USA > Alaska > History of Alaska : 1730-1885 > Part 61
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74
The following figures require little comment: For the six months ending July 1, 1868, the imports on which duty was paid were valued at more than $26,- 000; for the twelve months ending March 1, 1878, at $3,295, the decrease meanwhile being gradual. For the year ending December 31, 1870, fines, penalties, and forfeitures amounted to nearly $9,000; for the year ending December 31, 1877, to $10. During 1876 there were no fines, and the revenue collections for that year amounted to $1,417.81,1 while the cost of collecting this sum, apart from the expense of main- taining revenue cutters, was $11,195. Thus the cost of collection was to receipts about in the ratio of eight to one. And yet the year 1876 compares very favor- ably with other years. In 1872, for instance, exclud- ing fines, the cost of collecting one dollar of revenue was fifty dollars, and in 1873 sixty dollars.2 These figures do not, of course, include the royalty on fur- seals, or the rent paid by the Alaska Commercial Company for the lease of the Pribylof Islands.
The total value of domestic exports from Alaska, excluding peltry, was, for 1880, about $90,000, and will no doubt increase when the fisheries are more largely utilized. The value of domestic imports de- pends partly on the demand at the various mining districts, and especially at the Cassiar district in Brit- ish Columbia, for which Wrangell is the distributing
1 For duties $724.43, and for tonnage tax $693.38. Morris's Rept., 11. Marine hospital collections for 1876 amounted to $331.79, and this is included by the collector as a part of the revenue.
2 Id., 11-12. Statistics as to trade will be found in the Com. and Nav. . Repts.
632
COMMERCE, REVENUE, AND FURS.
point, and is therefore fluctuating. In occasional years it reaches or exceeds $350,000,3 and may average about $300,000, the principal commodities being Cal- ifornia flour, tea, coarse sugar, and tobacco. The de- mand is about equally divided between eastern and western Alaska, the latter having imported from San Francisco in 1880 nearly 20,000 barrels of flour.4
It is worthy of note that a territory which absorbs this amount of produce should import so trifling a quantity of duty-paying goods, and that the cost of collecting the duty on these goods should be three or four times their value, and at least eight times that of the revenue collected. Moreover, it is difficult to ac- count for the fact that fines, penalties, and forfeitures · should have decreased from $8,843 in 1870 to $2,921 in 1872, increased to $5,814 the following year, and fallen to nothing in 1876. Hootchenoo distilleries were in full blast, it will be remembered, almost throughout the military occupation; there is no evi- dence that there was less smuggling in 1872 than in 1870; and there is no evidence that there was less smuggling in 1876 than in 1873. On the contrary, there is strong evidence that smuggling was steadily on the increase during and after the military occupation.
The fact that imports of duty-paying goods de- creased from $26,000 for the six months ending July 1, 1868, to about $3,000 for the year ending March 1, 1878, and that, meanwhile, trade had been so hon- estly conducted that there was no longer occasion for fines, penalties, or forfeitures, is a matter that invites investigation. Apart from the negligence of officials, to use no stronger phrase, it is certain that powerful factors have been at work to cause this anomaly, and the main factor is probably the operations of the Hud- son's Bay Company.
3 The value of merchandise that passed through Wrangell alone in 1874 was more than $156,000. Alaska Her., March 15, 1875.
4 Besides 3,452 cases of hard bread, 753 chests of tea, and 2,948 half-barrels of sugar. Petroff's Pop. Alaska, 86. At least 50,000 lbs. of leaf-tobacco were also imported, a part of which came from San Francisco.
633
HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY.
When governor of this corporation, Sir George Simpson declared that, without the strip of coast leased to it by the Russian American Company, the interior would be "comparatively useless to England." It will be remembered that, by the Anglo-Russian treaty of 1825, the boundary between the Russian and British possessions was one drawn between the Portland canal and Mount St Elias, and following the trend of the coast range, or at a distance of thirty iniles from the sea. By the same treaty it was provided that Brit- ish subjects should forever enjoy right of navigation on the rivers and streams which cross this line in their course toward the north Pacific. The latter clause was repeated in the treaties of commerce and naviga- tion between Russia and Great Britain in 1843 and 1859.
