90 liULLKTIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



time until the eud of tlie regime of the lius.siauAmericau Company tlie yield of the 

 Commander Islands was very insignificant. It is true, the reports were in 1859 that 

 the rookeries were again crowded, a condition evidently due to the improved methods, 

 especially the prohibition of killing the females, but as the Pribylof Islands showed 

 the same favorable conditions and could easily supply the demand, there was no induce- 

 ment for the chief management in Sitka to incur the increased labor and risk at the 

 more distant islands, and it is probable that the Commander Islands were only worked 

 enough to supply the kind and (luantity of skins demanded for the Siberian (Kiakhta) 

 trade, a comparatively insignificant amount (5,000 to (!,00() a year). 



In a general way the condition of affairs on the Commander Islands during this 

 period must have been very similar to that on the Pribylofs, though from their remote- 

 ness from the seat of the general management and their comparative insignificance 

 the criticisms of the company's dealings which were current probably applied witli still 

 greater force to the Commander Islands. 



Once a year the islands had communication with the outer world. A small vessel 

 brought supplies, etc., from Sitka and carried away the di'ied skins.^ In the earlier 

 days, after the recolouization of the islands, the skins were apparently shipped to one 

 of the ports in the Okhotsk Sea, but this was changed latei', so that all the furs were 

 first sent to Sitka, whence they were reshipped the following year. This method, how- 

 ever, involving additional cost and risk, was discontinued in 1854, and the vessel which 

 brought the supplies and inspectors was henceforth ordered to proceed with the skins 

 to Ayan, on the Okhotsk Sea, by way of the Kuril district (Fur Seal Arb., viii, p. 340). 

 Occasionally some of tlie vessels of the semi nulitary navy of the company would call 

 at the islands on their cruises of protection against the foreign — chiefly American — 

 fleets of whale ships which infested the waters in those days, and even landed on and 

 raided the islands. - 



When finally, in 1868, the Russian-American Company abandoned the management 

 of the islands, the so called "interregnum" commenced. The islands were placed 

 under the jurisdiction of the Petropaulski district, and the first thing the ispravnik, 

 or oflBcial, of that place did was to issue a proclamation declaring the natives to be 

 fi'ee men'' and giving them liberty and power to regulate all their affairs, including the 

 catch of the fur-bearing animals. It seems that only a non-commissioned officer, 

 Teterin, was left in charge. 



Quite a number of foreign merchants, among them the Russian vice-consul at 

 Honolulu, ]Mr. Pfluger, but mostly American citizens, prominent among whom was the 

 so-called "Ice Company" of San Francisco, flocked to the islands, their schooners bring- 

 ing all sorts of trade goods, necessities and luxuries of life — particularly the latter — 



'I am not aware that skins were ever salted on the Commander Islands during the time of the 

 Russian-American Company. 



■Note, for instance, the case told hy Tikhmenief (Istor. Ohoz. Ross. Amer. Komp., ii, p. 131f) 

 to tlie eflect that " in 1847 one of the whalers came to Herinj; Island, and on the captain beins; told that 

 he must not capture sea-lions on a neighboring small island [evideutly Ari-Ivamen], he ordered the 

 overseer of the island to be turned off his ship, and immediately went on shore with his men with the 

 evident intention of disregarding the prohibition. It was only when active steps were taken to resist 

 them that the whalers left, but before going they cut ilowu a plautation, which had been grown with 

 great trouble, the island being without other trees or shrulis." It is curious to rcllect that the liritish 

 case iit the Paris Tribunal has taken this incident as a proof that "traffic in fnr-seal skins was carried 

 on by a United States whaler at Bering Island" (Fur Seal Arb., IV, p. 60). There never were fur-seals 

 on tlie island referred to, though, on the contrary, it formerly abounded in sea-lions (sivutcb), the 

 only animal mentioned by Tikhmenief. 



■'During the regime of the Russian-American Company the natives were practically serfs. 



