gardeners and laborers, a large proportion were probably these pleasant tempered island people.[1] The Hawaiian strain, however, quickly disappeared after the period of settlement had begun in earnest and left few traces. Some intermarried with the Indians, cast their lot with them, and were assimilated by them.[2] In 1891, there was living among the Kootenai tribe an Indian named Kanaka.[3] The territory of Washington in 1858 found it necessary to pass a law prohibiting the sale of liquor to Kanakas.[4] The mining laws of Jacksonville, Oregon, 1858–67, show that Kanakas were not only employed as miners but sometimes also occupied small claims of their own.[5] While many Hawaiians may have thus remained to make permanent homes in Oregon it is more probable that the great majority were merely temporary residents and were ultimately taken back to their native land in fulfillment of the labor contract by the terms of which they had been permitted to depart.
From the data here given it is clear that the Hawaiians rendered important services in the economic development of Oregon. The islands from which they came were a source of supply for the common labor not easily secured elsewhere and so necessary to the exploitation of virgin territory. The negroes rendered a like service for the southland of the United States as did the Chinese for the Pacific coast in the period after 1850, in building railroads and in the performance of many servile tasks distasteful to the white race.
- ↑ Clark, History of Willamette Valley, 871.
- ↑ "Nisqually Journal," 146.
- ↑ Hodge, Handbook of American Indians, I, 539.
- ↑ Walker, "Liquor Laws of Washington," Washington Historical Quarterly, V, 117.
- ↑ Blue, "Mining Laws of Jackson County," Oregon Historical Quarterly, XXIII, 139.
