control while memories of captivity and missionary martyrdom often obscured Indigenous experiences of disease and land loss.

The Memory Weaver uses Eliza Spalding Warren’s childhood captivity and her mother’s diary to examine trauma, memory and competing interpretations of mission history.