Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/235

FEDERAL RELATIONS OF OREGON 223 half-breed Iroquois, and Sandwich Islanders. Every year forty or fifty trappers left with their women and slaves for the season's trapping and trading going as far south as the fortieth parallel sometimes. The Methodist settlement on the Willamette he found in a flourishing condition as testified by the harvest they had been able to gather with the assistance of their Indian "neophytes" in the autumn of 1836. Slacum was instrumental in clearing up a cloud which threatened the peace of the community and at the same time affording means of getting into Oregon the cattle needed by the settlers. Ewing Young, who had come from California in 1834 with Kelley, had been regarded with disfavor by Dr. McLoughlin ever since on account of a story of horse-stealing in the south. On this account he was not able to secure sup- plies from the Company as other settlers did and so, in order to make a living, he threatened to establish a still to supply whiskey to that hitherto comparatively dry community. This proposition was opposed both by the Company's agents and by the missionaries, but Young had declared that he would persist in his scheme. Slacum, acting as intermediary, offered to Young facilities for getting to California in order to secure a retraction of the defamatory statement made by Governor Fugueroa. At the same time Young proposed that he drive some cattle north in order to supply the settlers who, up to then, had been obliged to get on with the few head loaned by the Company. Money was raised for the purchase from the settlers, and Dr. McLoughlin and Slacum added to the sum, so that a sufficient amount was raised to purchase some 800 head of cattle and a number of horses. At the meeting held to consider the question of cattle Slacum says that he told "the Canadians (i. e. the settlers at French Prairie) that, although they were located within the territorial limits of the United States, their pre-emption rights would doubtless be secured to them when our government should take possession of the country. I also cheered them with the hope that ere long some steps might be taken to open a trade and commerce with the country." Slacum's