USA > Alaska > History of Alaska : 1730-1885 > Part 56
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16 On the Ist of January, 1867, after breakfast, the party went out in a body and raised the first telegraph pole, ornamented with the flags of the United States, the telegraph expedition, the masonic fraternity, and the scientific corps. A salute of 36 guns was fired. Dall's Alaska, 59.
HIST. ALASKA. 37
578
THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN COMPANY'S LAST TERM.
bars. In many places we found snow 15 feet in depth to leeward of a hill. Our poles were on an average 15 feet long, but on the leeward side we had to make them 24 feet long. We should have made them all 24 or 30 feet long, but that the timber was too short. We dug them three feet into the ground, which consists of frozen dirt. In summer when the surface thawed, we found many of them, which we supposed to be very firmly erected, entirely loose.
"The men were very contented. They were of course exposed to severe cold, and we had the ther- mometer as low as 68° below zero, but we did not suffer in the least. We were dressed in furs like In- dians, and slept in open camps. For rations we had only beans and graham flour. We also obtained seal- oil from the Indians, and sometimes frozen fish. This was just the kind of food that we needed in such a climate. When we started forth on journeys, we used to cook an entire sack of beans into bean soup. Before it was entirely cold, we would pour it into a bag, let it freeze, and take it with us. When we camped at night, we took out an axe, chopped off a little, made our fire, and our supper was ready imme- diately."17
In 1860 the general administration of the Russian American Company submitted to the minister of finance a draught of a new charter, together with a request that the privileges be renewed for a further term of twenty years, to commence from the 1st of January 1862.18 In the following year Captain Golov- nin was sent to Novo Arkhangelsk, with instructions to make a thorough investigation into the condition
17 This statement was made to me personally, on June 7, 1878, by Mr "Westdahl, on board Ellicott's steam-launch, near Anderson Island in Puget Sound.
18 This was approved at a general assembly of shareholders. The few ad- ditional privileges and changes requested are mentioned in Dok. Kom. Ross. Amer. Kol., i. 144-53, and in Politoffsky, Istor. Obos. Ross. Amer. Kom., 162-3.
579
NEGOTIATIONS FOR A CHARTER.
of the company's affairs and report thereon to the government. His report was in the main favorable, though suggesting many changes and containing much adverse criticism. It was followed by a reply from the creole Kashevarof, exposing abuses which had hitherto been kept secret; and the statements of the latter being indorsed by Baron Wrangell, the gov- ernment refused to renew the charter, except on such conditions as the company was not willing to accept. In 1865 meetings of the imperial council were held at which these conditions were determined, and in the same year they were approved by the president and submitted to the general administration. Some of them were extremely unpalatable, especially those requiring that the Aleuts and other dependent tribes be exempt from enforced labor, and that all the inhab- itants of Russian America be allowed to engage, without distinction or restriction, in whatever indus- try they preferred except that of fur-hunting.19 After much intrigue, some concessions were obtained from government, and a subsidy was even promised,20 but no satisfactory arrangement was made, though negotiations were continued almost until the transfer of the territory to the United States.
During the debates which occurred in congress on the purchase question, and in the comments of the press on the same subject, it has frequently been stated that, in 1866, the charter of the Russian American Company was about to expire. It had al- ready expired on the 1st of January 1862, and about two years later Prince Maksutof, an officer appointed by the imperial government,21 took charge of the com- pany's affairs. That the renewal of the charter was contemplated, however, appears in the following ex-
19 The full text of the imperial council's decision is given in Politoffsky, Istor. Obos. Ross. Amer. Kom., 147-54. 20 Id., 154-7.
21 He commanded a battery at the attack on Petropavlovsk in 1854, and was wounded while loading a cannon with his own hands. Du Hailly, L'Ex- péd. de Petropavlovsk, in Revue des deux Mondes, Aug. 1, 1858.
580
THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN COMPANY'S LAST TERM.
tract from a decision of the imperial council, con- firmed by its president, the grand duke Constantine, on April 2, 1866: "The company is allowed to in- crease its working capital by the issue of new shares, but at the final settlement of the company's business, within twenty years hence or later, all claims must be satisfied at the company's expense, without assist- ance from the government."
