Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

I pass now to a consideration of the character and value of these possessions, as seen under these different heads: first, Government; secondly, Population; thirdly, Climate; fourthly, Vegetable Products; fifthly, Mineral Products; sixthly, Furs; and, seventhly, Fisheries. Of these I shall speak briefly in their order. There are certain words of a general character, which I introduce by way of preface. I quote from Blodget on the “Climatology of the United States and of the Temperate Latitudes of the North American Continent.”

“It is most surprising that so little is known of the great
islands and the long line of coast from Puget’s Sound to
Sitka, ample as its resources must be even for recruiting the
transient commerce of the Pacific, independent of its immense
intrinsic value. To the region bordering the Northern Pacific
the finest maritime positions belong throughout its entire
extent; and no part of the West of Europe exceeds it in the
advantages of equable climate, fertile soil, and commercial
accessibility of the coast. The western slope of the Rocky
Mountain system may be included as a part of this maritime
region, embracing an immense area, from the forty-fifth to the
sixtieth parallel and five degrees of longitude in width. The
cultivable surface of this district cannot be much less than
three hundred thousand square miles.”[48]

From this sketch, which is in the nature of a picture, I pass to the different heads.

* * * * *

1. _Government._--The Russian settlements were for a long time without any regular government. They were little more than temporary lodgements for purposes of trade, where the will of the stronger prevailed. The natives, who had enslaved each other, became in turn the slaves of these mercenary adventurers. Captain Cook records “the great subjection”[49] of the natives at Oonalaska, when he was there in 1778; and a Russian navigator, fourteen years later, describes the islands generally as “under the sway of roving hunters more savage than any tribes he had hitherto met with.”[50] At Oonalaska the Russians for a long time employed all the men in the chase, “taking the fruits of their labor to themselves.”[51]

The first trace of government which I find was in 1790, at the important island of Kadiak, or the Great Island, as it was called, where a Russian company was established under direction of a Greek by the name of Delareff, who, according to the partial report of a Russian navigator, “governed with the strictest justice, as well natives as Russians, and established a school, where the young natives were taught the Russian language, reading and writing.”[52] Here were about fifty Russians, including officers of the company, and another person described as “there on the part of Government to collect tribute.”[53] The establishment consisted of five houses after the Russian fashion,--barracks laid out on either side, somewhat like the boxes at a coffee-house, with different offices, represented as follows: “An office of appeal, to settle disputes, levy fines, and punish offenders by a regular trial; here Delareff presides, and I believe that few courts of justice pass a sentence with more impartiality; an office of receival and delivery, both for the company and for tribute; the commissaries’ department, for the distribution of the regulated portions of provision; counting-house, &c.: all in this building, at one end of which is Delareff’s habitation.”[54] If this picture is not overdrawn,--and it surely is,--affairs here did not improve with time. But D’Wolf, who was there in 1805-6, reports “about forty houses of various descriptions, including a church, school-house, store-house, and barracks”; and he adds: “The school-house was quite a respectable establishment, well filled with pupils.”[55]

There were various small companies, of which that at Kadiak was the most considerable, all finally fused into one large trading company, known as the Russian American Company, organized in 1799, under a charter from the Emperor Paul, with the power of administration throughout the whole region, including coasts and islands. In this respect it was not unlike the East India Company, which has played such a part in English history; but it may be more properly compared to the Hudson’s Bay Company, of which it was a Russian counterpart. The charter was for a term of years, but it has been from time to time extended, and, as I understand, is now about to expire. The powers of the Company are sententiously described by the “Almanach de Gotha” for 1867, where, under the head of Russia, it says that “to the present time Russian America has been the property of a company.”

I know no limitation upon the Company, except that latterly it has been bound to appoint its chief functionary, called “Administrator General,” from the higher officers of the imperial navy, when he becomes invested with what are declared the prerogatives of a governor in Siberia. This requirement has doubtless secured the superior order of magistrates since enjoyed. Among these have been Baron Wrangell, an admiral, there at the time of the treaty with Great Britain in 1825; Captain Kuprianoff, who had commanded the Azof, a ship of the line, in the Black Sea, and spoke English well; Captain Etolin; Admiral Furuhelm, who, after being there five years, was made governor of the province of the Amoor; Admiral Woiwodsky; and Prince Maksutoff, an admiral also, who is the present Administrator General. The term of service is ordinarily five years.

The seat of government is the town of New Archangel, better known by its aboriginal name of Sitka, with a harbor as smooth and safe as a pond. Its present population cannot be far from one thousand, although even this is changeable. In spring, when sailors leave for the sea and trappers for the chase, it has been reduced to as few as one hundred and eighty. It was not without a question that Sitka at last prevailed as the metropolis. Lütke sets forth reasons elaborately urged in favor of St. Paul, on the island of Kadiak.[56]

The first settlement there was in 1800, by Baranoff, the superintendent of the Company, whose life was passed in this country, and whose name has been given to the island. But the settlement made slow progress. Lisiansky, who was there in 1804, records, that, “from his entrance into Sitka Sound, there was not to be seen on the shore the least vestige of habitation.”[57] The natives had set themselves against a settlement. Meanwhile the seat of government was at Kadiak, of which we have an early and friendly glimpse. I quote what Lisiansky says, as exhibiting in a favorable light the beginning of the government, now transferred to the United States.

