Indian Slavery in Pacific Northwest (In Three Parts, I.) Author(s): Elsie Frances Dennis Source: Oregon Historical Quarterly , Mar., 1930, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Mar., 1930), pp. 69-81 Published by: Oregon Historical Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/20610522
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This content downloaded from 47.25.247.108 on Sat, 20 Jun 2020 23:57:30 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms INDIAN SLAVERY IN PACIFIC NORTHWEST' By ELSIE FRANCES DENNIS (In three parts, I.) SLAVERY AMONG the Indians of the northwest coast of America is chronicled by every writer who treats at length of the In dians. Early explorers of all nations, who visited the coast and remained long enough to be conversant with the customs of the natives, mention slavery as more or less prevalent. Although some carefully observant visitors such as Captain Cook do not mention it, the omission is due to the visitor's brief stay. Navi gators who remained for any length of time, such as Vancouver, Jewitt and Meares, mention the custom, as do the early fur traders, such as Franchere, Ross Cox, Alexander Henry and employes of the Hudson's Bay Company. The early mission aries, such as Jason Lee and Dr. Elijah White, mention it in their records. The early settlers of the Oregon territory at first accepted the custom of the country, though they later made laws against slavery in any form.2 In preparation for this paper, the writer has examined more than 80 different authors, more than 60 of them being the authors of source material. A wide variety of opinion is ex pressed by these authors, as to the extent of slavery among the Indians, and the treatment of the slaves. The Russians were probably the first Europeans to visit northwest America. Material bearing upon their voyages is scanty, because of the lack of translation, and only a few references are available. Captain Krenitzin and Lieutenant Levasheff, who made a voyage to the Fox Islands in 1768-9 by order of the Empress of Russia, say in their journal that when Indian parents died the children must make shift for them selves. The Russians found many destitute children, for the natives brought numbers of them to their ship for sale.3 Lisi ansky, a captain in the Russian navy, in his journal under the
iA thesis presented to the faculty of the graduate school of the University of Oregon for the degree of master of arts in Septem ber, 1928. 2Acts of Oregon provisional government, beginning in 1843. 3Coxe, Account of the Russian Discoveries, page 263.
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date of October, 1804, says that slaves were made of conquered tribes near Sitka, even though the persons who had taken them were near kindred.4 He also found slavery among the Kodiaks.5 The pathetic story of Anna Petrovna is of interest in the annals of Russian voyages.6 The St. Nicholas sailed from New Archangel, (Sitka) on September 28, 1808, for a fur trading and exploring trip along the coast of later Washington. Captain Nickolai Isakovich Bulagin took with him his pretty wife, Petrovna. The ship was wrecked at Clayoquot Sound about October 10. The survivors hired Indians to guide them to a rendezvous with the Russian ship Kodiak, which was coming to meet them at Grays Harbor. These Indians killed most of the Russians, but captured Anna Petrovna, an Aleut and a Russian boy. Bulagin managed to escape, but was frantic over the loss of his wife. The following month he attempted to ransom her but was unsuccessful for the natives demanded four muskets more than he could give. The captain spent the winter in the mountains, and in the following spring captured two Indian women and a man whom he held as hostages for the return of his wife. The Indians offered to exchange prisoners, but Anna Petrovna refused her freedom, preferring plenty in bondage to starvation with her husband. The dejected husband allowed himself to be captured by the Indians, and managed at last to be exchanged to the chief who held his wife. In August, 1809, Anna Petrovna died and her Indian master threw her body into the forest, as was the custom with the bodies of slaves. Her husband died of consumption the following February. Many times fur hunters were taken prisoners by the natives and held as slaves. Roquefeuil says that in a fight at New Archangel 200 out of 300 hunters were killed by the Indians, and the rest made slaves. "During my stay upon this coast [1816-1819] one of these unfortunate persons was brought
4Lisiansky, Voyage Round the World, page 166. s Same, page 100. ^Andrews, "Wreck of the St. Nicholas," Washington Historical Quarterly, volume XIII, pages 27-31.
