USA > Alaska > History of Alaska : 1730-1885 > Part 54
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556
THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN COMPANY'S OPERATIONS.
the neck of which was flooded at high water, and named the fort St Dionysi.36
These warlike preparations remained unknown to the officials of the Hudson's Bay Company, and when the Dryad approached the mouth of the Stikeen, the men crowding her deck were surprised by a puff of white smoke and a loud report from the densely wooded shore; followed by several shots from a ves- sel in the offing. The brig was at once put about, but anchored just out of range, whereupon a boat was sent from shore carrying Lieutenant Zarembo, who, in the name of the governor of the Russian colonies and the emperor of Russia, protested against the en- trance of an English vessel into a river belonging to Russian territory. All appeals on the part of the Hudson's Bay Company's agents were ineffectual. They were informed that if they desired to save them- selves, their property, and their vessel, they must weigh anchor as once, and after a brief delay the Dryad sailed for Fort Vancouver.
The authorities of the Hudson's Bay Company lost no time in sending reports of this affair to London, accompanied with a statement that the loss incurred through this interference with their project amounted to £20,000 sterling. The British government imme- diately demanded satisfaction from Russia, but the matter was not finally settled until 1839, when a com- mission met in London to arrange the points of dispute between the two corporations, and in a few weeks solved difficulties which experienced diplomates had failed to unravel in as many years. The claim of the Hudson's Bay Company was waived on condi- tion that the Russian company grant a lease to the former of all their continental territory lying between Cape Spencer and latitude 54° 40'. The annual rental was fixed at two thousand land-otter skins,37 and
36 This fort was built on the site of an Indian village near the town of Wrangell. The logs used for its foundation can be seen at the present day.
37 A fur much used in the Russian army for trimming officers' uniforms.
557
FORT STIKEEN.
at the same time the English company agreed to supply the colonies with a large quantity of provisions at moderate rates.38 The abandonment of the Ross colony, whence the Russians obtained most of their supplies, was now merely a question of time, and the agreement appears to have given satisfaction to both parties, for at the end of the term the lease was re- newed for a period of ten years, and twice again for periods of four years.
On the 1st of June, 1840, a salute of seven guns was fired as the British flag was hoisted from Fort St Dionysi, or Fort Stikeen, as it was renamed by Sir James Douglas, who then represented the Hud- son's Bay Company, and during a previous visit had appointed John McLoughlin, junior, to the command.39 Having arrived at Novo Arkhangelsk on April 25th of the same year, Sir James says, that "he had held daily conference with the governor in a frank and open manner, so as to dissipate all semblance of reserve, and establish intercourse on a basis of mutual confidence. The question of boundary was settled in a manner that will prevent any future misunderstand- ing .... They wish to sell Bodega40 for $30,000, with a stock of 1,500 sheep, 2,000 neat-cattle, and 1,000 horses and mules, with important land fenced in, with barns, thrashing-floor, etc., sufficient to raise 3,000 fanegas of wheat. They of course cannot sell the soil, but merely the improvements, which we can hold only through a native. We concluded to write to Mr McLoughlin on this subject, so that he may write
38 Including 14,000 pouds of wheat at 80 cents per poud, 498 of flour at $1.45, 404 each of pease and groats at 96 cents, 922 of salt beef at 75 cents, 498 of butter at $4.05, and 92 pouds of ham at 12 cents per lb. Tikh- menef, Istor. Obos., i. 351. In Finlayson's Vancouver Island and N. W. Coast, MS., 12, it is stated that the Hudson's Bay Company also agreed to supply trading goods. Dall, Alaska, 338, gives 1837 as the date of the agreement, but on what authority I am unable to ascertain. The correct date is given in Wrangell, Statist. und Ethnog. 322 (St Petersburg, 1839), and by Tikhmenef and others.
39 In the same year a fort was built by the Hudson's Bay Company on the Taku River. Douglas, Jour., MS., 27-44; Finlayson's Vancouver Island and N. W. Coast, MS., 13. It was abandoned in 1843.
40 Ross.
558
THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN COMPANY'S OPERATIONS.
to Mr Etholen in reply in the autumn by the steam vessel, or appoint an agent to settle with the com- mandant at Bodega." What might have been the result if England, with her powerful navy and all- grasping policy, had now gained a foothold in Califor- nia on the eve of the gold discovery!