“The island of Kadiak, with the rest of the Russian settlements
along the northwest coast of America, are superintended by
a kind of governor-general or commander-in-chief, who has
agents under him, appointed, like himself, by the Company
at Petersburg. The smaller settlements have each a Russian
overseer. These overseers are chosen by the governor, and are
selected for the office in consequence of their long services
and orderly conduct. They have the power of punishing, to a
certain extent, those whom they superintend; but are themselves
amenable to the governor, if they abuse their power by acts
of injustice. The seat of government is the Harbor of St.
Paul, which has a barrack, different store-houses, several
respectable wooden habitations, and a church, the only one to
be found on the coast.”[58]

From this time the Company seems to have established itself on the coast. Lisiansky speaks of a single hunting party of nine hundred men, gathered from different places, as Alaska, Kadiak, Cook’s Inlet, Prince William Sound, and “commanded by thirty-six _toyons_, who are subordinate to the Russians in the service of the American Company, and receive from them their orders.”[59] From another source I learn that the inhabitants of Kadiak and of the Aleutian Islands were regarded as “immediate subjects of the Company,”--the males from eighteen to fifty being bound to serve it for the term of three years each. They were employed in the chase. The population of Alaska and of the two great bays, Cook’s Inlet and Prince William Sound, were also subject to the Company; but they were held to a yearly tax on furs, without regular service, and they could trade only with the Company; otherwise they were independent. This seems to have been before a division of the whole into districts, all under the Company, which, though primarily for the business of the Company, may be regarded as so many distinct jurisdictions, each with local powers of government.

Among these were two districts which I mention only to put aside, as not included in the present cession: (1.) the Kurile Islands, being the group nestling near the coast of Japan, on the Asiatic side of the dividing line between the two continents; (2.) the Ross settlement in California, now abandoned.

There remain five other districts: (1.) the District of Atcha, with the bureau at this island, embracing the two western groups of the Aleutians known as the Andreanoffsky Islands and the Rat Islands, and also the group about Behring’s Island, which is not embraced in the present cession;--(2.) the District of Oonalaska, with the bureau at this island, embracing the Fox Islands, the peninsula of Alaska to the meridian of the Shumagin Islands, including these, and also the Pribyloff Islands to the northwest of the peninsula;--(3.) the District of Kadiak, embracing the peninsula of Alaska east of the meridian of the Shumagin Islands, and the coast eastward to Mount St. Elias, with adjacent islands, including Kadiak, Cook’s Inlet, and Prince William Sound; then northward along the coast of Bristol Bay, and the country watered by the Nushagak and Kuskokwim rivers; all of which is governed from Kadiak, with redoubts or palisaded stations at Nushagak, Cook’s Inlet, and Prince William Sound;--(4.) the Northern District, embracing the country of the Kwichpak and of Norton Sound, under direction of the commander of the redoubt at St. Michael’s; leaving the country northward, with the islands St. Lawrence and St. Matthew, not included in this district, but visited directly from Sitka;--(5.) the District of Sitka, embracing the coast from Mount St. Elias, where the Kadiak district ends, southward to the latitude of 54° 40´, with adjacent islands. But this district has been curtailed by a lease of the Russian American Company in 1839 for the space of ten years, and subsequently renewed, where this Company, in consideration of the annual payment of two thousand otter skins of Columbia River, under-lets to the Hudson Bay Company all its franchise for the strip of continent between Cape Spencer at the north and the latitude of 54° 40´, excluding adjacent islands.

The central government of all these districts is at Sitka, from which emanate all orders and instructions. Here also is the chief factory, the fountain of supplies and the store-house of proceeds.

The operations of the Government are seen in receipts and expenditures, including salaries and allowances. In the absence of a complete series of such statistics to the present time, I mass together what I have been able to glean in different fields, relating to particular years, knowing well its unsatisfactory character. But each item has instruction for us.

The capital of the Company, in buildings, wares, vessels, &c., was reported in 1833 at 3,658,577 rubles. In 1838 it possessed twelve vessels, with an aggregate capacity of 1,556 tons, most of which were built at Sitka. According to Wappäus, who follows Wrangell, the pay of the officers and workmen in 1832 amounted to 442,877 rubles. At that time the persons in its service numbered 1,025, of whom 556 were Russians, 152 Creoles, and 317 Aleutians. In 1851 there were one staff officer, three officers of the imperial navy, one officer of engineers, four civil officers, thirty religious officers, and six hundred and eighty-six servants. The expenses from 1826 to 1833, a period of seven years, were 6,608,077 rubles. These become interesting, when it is considered, that, besides what was paid on account of furs and the support of persons in the service of the Company, were other items incident to government, such as ship-building, navigation, fortifications, hospitals, schools, and churches. From a later authority it appears that the receipts reported at St. Petersburg for the year 1855 were 832,749 rubles, against expenses, 683,892 rubles, incurred for “administration in Russia and the colonies,” insurance, transportation, and duties. The relative proportion of these different expenses does not appear.

These are explained by other statistics, which I am able to give from the Report of Golowin, who furnishes the receipts and expenditures from 1850 to 1859, inclusive. The silver ruble, which is the money employed in the table, is taken at our mint for seventy-five cents.

_Receipts from 1850 to 1859, inclusive._

Silver Rubles.

Tea traffic 4,145,869.76
Sale of furs 1,709,149.00
Commercial licenses 2,403,296.61
Other traffics 170,235.76
------------
Total 8,528,551.13

_Expenditures from 1850 to 1859, inclusive._

Silver Rubles.