Though the abuses mentioned by Kashevarof were no doubt sufficiently culpable, it would seem that the treatment of the natives was somewhat less severe than during the two first terms of the company's ex- istence. The number of Aleuts, which in 1840 had decreased, it will be remembered, to 4,007, was in 1860 about 4,400,22 the entire Indian population subject to the company having increased during the same time from about 5,400 to over 7,600. Meanwhile the Rus- sian population had increased to 784, and the creoles mustered nearly 1,700, the whole population of the col- onies being about 12,000, a gain of more than 58 per cent since the census of 1841.23
The increase in the native population was due in part to their being better fed and housed than in for- mer years. Though except for a scant crop of veg- etables raised chiefly at Kadiak, nearly all food supplies, with the exception of fish and game, were imported, the company not only supplied fair rations of flour, fish, sugar, tea, and other provisions
22 In 1849 it had reached 4,322, but the following year fell to 4,084. This was caused by an outbreak of the measles in the Sitka and Unalaska districts. Dok. Kom. Ross. Amer. Kol., i. 131. In Davidson's Report Coast Survey, 1867, the number is given at 4,268. Dall, Alaska, 350, after an amusing ex- hibition of indignant philanthropy on stilts, states that their number had de- creased about this date to 1,500. To point out any more of Mr Dall's blun- ders in the so-called historical portion of his work is a task for which I have neither space nor inclination.
23 Golovnin, Obsor. Ross. Kol., in Materialui, i. app. 151. Tikhmenef, Istor. Obos., ii. 264, gives the entire population in 1860 at 12,028, including 784 Rus- sians and 1,676 creoles, the remainder being Indians. Among the Russians he includes 208 women, but most of these were probably their creole or Indian wives. His figures coincide somewhat suspiciously with those of Golovnin.
581
RATIONS OF THE HUNTERS.
to its servants,24 but sold flour to them at a small fixed price,25 and often at a heavy loss.26 Fish was of course the staple food, and was supplied to servants free of charge, those who received less than 1,000 roubles a year being allowed to draw each day their dole of bread and fish, of pease or gruel twice a week, of salt beef on holidays, and of game when it was plen- tiful, from the public kitchen; while married men could receive an equivalent in money.27 The Aleuts and others employed on hunting expeditions also re- ceived a liberal supply of food and warm clothing, and were allowed higher rates for their furs.28
At the beginning of the company's third term, rules were established for the preservation of fur-bearing animals by a system of alternation at the various hunt-
24 At the Mikhaielovsk redoubt they received in 1866 about 50 pounds of flour, a pound of tea, and three pounds of sugar a month, in addition to their pay of one rouble a day. Dall's Alaska, 12. In the Sitka Archives, ii. 17, 1854, it is stated that after Voievodsky's arrival, the ration of flour was increased from 40 to 60 pounds, and that to reimburse the company, two hours were added to each day's work during the summer months. Besides these rations, servants received an allowance of fish. In Id., ii. 71, it is mentioned that 71,500 salmon were salted at the Ozerskoi redoubt. It does not appear that the laborer could purchase much for his wages, for according to the company's price list for 1860, woollen shirts were sold at Novo Ark- hangelsk for 123 roubles a dozen, blankets for about 21 roubles each, boots of second quality for 15 roubles a pair, and tobacco at 67} roubles a pond. Tikh- menef, Istor. Obos., ii. 234-5.
23 Five roubles (scrip) per pond for rye and common wheat flour, and 10 for fine white flour. The company refused to sell it, or sold it in very small quantities, to those who were not in their service, on the ground that they were compelled to keep on hand a two-years supply. Golovnin, Obsor. Ross. Kol., in Materialui, 56.
26 In 1856 rye flour imported from Russia cost the company 9.42 roubles per poud, in 1857, 7.05, and in 1859, 6.47 roubles (scrip). Of course bread- stuffs were obtained at cheaper rates when California began to export cereals.
27 Beef from Ayan sold in the colonies at 25 kopeks, or 5 cents, per pound, and even at that price was beyond the means of the poor, at least of the poor who had families. California salt beef sold for about double that price. Hogs were raised to some extent, but as they were fed mainly on fish, their meat was unsavory. Chickens, also fed partly on fish, sold at Novo Ark- hangelsk for 5 to 7 roubles each, and eggs at about 6 roubles a dozen. Rum was issued to the servants at the rate of eight gills a year; but after fa- tiguing labor and in bad weather a further allowance was issued, so that they usually received one or two gills a week. When one had need of a laborer or craftsman, he would usually pay in rum, which could be obtained by those in office for one tenth of the price at which it was given in payment. Thus, for making a pair of boots, a bottle of rum which had cost only 3} roubles, would often be accepted in lieu of 30 or 35 roubles, scrip. Id., 58-9.
