FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 125 



The rubles that all payment in Alaska during that time was made in 

 were paper or parchment tags, stamped with the private mark of the 

 old company, and rated at about 20 cents i^er ruble, in the Aleutian 

 district, according to Veniaminov: inasmuch as he states that in 1835, 

 "4 paper rubles here are worth one of silver.'' 



At the time of the transfer of Alaska, July, 1867, and from that time 

 until Decembei-, 1867, nothing was known by the people on these islands 

 of the change: and they had no realization of the significance of that 

 change until April, 1868, when three rival American sealing parties 

 landed on St. Paul Island within a few days of each other, and promptly 

 began to make preparations for the coming of the seals, and taking their 

 skins. Four different parties under the American ilag established them- 

 selves a little later, if at all behind, on St. George. These several 

 parties, all bent on sealing, and many of them having old antarctic fur 

 sealers in control, were anxious and desirous of securing all the native 

 labor, each one to itself, as against its rivals. The foremen then began 

 to offer to pay the natives more and more, as they bid over one another, 

 per skin, when deli\ ered during the sealing season. They finally found 

 that they Avould bid so high lor the native labor in this manner, as to 

 leave no profit. This brought them to an amicable agreement among 

 themselves, by which they would pay no more nor less than 40 cents per 

 skin delivered by the natives. Then the natives worked for all hands 

 during the season of 1868, without any particular advantage in serving 

 one party better than the other. 



This season's work of 1868 fixed the price of labor for skinning a 

 young male fur seal at 40 cents for the first time on these islands; a 

 tariff at least four times greater than ever before received by the native 

 sealer here; and this rate of 40 cents was at once assumed and paid by 

 the Alaska Commercial Company at the inception of its lease in 1870, 

 and continued in the new lease of 18!)0, to the North American Com- 

 mercial Company, by order of the Secretary of the Treasury for the pres- 

 ent season of 1890. 



During the last twenty years, and throughout the present season, the 

 natives themselves worked under the direction of their own chosen fore- 

 men, or " toyone." This chief calls out the men at the break of every 

 working day, divides them into detachments according to the nature of 

 the service, and orders their doing. All communication with the labor- 

 ers on the sealing ground and the company passes through his hands. 

 These chiefs have every day an understanding witli the agent of the 

 company as to his wishes, and they govern themselves thereby. 



The company directs its own labor in accordance with the law as it 

 sees fit; selects its time of working, etc., in accordance with and obedi- 

 ence to the regulations of the Secretary of the Treasury from year to 

 year. 



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

 ful observance of every act of the company; a copy of the lease and its 

 covenant is conspicuously posted in their office; is translated into Rus- 

 sian, and is familiar to all the natives. The care and supervision of the 

 welfare of the rookeries and of the natives was and is their chief charge. 



The old company paid, and the new company pays 40 cents for the 

 labor of taking each skin. The natives take the skins on the killing- 

 ground. Then the skins are brought up and counted into the salt 

 houses, where the agent of the company receives them from the hands 

 of his own employees. When the quota of skins is taken, at the close 

 of two, three, or four weeks of labor, as the case may be, the total sum 

 for the entire catch is paid over in a lump to the chiefs : and these men 



