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What was the Whitman Massacre and why did it happen? In your opinion, why did the Cayuse tribe attack the Whitman Mission?

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Answer: On November 29, 1847, several men, secretly bearing hatchets and guns, visited Whitman under the pretense of a medical visit. In the ensuing attack, sixty Cayuses and Umatillas killed the Whitmans and eleven or twelve other people at the mission and took fifty-three people hostage. Cayuse came to distrust Whitman because more sick natives died from measles than white settlers

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