28 A table of the prices paid by the company between 1836 and 1855 is given in Id., app. 180-5.
582
THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN COMPANY'S LAST TERM.
ing-grounds, those which were threatened with ex- haustion being allowed to lie undisturbed for a period of ten years. The increase which occurred after this regulation in the number of fur-seals was remarkable, especially at the Prybilof group. In 1851, 30,000 could be killed annually at St Paul Island alone, and in 1861 as many as 70,000, without fear of exhausting the supply. Between 1842 and 1861 shipments of furs from the colonies included about 25,600 sea-otter, 338,600 fur-seal, 161,000 beaver, and 129,600 fox skins. 29 It will be observed that these figures show a considerable decrease from the quantity forwarded during the period 1821-1842. This was caused mainly by the encroachments of foreign traders, and especially of American whaling-vessels, whose masters often touched at various points in the Russian posses- sions during their voyage, and paid much higher prices for furs than those fixed by the company's tariff. An- other reason was the growth of intertribal traffic, clothing worn by the natives far in the interior and made up by Aleutian women being bartered for small skins, oil, and bone.30
In 1826 Chistiakof wrote to the directors, asking that an experienced whaler be sent to the colonies.
29 Id., app. 158 et seq. During the company's third term the supply of fox skins became much smaller and their quality poorer. Etholen forbade shooting: them in the Unalaska and Kadiak districts, though traps might still be used. Tikhmenef, Istor. Obos., ii. 219. Ward, Three Weeks in Sitka, MS., 28(1853), says that about 50,000 skins a year were received at the warehouse in Novo Arkhangelsk. From Kadiak, shipments between 1842 and 1861 included 5,S09 sea-otter, 85,381 beaver, 14,298 sable skins, and 1,296 pouds of walrus tusks. From St Paul Island, during the same period, there were shipped 277,778 fur- seal, 10,508 fox skins, and 104 pouds of walrus tusks. Tikhmenef, Istor. Obos., ii. 190,200. For the quantities forwarded from other points, see Id., ii. 179, 184-6, 226. Probably the largest cargo of furs ever shipped from the colonies was that of the Cesarevitch, despatched from Novo Arkhangelsk to Ayan in 1857. It contained 458 packages, was valued 2,004,919 roubles, and insured by the company's agent in London for £100,000. Sitka Archives (1857), i. 169, 243.
30 In Whymper's Trav. and Advent. in Alaska, 162, it is stated that this trade was carried on by the Tchuktchis, who crossed from Siberia by way of Bering Strait, and exchanged their reindeer skins for these commodities with the Kaneaks and Malemutes, whom they met at Port Clarence. Mr Whym- per did not seem to be aware that the Tchuktchis or Chugasches and the Malemutes both belonged to the family of Kouiagas. For a description of these tribes, see my Native Races, passim.
583
WHALE FISHERY.
No further steps were taken in the matter until 1833, when an American named Barton arrived at Novo Arkhangelsk, under a five-years contract to engage in this industry, and to instruct the natives in harpoon- ing and in rendering oil. He met with little success, for the method employed by the Aleuts of shooting the whales with spears or arrows, and waiting until the carcass was washed ashore, was found easier and less dangerous. Moreover, the company had neither funds nor vessels to spare for the active prosecution of this industry, as trade with California and the Hawaiian Islands was now on a large scale, and se- verely taxed the company's resources. For several years, therefore, the whale-fisheries were left in the hands of foreigners, since without the cooperation of the Russian government the directors had no power to prevent their intrusion.
In 1842 Etholen transmitted a report from Captain Kadlikof, commanding the company's ship Naslednik Alexandr, wherein the latter stated that he had spoken an American whaler north of the Aleutian Islands, and had learned from the captain that he had sailed together with 30 other whalers for Bering Sea. He also mentioned that, the preceding year, he had been in the same waters with 50 other vessels, and that he alone had killed 13 whales, yielding 1,600 barrels of oil. Upon this report Etholen based a request that the imperial government should send armed cruisers for the preservation of Bering sea as a mare clausum. Etholen's efforts were assisted by the board of managers, but did not meet with immediate success, the minis- ter for foreign affairs replying that the treaty between Russia and the United States gave to American citi- zens the right to engage in fishing over the whole ex- tent of the Pacific Ocean. Etholen, however, would not allow the matter to rest, but continued his correspond- ence on the subject, urging that so lucrative an indus- try should be placed in the hands of Russians, instead of being left entirely to Americans.
584
THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN COMPANY'S LAST TERM.
