chance, but consecutive products, interrelated links of causation which may be traced by careful examination.
Hence it is the purpose of this paper to inquire into the matte^' and determine how and why the Oregon people became involved and how they settled the question for themselves. The kind of involvement we shall speak of was not that arising from the existence of slavery in the Territory, for there was not one negro slave within its far-reaching boundaries or within a thousand miles thereof.[1] The enslavement of Indian captives, taken in war by Indians, was practiced to a very limited extent, but the white people of Oregon never participated in any such traffic. In truth, that kind of slavery was more nominal than real, consisting as it did of women and children who w^ere adopted by the victors and were subjected to little more restraint than their own people.
As a practical matter, there was no question of slavery of any kind to annoy the home-builders of Oregon. And, as has been said, the pioneers came with no prospect or desire of establishing slavery upon the Pacific Coast. True, the slave State of Missouri contributed more of them than any other State, and probably it, with Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas, gave a majority of the whole. But the emigrants from those slave-holding States belonged to the non-slaveholding class and were not pecuniarily interested in slaves; besides, many of them came to the Territory to rid themselves of the blight that broods over the land where involuntary servitude
- ↑ The following letter bearing on this fact was received by the writer: Salem, Oregon, June 4th, 1906.Hon. T. W. Davenport, Silverton, Oregon. My Dear Sir:—Yours of the 2d inst. is just received. Colonel Nat. Ford came to Oregon from Missouri in 1845 and brought with him three slaves — two men and one woman. The woman was married to one of the men and had son7e small children. Ford claimed these children as slaves and continued to claim them until 1853. One of these children—a girl—had, prior to that time, been given by Ford to Mrs. (Dr.) Boyle, a daughter of Ford. Prior to 1853 the parents of these children (Robbin and Polly) had claimed their freedom, and left Ford, and in 1852 were living at Nesmith's Mills, but Ford had kept the children. In 1853 Robbin, the father of the children, brought a suit by habeas corpus to get possession of the children. This case was heard by Judge Williams in the summer of 1853, and he held that these children, being then (by the voluntary act of Ford) in Oregon, where slavery could not legally exist, were free from the bonds of slavery, and awarded their custody to their father.
Yours truly,
R. P. Boise.
