All language subtitles for Kevin Costners The West S01E03 1080p_English [English] (SUBRIP)

- What would cause you to
leave your family and your home

and travel to a place

where almost no one
speaks your language?

No one looks like you.

Your customs are foreign,

and where if you get in trouble,

no one you know
is around to help.

For many, what drove them
west was the promise of land.

For a few, it was their faith,

and that's what moved
Christian missionaries Narcissa

and Marcus Whitman to
travel across the continent.

Their journey along
the Oregon Trail

will inspire
thousands to follow,

and spark a fateful encounter
with a Native nation

that redefines the
Pacific Northwest.

[gentle music]

- People live on myths,

and the myths that really stick
in the American experience

are the myths of the West.

[dramatic music]

The mountains were taller,
the deserts were harsher.

The snows were deeper.

- American West conjures wonder,
possibility, opportunity.

- The figure of
the mountain man.

- [Speaker] Notorious outlaws.

[fire sizzles]

- The cowboy.

- The discovery of
gold in California.

- [Speaker] This train
of wagons trailing

across the prairie.

- Everybody has a reason
for wanting this land.

[hammer tapping]

- But most of that land
was already occupied.

- We have been residents
for more than 10,000 years.

- But this is a clash
of two different ways

of seeing life itself,
fighting for the future

of your homeland
on the one side,

[people shouting]

and fighting for the
destiny of the new republic

on the other side.
[gunshot fires]

[gentle music]

- [Speaker] The history of
the West is a creation story.

It's a creation of what we
think of as modern America.

[train whistle blowing]

- The West is a place
where anything is possible.

It is the essence of
the American dream.

- The core of this is, what
are we to be as a nation?

[person shouts]

The reckoning is coming.

- [Speaker] The
West is this canvas

on which American dreams
become larger than life.

[gentle music]

- [Kevin] The year is 1836,

the final year of Andrew
Jackson's presidency.

The US now has 24 states

and four territories stretching

across the Mississippi River,

but the Americans have their
eyes on the Pacific coast.

California is part of Mexico,

but Oregon Country
is up for grabs.

- Settlement had been continuous

from the Virginia coastline,

the Massachusetts coastline,
even across the Mississippi.

Then you run into
this arid region,

from the edge of the
Great Plains till you get

to the rainy side of
the mountains in Oregon.

And so in the 1830s,
the settlement has

to make this big
jump if you're gonna,

if you're farmers
looking for land.

- This is the green place
beyond the great American desert

where if you can just get there,

there's a possibility
of a life ahead.

[dramatic music]

- [Kevin] Oregon
Country stretches

from the Continental Divide
to the Pacific coast,

and from the northern edge

of California all
the way up to Alaska.

Britain and America
both lay claim

to the region simply
for having explored it.

In 1792, fur trader Robert
Gray was the first American

to navigate into
the Columbia River,

which he named after his ship.

Britain traces its
claim to the voyage

of Captain James Cook, who
sailed to Vancouver in 1778,

but after the two nations
clash in the War of 1812,

neither side wants
to fight again.

And so in 1818, they agree

to jointly occupy the
Pacific Northwest.

- The British have a much
bigger settlement imprint

on the West Coast.

The Hudson Bay Company was one

of these Canadian fur companies

that has a fairly
elaborate infrastructure

in the Oregon Country.

The US doesn't have much at all.

- There was this
national incentive

to put Americans on
the ground there.

If the place fills
up with Americans,

then the United States is
gonna have a better claim

than the British.

[dramatic music]

- [Kevin] The first men to
arrive in Oregon Country

are explorers,
trappers, and traders.

They send back stories
of fertile lands,

rich and natural resources.

- You could get land
cheap in the West,

and you could get
land in Oregon free.

You could just go out
there and claim it,

because Americans at that
time did not recognize

that the Native American
peoples living on any territory

had title to the land.

[suspenseful music]

[birds chirping]

- The expansive
land that was known

to our people was millions
of acres from the source

of the Columbia River in
British Columbia to the ocean.

We're the only people
in that landscape

who have been residents
for more than 10,000 years.

[dramatic music]

- [Kevin] For Americans,
the most direct route

to the Pacific Coast
is an arduous journey.

over land across
two mountain ranges.

