652 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



point tliat you remember we refused to allow any women to go to those 

 stations, and the men were informed that they took their lives in their 

 hands in volunteering to go; and yet we established tliree schools, 

 placing one man at Point Barrow, one at Point Hope, and two men at 

 Cape Prince of Wales, where they were unmolested. The killing of 

 Mr. Thornton, at Cape Prince of Wales three years afterwards (as was 

 proved by the fact that the murderers were at once shot by the natives 

 themselves), was not the act of the people, but of a couple of hoodlums. 

 The same thing might have occurred in any of our large cities. 



Last winter three whalers spent the winter with $1,000 worth of bar- 

 ter goods on St. Lawrence Island, and this year we have placed a 

 man and wife alone on that island with $500 or $600 worth of provi- 

 sions. At Cape Prince of Wales two years ago Mr. Lopp was there 

 entirely alone with a large supply of provisions. 



The whole history of the coast has proved the safet}^ of white men 

 located there who behave themselves. 



The second objection is to the effect that the Siberian reindeer men 

 will become jealous of the transporting of so many deer to the Ameri- 

 can side, thinking that it will deprive them of the monopoly of the trade 

 in skins that they have had in the past. This, too, is very plausible, 

 but not substantiated by facts. The same objection was persistently 

 urged against the possibility of purchasing any reindeer, and yet we 

 have been able to purchase some every season, and have already secured 

 on the American side a number that in a term of years will make the 

 Alaska people independent of the Siberian trade. If the Siberian 

 natives are shrewd enough to object to large numbers of reindeer being 

 taken to Alaska for fear of losing their trade, they should have refused 

 to sell from the beginning. 



It may be inexpedient, because of the disinclination of certain parties 

 upon whom, to a certain extent, we are depending for assistance, to 

 establish a trading post on the Siberian side at present; but whenever 

 it becomes urgently necessary to secure the reindeer in larger numbers 

 and hasten the work it will be found necessary to adopt that measure, 

 or at least to give it a trial, as other efforts have so far failed. 

 Very respectfully, 



Sheldon Jackson. 



Hon. W. T. Harris, LL. D., 



Commissioner of Education. 



