42 Sketches of an Excursion to Southern Alaska. 



unstable or worldly-miiided man or woman should attempt to operate in any 

 department of original missionary work, but especially in such a place as Sit- 

 ka. The mission calls for an able man, with a well disciplined mind and a 

 devotional spirit, fully committed to the work, and determined at any and ev- 

 ery cost to succeed in it. The Mission also calls for a school-teacher of a 

 similar spirit. 



SAl.IE.NT POINTS. 



It is obstTvaljle that the localities designated for missions are salient points. 

 Sitka Is in the same category. The Hoonyas, Yukatats and Ugalenzes, of 

 whom practically very little is known — all stretching along the coast from Cross 

 Sound under the Saint Elias Alps and Fairweather mountains westward to 

 Atna or Copper River — can be reached more easily and frequently from Sitka 

 than from any other point designated. The Chilkats and Hoochinoos can 

 also be approached with less inconvenience than from Fort Wrangel. 



These facts sustain our plan of concentration. With Rev. S. H. Young at 

 the latter place, another like him at Sitka, and a third of the same stamp at 

 Lynn Canal, seasonable intelligence could be conveyed along the lines of the 

 triangle, harmony and co-operation could be maintained, and their influence 

 and efforts could be united upon either point as occasion might require. The 

 fourth on Cross Sound, and the fifth at Cordova Bay will complete the num- 

 ber of agents required at present, for prosecuting missionary labors in Southern 

 Alaska. 



During the military regime in that territory, the aborigines had no reason 

 for respecting white men, nor for desiring instruction from them. Thinking 

 *11 white men were like those whom they regarded as lawless oppressors and 

 destroyers, they entertained only hatred for the whole race. Evils, which are 

 nursed and bred into monstrous life in the contact of heathenism with degen- 

 erate civilization, flamed up and threatened to exterminate the weaker races- 

 There were civilians and soldiers in Alaska who sought to avert or mitigate 

 these disorders. Commanders issued strenuous regulations, and suljal terns 

 there were who aimed to execute them. But it cannot be concealed that the 

 general apathy was far more powerful than all army orders. Incredulity on 

 the subject of civilzing the aborigines is almost universal in the army, as it is 

 also widely entertained in political circles. This being met by the eager thirst 

 of trade which often scruples not at the means of gain, the depressed and help- 

 less Indian is ground between the nether mill -stone of remorseless traffic and 

 the upper mill-stone of demagogical subserviency — the soldiers being stationed 

 around as a police to thrust b.ick into the hopper any Indian who should de- 

 cline to be extinguished in that way. 



Notwithstanding the efforts of faithful men, the evils of contact grew fear- 

 fully, and without moral and religious restraints. To provide these, together 

 with the blessings of common education, the Chairman of your Committee 

 was in frequent consultation with the friends of Alaska, among the most stren 

 uous of whom were army officers themselves, whose faithful efforts had been 

 frustrated by the very want of those influences. We entered the field as the 