Do you have the courage
to make the trip?

- But then the missionaries
begin to arrive.

[dramatic music]
[church bell ringing]

- There's a series of
events toward the end

of the first third
of the 19th century.

It's called the Second
Great Awakening.

It's the revival of
evangelical Christianity,

a belief in the literal
veracity of the gospels

and the Bible, but also a call

to bring others to
the Christian faith.

- It really inflames
a lot of individuals,

and you're excited to
take all of this fervor,

all this fire, all this passion,

and disseminate the
word into foreign lands,

and at that particular time,

foreign land was anything
west of the Mississippi.

- The whole idea is to
convert the Indians.

Now, if in fact they also
facilitate the settlement

of Oregon by other white
people, I mean that's good too.

[dramatic music]

- Missionaries are
hearing a story that,

to them, is so delicious.

They hear that four Indians

from the Pacific Northwest
traveled to St. Louis

to get more information
about Christianity.

- If somebody says,
"Bring the gospel to us,"

how, as a good evangelical
Christian, how can you say no?

- We weren't looking
for a different God.

We were looking for the source
of the white men's power

that allowed them to
have these technologies

that we did not have, their
guns and their metal kettles

and their steel
traps, you name it.

[dramatic music]

- [Kevin] The Christians
mistakenly believe

that the Native visitors speak
for all Indigenous people

of the Pacific Northwest.

The call to mission sounds
out across the eastern states.

For Narcissa Prentiss, a young
woman in upstate New York,

it strikes a chord.

- She leads revivals, she
teaches Sunday school,

and so she becomes very
dedicated to the idea

that a missionary vocation

is really the right
thing for her.

- [Kevin] She writes a
letter requesting support

from the church mission board.

- The American Board of

Commissioners
for Foreign Missions

would gather money to
support Protestant missions

to spread the gospel abroad,

but also in the American
West on the frontier.

- In 1836, women had so
few rights in America.

They could not own property
if they were married.

They could not write
a legal contract,

and the most important thing
is they could not vote,

which meant that they couldn't
change their lot in life.

This is why it's so
incredible that Narcissa,

as a single woman,
was planning to go

by herself over to Oregon.

- [Kevin] The missionary
board tells Narcissa

they will not send a
woman into Indian country

unless she is married.

[dramatic music]

- Marcus Whitman is
a 32-year-old doctor

in upstate New York.

He is an evangelical Christian.

- [Blaine] But he's
bored by being a doctor.

There's no excitement in it.

- He applies to the
American Missionary Board,

and they're not too keen on
sending him out as a single man.

And so they encourage
him to get married,

and he finds a suitable
candidate in the figure

of Narcissa Prentiss.

- You need a husband,
I need a wife.

And so they get together,
they get married,

and then they present
themselvesto the Mission Board.

And the Mission Board at
this point can't say no.

- [Kevin] It's a 3,000 mile
journey to Oregon Country.

The day after their wedding,

Marcus and Narcissa
leave the comfort

and safety of western New York,

and travel to Liberty, Missouri,

a town on the western edge
of American settlement.

- They had to go
by horse and wagon,

and then they had to
go by canal barges,

move sometimes on sleighs,
and then when the horse

and wagon didn't work,
they'd have to walk.

They're subject to the heat
and the rain and the snow.

It's incomprehensible.

- [Kevin] Narcissa kept
a journal of her travels.

- [Narrator] I think I shall
endure the journey well,

perhaps better than
any of the rest of us.

It seems to me now that we

are on the very borders
of civilization.

- They go with another couple,

Reverend Henry Spalding
and his wife Eliza.

It's a seven-month journey.

- In the early 1830s,
there really wasn't much

of a trail to Oregon.

It was a trapper's trail. You
couldn't get a wagon over it.

And so it was really a
tough, tough journey.

- Marcus Whitman recognizes
that the only way

that Christian
civilization as he perceives

is gonna be planted
in Oregon is,

and this is crucial, when you
can get women to come out,

because if it's just
the fur traders,

if it's just the explorers,

they don't create
a settled society.

So Marcus Whitman
gets it in his head he

is going to find a wagon road.

The wagon was
considered crucial,

because a wagon was the
moving van of its era.