This content downloaded from 47.25.247.108 on Sat, 20 Jun 2020 23:57:30 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms INDIAN SLAVERY IN PACIFiC NORTHWEST 71 back by an American who had ransomed him from the sav ages."7 Did the Russians themselves hold slaves? Probably not, although the accounts of some of the explorers are not explicit on this point. Roquefeuil says that the Russians held several hundreds of Kodiaks at Bodega Bay, but does not say whether they were slaves or hired servants. Most writers, however, feel that the Indians were in condition of semiserfdom to the Russians. The Spaniards made but few trips to the far northwest coast, and do not mention slavery. Here again, however, one is handicapped by lack of translation, and the relationship of the Spaniards at Nootka to the Indians still remains in doubt. They, however, held Indian slaves in other parts of the United States. Franchere says that an old Indian woman of eastern Oregon told John George McTavish, one of the partners of the North Wrest Company, that she had seen men ploughing; she had seen churches; she imitated the sound of a bell; she pulled a bellrope and made the sign of the cross. McTavish thought she had been sold to the Spaniards on the Del Norte, but Franchere thought she had been sold to the country near San Francisco.8 Farnham says that the Indians who worked in the farms of the California missions were in a state of semipeonage. Father de Smet says the Spaniards made slaves of the Utes of the interior. These Utes were timid creatures who always traveled in small groups of three or four. When they go out to hunt for roots and ants, they hide their young ones in the brush, or in the holes in the rocks. Now and then some of them will venture to leave their hiding places and come to find the whites, to sell them their children for trifles. Sometimes the Spanish of California make excursions into their country to carry off their children. I have been assured that they treat them with hu manity, give them religious instruction, or else keep them in a form of slavery, intrusting to them the care of their horses or making them work on their farms.9 The Spaniards also held slaves in New Mexico. Josiah Gregg,
TRoquefeuil, Journal of a Voyage Round the World, page 83. ?Franchere, Narrative, page 271. ?De Smet, Life, Letters and Travels, volume III, page 990; Farnham, Adventures and Travels in California, page 249.
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a traveler in the Santa Fe region, wrote of Onate, a Spanish overlord, who presented a memorial to the king asking among other things for a grant of land 30 leagues square, wherever he might choose to select it in New Mexico, together with all the Indian vassals living on it. He asked permission to parcel out the aborigines as slaves among his officers and men, in order that they might be worked in the mines. This was easily done, since the aborigines were of a remarkably docile nature. "Quietly acquiescing in both the civil and religious authority of the invaders, the yoke was easily riveted upon them, as they had neither intelligence nor spirit to resist until goaded to des peration."'0 Again Gregg says of the Mexicans: They buy the captive children of both sexes of the wild tribes, taken prisoners with each other, or by the Pueblos in their petty wars with the former-and indeed with the Mexicans themselves-who are generally held in bondage to the age of 21 years, and some from ignorance, their whole lives. Although the Spanish made slaves of the natives, they recognized the evils of Indian slavery. Bartholome de Las Casas, a Spanish Dominican who came to America with Colum bus in 1498, began a crusade in 1514 against the cruel treat ment of the Indians by their Spanish conquerors. In a memor ial to Charles V in 1517, he proposed that negro slavery be substituted. Later in his life he bitterly repented having advocated negro slavery. He was, however, not entirely res ponsible for its introduction, since negro slaves had been sent to the West Indies before his experiment in 1517.11 The French were not primarily interested in the Pacific northwest, and consequently give little evidence as to the exist ence of Indian slavery in the Oregon territory. They, how ever, practiced Indian slavery in the Illinois country. In 1709 this slavery was legally authorized by edict for Canada where it existed until 1793, when it was abolished upon the transfer of Canada from the French to Great Britain. By 1800 it had practically ceased in lower Canada.
loThwaites, Early Western Travels, volume XIX, page 261. 11 Same, page 112.
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Long said of the situation in the Mississippi Valley: When war is made against the Mississippi Indians, they endeavor to kill the men and women and bring away the children to dispose of to the traders, who send them down to the Montreal for servants. The boys are not so much to be depended upon as the girls, being more stubborn and naturally disdaining the idea of slavery; they are also full of pride and resentment, and will not hesitate to kill their masters, in order to gratify their revenge for a supposed injury. The girls are more docile, and assimilate much sooner with the manners of civilization. Being unaccustomed to a domestic life, they are at first sick and unhealthy; but the change becomes familiar to them, and they prefer it to the uncultivated manner of living in which they are brought up.12 In 1731, Perier, the governor of Louisiana, attacked a fort which the Natchez had built near the mouth of the Ouachita River. A number of Indians managed to escape, but the re maining Indians, including 'the chief men of the tribe and several hundred women and children, were taken and sold as slaves in San Domingo.'3 Frenchmen were often taken as prisoners by the Indians and kept in a form of captivity, which F. W. Hodge says was not the same as slavery, the word slavery being used as synonymous with prisoner in the old journals.14 Hennepin said he was a slave in a Sioux village; Hodge says that in reality he was adopted by the chief, but not allowed to leave the tribe. Among the British explorers, Meares, Dixon and Vancouver mention the existence of slavery in the Pacific northwest. Van couver took pains to deny a rumor which he said was spread by the Americans, to the effect that the British themselves engaged in the slave trade.'5 In March, 1792, he took with him on his return to Hawaii two native girls, Taheeopiah and Tymarow, who had been abducted by Captain James Baker, commanding the Jenny, of Bristol. Vancouver severely repri manded Captain Baker, who said in extenuation that he had sailed from Hawaii (Owyhee) not knowing of the presence of the girls on board. He had had no intention of selling them,
i2Thwaites, Early Western Travels, volume II, page 117. i3Same, volume XIII, page 303. i^Hodge, Handbook of American Indians, part II, page 599. is Vancouver, Voyage of Discovery, volume III, page 381.
