216 CONDITION OF THE NATIVES. 



During tlie past twenty years the inhabitants have been constantly 

 supplied with and become accustomed to the use of the same kind and 

 quality of moral training, mental teaching, clothing, food, and medi- 

 cines as are supplied to and habitually used by our most prosperous 

 communities. If they must surrender these things it means for them 

 a relapse into barbarism; and the destruction of the seal fisheries en- 

 forces the surrender. They have no other source of income and know 

 no other business than that of seal fishing. The income of the two 

 seal-island communities, including only natives, lias averaged, from 

 1808 to 1889, inclusive, more than $40,000 per annum in cash, and, in 

 addition, they have been furnished gratuitously with the houses they 

 occupy, nearly enough fuel to heat them, medicines and medical attend- 

 ance, school-houses, school books, and teachers. Their moral and 

 mental improvement have very nearly kept pace with the material 

 comfort with which they have been surrounded. The children have 

 learned to read, write, and .speak English, and in general intelligence 

 and household economy all have made remarkable progress. 



Is it trne that people situated as these natives are acquire no vested 

 right in the property whereon they have immemorial ly gained their 

 livelihood, which the Christian nations of the earth ought to respect 1 ? 

 If it is true, then the precepts of Christianity bear still another and 

 new interpretation. 



During my residence on the islands the native inhabitants were pros- 

 perous and contented. The profits resulting from 



John M. Morton, p. 70. thelabor of killing the seals and saltingand shipping 

 the skins were not only ample to supply them with 

 the needs of life, but with many of its luxuries. Those who were care- 

 ful and provident in the matter of their earnings were enabled to and 

 did deposit some portion each year of the same with the Alaska Com- 

 mercial Company or in the banks of San Francisco. 



The company furnished to each native family, without charge, a com- 

 fortable frame dwelling, employed a physician, on each island, and sup- 

 plied medicines and medical attendance gratuitously. It may be said, 

 perhaps, that it was plainly in the interest of the company to faithfully 

 carry out all of its obligations designated or implied by the terms of 

 its lease. Such was undoubtedly the fact, but, in justice to the lessees 

 it should be stated that they always interpreted their contracts in a 

 most liberal spirit, and in many ways exceeded their obligations as far 

 as their treatment of the native people was concerned. 



They pay to these Aleuts 40 cents per skin or $40,000 per annum 

 for their services in taking the skins. They have also built tor them a 

 church and school-house, and maintain teachers and physicians on the 

 islands. 



At the time of the cession of Alaska to the United States these 

 people were living in huts, or more properly holes 

 C. J. Williams, p. 543. in the ground, and had no ambitions or aspira- 

 tions beyond supporting their daily existence in a 

 painful and laborious way. Now they are living in frame houses pro- 

 vided for them by the company, and have accumulated savings, in- 

 vested in Hinted States bonds in San Francisco, amounting on August 

 1, 1887, to $!)4,1L'8.28. It is safe to say that no laboring men within 

 the boundaries of the United States are better paid or better cared for. 