As the Hudson's Bay Company surrendered most of its possessions to the British government in 1869,5 and is now merely a private trading corporation, there can be no doubt that its pretensions are barred by the clause in the treaty of 1867, which declares the cession of Alaska to be free of encumbrance through privileges granted to any association or to any parties except individual property holders. It is also improbable that its employés, or other British subjects, will con- tinue to enjoy right of navigation on the rivers and streams which cross the boundary line.
"In succeeding to the Russian possessions," re- marks Sumner, "it does not follow that the United States succeed to ancient obligations assumed by Rus- sia, as if, according to a phrase of the common law, they 'are covenants running with the land.' If these stipulations are in the nature of servitudes, they depend for their duration on the sovereignty of Russia, and are personal or national rather than territorial. So at least I am inclined to believe. But it is hardly profit- able to speculate on a point of so little practicable value. Even if 'running with the land,' these servi-
5 For £300,000 sterling.
634
COMMERCE, REVENUE, AND FURS.
tudes can be terminated at the expiration of ten years from the last treaty, by a notice, which equitably the United States may give so as to take effect on the 12th of January, 1869. Meanwhile, during this brief period, it will be easy by act of congress in advance to limit importations at Sitka, so that this 'free port' shall not be made the channel or doorway by which British goods may be introduced into the United States free of duty."6
In the customs regulations it is provided that "no duty shall be levied or collected on the importation of peltries brought into the territories of the United States, nor on the proper goods and effects, of what- ever nature, of Indians passing or repassing the boun- dary line aforesaid, unless the same be goods in bales or other large packages unusual among Indians, which shall not be considered as goods belonging to Indians, nor be entitled to the exemption from duty aforesaid."
When we consider that five or six revenue officers, hampered with such restrictions, and some of them a thousand miles apart, collect the customs of a terri- tory whose coast line is more than twice as great as that of the United States,7 it is not surprising that the results should be nugatory. There is probably no better opportunity for smuggling in any part of the world than amidst the tortuous channels of the Alexander Archipelago and among the Aleutian Isl- ands. Hundreds of bidarkas laden with blankets, molasses, sugar, fire-arms, and other commodities pur- chased from the Hudson's Bay Company's agents, escape the vigilance of the revenue-cutters, or if detected, the wares are passed off as the "proper
6 Speech on Cess. Russ. Amer., 11. In the president's message in Sen. Ex. Doc., 40th Cong. 3d Sess., No. 42, complaints are made of the encroachments of the Hudson's Bay Company on the trade of Alaska. Ex-Collector Berry states that, after the cession, the company established a town eight or ten miles from the mouth of the Stikeen River, and at the head of tide-water, for the purpose of unloading vessels from Victoria, B. C., at that point, and thus evading custom dues. Developments, Alaska, MS., 3.
7 The coast line of Alaska, including the islands, is 26,000 miles, and of the United States 10,000 miles. Seward's Our North Pac. States, 3 ..
635
SMUGGLING.
goods and effects of Indians." Among Indians, blan- kets are still the principal currency, as they were during the regime of the Russian American Company. Blankets of Pacific coast manufacture are sold to-day to a small extent in England, and to a considerable extent in the states and territories east of the Rocky Mountains; but so successful has been this illicit traf- fic, that a few years ago none but Hudson's Bay Com- pany blankets were to be found among the Indians of Alaska.
Of smuggling among white men, two instances may be mentioned-those of one Charles V. Baranovich, a trader at Karta Bay,8 and of the Rev. William Duncan, an Episcopalian missionary and teacher, mag- istrate, and trader at Metlahkatlah, in British Colum- bia, near the Alaskan border. Baranovich was ac- cused in 1875 of smuggling blankets, hard-bread, and flour. The evidence was conclusive, but there was no jurisdiction in Alaska, and it was not considered worth the expense to indict him in the courts of Oregon or Washington Territory. In the following year, the Rev. W. Duncan was known to have held complicity with smugglers of blankets, silk goods, fire-arms, and molasses.9 Mr Duncan is criticised perhaps a little too severely by William Gouverneur Morris, a late agent of the treasury department,10 but it would seem alien to the functions of a missionary to transgress or to connive at the transgression of the United States revenue laws. The expense at which the revenue laws have been administered, and the contempt in which they are held, need no further comment.
Let us now consider the resources of a territory which contains but a few score of American citizens,
8 Prince of Wales Island.
9 The evidence in the latter case appears to be sufficiently conclusive. See Morris's Rept., 38-9. Duncan's bidarka fleet, on its way from Metlahkatlah, was chased by Deputy Collector Dennis. Collector M. P. Berry, who ordered the chase, paid the expense out of his own pocket, as for some reason it was disallowed by the accounting officers of the department.