- Just imagine how
difficult it would be to go

to Oregon in a cart.

But if this delicate example
of American female virtue

could do it, I guess
the door's open.

- So the people who become
missionaries, first of all,

they're utterly convinced
of the importance

of what it is they're doing.

So this can give them
courage to do things

that most people don't do,
because with this mindset,

when you encounter some
dangerous situation, say,

what's the worst that
can happen to me?

I'll get killed. I'll
die and go to heaven.

[light dramatic music]

- [Kevin] Traveling along
traditional Native trails,

missionaries Narcissa and
Marcus Whitman slowly traverse

the Great Plains on their
way to Oregon Country.

- Narcissa's view
of what was in store

for her was really very idyllic.

She didn't imagine
traveling by wagon.

There's no shocks, and you are
jostled from pillar to post.

- It can be hot, it can
be cold, it can be raining,

it can be thundering,
it can be lightning.

You can be smashing through
ruts, over rocks, over stumps.

It goes on and on and on.

- [Narrator] Since
we have been here,

we have made our tent
large enough for us all

to sleep under, quite
a little family.

[dramatic music]

- One of the great
ironies is that Marcus

and Narcissa
Whitman travel west,

along with Henry Spalding,

a man Narcissa had rejected
in a proposal of marriage,

and he's sleeping
in the same tent

with the Whitmans
on their honeymoon,

a time when they conceived
their only child.

- Pregnancy on that trip was one

of the most dangerous things
that could happen to you.

There's no stopping for you
if you have morning sickness.

There's no stopping for you
if you have a miscarriage.

And so that's the kind of thing
that creates extra pressures

for women on these
long, long migrations.

[gentle music]

- [Kevin] The Whitmans
and the Spaldings

cross the Rocky Mountains
by way of the South Pass,

a route favored by
the Shoshone people.

[dramatic music]

In July of 1836, Narcissa

and Eliza become the
first American women

to make this journey over
the Continental Divide.

- As they travel west,
they meet for a rendezvous

in what is now Wyoming.

It's South Pass in the Rockies.

[dramatic music]

- [Kevin] Once a year,

miles from the edge of
American settlement,

a temporary city springs up,
populated by French, British

and American fur
trappers and traders,

and hundreds of Native Americans
from across the plains.

- These rendezvous are where

all these independent
fur trappers show up.

You know, drinking,
gambling, fighting,

whoring, the whole thing.

You can imagine with some
missionaries showing up

at a rendezvous, their
mouths must have dropped

in utter shock to
see what went on.

- [Kevin] At the rendezvous,

Narcissa befriends a legendary
mountain man named Joe Meek.

- Mountain men like Joe Meek

could help tell the
Whitmans where to go,

how to get there, give
them local knowledge.

And so the mountain men
became a very important link

between the tribes and
the settlers who came.

- [Kevin] As they
approach Oregon Country,

the missionaries find their path

is more treacherous than ever.

[majestic music]

- [Narrator] Before noon,
we began to descend one

of the most terrible
mountains for steepness

and length I have yet seen.

It was like winding
stairs in its descent,

and in some places,
almost perpendicular.

- [Kevin] Once they
reach the Blue Mountains

in Oregon Country, they are
forced to abandon their wagons

and continue on horseback.

And finally, after almost
200 days on the road,

they get their first glimpse
of what will be their new home.

[dramatic music]

- They're exhausted, they're
running low on provisions,

and they come over the crest
of the last mountain range,

and they look down and they
have this great sense of relief.

We've made it.

[suspenseful music]

- It must have been
absolutely amazing

after such an arduous journey,
and realizing that this

is where you're
gonna have your baby,

and you're thinking to yourself,

"I've come to bring the
light of true religion,

and the sun will
shine on my efforts."

And you might not be right.

- [Kevin] In the
fall of 1836, Marcus

and Narcissa settle
in the foothills

of the Blue Mountains
near Walla Walla.

- Henry Spalding squabbles
almost the entire trip

with Marcus Whitman.

And when they arrive in
the Pacific Northwest,

they really can't
stand each other,

and they decide to
live 120 miles apart.

[gentle music]

- [Kevin] The Spaldings
settle among the Nez Perce

in the Lapwai Valley.

