Klickitat County, Washington
Klickitat County is a county located in the U.S. state of Washington. As of the 2010 census, the population was 20,318. The county seat and largest city is Goldendale. The county is named after the Klickitat tribe of the Yakama Native Americans.
Native American peoples of Oregon
Native peoples engaged in encounters and interactions with Christian missionaries along with explorers and tradesmen. The missionaries focused on converting native peoples as part of a greater effort to assimilate native peoples and thus to decrease their threat to settlers and settler efforts. Missionaries headed by the Methodist Jason Lee established a large "Indian church" at The Dalles in 1839 in an effort to convert members of the Klickitat tribe to Christianity. Lee also set out to build a new settlement at the mouth of the Umpqua River, familial grounds of the Umpqua tribe. Notably, Lee made great attempts to encourage further settlement of the area, traveling back east across the continent, bringing with him two native peoples to display to potential settlers. Lee hoped to attract white settlers to the West in order to increase the United States' power and to create a white settler community.