10 Duncan is complimented very highly in Colyer's Rept., 558-9.
636
COMMERCE, REVENUE, AND FURS.
and which was declared 'Indian country' by an ex- attorney-general of the United States. They consist of furs, fisheries, timber, mines, and as some would have us believe, agriculture. The last three are as yet but little utilized, and will be mentioned later. The fur-seal trade, which is at present the most im- portant industry, is now in the hands of the Alaska Commercial Company, of which I shall make some mention before proceeding further.
When negotiations for the sale of the Russian pos- sessions were drawing to a close, a party of San Fran- cisco merchants, among whom was J. Mora Moss, obtained from Prince Maksutof a promise to transfer to them all the property of the Russian American Company; but no contract was signed.
Among those who landed from the John L. Stephens at the time of the transfer, however, was a merchant named Hutchinson, who proceeded at once to the castle and made arrangements with the ex-governor to dispose of a portion of the company's vessels and other property to the firm of Hutchinson, Kohl, and Company,11 on better terms than those offered by Moss and his colleagues. His offer was accepted. A fur-trader named Boscovitch also purchased about sixteen thousand fur-seal skins at forty cents apiece, which were shipped to Victoria and sold for two or three dollars each.12 Other portions of the company's assets were disposed of to various parties, most of them at rates very much below their value. .
In 1869 the Alaska Commercial Company was in- corporated, with a capital of $2,000,000. In 1870 a law was passed by congress for the protection of fur- bearing animals,18 and a lease of the Prybilof or Seal
11 As to the amount of his purchases, there are no reliable data.
12 Thereupon Boscovitch tried to secure the remainder of the skins; but meanwhile the governor had received orders not to part with them. Among the stock in the warehouses were S0,000 dried fur-seal skins.
13 For reports, bills, discussions, and investigations concerning the seal- hunting grounds of Alaska, see Sen. Ex. Doc., 41st Cong. 2d Sexs., 1; Sen. Rept., 41st Cong. 2d Sess., 47, p. 228-30, and Cong. Globe, 1869-70, app. 558-9, 675.
637
ALASKA COMMERCIAL COMPANY.
islands granted to the company for a term of twenty years.14 In 1872 the company purchased the prop- erty and interest of Hutchinson, Kohl, & Company.
Apart from the seal islands, the industries of the territory are open to the public, and for the stations which the company has established on the Aleutian Islands and on the peninsula north and west of Ka- diak, no special privileges are claimed.
It was estimated by the secretary of the treasury, before the lease was granted, that the cost of main- taining at the expense of the United States a revenue- cutter and a detachment of twenty troops, and of paying the salaries of officials, would amount to $371,200 a year, while a private company could save nearly half that sum. 15
" The plan I propose," remarked one of the stock- holders16 to the chairman of committee on commerce in the house of representatives, "asks for no expendi- ture of money, nor the exercise of any doubtful or unusual power of the government. On the other hand, it will abolish the entire expense of the military and naval establishments, which have already cost the government so much at a time when it could be least afforded; and in the next place, it will put into the treasury $150,000 per annum net revenue at a time when it is most needed."
It must be admitted even by its enemies that the Alaska Commercial Company has thus far more than fulfilled its promise. Instead of $150,000 a year, the
14 Morris, Rept., 151-2, makes the following absurd statement: In 1868-9 there were four or five companies engaged in killing seals on these islands, as fast as they could hire Aleuts to do the work. Among them was an eastern firm that was too religious to allow seals to be killed on the sabbath, but did not hesitate to supply whiskey to the Aleuts in payment for skins. Captain J W. White, of the revenue marine, stopped this wholesale slaughter, which threatened the extermination of the fur-seal, and ordered all the whiskey- barrels to be broken open, and their contents poured on the ground. The Aleuts lapped up the pools of whiskey as dogs lap water. There were but two companies engaged in killing seals on the Prybilof islands in 1868-9, and otherwise the statement is pure fiction.
15 It was supposed that loss by shipwreck would entail an additional ex- pense of about $168,000. The number of revenue-cutters which the United States proposed to lose each year is not stated in the secretary's report. 16 Nathan F. Dixon.