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but was awaiting the opportunity of returning them to their home."6 Even the Americans were accused of trafficking in slaves, chiefly by their rivals, the British. Dr. John Scouler, who made a trip to northwest America in the years 1824 to 1826, says: [August]28. Toward evening we were becalmed of[f] Tatooche & several canoes came of[f] to us with salmon and halibut. One man ventured on board, though with much apprehension. The reason of his terror was that he had been carried of[f] & sold as a slave by an American ship. We were already aware that such things had been done by an American vessel, but we had not seen any of his victims before. This villain, whose name is Ayres, once entered the Columbia & carried of [f 1 12 men, seven of them, however, escaped by stealing the boat & making for the shore17 The journal of almost every American trader, explorer or missionary, who went to Oregon in the years 1780 to 1845, bears witness to the wide prevalance of Indian slavery among the Pacific coast Indians. It was the custom in practically all of the 13 or 14 linguistic families in western America. Slavery among the Esquimos was unknown, except in Alaska just north of the Thlingits where the Esquimos borrow ed the culture of their southern neighbors.18 Livingston Jones, in A Study of the Thlingits of Alaska, says "There are living today not a few who were once held as slaves. They and their children are still looked down upon by those who never had the misfortune to come within the grasp of slavery."19 Belcher says that slavery existed throughout the tribes near Sitka.20 Sir George Simpson made a trip of investigation to the Hudson's Bay post at Stikine. One full third of the large population of this coast are slaves of the most helpless and abject description. Though some of the poor creatures are prisoners taken in war, yet most of them have been born in their present condition.21 James Clark Strong said that slavery existed in its worst form among the Tinneh tribe, and further south among the
16 Same, volume II, page 226-32; Oregon Historical Quarterly, volume XXX, page 197. i?Oregon Historical Quarterly, volume VI, page 205. i8Hodge, Handbook of American Indians, part II, page 597. ^Washington Historical Quarterly, volume IX, page 279. 20?elcher, Narrative of a Voyage, volume I, page 96. 2iSimpson, Journey Round the World, page 211.
This content downloaded from 47.25.247.108 on Sat, 20 Jun 2020 23:57:30 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms INDIAN SLAVERY IN PAcInc NORTHWEST 75 more peaceful Haidahs, the women and female slaves gather ed and dried the berries for winter use, while the men and male slaves caught the fish and turned them over to the women to be cared for."22 James G. Swan lived among the Makah Indians, as teacher and dispenser of medicines for the United States government, for a number of years. He says: The Makahs, in common with all the coast tribes, hold slaves. These were formerly procured by making captives of the children or adults of any other tribe with whom they might be at variance. But latterly, since the advent of the whites, they have obtained their slaves mostly by purchase from their neighbors on Vancouver Island, or those further up the strait of Fuca. Children seem in all cases to be preferred; because they are cheaper; and less likely to escape than adults.23 Ross Cox tried to purchase some children who were taken prisoner by the Indians at Fraser River, in order to return them to their homes so that they might not be subject to torture. His efforts were unsuccessful.24 Father de Smet found slaves at Fraser River. The natives had a small fortress formed of stakes, enclosing an area about 150 feet square. Into this, he says, they fled in order to withstand the attacks of the Toung letats, who entered their village at night, massacred the men and took the women and children for slaves.25 Among the 37 tribes of the Nootkas, the slave trade formed the principal part of their dealings with other tribes. Robert Haswell, who was near Tatoosh Island in March, 1789, says that the natives "offered their own manufactured blankets which weir realy curious and children for sale."26 John Boit, at anchor in Columbia cove and Strait of Juan de Fuca, June 28, 1796, off this same island of Tatoosh, wrote: "The Chief at Tatooche's Isle offered to sell us some young children they had taken in war."27 Captain Peron said in his Memoires that in 1796, "after a rather long negotiation, Maquina sold to us
22Strong, Wah-kee-nah, page 110. 23Swan, Indians of Cape Flattery, page 10. 24Cox, Adventures on the Columbia River, volume II, page 337. 25Thwaites, Early Western Travels, volume XXIX, page 149. ^Oregon Historical Quarterly, volume XXII, page 280. 27Same, page 280.