Meanwhile, Narcissa and
Marcus make their home

near the Cayuse, four
days away by horseback.

- The Nez Perce warn
the white missionaries

that it's probably dangerous
to live among the Cayuse.

For one thing, it's very
dangerous for a doctor,

'cause the Cayuse have
this longstanding tradition

of killing medicine
men who fail.

- For the Cayuse, like
many Native peoples,

medicine man is a
sacred practice.

When you can't deliver results,
the Cayuse demand justice,

and the penalty
for that is death.

[dramatic music]

- [Kevin] Despite the
warnings they receive

about the Cayuse,

the Whitmans embrace
their missionary work.

Marcus builds the mission

with several hired hands from
the Hudson's Bay Company.

They call it Waiilatpu,

in the Cayuse language,
the place of the rye grass.

Funded by the missionary
board in the East,

it will include a mission
house, a school, and a farm.

- Narcissa gives birth
to her daughter Alice

in March of 1837,

just about five, six months

after they set up
housekeeping at their mission.

- Narcissa is thrilled when
she welcomes her little girl

into the world,
and so is Marcus.

Now we have a child born
in the Promised Land.

- At the mission
in the early days,

the Whitmans have good
relations with the Cayuse.

[suspenseful music]

The local chief, or head
man, his name is Tiloukaikt,

is seen as a benevolent,
a sort of a kind uncle.

He comes to see little Alice,

and in general, the reception

for the whole family
is very hopeful.

- Tiloukaikt gave
her an Indian name,

called her Cayuse Girl.

That's how it translated.

And he calls her that
because she is a sign to us

that we will have good times
ahead, good fortune ahead.

We have young children,
they have young children,

and it is a family now.

- [Kevin] Unlike the fur
trappers who came before them,

the Whitmans want
to change the way

the Cayuse live and
what they believe.

- So for Indigenous people,

Christianity wasn't
necessarily a threat initially,

because it's like,
oh, the Great Spirit,

well, that kind of makes sense,

and we'll incorporate that
into our belief systems

until it doesn't
work for us anymore.

[dramatic music]

- When the Whitmans arrive,
they think their ways have

to be followed before the
Native Americans can be saved.

So that involves settling
down, becoming farmers,

cutting their hair, stop
dancing, stop gambling.

- They want us to give
up the way of life

that has sustained us for
more than 10,000 years.

The expectation is that we
should be as much like them

as possible in all
factors of our life.

We should be prim and proper.

We should not travel
to gather our foods.

We should stay in one
place and grow our foods.

We should not take
up with the trappers

and traders in the
way that we have,

and everything they want us to
change is not in our nature.

- [Kevin] Life at the mission
settles into a routine of work

and worship, until one
day, tragedy strikes.

[dramatic music]

- [Virginia] The worst
possible thing happens

when Alice is not
quite three years old.

- Marcus and
Narcissa don't notice

that their daughter
has wandered away.

- So Alice is on her own,

and she's playing at the water

before anybody realizes

that they haven't seen
her for a few minutes.

And the alarm is raised
that Alice is missing,

and everyone begins
to look for her.

[suspenseful music]

- And that's when they find

that she has drowned in
the Walla Walla River.

[dark tense music]

[water rushing]

- [Blaine] The body is recovered

and it's brought
back to the family.

[door squeaks]

- Tiloukaikt has known
her since she was born.

She's special to him,

and he's very sad to present
this little girl to her mother.

The loss of her
daughter changes her.

Her moroseness characterizes
her relationship more

and more with our people.

- Narcissa becomes very
annoyed with the fact

that the Cayuse come and
go from the compound,

come and go out of her home
when she was despondent

and would rather just be to
herself and deal with her grief.

- [Kevin] To make matters worse,

the Whitmans are failing
to convert the Cayuse.

- Marcus and Narcissa
Whitman only manage

to baptize two people
in the entire time

that they are
running this mission.

Two.

[dramatic music]

- [Kevin] Meanwhile, the
Spaldings are having

more success with the Nez Perce.

The competition between Henry

and Marcus sours into
a bitter rivalry.

- They don't like each
other, they're jealous.