Sustenance of the colony 2,288,207.20
Colony’s churches 71,723.18
Benevolent institutions 143,366.23
Principal administrative officers 1,536,436.49
Tea duty 1,764,559.85
Transportation and packing of tea 586,901.72
Purchase and transportation of merchandise 213,696.29
Insurance of tea and merchandise 217,026.55
Loss during war and by shipwreck 132,820.20
Reconstruction of Company’s house in St. Petersburg 76,976.00
Capital for the use of the poor 6,773.02
Revenue fund capital 135,460.40
Dividends 1,354,604.00
------------
Total 8,528,551.13

Analyzing this table, we arrive at a clearer insight into the affairs of the Company. If its receipts have been considerable, they have been subject to serious deductions. From the expenditures we also learn something of the obligations we are about to assume.

Another table shows that during this same period 122,006 rubles were received for ice, mostly sent to California, 26,399 rubles for timber, and 6,250 for coal. I think it not improbable that these items are included in the list of “receipts” under the term “other traffics.”

In Russia the churches belong to the Government, and this rule prevails in these districts, where are four Greek churches and five Greek chapels. There is also a Protestant church at Sitka. I am glad to add that at the latter place there is a public library, which some years ago contained seventeen hundred volumes, together with journals, charts, atlases, mathematical and astronomical instruments. In Atcha, Oonalaska, Kadiak, and Sitka schools are reported at the expense of the Company, though not on a very comprehensive scale; for Admiral Wrangell mentions only ninety boys as enjoying these advantages in 1839. In Oonalaska and Kadiak there were at the same time orphan asylums for girls, where there were in all about thirty; but the Admiral adds, that “these useful institutions will, without doubt, be improved to the utmost.” Besides these, which are confined to particular localities, there is said to be a hospital near every factory in all the districts.

I have no means of knowing if these territorial subdivisions have undergone recent modification. They will be found in the “Russischen Besitzungen” of Wrangell, published in 1839, in the “Geographie” of Wappäus in 1856, and in the “Archiv von Russland” of 1863, containing the article on the Report of Golowin. I am thus particular with regard to them from a double motive. Besides helping us to understand the government, they afford suggestions of practical importance in any future organization.

The Company has not been without criticism. Pictures of it are by no means rose color. These, too, furnish instruction. Early in the century its administration was the occasion of open and repeated complaint. It was pronounced harsh and despotic. Langsdorff is indignant that “a free trading company should exist independent, as it were, of the Government, not confined within any definite regulations, but who can exercise their authority free and uncontrolled, nay, even unpunished, over so vast an extent of country.” In stating the case, he adds, that “the Russian subject here enjoys no protection of his property, lives in no security, and, if oppressed, has no one to whom he can apply for justice. The agents of the factories, and their subordinate officers, influenced by humor or interest, decide everything arbitrarily.” And this arbitrary power seems to have prevailed wherever a factory was established. “The stewardship in each single establishment is entirely despotic; though nominally depending upon the principal factory at Kadiak, these stewards do just what they please, without the possibility of their being called to account.” If such was the condition of Russians, what must have been that of natives? Here the witness answers: “I have seen the Russian fur-hunters dispose of the lives of the natives solely according to their own arbitrary will, and put these defenceless creatures to death in the most horrible manner.”[60] Our own D’Wolf records Langsdorff’s remonstrance in behalf of “the poor Russians,” and adds that it was “but to little purpose.”[61] Krusenstern concurs in this testimony, and, if possible, darkens the colors. According to him, “Every one must obey the iron rule of the agent of the American Company; nor can there be either personal property or individual security, where there are no laws. The chief agent of the American Company is the boundless despot over an extent of country which, comprising the Aleutian Islands, stretches from 57° to 61° of latitude and from 130° to 190° of east longitude”; and he adds, in a note, “There are no courts of justice in Kadiak, nor any of the Company’s possessions.”[62] Chamisso, the naturalist of Kotzebue’s expedition, while confessing incompetency to speak on the treatment of the natives by the Company, declares “his wounded feelings and his commiseration.”[63] It is too probable that the melancholy story of our own aborigines has been repeated. As these criticisms were by Russian officers, they must have had a certain effect. I cannot believe that the recent government, administered by the enlightened magistrates of whom we have heard, has been obnoxious to such terrible accusations; nor must it be forgotten that the report of Lisiansky, contemporaneous with those of Langsdorff and Krusenstern, is much less painful.

Baranoff, who had been so long superintendent, retired in 1818. He is much praised by Langsdorff, who saw him in 1805-6, and by Lütke, who was at Sitka in 1828. Both attribute to him a genius for his place, and a disinterested devotion to the interests of the Company, whose confidence he enjoyed to the end. D’Wolf says, “He possessed a strong mind, easy manners and deportment,” and “commanded the greatest respect from the Indians.”[64] Although administering affairs for more than a generation without rendering accounts, he died poor. He was succeeded by Captain Hagemeister. Since then, according to Lütke, an infinity of reforms has taken place, by which order and system have been introduced.

The Russian officer, Captain Golowin, who visited these possessions in 1860, has recommended certain institutional reforms, which are not without interest at this time. His recommendations concern the governor and the people. According to him, the governor should be appointed by the Crown with the concurrence of the Company, removable only when his continuance is plainly injurious to the colony; he should be subject only to the Crown, and his powers should be limited, especially in regard to the natives; he should provide protection for the colonists by means of cruisers, and should personally visit every district annually; the colonists, Creoles, and subject natives, such as the Aleutians, should be governed by magistrates of their own selection; the name of “free Creole” should cease; all disputes should be settled by the local magistrates, unless the parties desire an appeal to the governor; schools should be encouraged, and, if necessary, provided at the public expense. These suggestions, in the nature of a reform bill, foreshadow a condition of self-government in harmony with republican institutions.

