Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/200

 192 DOCUMENT fifteen blankets, is too tempting for an Indian to resist. Many instances have occurred where a man has sold his own child. The. chief factor at Vancouver says the slaves are the property of the women with whom their workmen live, and do not belong to men in their employ, although I have known cases to the contrary. We shall see how this reasoning applies. These women, who are said to be the 'owners of the slaves, are fre- quently bought themselves by the men with whom they live, when they are mere children; of course they have no means to purchase, until their husbands or their men make the pur- chase from the proceeds of their labor ; and then these women are considered the ostensible owners, which neither lessens the traffic, nor ameliorates the condition of the slave, whilst the Hudson Bay Company find it to their interest to encourage their servants to intermarry or live with the native women, as it attaches the men to the soil, and their offspring (half breeds) become in their turn useful hunters and workmen at the differ- ent depots of the company. The slaves are generally employed to cut wood, hunt, and fish, for the families of the men employed by the Hudson Bay Company, and are ready for any extra work. Each man of the trapping parties has from two to three slaves, who assist to hu;it, and take care of the horses and camp ; they thereby save the company the expense of employing at least double the number of men that would otherwise be required on these excursions. After passing ten days at Fort Vancouver, and visiting the Indian lodges near the farm, &c. finding it would be impossible to get a party to accompany me at this season of the year across the mountains, I determined to visit the only white settle- ment on the river Willhamett, the Multonomah of Lewis and Clark. On the morning of the 10th January, having been furnished by Dr. McLaughlin with a canoe and six men, and all the necessaries for the voyage, I left Fort Vancouver to ascend the Willhamett. I shall withhold a description of this beautiful river for the present. On the night of the llth, I passed the falls thirty miles distant. On the 12th, at midnight, I reached "Camp Maud du Sable," the first white settlement on