Almost as soon as the Hudson's Bay Company's men had established themselves at Fort Stikeen, hos- tilities were commenced by the natives. In 1840 an attempt was made to scale the stockade; in 1841 the Indians destroyed the aqueduct which supplied the fort with fresh water, and the beleaguered garrison only saved themselves by seizing one of their chiefs, whom they held as hostage. In the following year a more serious attack was threatened, which would prob- ably have been carried out successfully but for the timely arrival of two armed vessels from Novo Ark- hangelsk in charge of Sir George Simpson, the gov- ernor of the company's territories, whose statement I will give in his own words.
" By daybreak on Monday the 25th of April, we were in Wrangell's Straits, and toward evening, as we approached Stikeen, my apprehensions were awakened by observing the two national flags, the Russian and the English, hoisted half-mast high, while, on landing about seven, my worst fears were realized by hearing of the tragical end of Mr John McLoughlin, jun., the gentleman recently in charge. On the night of the 20th a dispute had arisen in the fort, while some of the men, as I was grieved to hear, were in a state of intoxication; and several shots were fired, by one of which Mr McLoughlin fell. My arrival with two vessels at this critical juncture was most opportune, for otherwise the fort might probably have fallen a sacrifice to the savages, who were assembled round it to the number of about two thousand, justly thinking that the place could make but a feeble resistance, de-
"1 Douglas' Jour., MS., 4.
559
ETHOLIN AS GOVERNOR.
prived as it was of its head, and garrisoned by men in a state of complete insubordination." 42
A few days later Simpson returned to Novo Ark- hangelsk, in order to discuss with Etholen, who in 1840 had relieved Kuprianof as governor,43 the difficulties constantly arising between the Russian and Hudson's Bay Company's agents with regard to trade on the Alexander Archipelago. Though Etholen was un- yielding in other matters, he was quite willing to join Simpson in his efforts to suppress traffic in spirituous liquors among the Kolosh,44 and an agreement to this effect was signed by the representatives of both com- panies on the 13th of May, 1842.45 The evil was
42 Narr. Jour. round World., ii. 181. 'If the fort had fallen,' continues Simpson, 'not only the whites, 22 in number, would have been destroyed, but the stock of ammunition and stores would have made the captors dangerous to the other establishments on the coast.'
43 He arrived in the Nikolai I., which again sailed from Kronstadt for the colonies in August 1839, with a cargo worth 500,000 roubles. Etholen, who, as we have seen, had before done good service in the colonies, was accom- panied by his wife, an accomplished lady, a native of Finland. Calling at Rio Janeiro, he purchased for the company a brig, which he renamed the Grand Duke Konstantin, and loaded her with a cargo of Brazilian produce. Both vessels arrived at Novo Arkhangelsk May 1, 1840. Tikhmenef, Istor. Obos., i. 350.
44' At the post on Stakhin River the Indians were buying liquor and fight- ing all the time among themselves just outside the fort. A big hogshead of liquor four feet high was emptied in one day on the occasion of a feast. There were always four watchinen around, in the night especially. It was terrible; but they got plenty of beaver skin.' Mrs Harvey's Life of McLoughlin, MS., 19-20.
45 This document was handed as evidence to a select committee of the house of commons in June 1857. The following is a copy of the original: 'With a view effectually to guard against the injurious consequences that arise from the use of spirituous liquors in the Indian trade on the north-west coast, it is hereby agreed by Sir George Simpson, governor in chief of Rupert's Land, acting on behalf of the honorable Hudson's Bay Company, and his Excel- lency Adolphus Etholen, captain in the imperial navy and governor of the Rus- sian American colonies on the north-west coast of America, acting on behalf of the Russian American Company, that no spirituous liquors shall be sold or given to Indians in barter, as presents, or on any pretence or consideration whatso- ever, by any of the officers or servants belonging or attached to any of the estab- lishments or vessels belonging to either concern, or by any other person or persons acting on their behalf on any part of the north-west coast of America to the northward of latitude 50°, unless competition in trade should render it necessary, with a view to the protection of the interests of the Hudson's Bay Company, to discontinue this agreement in so far as the same relates to or is . applicable to that part of the coast southward of lat. 54° 40'; this agreement to take effect from the date thercof at New Arkhangel, or wherever else the Russian American Company have dealings with Indians on the northwest
560
THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN COMPANY'S OPERATIONS.
felt in all parts of the archipelago, and nowhere more than at the capital.
