the American promoter, on his way north to Oregon from Mexico in the autumn of 1834, was overtaken by La Framboise and party coming from the south. In June, 1835, it was reported that La Framboise had headquarters on an island in the Sacramento River, and in November of that same year La Framboise was warned to keep out by Vallejo.[1] In the instructions of the Mexican government to Governor Figueroa in 1832, the colonization of the northern frontier was urged in view of probable encroachments of Russians and Americans.
The Columbia River trappers and traders usually retired in summer northward, to return in September. Vallejo speaks of orders of the government made known to La Framboise the year before (1834) against taking beaver, but in a spirit of hospitality he offered to permit a temporary encampment at Sonoma; otherwise the Frenchman must retire within twenty-four hours or be treated as a smuggler.[2]
About this time, American Methodists established a mission in the Willamette valley in Oregon, and one of the workers stationed there penned to eastern friends a description of the Spanish brigade, as the southern party of the Hudson's Bay Company was called:
They start for California carrying with them merchandise and English goods for barter with the natives and return laden with furs, principally of the beaver and otter. This company just before entering stopped to remove from their persons stains and traces of travel and dressed themselves in their best attire. They then formed themselves in Indian file, led by Mr. La Framboy, the chief of the party. Next him rode his wife, a native woman, astride as is common with the females, upon her pony, quite picturesquely clad. She wore a man's hat with long black feathers fastened in front and drooping behind very gracefully. Her short dress was of rich broadcloth, leggings beautifully embroidered with gay beads and fringed with tiny bells whose delicate musical tinkling could be heard at several hundred yards distance. Next rode the clerk and his wife in much the same fashion and so on to the officers of less importance and the men and finally the boys driving the pack horses with bales of furs, 180 pounds to each animal. The tramping of the fast walking horses, the silver tinkling of the small bells, the rich handsome dresses and fine appearance of the riders whose numbers amounted to sixty made an array that was patriarchal.[3]
- ↑ Bancroft, History of California, III, 392-93.
- ↑ Vallejo documents, ms., III, 55-81.
- ↑ Allen, Ten Years in Oregon, 119.
