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Event Date
3-3-2025
Location
Room 1008
Description
In the mid-1840s, American settlers flocked westward on the Oregon Trail, unknowingly bringing with them measles and other foreign diseases to which the Cayuse peoples along the trail had no immunity. Hundreds of Cayuse children were brought to Narcissa and Marcus Whitman at the Whitman Mission for treatment, but ultimately these children could not be saved. In 1847, members of the Cayuse Tribe, acting under Cayuse law to dispose of false doctors (medicine men, or tewat), participated in an attack on the Presbyterian Whitman Mission in Walla Walla Washington, killing the Whitmans and eleven others. After a two-year pursuit, the US Government demanded the Cayuse turn over five men to be punished in exchange for a short-lived peace. The five Cayuse men – despite considerable evidence that some or none of the men had participated in the attack – were found guilty, hanged, and buried in unmarked graves. Today, their burial site remains unknown.
Disciplines
Dispute Resolution and Arbitration | Human Rights Law | Law | Legal Education
Recommended Citation
Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution; Cardozo Law Institute in Holocaust and Human Rights (CLIHHR); Moffitt, Michael; and Conner, Roberta, "Seeking the Cayuse Five: Imagining Reparations and Reconciliation in Oregon" (2025). Event Invitations 2025. 26.
https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/event-invitations-2025/26
Included in
Dispute Resolution and Arbitration Commons, Human Rights Law Commons, Legal Education Commons
