kindly, but they managed to make them fill the 24 coffers of the Hudson Bay Company with a wealth of riches, as the years came and went. Their lives and safety and profits all depended upon keeping their dependents in a good humor and binding them to themselves. The leading men of the company were men of great business tact and shrewdness, and one of their chief requisites was to thoroughly understand Indian character.
They managed year by year so to gain control of the savage tribes that the factor of a trading post had more power over a fractious band, than could have been exerted by an army of men with guns and bayonets. If, now and then, a chief grew sullen and belligerent, he was at once quietly bought up by a judicious present, and the company got it all back many times over from the tribe, when their furs were marketed.
It was the refusal of the missionaries of Oregon to condone crime and wink at savage methods, as the Hudson Bay Company did, which first brought about misunderstanding and unpleasantness, as we shall see in another place.
It was this power and controlling influence which met the pioneer fur traders and missionaries, upon entering Oregon. They controlled the savage life and the white men there were wholly dependent upon them.
In 1811 an American fur company at Astoria
