These seven were the three orphan children and four Indian slaves of one of the French Canadians, who had died a few days before, and whose estate Jason Lee took charge of when urged to do so by Dr. McLoughlin. As the one stipulation insisted upon by Lee was that the slaves should be freed, Lee and McLoughlin united in a very practical way to try to overcome the somewhat common condition of Indian slavery. A taste of freedom proved so pleasing to two of these young Indian slaves that they did not wish to live even under the kindly control of the Mission home and school and so left after the proverbial French manner.[1]
Indeed, from the first, the Mission partook of the nature of an orphanage. The condition of the orphans among the Indian tribes was very pitiful. Turning to one of the interesting letters of Shepard, we find an account of the first Indian children received at the Mission. In a letter to his brother dated December 20, 1834, and written just after a preliminary visit to the mission, he says: "We have already three poor Flatheads, orphan children, and as soon as circumstances will permit, shall have a great many more. One of these is a lad of fourteen or fifteen years of age. After he had been with us for a short time, news came that his mother was dead; and his little sister, about seven years of age (these being the only children) was left without a friend to take care of her. Brother Lee, therefore, sent for her and she has since been one of the mission family. When she arrived she was almost entirely naked, as were the other children. My first business was to make her a gown of some tow cloth, which had been used to cover our goods while on the journey. Though it was piece upon piece, I finally succeeded in making a considerably good dress, but not with 'Bishop Sleeves' as my present means were only adequate to make them about the size of the arms. Having completed this garment, we cast off her former covering, which was only a small piece of deer-skin, tied over her shoulders, and another, in strips, tied around the waist, and clothed her in the dress above described. A day or two after this, a poor little orphan, with a very flat head, who had neither
- ↑ Lee & Frost, pp. 132-3.
