One of the notable absences in the primary sources about the Astorian enterprise is the near-total invisibility of other Indigenous women in the daily life of the trade.

The Franchère journal, the Hunt journal, the various other accounts that document the overland and sea expeditions — these are written from the perspective of the European and Euro-American men who were the expedition’s leaders and official chroniclers.

They record encounters with Indigenous nations, describe trading interactions, note geographical features and weather conditions, and occasionally mention Indigenous individuals by name when those individuals played a specific role in the expedition’s progress.

Women, in these accounts, are mostly not named.