They write tattling letters
back to the board in Boston.

And these letters, there are
hundreds of these letters,

in fact, most of them
tattling on each other.

They're behaving in
a most un-Christian,

un-adult kind of way.

[dramatic music]

And so the board
finally decides,

we're gonna pull the plug.

[dramatic music]

- [Kevin] But Marcus
refuses to accept

the mission board's decision.

With winter fast approaching,

he leaves Narcissa
in October of 1842,

and begins the 3,000
mile journey back east

to plead his case in person.

[dramatic music]

- [Kevin] Setting out
from Oregon Country,

late in the fall of 1842,

missionary Marcus Whitman
makes his way east

across the continent.

At the end of a harrowing
six-month journey,

he arrives in Boston
in threadbare clothes

and throws himself on the
mercy of the Mission Board.

They give him one last chance.

- Whitman returns from
Boston by way of St. Louis,

and in St. Louis, there is
a large wagon train formed.

He didn't organize it,

but he ends up becoming
its defacto head man.

He shows them that wagons
can, in fact, cross the Rockies

and several hundred
American settlers come.

It opens the way for
almost exponential growth.

- [Kevin] Seven years
have passed since Marcus

first set off for
Oregon Country.

This time he is one of
the many making the trek.

In 1843, more than
a thousand Americans

are bound for Oregon Country.

Economic conditions in
the East are driving more

and more Americans
into the West.

- There's a financial panic
in 1837 that throws a lot

of people out of work,
and people in the East,

for whom life wasn't
going so well,

they always thought they could
start over again in the West.

- [Kevin] Much has changed
since the Whitman's first trip.

Back then, Marcus had been
forced to abandon his wagon

when the trail became
too rocky and narrow.

But the trail has been
widened and extended

by Narcissa's friend
from the rendezvous,

mountain man Joe Meek.

Now wagon trains can make their
way over the Blue Mountains

past the Whitman mission,

and further west toward
the Pacific Coast.

Joe Meek's path
becomes the last leg

of the legendary Oregon Trail.

[dramatic music]

- Most of these
Americans who head west

are utterly clueless about
how big this continent is,

and utterly shocked
when they get out there.

There are people who are trying
to carry their furniture,

and eventually, the Oregon
Trail becomes littered

with dining room sets, and
pianos, and rocking chairs,

and all sorts of things

that these eastern settlers
think they're gonna take

with them on this
westward journey.

- They encounter
great difficulties,

but they're gonna get
there no matter what.

When families go
west, then you know

that the western
settlement is serious.

[dramatic music]

- [Kevin] In late
September 1843,

Marcus returns to
Oregon Country.

After more than a year apart,

Narcissa and her
husband are reunited.

The Great Migration
gives them a new purpose.

Turning their attention
away from the Cayuse,

they focus on
supporting new migrants

who stop off at the
mission on their way

to the fertile lands of the
Willamette Valley to the west.

- Often when settlers
traveled west,

they lost family
members, parents died,

and children were left orphans,

and the Whitmans took them in.

- Narcissa Whitman recognizes

she's not gonna be
converting Native people,

and so she says, "I
realize that I have

to focus my efforts on
trying to bring the light

of the true religion to
the white people around me.

[dramatic music]

- [Kevin] The influx
of migrants strengthens

the America's hold
on the Pacific coast.

Although it is still jointly
occupied with Great Britain,

Oregon figures more and more

into America's dreams
for the future,

and becomes a key part
of James Polk's campaign

for president in 1844.

- So James Polk runs

for president on an overtly
expansionist ticket,

and he says, "We're gonna
claim all of Oregon."

- [Kevin] After Polk is elected,

Great Britain gives
into pressure by the US

and signs a treaty in 1846,

dividing Oregon Country between
them at the 49th parallel.

- Great Britain understood
that the sheer juggernaut

of American intention, and
willpower, and manpower,

and economic power was
going to make it impossible

for them really to
maintain any claims

to Oregon without a war,

and they didn't want
to fight that war.

- [Kevin] The treaty gives
the British everything north

of the 49th parallel, plus
the island of Vancouver,

while the US gets
the southern part

of Oregon Country, gaining
18.5 million acres of new land

and their first piece
of the Pacific coast.