The government at length referred the matter to a committee, composed of officals of the navy department, who reported that the cost of fitting out a cruiser for the protection of Bering Sea against foreign whalers would be 200,000 roubles in silver, and the cost of maintaining such a craft 85,000 roubles a year. To this a recommendation was added that if the company were willing to assume the expenditure, a cruiser should at once be placed at their disposal. Though the direc- tors would not consent to this outlay, complaints of the doings of American whalers were forwarded from time to time, referring chiefly to the practice of landing on the Aleutian Islands and other portions of the coast for the purpose of trying out blubber, on which occasions a wanton destruction of fuel took place, causing great hardship to the inhabitants, who de- pended entirely on the scant supplies of drift-wood. It was not until 1850 that an armed corvette was finally ordered to cruise in the north Pacific.
In the mean time Tebenkof took up the matter, and forwarded proposals to the company for the establish- ment at various points of whaling stations, provided with whale-boats and improved appliances, and in charge of experienced American whalers to be engaged by the company for a term of years. In the year 1850 it was estimated that 300, and in later years as many as 500 or 600 whalers annually visited the Arc- tic Ocean, the Okhotsk and Bering seas,31 and Alaskan waters, carrying off the stores of dried fish reserved for hunting parties, and bartering liquor, arms, and powder with the natives for furs. In 1849 a whaling enterprise was established at Abo under the name of the Russian Finland Whaling Company, with a capi- tal of 200,000 roubles in silver, one half of which was
31 In 1854 there were 525; in 1853, 468; in 1856, 366; and in some years 600 foreign whalers. Dok. Kom. Ross. Amer. Kol., i. 116. In Seeman's Narr. Voy. Herald (London, 1853), ii. 94, it is stated that in 1849-50 the American whaling fleet in the Arctic consisted of 299 vessels, with 8,970 seamen, and that the catch yielded about $6,367,000 worth of oil and $2,075,000 worth of bone.
585
NEW GOVERNORS.
furnished by the Russian American Company. The corporation received from the government a donation of 20,000 roubles, and a premium of 10,000 roubles each for the first four vessels equipped for this purpose, and was permitted to import material, implements, and stores, and to export its products, duty free, for a period of twelve years. 32
During the few years of the Russian Finland Whaling Company's existence, six vessels were fitted out, but the losses incurred and the difficulty in sell- ing cargoes during the war with England and France caused the enterprise to prove unprofitable.33 In 1854 the shareholders resolved to go into liquidation, and were enabled to settle their liabilities in full by a special grant from the imperial treasury, made on account of losses incurred during the war. Thus the whale fisheries were again left in the hands of foreign- ers, who, before long, caused their entire destruction in the sea of Okhotsk.
In consequence of the political complications then arising in Europe, no successor was appointed at the close of Tebenkof's administration in 1850, until four years later, when Captain Voievodsky was elected governor. He was succeeded in 1859 by the mining engineer Furuhelm, the interval between Tebenkof
32 Sgibnef, in Morskoi Sbornik, ciii. 8, 89, 90; Tikhmenef, Istor. Obos., ii. app. 1-11, where further particulars of the charter are given. The value of every tenth whale killed was to be delivered to the Russian American Com- pany, to reimburse the natives for the loss caused by this enterprise.
33 The Suomi, the first of the company's ships, a 500-ton vessel built at Abo and fitted out in Bremen, obtained, during her cruise in 1853, 1,500 barrels of oil and 21,400 lbs. whalebone. Her cargo was sold for 80,000 rou- bles, yielding a profit of 13,600 roubles. The second one, the Turko, secured only one whale during her first cruise, but in the following year was more successful. In 1854 the Aian wintered at Petropavlovsk, being intended to sail with the Turko for Bremen, but was captured and burnt by the allied fleet. Tikhmenef, Istor. Obos., ii. 139-53; Morskoi Sbornik, xxiii. 5, 29-30; Sitka Archives (1854), ii. 110. Tikhmenef gives a full description of the oper- ations of the Russian Finland Whaling Company. In the Morskoi Sbornik, xxiii. 4, 45, 47, it is stated that in 1854 a private whaling company was established at Helsingfors under the auspices of the Russian American Com- pany, and despatched a brig to Kamchatka by way of New Zealand. We have no further details of its operations.
586
THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN COMPANY'S LAST TERM.
and Voievodsky's administrations being filled by the temporary appointment of lieutenants Rosenburg and Rudakof, who managed the company's affairs during the first years of the Russo-Turkish war.