"Some reformation certainly was wanted in this respect," writes Simpson, " for of all the drunken as well as of all the dirty places that I had visited, New Archangel was the worst. On the holidays in par- ticular, of which, Sundays included, there are one hun- dred and sixty-five in the year, men, women, and even children were to be seen staggering about in all di- rections. The common houses are nothing but wooden hovels huddled together without order or design in nasty alleys, the hot-beds of such odors as are them- selves, sufficient, independently of any other cause, to breed all sorts of fevers. In a word, while the inhab- itant do all that they can to poison the atmosphere, the place itself appears to have been planned for the express purpose of checking ventilation."
The Indian villages in the neighborhood of Novo Arkhangelsk had suffered severely a few years before, when during Kuprianof's administration the small-pox epidemic appeared for the first time among the natives of Alaska. The disease broke out in 1836, among the Kolosh tribes near the southern boundary, and was probably introduced by Indians from the British possessions. During the first year the settlement of Tongass suffered most severely, two hundred and fifty dying in a settlement numbering nine hundred inhab- itants. From Tongass the contagion rapidly spread over all the Kolosh settlements of the Alexander Archipelago. The filthy dwellings of the Kolosh fos- tered the germs of the disease, and the mortality was appalling, fifty to sixty per cent of the population being swept away. From the outlying settlements the scourge was introduced to Novo Arkhangelsk, and here as elsewhere a large portion of the native popula-
coast, and from the date of the receipt of a copy thereof at the establishments of Takoo, Stikine, Fort Simpson, and Fort McLoughlin.' Report on Hudson Bay Co. (1857), 369.
561
RAVAGES OF SMALL-POX.
tion perished, while the promyshleniki, almost as filthy as the natives in their habits, escaped with compara- tively small loss. Kuprianof did all in his power to check the epidemic, enforcing vaccination wherever it could be enforced, and keeping the whole medical staff of the company in the field, surgeons, stewards, and medical apprentices. Dr Blaschke, a German, who was in charge of the medical service, stated offi- cially that three thousand natives died before any vac- cination was attempted, and that for an entire year its effect was barely perceptible. 46
In 1838 the doctor proceeded to Unalaska in the Polyfem, then en route to the Arctic. The dis- ease broke out on that island immediately after his arrival, and it was some time before the superstitious Aleuts could be made to understand that Blaschke had come among them to cure and not to kill. They consented to vaccination only after a most peremptory order had been issued by the commander of the dis- trict.47 All the villages in the Unalaska district were
46 Chichinof, who travelled in the Kenaï district in 1836, says that in some of the villages the inhabitants had fled, leaving only the sick and dead, the latter in various stages of decomposition. Adventures, MS., 29. Markof, in Voy. (by Sokolof), MS., 7-9, says: ^The disease came northward from the Co- lumbia, and was carried from village to village by Kolosh traders. At one time, at Khutznu village, they found the place deserted, and dozens of corpses lying around, rotting away. They threw some earth over the bodies, and were on the point of leaving again, when an old man appeared and said that all the people who had escaped the disease had moved into a temporary camp in the woods, and that they were afraid to come to the village, but would willingly be vaccinated. When my father and a surgeon's apprentice who was doing the vaccinating had followed the old man a short distance into the woods, they found themselves surrounded by a crowd of men, including one of the most powerful shamans. The shaman was exhorting the people to save themselves and their families from certain death by killing the vaccinators and burning their bodies, and a large fire for that purpose had already been started. The surgeon's apprentice gave himself up for lost, knelt down, and began to pray and make the sign of the cross, believing himself about to die. My father, however, began to talk to the men, showed them the marks of vaccination on his own arm and on that of his companion, and called upon some of the Khutznu men, who had been to Novo Arkhangelsk, to say whether they had seen any of the Russians or creoles die of the disease.' The above statement was made in Russian to my agent, during his stay at Sitka in July 1878. Tikhmenef states that the number of deaths in all the districts was not less than 4,000, and that the epidemic disappeared in 1840. Istor. Obos., i. 312. Vaccination has since been performed on all children on reaching a certain age. Dok. Kom. Russ. Amer. Kol., i. 83.
47 Blaschke, Report in Morskoi Sbornik (1848), 115-24. HIST. ALASKA. 36
562
THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN COMPANY'S OPERATIONS.
visited by the vaccinators, and parties were sent on the same errand of mercy to the Alaska peninsula, to Bristol Bay, and Cook Inlet.48 In nearly every instance the outbreak of the epidemic could be traced to the arrival of persons from sections of the colonies already affected, a circumstance which greatly in- creased the difficulties with which the medical men had to battle in treating and protecting the natives. From the coast villages the disease spread into the interior, decimating or depopulating entire settlements. From Bristol Bay it advanced northward to the Kus- kokvim and the Yukon, and raged fiercely among the dense population of the Yukon delta and Norton Sound. To this day the islands and coasts are dotted with numerous village sites, the inhabitants of which were carried off to the last individual during this dreadful period. In many instances the dead were left in their dwellings, which thus served as their graves, and skeletons can still be found in many of these ruined habitations.