But the American part of
Oregon remains unorganized

with no federal presence
and no formal government.

- In the case of Oregon,

the settlers went
ahead of government,

and then government
came along afterwards.

And so more people
come the next year,

and more people come
the year after that.

- And so the Oregon Trail

then becomes the
highway to Oregon.

- The numbers go from like 250
one year to 1,000 one year,

to 4,000 the next
year, to 7,000.

They're starting to outnumber
the Indigenous people

of the region very quickly,

and the Cayuse see
the transformation,

and they don't like it.

[dramatic music]

- [Kevin] Among
the many newcomers

at the Whitman mission in
1847 is a man named Joe Lewis.

He is of mixed blood, part
French Canadian, part Native.

He brings a stark
warning for the Cayuse.

- Around the country,

Native people have
lost their lands.

They have been wiped out.
They have been killed off.

- [Kevin] Over the
previous decade and a half,

around a hundred thousand
American Indians east

of the Mississippi have
been forcibly displaced

under President Andrew
Jackson's Indian Removal Act.

American settlers have taken
their lands for themselves.

This news from Joe
Lewis alarms the Cayuse.

With Oregon now controlled
by the United States,

they fear that settlers
will soon take their land.

Then in the fall of 1847,
an outbreak of measles tears

through the Pacific Northwest.

White settlers
contract the virus,

but many of them have
natural resistance.

The Cayuse and other
Native Americans do not.

[suspenseful music]

- Our ways of healing
are not working.

Dr. Whitman's are not working
when they're burying two,

four, and six people a day.

- Whitman didn't understand
how measles worked.

His favorite prescription
was to bleed people

who were sick, which
made them sicker.

He didn't really
know what else to do.

[suspenseful music]

- [Kevin] Eventually
disease will kill

nearly half the Cayuse,

hitting their children
hardest of all.

- Marcus Whitman is not
able to save our people.

He's warned many times.
Among the Cayuse,

if you practice bad medicine,

you could pay with your life.

- [Kevin] In November of 1847,

Marcus Whitman fires Joe
Lewis from the mission

where he'd been
employed as a laborer.

Lewis starts to spread
a pernicious rumor

that the Whitmans are
poisoning the Cayuse

so they can steal their land.

- If you're one of the
Indians, you're thinking,

"Boy, not only are they
affronting our beliefs,

but they're killing us."

- [Kevin] Friendly
Cayuse warn Marcus

that his life is now in danger.

- But for reasons having to
do with the stubborn nature

of Marcus Whitman and
his sense of destiny,

Whitman will not leave.

[dramatic music]

- [Kevin] On November 29th,
1847, it all comes to a head.

That morning there was a funeral
for three Cayuse children,

all victims of measles.

Among the dead
children is the son

of the local leader Tiloukaikt.

It is his third child
to die from the measles.

After the funeral, Marcus

and Narcissa receive some
visitors at the mission.

[knocking on door]

More than a dozen Cayuse men
gather outside their door.

[suspenseful music]

[door squeaks]

- He admits two or
three Cayuse warriors,

including Tiloukaikt and
another warrior named Tomahas

to this mission house.

- I'm sure he sensed
something was amiss,

and so he helps to get Narcissa
out of there with the child.

- [Blaine] They engage
him in conversation.

- And they are there asking
Dr. Whitman about medicine.

And what they wanted to
show was that he had poisons

in his medicines.

- And according to witnesses,

Tomahas hits Whitman in the back

of the head with a tomahawk,

[tomahawk pounds]
[body thuds to ground]

[dramatic music]

knocking him to the ground
and cracking his skull.

He's then shot in the neck.

[gunshot fires]

Narcissa goes to the
window to look out

and see what's happening, and
she's shot in the shoulder.

[gunshot fires]

- The Cayuse are not going
to abandon their mission

to get rid of the Whitmans.

[suspenseful music]

- They're able to
get Mrs. Whitman

on a settee and carry it out.

Joe Lewis is one of the carriers
of that piece of furniture.

[suspenseful music]

- She's thrown off the settee

that she was carried
out on into the mud.

She's shot, she's
hacked, she's whipped,

and she dies in the mud.