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a child of six years of age for three fathoms of blue cloth."28 Edward Bell, clerk of the armed tender Chatham, with Captain Vancouver, also mentions Maquina's Indian slaves. By far the most detailed authority upon slavery among the Nootkas is the record of John Jewitt, who was saved from the ill-fated American ship Boston, which was destroyed by Chief Maquina. Jewitt and Thompson, the sole survivors, remained with the Indians more than two years, "captives in a strange land, and slaves to a set of ignorant beings, unacquainted with religion or humanity.""9 In his long narrative he tells at great detail of Maquina's scores of slaves, of their food, abode, clothes, daily tasks, treatment and method of sale. Round Queen Charlotte Island polygamy prevailed, and also slavery. "They do not treat their slaves with as much kind ness as the Indians in the lower country of the Oregon territory treat theirs. When they kill their slaves, the loss of property is the only thing they regard."30 William Fraser Tolmie, in charge of Nisqually station, un der record of Friday, September 19, 1834, says: "Four strangers arrived from up Hoods Canal and have brought a few skins. The Princess' husband has committed an unbecoming action saying that those people above mentioned had stolen a slave for which the scamp took 7 beaver skins and a gun. I, of course called him to account, and made him give back the skins."31 Monday, October 27: "This forenoon J. B. Perrault and wife arrived in search of a woman slave which I had taken from the Princess's husband."32 Tuesday, February 24, 1835: "Traded several beaver skins from the Pendent Oreille's slave, say, 'Tay Kill' by name." Wednesday, February 25: "The Pendent Oreille's slave took his departure.""3 Wednesday, March 25, "Ta Kill the Yakima Chief formerly a prisoner of war at the Pendent Oreilles has arrived with a beaver. This young man speaks the language I understand and with him I can con
28Same, page 280; Per?n, M?moires, volume II, page 2. 29Jewitt, Adventures, page 167. 30Parker, Journal, page 266. ^Washington Historical Quarterly, volume VII, page 74. 32Same, page 147. 30Same, page 161.
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vey all what I wish to the tribes hereabouts."34 Charles Wilkes says of the Nisqually Indians: The Indians around Nisqually are few in numbers & of a lazy vicious set and exceedingly dirty. They for the most part sleep all day & sit up all night gambling with visitors or among them, and in this way like all the tribes of this coast they will after parting with all their useful articles dispose of their wife & children & finally of themselves to years of slavery.35 The Indians about the mouth of the Columbia River dealt largely in slaves. Alexander Ross says: All the Indian tribes inhabiting the mouth of the Columbia and for a hundred miles around may be classified in the following manner: (1) Chinooks; (2) Clatsops; (3) Cathlamus; (4) Wakicums; (5) Wacalamus; (6) Cattleputles; (7) Clatscanias; (8) Killimux; (9) Moltnomahs; and (10) Chickelis; amounting collectively to about 2000 warriors. But they are a commercial rather than a warlike people. Traffic in slaves and furs is their occupation.36 Townsend says in his journal, October 17, 1836: "I left Chinook this morning in a canoe with Chinamus, his two wives, and a slave, to procure shell fish, which are said to be found in great abundance to the north."37 Comcomly, one-eyed chief of the Chinooks, owned slaves, according to Henry, who wrote on March 10, 1814: "Comcomly and Stockum also came over, the former in his yawl, his slaves rowing, spritsail rigged, rudder hung and everything complete, and his younger son dressed up in fine European clothing, given them by Mr. McDonald."38 James Clark Strong went in 1850 to live among the Indians of the Pacific coast, spending six years among them and learn ing one of their languages. Many stories were told to him by Aunt Sallie, the wife of the head chief of the Chinooks when Lewis and Clark came in 1805. These stories were corrobor ated by the old warriors. The Chinooks lived by fishing, but each fall took their dried fish to the Cascades, where they ex changed them for slaves from the inland empire. The eastern Indians were continually making war upon each other, and taking prisoners. Desiring a market that would take these
3 4 Same, page 164. ^Washington Historical Quarterly, volume XVII, page 139. 36Ross, Adventures of the First Settlers, page 95. 37Townsend, Narrative, page 259. ^Henry-Thompson Journals, page 852.