It is evident that these Russian settlements, distributed through an immense region and far from any civilized neighborhood, have little in common with those of European nations elsewhere, unless we except the Danish on the west coast of Greenland. Nearly all are on the coast or the islands. They are nothing but “villages” or “factories” under protection of palisades. Sitka is an exception, due unquestionably to its selection as headquarters of the Government, and also to the eminent character of the governors who have made it their home. The executive mansion and the social life there have been described by recent visitors, who acknowledged the charms of politeness on this distant northwestern coast. Lütke portrays life among its fogs, and especially the attractions of the governor’s house. This was in the time of Admiral Wrangell, whose wife, possessing a high education, embellished the wilderness by her presence, and furnished an example of a refined and happy household. His account of Sitkan hospitality differs in some respects from that of English writers who succeeded. He records that fish was the staple dish at the tables of functionaries as well as of the poor, and that the chief functionary himself was rarely able to have meat for dinner. During the winter, a species of wild sheep, the Musmon or Argali, also known in Siberia, and hunted in the forests, furnished an occasional supply. But a fish diet did not prevent his house from being delightful,--as was that of Baranoff, at an earlier day, according to D’Wolf, who speaks of “an abundance of good cheer.”[65]

Sir Edward Belcher, the English circumnavigator, while on his voyage round the world, stopped there. From him we have an account of the executive mansion and fortifications, which will not be out of place in this attempt to portray the existing Government. The house is of wood, described as “solid,” one hundred and forty feet in length by seventy feet wide, of two stories, with lofts, capped by a light-house in the centre of the roof, which is covered with sheet-iron. It is about sixty feet above the sea-level, and completely commands all the anchorage in the neighborhood. Behind is a line of picketed logs twenty-five feet in height, flanked at the angles by block-houses, loopholed and furnished with small guns and swivels. The fortifications, when complete, “will comprise five sides, upon which forty pieces of cannon will be mounted, principally old ship-guns, varying from twelve to twenty-four pounders.” The arsenal is praised for the best of cordage in ample store, and for the best of artificers in every department. The interior of the Greek church was found to be “splendid, quite beyond conception in such a place as this.” The school and hospital had a “comparative cleanliness and comfort, and much to admire,--although a man-of-war’s man’s ideas of cleanliness are perhaps occasionally acute.” But it is the social life which seems to have most surprised the gallant captain. After telling us that “on their Sunday all the officers of the establishment, civil as well as military, dine at the governor’s,” he introduces us to an evening party and dance, which the latter gave to show his English guest “the female society of Sitka,” and records that everything “passed most delightfully,” especially, that, “although the ladies were almost self-taught, they acquitted themselves with all the ease and elegance communicated by European instruction.” Sir Edward adds, that “the society is indebted principally to the governor’s elegant and accomplished lady--who is of one of the first Russian families--for much of this polish”; and he describes sympathetically her long journey through Siberia with her husband, “on horse-back or mules, enduring great hardships, in a most critical moment, in order to share with him the privations of this barbarous region.” But, according to him, barbarism is disappearing; and he concludes by declaring that “the whole establishment appears to be rapidly on the advance, and at no distant period we may hear of a trip to Norfolk Sound through America as little more than a summer excursion.”[66] Is not this time near at hand?

Four years afterward, Sir George Simpson, governor-in-chief of the Hudson’s Bay Company, on his overland journey round the world, stopped at Sitka. He had just crossed the continent by way of the Red River settlements to Vancouver. He, too, seems to have been pleased. He shows us in the harbor “five sailing vessels, ranging between two hundred and three hundred and fifty tons, besides a large bark in the offing in tow of a steamer”; and he carries us to the executive mansion, already described, which reappears as “a suite of apartments, communicating, according to the Russian fashion, with each other, all the public rooms being handsomely decorated and richly furnished, commanding a view of the whole establishment, which was in fact a little village, while about half-way down the rock two batteries on terraces frowned respectively over the land and the water.” There was another Administrator-General since the visit of Sir Edward Belcher; but again the wife plays her charming part. After portraying her as a native of Helsingfors, in Finland, the visitor adds: “So that this pretty and ladylike woman had come to this, her secluded home, from the farthest extremity of the Empire.” Evidently in a mood beyond contentment, he says: “We sat down to a good dinner in the French style, the party, in addition to our host and hostess and ourselves, comprising twelve of the Company’s officers”; and his final judgment seems to be given, when he says: “The good folks of New Archangel appear to live well. The surrounding country abounds in the chevreuil, the finest meat that I ever ate, with the single exception of moose,” while “in a little stream which is within a mile of the fort salmon are so plentiful at the proper season, that, when ascending the river, they have been known literally to embarrass the movements of a canoe.”[67] Such is the testimony.

With these concluding pictures I turn from the Government.

* * * * *

2. _Population._--I come now to the Population, which may be considered in its numbers and in its character. In neither respect, perhaps, can it add much to the value of the country, except so far as native hunters and trappers are needed for the supply of furs. Professor Agassiz touches this point in a letter which I have just received from him, where he says: “To me the fact that there is as yet hardly any population would have great weight, as this secures the settlement to our race.” But we ought to know something, at least, of the people about to become the subjects of our jurisdiction, if not our fellow-citizens.

