Kubbit" (Neah Bay, Wash.) in the spring of 1869 (Scammon 

 1874:142). He presumed that the seals taken annually here by 

 Indians were of the same stock as those resorting to the Prib- 

 ilof Islands in summer. 



In 1869, Frank N. Wicker, special agent of the Treasury De- 

 partment, in charge of Alaska, visited the Pribilofs and recom- 

 mended a management plan for the seals (U.S. Congress, 

 House 1869). It called for an annual kill of 165,000 male seals 

 either under direct Government control or indirect Govern- 

 ment control through a lessee. Such a kill would have been 

 about twice the exploitable level. 



THE ALASKA COMMERCIAL COMPANY 



(1870-89) AND THE RISE OF 



PELAGIC SEALING 



Sealing Under a Monopoly Operator 



Congress, by Act of 1 July 1870 (16 Stat. 180 (1870)), decided 

 to lease the privilege of sealing on the Pribilof Islands to a 

 monopoly operator. The attorney for the Alaska Commercial 

 Company, in proposing that the privilege be leased to private 

 industry stated: "I do not apprehend that any member of the 

 [House] Committee, or of either House of Congress, is of 

 opinion that the time has arrived for the United States Govern- 

 ment to 'go into business,' either as a jobber, manufacturer, or 

 retail dealer" (Jeffries 1870:17). After considering 14 bids, 

 later reduced to 6, the Secretary of the Treasury on 3 August 

 1870 leased the privilege to the Alaska Commercial Company 

 for the term of 20 yr from the first day of May 1870. 



The Alaska Commercial Company was organized in 1868. 

 The original members included Hayward M. Hutchinson, Wil- 

 Ham Kohl, and five others (Johnston 1940). Its ability to man- 

 age the fur seal industry was challenged, though unsuccess- 

 fully, by other bidders (U.S. Congress, House 1871). For years 

 after the conclusion of the lease, charges of favoritism were 

 leveled at the Government, particularly by the Anti-Monopoly 

 Association of the Pacific Coast (U.S. Congress, Senate 1876). 



Along with other provisions of the lease, the Company 

 agreed to kill not more than 75,000 seals annually on St. Paul 

 Island and 25,0(X) on St. George; to kill only in June, July, 

 September, or October; and to kill only males over 1 yr old. 

 The killing quotas were identical with those proposed by Dall 

 in 1869. The month of August was closed when the skins of 

 young bachelors are in molt. Future changes in the lease were 

 left to the discretion of Congress or the Secretary of the Trea- 

 sury. On 9 August 1870 the Secretary cut the quota for 1870 to 

 one-half "considering the fact that one-half of the present sea- 

 son for killing fur seals has already expired before the making 

 ofalease" (Johnston 1940:11). The company took in fact only 

 23,773 skins that year (Sims 1906:38). The lease expired on 31 

 April 1890, though effectively at the close of the season of 

 1889 (U.S. Treasury 1898-99, part 1, p. 29). The company was 

 reorganized in 1901 and ceased to exist in 1940 (Johnston 

 1940:17, 65). 



The United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries was es- 

 tablished by congressional action in 1871 (Ickes 1943:5). It did 

 not become concerned with the Alaska fur seal industry until 

 1893. 



From June 1870, and during all but 3 yr of its activity in the 

 Pribilofs, H. H. Mclntyre was superintendent for the Com- 

 pany (U.S. Congress, House 1889:xxx, 1 16). He perhaps took 



tne first photograph of Alaskan fur seals. "In June, 1872, I 

 carried a photographer's camera near the Reef rookery. . .and 

 while focusing the instrument, with my head under the black 

 cloth, and the attention of my attendant was diverted, two old 

 bulls made a savage assault on me, which I avoided by dodging 

 and running" (Murray 1898b:85). The results were perhaps the 

 "stereoptican views" which Thomas F. Morgan, of the Com- 

 pany, showed to a Congressional committee in 1889. "They 

 were taken by a gentlemen in 1870, I think" (U.S. Congress, 

 House 1889:60). Morgan himself had been a sealing foreman 

 from 1868 through 1887, except for several years. 



From the first full season of operation in 1871, the mean an- 

 nual kill during the company lease was 93,090 seals, or nearly 

 the allotted quota (U.S. Treasury 1898-99, part 1, p. 208). 

 Food killings by Aleuts accounted for an additional 9,727 seals 

 a year, or a total of 102,819. As late as 1890, 3,000 to 5,000 

 male pups were being killed annually in late autumn for food 

 (U.S. Congress, Senate 1896a, part I, p. 146; Bryant, quoted 

 by Jordan and Clark 1898a:82). During the seasons of 1872 to 

 1874 the Aleut sealing gang took, on the average, about 25 

 skins/d per workman (Martin 1946a:155). While engaged in 

 skinning, each workman skinned about 15 seals/h (EUiott 

 1882:74). 



"The log of the island shows that in January, 1888, a drive 

 of 500 seals was made from Northeast Point for food. . . . No 

 record is made of any deaths. . .the drive reached the village in 

 good condition in two sections, the time being, respectively, 82 

 and 100 hours on the road" (U.S. Treasury 1896:38). 



The Company regulated the kill in certain years according to 

 the market demand. One of the founders of the Company, C. 

 A. Williams, pointed out that "in one year we took only 

 75,000, and in another 80,000" seals, though the permitted 

 quota was 100,000 (U.S. Congress, House 1889:101). 



Williams also wrote (U.S. Congress, House 1889:110) that, 

 although sealskins were, by long tradition, sent to London for 

 processing, there were two small firms in Albany and Brook- 

 lyn, N.Y., "where the skins are as well dressed and dyed as 

 they are in [London]." The U.S. firms in 1889 were not inter- 

 ested in volume business. Not until 1915 did sealskin process- 

 ing become a full-scale U.S. industry. 



In early 1889, when the Company's lease had 1 yr to run, a 

 Congressional committee made a long investigation of affairs 

 on the islands. The committee concluded that the Company 

 was living up to its obligations and that the Government was 

 right in regarding the eastern Bering Sea, as well as the islands, 

 as exclusive property of the United States (U.S. Congress, 

 House 1889:xxxiii). 



During the latter years of the lease the Company's quota 

 was obtained with increasing difficulty and a marked decrease 

 in the fur seal herd was apparent. Pelagic sealing was begin- 

 ning to reduce an already overtaxed breeding stock. (Elliott 

 claimed to have coined the term "pelagic sealing" in 1887 

 (U.S. Congress, House 1912:67).) 



The Rise of Pelagic Sealing 



Pelagic sealing was originally carried on by Indians and 

 Aleuts using canoes and spears. Commercial pelagic sealing of 

 Alaskan fur seals may have started on a small scale in 1866, 

 when a Canadian trader, Hugh McKay, carried two or three 

 Indian canoes and their owners on his sloop Ino to waters off 



