Marcus and Narcissa Whitman were Christian missionaries who left their homes in upstate New York and traveled with another missionary couple, Henry and Eliza Spalding, to what was then called Oregon Country in 1836. Their mission? To "Christianize" Indians. In fact, Oregon wasn't even a territory yet. The United States government didn't have any programs in Oregon Country, which at the time consisted of the present-day states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and parts of Wyoming and Montana. The Whitmans and the Spaldings were among the very first Americans of European decent to travel across North America by land to the western part of Oregon Country. Eleven years after the Whitmans arrived, a group of Cayuse ambushed and killed them along with eleven other people in what became a pivotal event in Washington state and Pacific Northwest history called The Whitman Massacre, but the story you might think you know may very well be appended - or upended - or both by the time we're is finished.