_First._ In trying to arrive at an idea of their _numbers_, I begin with Lippincott’s Gazetteer, as it is the most accessible, according to which the whole population in 1851, aboriginal, Russian, and Creole, was 61,000. The same estimate appears also in the London “Imperial Gazetteer” and in the “Geographie” of Wappäus. Keith Johnston, in his “Physical Atlas,” calls the population, in 1852, 66,000. McCulloch, in the last edition of his “Geographical Dictionary,” puts it as high as 72,375. On the other hand, the “Almanach de Gotha” for the present year calls it 54,000. This estimate seems to have been adopted substantially from the great work, “Les Peuples de la Russie,” which I am disposed to consider as the best authority.

Exaggerations are common with regard to the inhabitants of newly acquired possessions, and this distant region is no exception. An enthusiastic estimate once placed its population as high as 400,000. Long ago, Schelekoff, an early Russian adventurer, reported that he had subjected to the Crown of Russia 50,000 persons in the island of Kadiak alone.[68] But Lisiansky, who followed him there in 1804-5, says: “The population of this island, when compared with its size, is very small.” After “the minutest research,” he found that it amounted only to 4,000 souls.[69] It is much less now,--probably not more than 1,500.

It is easy to know the number of those within the immediate jurisdiction of the Company. This is determined by a census. Even here the aborigines are the most numerous. Then come the Creoles, and last the Russians. But here you must bear in mind a distinction with regard to the former. In Spanish America all of European parentage born there are “Creoles”; in Russian America this term is applicable only to those whose parents are European and native,--in other words, “half-breeds.” According to Wrangell, in 1833, the census of dependants of the Company in all its districts was 652 Russians, 991 Creoles, and 9,016 Aleutians and Kadiaks, being in all 10,659. Of these, 5,509 were men and 5,150 were women. In 1851, according to the report of the Company, there was an increase of Creoles, with a corresponding diminution of Russians and aborigines, being 505 Russians, 1,703 Creoles, and 7,055 aborigines, in all 9,263. In 1857 there were 644 Russians, 1,903 Creoles, and 7,245 aborigines, in all 9,792, of whom 5,133 were men and 4,659 were women. The increase from 1851 to 1857 was only 529, or about one per cent. annually. In 1860 there were “some hundreds” of Russians, 2,000 Creoles, and 8,000 aborigines, amounting in all to 10,540, of whom 5,382 were men and 5,158 were women. I am thus particular, that you may see how stationary population has been even within the sphere of the Company.

The number of Russians and Creoles at the present time in the whole colony cannot be more than 2,500. The number of aborigines under the direct government of the Company may be 8,000. There remain also the mass of aborigines outside the jurisdiction of the Company, and having only a temporary or casual contact with it for purposes of trade. In this respect they are not unlike the aborigines of the United States while in their tribal condition, described so often as “Indians not taxed.” For the number of these outside aborigines I prefer to follow the authority of the recent work already quoted, “Les Peuples de la Russie,” according to which they are estimated at between forty and fifty thousand.

_Secondly._ In speaking of _character_, I turn to a different class of materials. The early Russians here were not Pilgrims. They were mostly runaways, fleeing from justice. Langsdorff says, “The greater part of the Promüschleniks and inferior officers of the different settlements are Siberian criminals, malefactors, and adventurers of various kinds.”[70] The single and exclusive business of the Promüschleniks was the collection of furs. But the name very early acquired a bad odor. Here again we have the same Russian authority, who, after saying that the inhabitants of the distant islands are under the superintendence of a Promüschlenik, adds,--“which is, in other words, under that of a rascal, by whom they are oppressed, tormented, and plundered in every possible way.”[71] It must be remembered that this authentic portrait is not of our day.

The aborigines are all, in common language, Esquimaux; but they differ essentially from the Esquimaux of Greenland, and they also differ among themselves. Though popularly known by this family name, they have as many divisions and subdivisions, with as many languages and idioms, as France once had. There are large groups, each with its own nationality and language; and there are smaller groups, each with its tribal idiom. In short, the great problem of Language is repeated here. Its forms seem to be infinite. Scientific inquiry traces many to a single root, but practically they are different. Here is that confusion of tongues which yields only to the presence of civilization; and it becomes more remarkable, as the idiom is often confined to so small a circle.

Looking at them ethnographically, we find two principal groups or races,--the first scientifically known as Esquimaux, and the second as Indians. By another nomenclature, having the sanction of authority and usage, they are divided into Esquimaux, Aleutians, Kenaians, and Koloschians, being four distinct groups. The Esquimaux and Aleutians are reported Mongolian in origin. According to doubtful theory, they passed from Asia to America by the succession of islands beginning on the coast of Japan and extending to Alaska, which for this purpose became a bridge between the two continents. The Kenaians and Koloschians are Indians, belonging to known American races. So that these four groups are ethnographically resolved into two, and the two are resolved popularly into one.

There are general influences more or less applicable to all these races. The climate is peculiar, and the natural features of the country are commanding. Cool summers and mild winters are favorable to the huntsman and fisherman. Lofty mountains, volcanic forms, large rivers, numerous islands, and an extensive sea-coast constitute the great Book of Nature for all to read. None are dull. Generally they are quick, intelligent, and ingenious, excelling in the chase and in navigation, managing a boat as the rider his horse, until man and boat seem to be one. Some are very skilful with tools, and exhibit remarkable taste. The sea is bountiful, and the land has its supplies. From these they are satisfied. Better still, there is something in their nature which does not altogether reject the improvements of civilization. Unlike our Indians, they are willing to learn. By a strange superstition, which still continues, these races derive descent from different animals. Some are gentle and pacific; others are warlike. All, I fear, are slaveholders; some are cruel task-masters; others, in the interior, are reputed cannibals. But the country back from the sea-coast is still an undiscovered secret.