638
COMMERCE, REVENUE, AND FURS.
average revenue between 1870 and 1883 was about $317,000, and meanwhile the supply of fur-seals in- creased.17
By the act approved July 1, 1870, "to prevent the extermination of fur-bearing animals in Alaska," it was provided that fur-seals should be killed at the Pry- bilof Islands only during the months of June, July, September, and October, except such as might be re- quired for the food and clothing of the natives; that the slaughter should be restricted to males at least twelve months old; that the number killed each year for their skins should not exceed 75,000 at St Paul and 25,000 at St George Island; and that the use of fire-arms or other weapons tending to drive the seals away should not be permitted. It was estimated by H. W. Elliott, a treasury agent, from surveys made in 1872-3, that only one eighteenth of the aggregate supply was contained at the latter island, and that to secure there 25,000 seals within the time allotted would be a difficult task. Through his efforts the act of 1870 was amended,18 and the secretary of the treas- ury authorized to determine the relative number to be killed at each island from season to season. The time for killing was also extended to the first half of the month of August.
According to the terms of its contract, the company was required to pay a fixed rental of $55,000 a year, a tax of $2.622 on each fur-seal skin, and 55 cents per gallon on all the seal-oil shipped from the Prybilof Islands; to furnish annually to the natives, free of charge, 25,000 dried salmon and 60 cords of fire-wood, together with salt and barrels for preserving seal-meat; and to maintain a school on each island for at least eight months in the year. As the market value of seal-oil ranged from 35 to 55 cents per gallon, the company could not save it except at a loss, and it was
17 After the indiscriminate slaughter in 1868-9 seals disappeared rapidly from the Prybilof Islands, but two or three years later began to return in vast numbers.
18 By act approved March 24, 1874.
639
TREATMENT OF NATIVES.
allowed to go to waste. Though the tax was after- ward abolished in consideration of a payment to the natives of 10 cents per gallon, the production of oil was still found to be unprofitable, and shipments have never been considerable.19
In the regulations of the Alaska Commercial Com- pany, prescribed in January 1872,20 are certain provi- sions as to the remuneration and treatment of the natives, which, together with the obligations of its contract with government, appear to have been faith- fully carried out. The Aleuts are to be paid forty cents for each skin delivered, and for other labor a sum to be agreed upon between the company's agents and the parties employed. The working parties are to be under control of native chiefs, and no compulsory labor is to be required. Goods are to be sold at rates not more than twenty-five per cent above the wholesale price in San Francisco, salmon, fuel, and oil being fur- nished gratis. Widows and orphans at either island are to be supported if necessary at the company's ex- pense. Medicines and medical attendance are to be provided for all free of expense. Free transportation and subsistence on the company's vessels must be fur- nished to those who any time wish to remove to any island on the Aleutian group. Finally, the agents and employés of the company are strictly enjoined at all times to "treat the inhabitants of the islands with the utmost kindness, and endeavor to preserve ami- cable relations with them. Force is never to be used against them, except in defense of life, or to prevent
19 It was alleged in 1876, that the 100,000 seals killed each year would · yield at least 200,000 gallons of oil, that if the tax had been maintained it would have yielded $110,000 a year to government, and that the oil would have sold in London for 95 cents per gallon. Itis well known that the seals whose fur is most valuable give the least oil, and the average yield is proba- bly nearer half a gallon than two gallons per seal. Morcover, the oil that sells in London for 95 cents a gallon is not fur-seal but hair-seal oil. The former has sometimes no marketable value, and apart from tax, the highest price paid for it never exceeds the cost of production, freight, and other charges. See House Com. Repts., 44th Cong. 1st Sess., 623. p. 9.
20 A copy of them, and also of the 'Act to prevent the extermination of fur- bearing animals in Alaska,' may be found in Elliott's Seal-Islands, Alaska, 153-6.
640
COMMERCE, REVENUE, AND FURS.
the wanton destruction of valuable property. The agents and servants of the company are expected to instruct the native people in household economy, and by precept and example illustrate to them the prin- ciples and benefits of a higher civilization."