One of the effects of the small-pox epidemic was a general distress in the outlying settlements, caused by the death of so many heads of families. Large issues of provisions were made to widows and orphans for several years; and when it was reported to Etholen that in the various districts there existed many vil- lages where only a few male youths of tender age survived to take care of the women and children, and where constant aid from the company would be re- quired for some time to come, he framed measures for the consolidation of small villages into large central settlements, where people might help each other in case of distress. His plan was not perfected un-
48 The villages in the Unalaska district at that time numbered nine; one on Unalaska Island, two on Akun, one each at Avatanok, Tigalda, Ulga, Unalga, and Unimak, three on the Alaska peninsula, two on Unmak, and one on each of the Pribylof Islands. The service was performed on the Alaska peninsula by surgeon's apprentice Malakhof, with one interpreter as assistant. Surgeon's apprentice Fomin, and Orlof, interpreter, were sent to Bristol Bay. A trader named Malakhof was intrusted with the vaccination on Cook Inlet. Id., 116-17.
563
POPULATION STATISTICS.
til 1844, and though it met with violent opposition on the part of the natives who were to be benefited by it, it was finally carried out, and fulfilled the most sanguine expectations of the governor.
Notwithstanding the loss of life that occurred dur- ing the years 1836-1839, the population of the colonies amounted, according to a census taken in 1841, to 7,580 souls, a decrease since 1822, when the first regular cen- sus was taken, of 706,and since 1819 of 1,439 persons.49 There were in 1841 714 Russians or Europeans of foreign birth, 1,351 creoles, and 5,417 Indians.50 Be- tween 1830 and 1840 the number of Aleuts de- creased from 6,864 to 4,007, but the loss was in part compensated by the increase in the Russian and creole population, the fecundity among the latter class being much greater than among the natives, as they received better food and clothing, and were exempt from en- forced service on hunting expeditions.
Although the yield of the various hunting-grounds decreased considerably during the second term of the Russian American Company's existence, it was still on a large scale. Between 1821 and 1842 there were shipped from the colonies over 25,000 sea-otter, 458,000 fur-seal, 162,000 beaver, 160,000 fox skins, 138,000 pounds of whalebone, and 260,000 pounds of walrus tusks.51 At the time of Simpson's visit to the col- onies in 1842, the catch of sea-otter at Kadiak, Una-
49 Dok. Kom. Russ. Amer. Kol., i. 40. Yermolof, in L'Amerique Russ., 89, gives 11,259 as the population in 1836, without counting the Indians of the interior, who were more or less subject to the company's authority, and who, he says, numbered about 40,000. The St Peterburger Calendar of 1837, p. 132, places the entire population as high as 100,000, but both these esti- mates are no doubt exaggerated.
50 There were also 95 natives of the Kurile Islands. Of the Indians, 4, 163 were Aleuts, 967 Kenaïtze, and 287 Chugaches. Wrangell says there were, in 1836, 730 Russians, 1,142 Creoles, and 9,082 Indians, and points with pride to the increase of 295 souls which had occurred during his administration. Statist. und Ethnog., 327.
51 Also 29,442 otter skins, 23,506 sea-otter tails, 5,355 bear, 4,253 lynx, 1,564 glutton, 15,481 mink, 15,666 sable, 4,491 musk-rat, and 201 wolf skins. Tikhmenef, Istor. Obos., i. 327. Veniaminof, Zapiski, in a table at the end of vol. ii., gives the yield of the Prybilof Islands alone, between 1817 and 1837, at 578,224 fur-seals. Of the whale fisheries mention will be made later.
564
THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN COMPANY'S OPERATIONS.
laska, and Atkha, then the principal hunting-grounds, did not exceed 1,000 a year. Of course the dimin- ished yield was attended with a corresponding increase in price, six or seven blankets being given for a good sea-otter skin, and thirteen for the best, while as much as two hundred roubles in cash was asked for a single fur of the choicest quality.52 Moreover, the natives were not slow to better the instruction which had accompanied the progress of civilization in the far north-west. They had learned how to cheat, and could already outcheat the Russians. " One favorite artifice," relates Simpson, "is to stretch the tails of land-otters into those of sea-otters. Again, when a skin is rejected as being deficient in size or defective in quality, it is immediately, according to circum- stances, enlarged or colored or pressed to order, and is then submitted as a virgin article to the buyer's criticism by a different customer."