(1.) Looking at them in ethnographical groups, I begin with the _Esquimaux_, who popularly give the name to the whole. They number about 17,000, and stretch along the indented coast from its eastern limit on the Frozen Ocean to the mouth of the Copper River, in 60° north latitude, excluding the peninsula of Alaska, occupied by Aleutians, and the peninsula of Kenai, occupied by Kenaians. More powerful races, of Indian origin, following the courses of the great rivers northward and westward, have gradually crowded the Esquimaux from the interior, until they constitute a belt on the salt water, including the islands of the coast, and especially Kadiak. Their various dialects are traced to a common root, while the prevailing language betrays an affinity with the Esquimaux of Greenland, and the intervening country watered by the Mackenzie. They share the characteristics of that extensive family, which, besides spreading across the continent, occupies an extent of sea-coast greater than any other people of the globe, from which their simple navigation has sallied forth so as to give them the name of Phœnicians of the North. Words exclusively belonging to the Esquimaux are found in the dialects of other races completely strangers, as Phœnician sounds are observed in the Celtic speech of Ireland.

The most known of the Russian Esquimaux is the small tribe now remaining on the island of Kadiak, which from the beginning has been a centre of trade. Although by various intermixture they already approach the Indians of the coast, losing the Asiatic type, their speech remains a distinctive sign of race. They are Esquimaux, and I describe them in order to present an idea of this people.

The men are tall, with copper skins, small black eyes, flat faces, and teeth of dazzling whiteness. Once the women pierced the nostrils, the lower lip, and the ears, for ornaments; but now only the nostrils suffer. The aboriginal costume is still preserved, especially out of doors. Their food is mostly from the sea, without the roots or berries which the island supplies. The flesh and oil of the whale are a special luxury. The oil is drunk pure, or used to season other food. Accustomed to prolonged abstinence, they exhibit at times an appetite amounting to prodigy. In one night six men were able to devour the whole of a large bear. A strong drink made from the strawberry and myrtle, producing the effect of opium, has yielded to brandy. Sugar and tea are highly esteemed; but snuff is a delight. Lisiansky records that they would go out of the way twenty miles merely for a pinch.[72] They have tools of their own, which they use with skill. Their baidars, or canoes, are distinguished for completeness of finish and beauty of form. Unlike those of the Koloschians, lower down on the coast, which are hollowed from trunks of trees, they are of seal-skins stretched on frames, with a single aperture in the covering to receive the person of the master. The same skill appears in the carving of wood, whalebone, and walrus-ivory. Their general mode of life is said to be like that of other tribes on the coast. To all else they add knowledge of the healing art and passion for gaming.

Opposite Kadiak, on the main-land east, are the Tchugatchi, a kindred tribe, speaking the same language, but a different dialect. Northward is a succession of kindred tribes, differing in speech, and each with local peculiarities, but all are represented as kind, courteous, hospitable, and merry. It is a good sign, that merriment should prevail. Their tribal names are derived from a neighboring river, or some climatic circumstance. Thus, for instance, those on the mighty Kwichpak have the name of Kwichpakmutes, or “inhabitants of the great river.” Those on Bristol Bay are called by their cousins of Norton Sound Achkugmutes, or “inhabitants of the warm country”; and the same designation is applied to the Kadiaks. Warmth, like other things in this world, is comparative; and to an Esquimaux at 64° north latitude another five degrees further south is in a “warm country.” These northern tribes have been visited lately by our Telegraphic Exploring Expedition, which reports especially their geographical knowledge and good disposition. As the remains of Major Kennicott descended the Kwichpak, they were not without sympathy from the natives. Curiosity also had its part. At a village where the boat rested for the night, the chief announced that it was the first time white men had ever been seen there.

(2.) The _Aleutians_, sometimes called Western Esquimaux, number about 3,000. By a plain exaggeration, Knight, in his Cyclopædia of Geography, makes them 20,000. Their home is the archipelago of volcanic islands whose name they bear, and also a portion of the contiguous peninsula of Alaska. The well-defined type has already disappeared; but the national dress continues. This is a long shirt with tight sleeves, made from the skins of birds, either the sea-parrot or the diver. This dress, called the _parka_, is indispensable as clothing, blanket, and even as habitation, during a voyage, being a complete shelter against wind and cold. They, too, are fishermen and huntsmen; but they seem to excel as artificers. The instruments and utensils of the Oonalaskans have been noted for beauty. Their baidars were pronounced by Sauer “infinitely superior to those of any other island,”[73] and another navigator declares them “the best means yet discovered to go from place to place, either upon the deepest or the shallowest water, in the quickest, easiest, and safest manner possible.”[74] These illustrate their nature, which is finer than that of their neighbors. They are at home on the water, and excite admiration by the skill with which they manage their elegant craft, so that Admiral Lütke recognized them as Cossacks of the Sea.

Oonalaska is the principal of these islands, and from the time they were first visited seems to have excited a peculiar interest. Captain Cook painted it kindly; so have succeeding navigators. And here have lived the islanders who have given to navigators a new experience. Alluding especially to them, the reporter of Billings’s voyage says: “The capacity of the natives of these islands infinitely surpasses every idea that I had formed of the abilities of savages.”[75] There is another remark of this authority which shows how they had yielded, even in their favorite dress, to the demands of commerce. After saying that formerly they had worn garments of sea-otter, he pathetically adds, “but not since the Russians have had any intercourse with them.”[76] Poor islanders! Exchanging choice furs, once their daily wear, for meaner skins!