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slaves as far as possible from their native country, they barter ed them to the Chinooks. The Chinooks, on their return to the mouth of the river, sold the slaves to the tribes to the north and south of the river, making no doubt a handsome profit.39 Aunt Sallie told a story which rivaled the pathetic story of Anna Petrovna. As a child, she often went with her father to the Cascades. On one occasion her father bought, among a considerable number of slaves, a girl of 20 years, who twice tried to drown herself. Finally her guard tied her to a tree at night. Two years before the chief had brought home a young man who spoke a strange language. This young man became the personal attendant of Aunt Sallie and taught her some word in his strange tongue. Passing the tree to which the young girl was tied, one night, Sallie heard the woman crying and talking in this strange language. She repeated some of the words the man slave had taught her, and told the young woman of the man slave. The woman made no further at tempt at suicide. Later, it was found that the young man was the husband of the woman. Sallie persuaded her father to allow the pair to purchase their freedom. They were adopted into the tribe, since it was impossible for them to return alone to their own country, without again being captured and en slaved. Lewis and Clark found slaves among the Clatsops. Lewis in his journal on Saturday, March 1, 1806, wrote: Kuskelar [a Ciatsop man] and wife left us about noon. he had a good looking boy of about 10 years of age with him who he informed me was his slave. this boy had been taken prisoner by the Killamucks from some great nation on the coast to the S. East of them at a great distance. Like other nations they adopt their slaves in their families and treat them very much as their own children.40 Kuskelar told Clark that this 10-year old boy was his cook; Clark mentions other slaves kept by the Indians.41 Mrs. Nancy Morrison, a pioneer of Clatsop plains, thus describes the Indians in her neighborhood:
39Strong, Wah-kee-nah, page 127. 40Lewis and Clark, Original Journals, Thwaites edition, volume IV, page 120. 4i Same, page 118.
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These surroundings were Indians of the lowest character as to mode of life. Far below the system of slavery in Missouri, these were slaves to the lowest vices of humanity. Those in power held in bond age others more ignorant and degraded than themselves.42 Three men deserted from the Astor expedition at Astoria. Franchere was sent after them and found them prisoners of the Indians. He says: "We proceeded to the hut of the chief where we found all three, more inclined to follow us than to remain as slaves among these barbarians."43 Franchere speaks at length of the slave trade, the treatment of slaves, etc. On an expedi tion made by Franchere into the interior, assistance was gained from the wife of Coalpo, the Clatsop chief. She was sent for and consulted. She was candid in giving her opinion, and willing to accompany us. She gave us much useful information regarding their customs in adjusting any misunder standing between hostile nations, such as giving a slave or making some other payment for anyone killed . . . Jan. 10. At noon we embarked in four birch rind and two large wooden canoes-51 men and 11 passengers. Coalpo and his wife went with us in their own canoe, paddled by eight of his slaves.... The brother-in-law of the woman, Kesno, the chief of the Willamette tribe, guided, them to the rapids. . . . At midnight Mr. Franchere went down the river in Casno's [Kesno] canoe, manned by six of his slaves.44 After an attack on Alexander Stuart and James Keith at the Cascades and the murder of John Reed and party on the Snake River the fur traders determined to punish the Cath leyacheyach nation, and sent for the Indians, telling them to deliver up all the goods which they had stolen. The Indians withdrew with their women and children into the woods. To ward noon they sent slaves to the fort bearing a small package of goods which Ross said was hardly worth picking Up.45 In 1834 John Work found slaves in the Willamette Val ley.46 Joseph Williams, a Methodist preacher who made a trip to Oregon in 1841, stayed at the home of Joseph Gervais, who gave him a detailed account of the Indians. "These poor and degraded creatures seem as if destined to destruction. They are always at war with one another, and sell their prisoners for slaves, as the white people of our slave states sell the negroes."47
420regon Pioneer Association, Transactions, 1890, page 72. 43Franchere, Narrative, page 136. ??Henr y-Thompson Journals, pages 793, 797. 45Ross, Fur Hunters, volume I, page 10. ^Oregon Historical Quarterly, volume XXIV, pages 260, 263. 47Williams, Narrative of a Tour, page 66.
