 | These lines are based
upon Miller's painting which Whitman would have had many
opportunities to see. Miller (1810-1874) reported that this
scene ocurred at a meeting in which a half-
breed trapper named François purchased an Indian woman for
his wife. "The money
paid to the bride's father was "$600 in guns ($100 each),
horse blankets ($50 each), red flannels ($20 per yard),
alcohol ($64 per gallon), and sugar, tobacco, beads, and
other trade goods at
descending rates." - from Alfred
Jacob Miller:
Artist on the Oregon Trail |
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