Over nine years, four delegations of indigenous natives travelled from west of the Rockies to St. Louis to request of the Catholic viceroy there that black robes be sent to teach them of Euro-American belief in eternal life.  Upwards of 75+% of indigenous natives died from disease epidemics occurring between the late Eighteenth Century to late Nineteenth Century.   Father Jean Pierre DeSmet recruited priests to serve the indigenous nations of these native delegations seeking baptism for their dying children.  In 1841, they began their mission in the Bitteroot River Valley of today's Western Montana. 
In 1838, having journeyed from Montreal, Canada, Father Blanchet had come to the Oregon Country along with Father Demers.  Here about Shonitkwu falls Father Blanchett conducted the first Catholic baptisms north of California and west of the Rockies on his downriver descent.  He was headed to the Willamette Valley to establish a mission near where retired French-Canadian fur trappers and traders with their families had created an agricultural settlement.  For some time they had been sending requests to Montreal for a priest for them.   
  As there were not enough priests to supply the spiritual needs of all  indigenous native believers, French-Canadian fur trappers and traders and their Metis off-spring, priests travelled between missions staying for periods of a month or more to provide teaching, worship, baptisms, marriages and burials.   A Jesuit missionary             
created the "talking stick" on which were artistically depicted key biblical stories.  This visual aid facilitated the Jesuit missionaries Bible lesson teaching.  Indigenous native men especially liked the colorful worship raiment attire of the black robes [Jesuit priests] during the church year seasons.   Thus, having no families, Jesuit missionaries like Father DeSmet,  as they periodically rotated their services to their various missions, were not perceived as settler colonizers by the indigenous native nations in the Oregon Country.