It is somewhat remarkable that the decline in the leading industry of the colonies and the increase in the value of furs was not attended with a correspond- ing reduction of dividends. Between 1821 and 1841 about 8,500,000 roubles were distributed among the shareholders,58 or nearly double the sum disbursed during the company's first term. The directors were, however, often in sore need of funds, and sometimes could only declare a dividend by charging it to the earn- ings of future years. During this period the gross revenues exceeded 61,400,000 roubles, and in 1841 the capital had been increased to about 6,200,000 roubles, which was represented mainly by trading goods, provisions, material, implements, furs, sea-go- ing vessels, and real estate in Russia, the amount of cash on hand at that date being less than 50,000 roubles.
62 Besides this no bargain was concluded without other trifles being thrown in. Belcher's Narr. Voy. round World, ii. 101.
53 A list of these dividends is given in T'ikhmenef, Istor. Obos., i. 378. They were paid every two years, and varied from 168 to 88 roubles per share. For 1822-3 and 1840-1 no dividends were declared.
565
THE FUR TRADE.
Large quantities of furs were still exchanged at Kiakhta for teas and Chinese cloths, which were afterward sold at Moscow and at the fair at Nijinei- Novgorod, the remainder of the furs and all the wal- rus tusks and whalebone being marketed at St Peters- burg.
The contract with the Hudson's Bay Company and the reopening of intercourse with foreigners, though limited to the port of Novo Arkhangelsk, were of great benefit to the shareholders. In 1822 and 1823, when the prohibition against foreign traffic was in force, the company suffered a clear loss of 85,000 roubles in sil- ver, while for the two following years the dividend was the largest paid during the second term, amount- ing to nearly 45 silver roubles per share. Although furs were bartered with English and American skip- pers at half or less than half the prices current in Russia, the loss was more than counterbalanced by the cheaper rates at which provisions and trading goods could be obtained.54 Moreover, the freight charged on the Hudson's Bay Company's vessels, ac- cordingly to the terms of the contract, was 50 to 78 silver roubles per ton, while from Kronstadt it was 180 to 254, and by way of Siberia 540 to 630 roubles in silver. Between 1821 and 1840 twelve expeditions were despatched from Kronstadt to the colonies with supplies, and yet more than once the governor was compelled to send vessels to Chile for cargoes of bread- stuffs. 55
54 For the inhabitants of Novo Arkhangelsk alone, and for the crews of the company's vesse.s sailing from that port, there were imported, in 1831, 6,000 pouds of grain, 900 of salt beef, 500 of dried beef, and a sufficient quantity of butter and other provisions. Two years later wheat flour was selling at 14 roubles a poud, salt beef at 6 to 12, butter at 28, tea at 280, white sugar at 65, and tobacco at 50 to 60 roubles a poud. Wrangell, Statist. und Ethnog., 12, 24-5.
55 Dok. Kom. Russ. Amer. Kol., i. 36. The Baikal was sent to Chile in 1829, in charge of Etholin. Russian manufactures were then introduced for the first time into Chilian markets, and met with ready sale at profitable rates. Etholen purchased 9,340 pouds of wheat, at prices much lower than those prevailing at Okhotsk or even in California. Tikhmenef, Istor. Obos., i. 344-5. Several regulations made during the company's second term, whereby expenses could be reduced, are mentioned in Id., 373-4.
566
THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN COMPANY'S OPERATIONS.
The expense of supporting the colonies, apart from the sums required for the home office, taxes, and other items, increased from about 676,000 roubles, scrip, in 1821, to over 1,219,000 roubles in 1841, and amount- ed for the whole period to nearly 18,000,000 roubles. The increase was due mainly to the necessity of estab- lishing more stations as seal became scarce near the settlements, and of increasing the pay of employees. "The salaries of the officers," remarks Simpson dur- ing his stay at Novo Arkhangelsk, "independently of such pay as they may have, according to their rank in the imperial navy, range between three thousand and twelve thousand roubles a year, the rouble being, as nearly as possible, equal to the franc; while they are, moreover, provided with firewood and candles, with a room for each, and a servant and a kitchen be- tween two. Generally speaking, the officers are ex- travagant, those of five thousand roubles and upwards spending nearly the whole, and the others getting into debt, as a kind of mortgage on their future pro- motion.
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