The Whitman Massacre Trial: 1850

On Friday afternoon, Judge Pratt pronounced the sentence: On June 3, 1850 "… you are … to be taken by the Marshall … to the gallows … to be erected in Oregon City and there … be hung by the neck until you are dead."

During the 10 days between the trial and the execution date, defense counsel Pritchette had one last card to play on behalf of the prisoners. Governor Lane had left Oregon City for California immediately after the trial. The territorial law stated that the secretary of the territory was to assume the governorship whenever the governor was out of the territory. Pritchette figured that he now had the power to pardon convicts. So, he ordered Marshal Meek to cancel the hanging and release the prisoners.

But Meek went to Judge Pratt and told him of the conflicting orders—one from the executive branch and the other from the judicial branch. Was he supposed to free the prisoners or hang them? Pratt ruled that Pritchette was not the acting governor until Lane had crossed the Oregon-California border three hundred miles away; and as of yet there was no evidence that Lane's journey (at best a 10-day horseback ride) had reached that crossing.

And so, on June 3, the marshal led the five Cayuse to a gallows erected in the dirt streets of Oregon City, placed hoods over their heads, five nooses around their necks, and hanged them en masse before a crowd of spectators. The last of them died after 15 minutes on the end of the rope. Before the trapdoor was sprung, one of the prisoners had called out to the crowd, "Wawko sixto wah! Wawko sixto wah!" Translated loosely, it meant now we can be friends.