[birds chirping]
[suspenseful music]

- When our young men decided

that the Whitmans'
lives should end,

they didn't realize
it would bring down

on us thunder from the east
that we could not have imagined.

- [Kevin] After
killing the Whitmans,

the Cayuse continue
their slaughter,

killing 11 more white settlers

who are living at the mission.

- When word of the massacre
reaches the Willamette Valley,

it causes rage and a
desire for vengeance.

The white people create
a militia to go to war.

- [Kevin] The settlers
want protection

from the federal government,

and they send Joe Meek to
Washington to ask for it.

- Meek makes the case that
in order to defend the lives

of American citizens,
the Oregon Country needs

to become a US territory.

- [Kevin] In August of 1848,

Oregon officially becomes a
territory of the United States.

600 federal riflemen are sent
west to hunt for the killers.

- They send out a governor,
they send out the military.

It's open season on Indians
in the Oregon Territory.

- [Kevin] The ensuing
conflict will come

to be known as the Cayuse War.

The Native side suffers
devastating losses.

Finally, after two
years, in April of 1850,

five men turn themselves
in to stop the bloodshed.

Joe Lewis is not among these
volunteers, but Tiloukaikt is.

- They make statements,

depositions,

and Tiloukaikt says,

"Did not Christ die
to save his people?

So I die. We die to
save our people."

- [Kevin] The
so-called Cayuse Five

are transported to Oregon City

and hastily tried for
murder in a tavern,

A jury of white settlers
hands down a guilty verdict

and a death sentence.

[suspenseful music]

- Maybe half of all
the white people

in the Willamette
Valley come to watch it.

[mournful contemplative music]

- The five men who were
hanged in Oregon City,

we're still looking
for their graves,

because we'd like
to bring them home.

[gentle music]

- [Kevin] In 1855, just 50 years

after first welcoming American
explorers to the region,

the Cayuse are forced
to sign a treaty.

The terms are harsh.

They must give up
their vast homeland

of over 6.4 million acres

and move onto a 245,000-
acre reservation

shared with other tribes.

The lands they surrender are
given to American settlers.

In 1859, Oregon becomes the
33rd state in the union.

- Henry Spalding, after
the death of his rival,

Marcus Whitman, becomes a
one-man propaganda machine,

and he essentially
invents the Whitman legend

for American history.

Whitman is credited

with getting the Oregon
Country for the United States.

- [Kevin] Spalding
sends articles

to religious newspapers,

and eventually
persuades the US Senate

to publish his account
of Whitman's heroism,

elevating himself
in the process.

- And Marcus Whitman goes from
being a failed anonymous guy

who got killed to a
Christ-like figure

who sacrificed his blood
so Oregon could live.

- [Kevin] The killing
of the Whitmans

fails to stop the
flood of immigrants

to the rich farmlands of Oregon.

From the 1840s
through the 1860s,

over 400,000 people travel
west along the Oregon Trail.

- It was the greatest folk
migration in American history.

At some points,
there were as many

as 12 wagons abreast
growing across this country.

- So many people come
to the Willamette Valley

that they actually carve a
cut through the mountains

and across the prairies

that can be seen
still from satellites.

- [Kevin] The epic migration
continues by foot, by cart,

by mule, and by wagon

until the Transcontinental
Railroad offers travelers

a gentler way to go west.

Oregon is changed forever.

Where the Cayuse once
gathered food and hunted game

and where the mountain men
once trapped animals for trade,

the varied landscape
is now supplanted

by settlements and farms.

- And so there is a
kind of transition

from an extraction
economy of furs,

and now moving into
an agrarian economy

in the Pacific Northwest.

- We accept that our homeland

is the homeland of
many people now.

Our elders always
tell us there's good

and bad in everything
that happens.

You have to look at both.

[gentle music]

- Of the thousand Americans

that follow the
Whitmans to Oregon,

few will see their deaths as
anything other than a massacre.

But their story is
emblematic of a pattern

that repeats across
the American West,

settlers using Native
resistance as an excuse

to seize their homelands,

and just as they did in Oregon,

land-hungry settlers
will push into Texas

and turn a raid on
one pioneer family

into a long and bloody war,

fought against the most
powerful Native force

on the continent,
the Comanche Empire.