(3.) The _Kenaians_, numbering as many as 25,000, take their common name from the peninsula of Kenai, with Cook’s Inlet on the west and Prince William Sound on the east. Numerous beyond any other family in Russian America, they belong to a widespread and teeming Indian race, which occupies all the northern interior of the continent, stretching from Hudson’s Bay in the east to the Esquimaux in the west. This is the great nation called sometimes Athabascan, or, from the native name of the Rocky Mountains, on whose flanks they live, Chippewyan, but more properly designated as Tinneh, with branches in Southern Oregon and Northern California, and then again with other offshoots, known as the Apaches and Navajoes, in Arizona, New Mexico, and Chihuahua, thirty degrees of latitude from the parent stem. Of this extended race, the northwestern branch, known to travellers as Loucheux, and in their own tongue as Kutchin, after occupying the inner portion of Russian America on the Yukon and the Porcupine, reached the sea-coast at Cook’s Inlet, where they appear under the name of Kenaians. The latter are said to bear about the same relation, in language and intellectual development, to the entire group, as the islanders of Kadiak bear to the Esquimaux.

The Kenaians call themselves in their own dialect by yet another name, Thnainas, meaning Men; thus, by a somewhat boastful designation, asserting manhood. Their features and complexion associate them with the red men of America, as does their speech. The first to visit them was Cook, and he was struck by the largeness of their heads, which seemed to him disproportioned to the rest of the body. They were strong-chested also, with thick, short necks, spreading faces, eyes inclined to be small, white teeth, black hair, and thin beard,--their persons clean and decent, without grease or dirt. In dress they were thought to resemble the people of Greenland. Their boats had a similar affinity. But in these particulars they were not unlike the other races already described. They were clothed in skins of animals, with the fur outward, or sometimes in skins of birds, over which, for protection against rain, was a frock made from the intestines of the whale, “prepared so skilfully as almost to resemble our gold-beater leaf.”[77] Their boats were of seal-skin stretched on frames, and of different sizes. In one of these Cook counted twenty women and one man, besides children. At that time, though thievish in propensity, they were not unamiable. Shortly afterwards they were reported by Russian traders, who had much to do with them, as “good people,” who behaved “in the most friendly manner.”[78] I do not know that they have lost this character since.

Here, too, is the accustomed multiplicity of tribes, each with its idiom, and sometimes differing in religious superstition, especially on the grave question of descent from the dog or the crow. There is also a prevailing usage for the men of one tribe to choose wives from another tribe, when the tribal character of the mother attaches to the offspring, which is another illustration of the Law of Slavery, _Partus sequitur ventrem_. The late departure from this usage is quoted by the old men as a sufficient reason for the mortality which has afflicted the Kenaians, although a better reason is found in the ravages of the small-pox, unhappily introduced by the Russians. In 1838, ten thousand persons on the coast are reported victims to this disease.

(4.) Last of the four races are the _Koloschians_, numbering about 4,000, who occupy the coast and islands from the mouth of the Copper River to the southern boundary of Russian America, making about sixteen settlements. They belong to an Indian group extending as far south as the Straits of Fuca, and estimated to contain 25,000 souls. La Pérouse, after considerable experience of the aborigines on the Atlantic coast, asserts that those he saw here are not Esquimaux.[79] The name seems to be of Russian origin, and is equivalent to Indian. Here again is another variety of language, and as many separate nations. Near Mount St. Elias are the Yakutats, who are the least known; then come the Thlinkits, occupying the islands and coast near Sitka, and known in Oregon under the name of Stikines; and then again we have the Kygans, who, beginning on Russian territory, overlap Queen Charlotte’s Island, beneath the British flag. All these, with their subdivisions, are Koloschians; but every tribe or nation has four different divisions, derived from four different animals, the whale, the eagle, the crow, and the wolf, which are so many heraldic devices, marking distinct groups.

Points already noticed in the more northern groups are repeated here. As among the Kenaians, husband and wife are of different animal devices. A crow cannot marry a crow. There is the same skill in the construction of canoes; but the stretched seal-skin gives place to the trunk of a tree shaped and hollowed, so that it sometimes holds forty persons. There are good qualities among Aleutians which the Koloschians do not possess; but the latter have, perhaps, stronger sense. They are of constant courage. As daring navigators they are unsurpassed, sailing six or seven hundred miles in open canoes. Some are thrifty, and show a sense of property. Some have developed an aptitude for trade unknown to their northern neighbors, or to the Indians of the United States, and will work for wages, whether in tilling the ground or other employment. Their superior nature discards corporal punishment, even for boys, as an ignominy not to be endured. They believe in a Creator, and in the immortality of the soul. But here a mystic fable is woven into their faith. The spirits of heroes dead in battle are placed in the sky, and appear in the Aurora Borealis. Long ago a deluge occurred, when the human family was saved in a floating vessel, which, after the subsidence of the waters, struck on a rock and broke in halves. The Koloschians represent one half of the vessel, and the rest of the world the other half. Such is that pride of race which civilization does not always efface.

For generations they have been warriors, prompt to take offence, and vindictive, as is the nature of the Indian race,--always ready to exact an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. This character has not changed. As was the case once in Italy, the dagger is an inseparable companion. Private quarrels are common. The duel is an institution. So is slavery still,--having a triple origin in war, purchase, or birth. The slave is only a dog, and must obey his master in all things, even to taking the life of another. He is without civil rights; he cannot marry or possess anything; he can eat only offal; and his body, when released by death, is thrown into the sea. A chief sometimes sacrifices his slaves, and then another chief seeks to outdo his inhumanity. All this is indignantly described by Sir Edward Belcher and Sir George Simpson. But a slave once a freedman has all the rights of a Koloschian. Here, too, are the distinctions of wealth. The rich paint their faces daily; the poor renew the paint only when the colors begin to disappear.

