ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 37 



London capitalists and whaling merchants. They arrived almost 

 simultaneously, Morgan a few days or weeks anterior to Hutchinson. 

 He had quietlj^ enough commenced to survej^ and preempt the rook- 

 eries on the islands, or, in other words, the work of putting stakes 

 down and recording the fact of claiming the ground, as miners do in 

 the mountains; but later agreed to cooperate with Mr. Hutchinson. 

 These two parties passed that season of 1868 in exclusive control of 

 those islands, and they took an immense number of seals. They took 

 so many that it occurred to Mr. Hutchinson unless something was 

 done to check and protect these wonderful rookeries, which he saw 

 here for the first time, and which filled him with amazement, that they 

 would be wiped out by the end of another season. Although he was 

 the gainer then, and would be perhaps at the end, if they should be 

 thus eliminated, j^et he could not forbear sajing to himself that it 

 was wrong and should not be. To this Captain Morgan also assented. 



Organization of the Alaska Commercial Company. — In the 

 fall of 18(38 Mr. Hutchinson and Captain Morgan, by their personal 

 efforts,^ interested and aroused the Treasury Department and Congress, 

 so that a special resolution was enacted declaring the seal islands a 

 governmental reservation, and prohibiting an 3^ and all parties from 

 taking seals thereon until further action by Congress. In 1869 seals 

 were taken on those islands, under the direction of the Treasury 

 Department, for the subsistence of the natives only; and in 1870 

 Congress passed the present law, a copy of which I append, for the 

 protection of the fur-bearing animals on those islands, and under its 

 provisions, and in accordance therewith, after an animated and bitter 

 struggle in competition, the Alaska Commercial Company, of which- 

 Mr. Hutchinson was a prime organizer, secured the award and received 

 the franchise which it now enjoys and vfill enjoy for another decade. 

 The company is an American corporation, with a charter, rules, and 

 regulations, which I reproduce in the appendix to this memoir. 

 Thej^ employ a fleet of vessels, sail and steam — four steamers, a dozen 

 or fifteen ships, barks, and sloops. Their principal occupation and 

 attention is given naturally to the seal islands, though they have sta- 

 tions scattered over the Aleutian Islands and that portion of Alaska 

 west and north of Kadiak. No post of theirs is less than 500 or 600 

 miles from Sitka. 



Outside of the seal islands all trade in this Territory of Alaska is 

 entirely open to the public. There is no need of protecting the fur- 

 bearing animals elsewhere, unless it may be by a few wholesome gen- 

 eral restrictions in regard to the sea-otter chase. The country itself 

 protects the animals on the mainland and other islands by its rugged, 

 forbidding, and inhospitable exterior. 



The Treasury officials on the seal islands are charged with the care- 

 ful observance of ever}^ act of the company; a copy of the lease and 

 its covenant is conspicuously posted in their office; is translated into 

 Russian, and is familiar to all the natives. The company directs 

 its own labor, in accordance with the law, as it sees fit; selects its time 

 of working, etc. The natives themselves work under the direction of 

 their own chosen foreman, or "toy one." These chiefs call out the 

 men at the break of every working day, divide them into detach- 

 ments according to the nature of the service, and order their doing. 

 All communication with the laborers on the sealing ground and the 

 company passes through their hands, these chiefs having every day 

 an understanding with the agent of the company as to his wishes, 

 and they govern themselves thereby. 