The workmen keep a tally of their number of skins, and at the close of each day's labor give the result to their chief. When the skins are afterward counted by the company's agent at the salt-houses, it is seldom that any discrepancy is found. Once a month, or sometimes more frequently, the sum due for the catch is paid to the chiefs, by whom a portion is distributed among the men, the remainder being reserved until the final settlement, which takes place at the end of the season. First-class workmen can thus earn, in- cluding extra work, about $45021 for three or four months' labor, and considering that they are supplied gratis the year round with house-room,22 fuel, oil, and their staple article of food, it would seem that their condition is much better than that of the majority of laborers in other parts of the world. Not a few of them save money, though thrift is a rare virtue among the Aleuts, and the company allows good interest to those who deposit their savings,23 some having several thousand dollars to their credit.24
Complaints have been made from time to time of
21 At 40 cents per skin, the payment for the 75,000 skins taken at St Paul Island in 1872 amounted to $30,000, and including extra work, to $30,637.37. This was divided into 74 shares, though in fact only 56 men were at work, portions being reserved for the church, the priest, widows, and orphans. The shares were thus divided: 37 first-class shares at $451.22; 23 second-class shares at $406.08; 4 third-class shares at $360.97; 10 fourth-class shares at $315.85. Id., 25-6. First-class shares are given to those who have worked regularly and are of good standing in the community; second-class to those who have worked irregularly or for a portion of the time; third-elass to those who have been idle and worked only when they felt disposed, and fourth-class to boys. Testimony of Charles Bryant, in House Com. Repts., 44th Cong. 1st Sess., 623, p. 97.
22 In 1876 dwellings had been erected on both islands, one for each family. They were lined inside and filled in between the lining and weather-boarding. Stoves were also provided free of expense. Testimony of John F. Miller, in Id., 30.
23 Nine per cent was the rate paid in 1880.
24 In 1875, eighty natives at St Paul were credited with $34,715.24. Id., 31.
641
CONDITION OF THE INDIANS.
the treatment of natives by the Alaska Commercial Company. Even before its incorporation the commis- sioner of Indian affairs lamented that the relations of Hutchinson, Kohl, & Company with the Aleuts were merely those of traders, and "in the name of human- ity" trusted that the bill which passed the house of representatives in 1868, and which "would virtually reduce the Indians of Alaska to a condition of serf- dom," would not become law. What relations other than those of traders he expected to exist between the Aleuts and Hutchinson, Kohl, & Company the commissioner does not state. It is certain, however, that at the Prybilof Islands the treatment of the for- mer has been in marked and favorable contrast with that which they received elsewhere during the mili- tary occupation or during the régime of the Russian American Company.
The entire population of the Prybilof Islands num- bered, in 1880, nearly four hundred persons,25 all but eighteen of them being Aleuts. Until these islands were leased to the Alaska Commercial Company, most of the natives lived in sod huts, some of them partly under ground. The fat of seals and a small quantity of drift-wood found on the northern shore of St Paul Island formed their only fuel, and when these failed, they passed the remainder of the long drear winter huddled together beneath seal-skins, in the warmest corner of their dark and noisome dwellings. Now there is in their midst neither poverty, suffering, nor crime,26 and the villages at St Paul and St George will com- pare not unfavorably with those of equal size, even in the eastern states. The streets are regularly laid out; each family lives in a comfortable frame dwell- ing; there are churches and school-houses at both
25 At St Paul there were 298, including 14 white persons, 128 male and 156 female Aleuts; at St George the population was 92, including 4 whites, 35 male Aleuts and 53 females, an increase of 30 or 40 souls since 1873. Elli- ott's Seal-Islands, Alaska, 20.
26 There are no policemen nor courts of justice, and since 1870 there has not been a single instance where the presence of a justice of the peace was needed. Id., 22.
HIST. ALASKA. 41
642
COMMERCE, REVENUE, AND FURS.
settlements, and at St Paul a hospital and well fur- nished dispensary.
The principal food of the natives is salmon and seal meat, of which five to six hundred pounds a year are required per capita. For animal food they have no relish. Salt beef and pork they will sometimes accept as a present, but will never purchase them. Apart from fish, bread, butter, canned fruit, sugar, and tea form their principal diet. Of bread they consume about five pounds each per week, of butter and sugar all that they can purchase, or rather all that the com- pany will allow them to purchase; for if the supply were unlimited, they would constantly surfeit them- selves with both these luxuries. The samovar, which is now being replaced by the tea-kettle, is kept boiling at all hours of the day and most hours of the night. When not at work the Prybilof Islander sips tea even more persistently than the Chinaman, some of them drinking as much as a gallon a day. No intoxicating liquors of any kind are openly permitted to come within their reach, and of tobacco the consumption is moderate.27
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.