Notwithstanding some unfavorable features and the interruption to trade caused by the war of 1853, there was a considerable increase in dividends during the company's last term, the amount disbursed being about 10,210,000 roubles, a gain of nearly 17 per cent over the sum distributed in the previous twenty years. At the close of the term the fixed and work- ing capital of the company amounted to more than 13,600,000 roubles.34 The receipts from all sources exceeded 75,770,000 roubles, of which amount over 23,755,300 was required for the support of the col- onies, and nearly 11,366,000 roubles for the general administration, including, among other items, pensions and rewards to officials and servants. 35
The entire amount received from sales of tea, which, as in former years, was mainly purchased at Kiakhta and marketed in Russia, exceeded 27,000,000 roubles. The profits on these transactions were greatly reduced when, on the application of a few Moscow manufact- urers, a rule was established that the company's agents should be required to accept Russian manufactured goods in part payment; the more so as these were always of inferior quality. Between 1835 and 1841 the company's profits on each chest of tea were from
34The items and also the rate of each year's dividend are given in Tikh- menef, Istor. Obos., ii. 281-2, and are in silver roubles, but have been reduced to roubles in scrip, as this kind of money is the one usually mentioned in the text of this volume. The figures given in Dok. Kom. Ross. Amer. Kol., i. 100, differ somewhat from Tikhmenef's.
85 A colonial pension fund was created in 1851 by a tax on the sale of liquor, but about two years later there was a deficit, which was made good by an appropriation from the company. Sitka Archives, 1854, ii. 85. Rewards were on a liberal scale. For 1853 they amounted at Novo Arkhangelsk alone to 26,555 roubles. Id., 73. The total number of the company's servants on the Ist of January, 1861, including a portion of the Siberian line battalion, was 847. Golovnin, Obsor. Ross. Kol., in Materialui, app. 145. This of course does not include the hunters. Ward states that the governor received 35,000 roubles a year, and his assistant 12,000. Three Weeks in Sitka, MS., 79.
587
CALIFORNIA TRADE.
187 to 300 roubles; in 1845 it was less than 23 roubles. The loss fell entirely on the company, or more probably on the company's servants. Two years after permission was given to send cargoes of tea from Shanghai to Russia, annual shipments were made of 4,000 chests; and yet cloths manufactured at Mos- cow could be bought cheaper at Shanghai than in the former city.36
The discovery of gold in California was of course followed by a marked revival of trade with that coun- try. One cargo of almost worthless goods, that had been in the company's storehouses for years, was dis- posed of in San Francisco at fabulous rates. Other ventures were less successful, though most of them were profitable.37 In 1851 a party of San Francisco capitalists, among whom were Messrs Sanderson and J. Mora Moss, made a contract with Rosenberg for 250 tons of ice to be shipped from Novo Arkhan- gelsk at $75 per ton. The shipment was made in February 1852, and in October of the same year the price was reduced to $35 per ton, and the quantity forwarded increased to 1,000 tons, a contract to this effect being made for three years. Later the price was further reduced and the quantity again increased. Between 1852 and 1859 there were shipped from Novo Arkhangelsk 13,960 tons, and from Kadiak 7,403 tons.38 The ice was procured from two lakes, one of them near Novo Arkhangelsk and the other on Wood Island, near Kadiak, five buildings being erected for its storage 39 with a total capacity of 12,000 tons.40
36 Dok. Kom. Ross. Amer. Kol., i. 99; Golovnin, Obsor. Ross. Kol., in Mate- rialui, 121-2. The company was allowed to ship tea by water only on con- dition that they would not undersell the Kiakhta merchants.
37 There was also a small but profitable trade with New York during the company's third term. In 1857, 7,500 fur-seals and 4,000 beaver skins were shipped to that port. Sitka Archives, i. 30S.
38 An account of each year's shipments is given in Id., IS6-8. It is there stated that 20,554 tons were sold in San Francisco, netting $121,956.
39 Three at Novo Arkhangelsk and two at Kadiak, all built in 1852-3. Sitka Archives, i. 188. In Id., 9, it is stated that one ice-house was built in each of the years 1852, 1853, and 1856. Ward, in his Three Weeks in Sitka, MS., 10, says that an ice-house was built in 1853 at the edge of the lake, but mentions no other.
40 According to the opinion of an American engineer in the company's em-
588
THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN COMPANY'S LAST TERM.
Rails were laid to connect the ice-houses with the wharves, these being the first tracks constructed in Russian America. I append in a note41 a few remarks
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