History from Here

About Grace Period Introduction In September 1840, at their summer camp at Pierre’s Hole in present southeastern Idaho, the Salish community of Montana’s Bitterroot Valley greeted a stocky, 40-year-old man dressed in the black robes of a Jesuit missionary with exclamations of joy. The man was Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, S.J., and if the Salish regarded him as the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy that foretold the arrival of men with white skins who wore black robes. De Smet, too, must have offered prayers of gratitude, his long-held dream of being a missionary in the Rocky Mountains having come true. And while De Smet was the first Catholic missionary to arrive in the Rocky Mountain region, he was far from being the first Jesuit in North America.  Pierre-Jean De Smet, S.J. Pierre-Jean De Smet was born on January 31, 1801, in “Termonde, a prosperous, neat little town of East Flanders, Belgium” to a wealthy and “socially prominent” family. Preferring action to academics, De Smet...

About Grace Period Introduction : Jason Lee, the first Protestant Christian missionary to respond to the made-up call to evangelize the “Flatheads” of the Rocky Mountains, arrived in the Pacific Northwest in 1834. Other Protestant missionaries, including Marcus Whitman and Henry Spalding, soon followed, and as they migrated westward, the Salish of Montana’s Bitterroot Valley journeyed eastward. Most likely inspired by the ceaseless imploring of Ignace Partui, a Catholic Iroquoian who had migrated to the Bitterroot Valley years before, the Salish organized three times for to acquire a "black-robe," first in 1835, then in 1837, and lastly in 1839; this final delegation succeeded where the first two had failed. A year later, the Salish got their black-robe, Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, the first of many European Jesuits who would attempt to achieve the greater glory of God as missionaries among the Indigenous peoples of the American West.    Bitterroot Valley, near Stevensvil...

About Grace Period Introduction : In the fall of 1831, after a months-long journey, four Nez Perce men from the remote Kamiah Valley of what is now northcentral Idaho reached their destination, St. Louis, Missouri. Entrusted by their communities to acquire important information, the visitors, known to history as the Delegation of 1831, did not survive their mission. Two of the men died in St. Louis, and the other two on their return to Idaho. Yet, their visit had momentous consequences for the Native Peoples of the Rocky Mountains. Even in a city as sophisticated as St. Louis, it was unusual enough that it was recorded in the letters of several non-Native men. In fact, it was the publication of one letter – just one letter – that led directly to the arrival of Protestant missionaries in the Pacific Northwest. That its author bore false witness in describing the men and the purpose of their visit makes its consequences heartbreakingly ironic but no less historic.   Heart of the mo...