Cayuse Five

The Cayuse Five were five members of the Cayuse who were executed for murder in 1850 following an attack on a mission settlement near present-day Walla Walla, Washington. Their names were Clokomas, Isiaasheluckas, Kiamasumkin, Telakite, and Tomahas, though spellings vary.

The five were charged with murdering the Protestant missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, and eleven others, in an event known as the Whitman massacre. The massacre occurred at a time when the Cayuse had suffered many deaths in a measles epidemic, and survivors suspected that the Whitmans were complicit.

The trial began on May 21, 1850, in a tavern in Oregon City. All five were convicted and executed by hanging.

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