Protestant and Catholic sources tell different stories about four Nez Perce emissaries from beyond the Rocky Mountains who arrived in St. Louis in the fall of 1831. Although their respective historical accounts reveal little about why native peoples would find it advantageous to send a delegation to an American frontier town asking for help, they reveal much about the contrasts between these rival groups of American Christians in the nineteenth century as well as their common objectives in Christianizing the American west. A third version of Christian missionaries arriving in the intermountain west from an indigenous oral tradition offers a different interpretation of Christianity’s consequences for the native peoples of the region.

新教徒和天主教徒讲述了关于1831年秋天到达洛矶山脉的四名来自洛矶山脉以外的内兹珀斯人使节的不同故事。尽管他们各自的历史记载很少揭示为什么土著人民会发现派代表团前往圣路易斯的好处。美国边境小镇寻求帮助，他们揭示了十九世纪这些敌对的美国基督徒团体之间的对比以及他们在使美国西部基督教化方面的共同目标。从土著口述传统到达山西的基督教传教士的第三种形式，对基督教给该地区的土著人民带来的后果提供了不同的解释。