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Marcus Gunn, a missionary to Oregon, wrote in 1843 that a large party of warlike Klamaths had come in from the south with about 20 slaves, nearly all of whom they had sold.48 T. W. Davenport, the Indian agent at the Klamath agency, mentions slavery among the Klamaths and Modocs.49 Slavery among the Indians was not so universal east of the Cascades, but it existed, to a more or less degree, among most of the interior tribes, such as the Cayuses, Nez Perces, Flat heads, Okanogans and Snakes. The year 1845, says de Smet, was a sad and memorable one for the Blackfeet. In two skirm ishes with the Flatheads and Kalispells, they lost 21 warriors. The Crees carried off a large number of horses, and 21 scalps. They massacred 50 families, and led 160 women and children into captivity. Some of the latter they sacrificed to their fallen warriors; the rest they condemned to slavery.50 John Work tells of slaves among the Cayuses, in his journal on Tuesday, August 24, 1830: Early on the move and camped in five hours east of the summit of the mountains. Four Cayuse Indians going to the buffalo hunt joined us. They have no women, but one of them has a slave girl who followed him and was sent back twice; but today again came up. On her refusing to return, he shot her, the ball wounding 3 places, but not mortally. This is the way of treating disobedience.5i The Walla Wallas were descendants of emanicpated slaves. Of them Samuel Parker says: The Walla Walla tribe are descended from slaves formerly owned and liberated by the Nez Perce Indians. They permitted, as I have stated above, their slaves to reside and to intermarry in their families, and reasoning on the principles of natural justice, they concluded it was not right to hold in slavery their own descendants, and liberated them, and they are now a respected tribe.52 Alexander Ross tells of a group of Shaw-ha-ap-tens who, on returning from a warlike expedition among the Snakes, fell in with some stragglers frolicking among the bushes and gather ing berries. Most of them they killed, except two young wo men and a man whom they carried off as slaves. Since the
48Clark, History of the Willamette Valley, page 56. ^Oregon Historical Quarterly, volume VIII, page 258. 50Thwaites, Early Western Travels, volume XXIX, page 242. ^Oregon Historical Quarterly, volume XIII, page 365. 52Parker, Journal, pages 247, 283.
This content downloaded from 47.25.247.108 on Sat, 20 Jun 2020 23:57:30 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms INDIAN SLAVERY IN PACIFIC NORTHWEST 81 captives were Indians of high rank among the Walla Wallas, the affair caused no little stir.53 At Fort Nez Perce, Ross had to wait to transact business for three days until the songs of triumph, with which the In dians celebrated their victory in war, were over. Ross counted only nine slaves in the victors' party. He found slaves among the Okanogans and Snakes.54 Alexander Henry found slaves among the Crows who ""had a handsome slave girl about 12 years of age, who was offered to us for a gun, 100 balls, and powder enough to fire them."55 He also found slaves among the Assiniboins in the Saskatchewan country: At the fort was a woman of the Assiniboins, taken far to the west ward of the mountains in a country which those Indians incessantly ravaged. She informs me that the men of this country never suffered themselves to be taken, but always die in the field, rather than fall into captivity. The women an-d children are made slaves, but are not put to death or tormented.56 David Thompson mentions slaves among the Piegans, as does Henry. In a fight between the Kootenai and Piegans, the latter, Thompson says, were forced to flee. "A slave of the Piegans who stayed behind, from the bad usage he had re ceived. This poor fellow the Kootenais took for a Peagan & they would have killed him, had I not prevented them, but they were soon reconciled to him, when he said he was a Flat Head & proved it, spoke that tongue fluently."57 Among the Sioux of the plains, all captives were regarded as slaves. F. X. Matthieu, in his trip across the plains, saw but one slave among them, a woman. Men were not often taken alive.58 Among the Pawnee (Pani) Indians slavery was common. The Pawnees were a large tribe living on the upper river Platte. Not being very warlike, they were so frequently enslaved by their enemies that the term "Pani" became equiv alent to Indian slave.59 (To be continued)
53Ross, Fur Hunters, volume I, page 232. 54Same, pages 23, 238. ^Henry-Thompson Journals, page 399. 56Henry, Travels, page 273. ^Oregon Historical Quarterly, volume XXVI, page 44. 58Same, volume I, page 82. 59Thwaites, Early Western Travels, volume VI, page 61.
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