The wholesale dealer made several hundred. The
governors, councilors, and superintendents made all they could. It
could scarcely be called legitimate commerce. It was a grab game.
Our Dutch friend Gist was, correctly speaking, a contrabandist. He
had too little influence or money to procure a license, and too
much enterprise to refrain because he lacked it. He belonged to a
class more numerous than respectable, although it would be a good
deal to say that there was any virtue in yielding to these petty
exactions. It was a mere question of confiscation, or robbery,
without redress, by the Indians. He risked it. With traders, at
that time, it was customary to take an Indian wife. She was
expected to furnish the eatables, as well as cook them. By the law
of many Indian tribes property and the control of the family go
with the mother. The husband never belongs to the same family
connection, rarely to the same community or town even, and often
not even to the tribe. He is a sort of barnacle, taken in on his
wife's account. To the adventurer, like a trader, this adoption
gave a sort of legal status or protection. Gist either understood
this before he started on his enterprise, or learned it very
speedily after. Of the Cherokee tongue he knew positively nothing.
He had a smattering of very broken English. Somehow or other he
managed to induce a Cherokee girl to become his wife.
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