These are the same people who for more than a century have been a terror on this coast. It was Koloschians who received the two boats’ crews of the Russian discoverer in 1741, as they landed in one of its wooded coves, and no survivor returned to tell their fate. They were actors in another tragedy at the beginning of the century, when the Russian fort at Sitka was stormed and its defenders put to death, some with excruciating torture. Lisiansky, whose visit was shortly afterward, found them “a shrewd and bold, though a perfidious people,” whose chiefs used “very sublime expressions,” and swore oaths, like that of Demosthenes, “by their ancestors, by relatives living and dead, and called heaven, earth, the sun, moon, and stars to witness for them, particularly when they meant to deceive.”[80] According to D’Wolf, “both sexes are expert in the use of fire-arms,” and he saw them bathing in the sea with the thermometer below freezing, running over the ice, and “performing all manner of antics with the same apparent enjoyment as if it had been a warm spring.”[81] The fort has been repeatedly threatened by these warriors, who multiply by reinforcements from the interior, so that the governor in 1837 reported, that, “although seven hundred only were now in the neighborhood, seven thousand might arrive in a few hours.”[82] A little later their character was recognized by Sir George Simpson, when he pronounced them “numerous, treacherous, and fierce,” in contrast with Aleutians, whom he describes as “peaceful even to cowardice.”[83] And yet this fighting race is not entirely indocile, if we may credit recent report, that its warriors are changing to traders.

* * * * *

3. _Climate._--From Population I pass to Climate, which is more important, as it is a constant force. Climate is the key to this whole region. It is the governing power which rules production and life, for Nature and man must each conform to its laws. Here at last the observations of science give to inquiry a solid support.

Montesquieu has some famous chapters on the influence of climate over customs and institutions.[84] Conclusions regarded in his day as visionary or far-fetched are now unquestioned truth. Climate is a universal master. But nowhere, perhaps, does it appear more eccentric than in the southern portion of Russian America. Without a knowledge of climatic laws, the weather here would seem like a freak of Nature. But a brief explanation shows how all its peculiarities are the result of natural causes which operate with a force as unerring as gravitation. Heat and cold, rain and fog, to say nothing of snow and ice, which play such a part, are not abnormal, but according to law.

This law has been known only of late years. Even so ingenious an inquirer as Captain Cook notices the mildness of the climate, without attempting to account for it. He records, that, in his opinion, “cattle might subsist in Oonalaska all the year round without being housed”;[85] and this was in latitude 53° 52´, on the same parallel with Labrador, and several degrees north of Quebec; but he stops with a simple statement of the suggestive fact. This, however, was inconsistent with the received idea at the time. A geographer, who wrote a few years before Cook sailed, has a chapter in which, assuming that the climate of Quebec continues across the continent, he argues that America is colder than Asia. I refer to the “Mémoires Géographiques” of Engel.[86] He would have been astonished, had he seen the revelations of an isothermal map, showing precisely the reverse: that the climate of Quebec does not continue across the continent; that the Pacific coast of our continent is warmer than the corresponding Atlantic coast; and that America is warmer than Asia, so far at least as can be determined by the two opposite coasts. Such is the truth, of which there are plentiful signs. The Flora on the American side, even in Behring Strait, is more vigorous than that on the Asiatic side, and the American mountains have less snow in summer than their Asiatic neighbors. Among many illustrations of the temperature, I know none more direct than that furnished by the late Hon. William Sturgis, of Boston,--who was familiar with the Northwest Coast at the beginning of the century,--in a lecture on the Oregon question in 1845. After remarking that the climate there is “altogether milder and the winter less severe than in corresponding latitudes on this side the continent,” he proceeds to testify, that, as a proof of its mildness, he had “passed seven winters between the latitudes of 51° and 57°, frequently lying so near the shore as to have a small cable fast to the trees upon it, and only once was his ship surrounded by ice sufficiently firm to bear the weight of a man.”[87] But this intelligent navigator assigns no reason. To the common observer it seemed as if the temperature grew milder, travelling with the sun until it dipped in the ocean.

Among authorities open before me I quote two, which show that this difference of temperature between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts was imagined, if not actually recognized, during the last century. Portlock, the Englishman, who was on the coast in 1786, after saying that during stormy and unsettled weather the air had been mild and temperate, remarks that he is “inclined to think that the climate here is not so severe as has been generally supposed.”[88] La Pérouse, the Frenchman, whose visit was the same year, having been before in Hudson’s Bay, on the other side of the continent, says still more explicitly, “The climate of this coast seemed to me infinitely milder than that of Hudson’s Bay, in the same latitude. We measured pines six feet in diameter and a hundred and forty feet high; those of the same species at Fort Prince of Wales and Fort York are of a dimension scarcely sufficient for studding-sail booms.”[89] Langsdorff, when at Sitka in 1805-6, was much with D’Wolf, the American navigator, and records the surprise of the latter “at finding the cold less severe in Norfolk Sound than at Boston, Rhode Island, and other provinces of the United States, which lie more to the south.”[90] D’Wolf, in his own work, says: “January brought cold, but not severe weather”; and in February, the weather, though “rather more severe than the previous month,” was “by no means so cold as in the United States, latitude 42°.”[91]