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By one means and another Sutter
subsidized and made tributary all
the Indians in his vicinity, and they became
to him "hewers of wood and drawers of water."
They cultivated his farm river bottoms, built
his fort, with walls, bastions, and enclo-
-sures, and reared various adobe struc-
-tures around, for trading-places, and for the
abode of new-comers [newcomers], and themselves ~

As the years went round this for-
-tress-like hacienda became the rendez-
-vous of nearly all Americans who wandered to these
shores, and here was debated many a
scheme for enlargement, growth, power,
conquest, and even revolution itself.