DISCOVERY, OCCUPATION, AND TRANSFER. 5 



sea-otter, and like unto liim were all of the long list of Russian ex- 

 plorers of Alaskan coasts and waters. These rough, indomitable 

 men ventured out from their headquarters at Kamchatka and the 

 Okotsk Sea in rapid succession as years rolled on, until by the end 

 of 1768-69 a large area of Russian America was well determined 

 and rudely charted by them.* 



The history of this early exploration of Russian America is the 

 stereotyped story of wrongs inflicted upon simple natives by ruth- 

 less, fearless adventurers — year in and year out — the eager, persist- 

 ent examination of the then unknown shores and interior of Alaska 

 by tireless Cossacks and Muscovites, who were busy in robbing the 

 aborigines and quarrelling among themselves. The success of the 

 earliest fur-hunters had been so great, and heralded so loudly in 

 the Russian possessions, that soon every Siberian merchant who 

 had a few thousand rubles at his order managed to associate him- 

 self with some others, so that they. might together fit out a slovenly 

 craft or two and engage in the same remunerative business. The 

 records show that, prior to the autocratic control of the old Russian 

 American Company over all Alaska in 1799, more than sixty dis- 

 tinct Russian trading companies were organized and plying their 

 vocation in these waters and landings of Alaska. 



They all carried on their operations in essentially the same man- 

 ner : the owner or owners of the shallop, or sloop, or schooner, as 

 it might be, engaged a crew on shares ; the cargo of fui-s brought 

 back by this vessel was invariably divided into two equal subdivis- 

 ions — one of these always claimed by the owners who had fur- 

 nished the means, and the other half divided in such a manner as 

 the navigator, the trader, and the crew could agree upon between 

 themselves. Then, after this division had been made, each partici- 

 pant was to give one-tenth part of his portion, as received above, to 

 the Government at St. Petersburg, which, stimulated by such gen- 

 erous swelling of its treasury, never failed to keep an affectionate 

 eye upon its subjects over here, and encouraged them to the ut- 

 most limit of exertion. 



* The order of this search and voyaging has been faithfully recorded 

 by Ivan Petroff in his admirable compendium of the subject. (See Tenth 

 Census U. S. A., Vol. VIII.) While this narrative may be interesting to a 

 historian, yet I deem it best not to inflict it upon the general reader. 

 Also in " Bancroft's History of Alaska," recently published at San Francisco, 

 it is graphically and laboriously described. 



