TESTIMONY RELATING TO PRIBILOF NATIVES. 



Deposition of Br. R. R. Mclntyre., superintendent of Alaska Commer- 

 cial Gompani/ on the Pribilof Islands {1870-''89.) 



condition of the natives. 



State of Vermont, 



Orange County, ss: 



H. H. Mclntyre, of Kandolpli, in said county, liavinj? been duly sworn, 

 deposes and says: I am 48 years old and a na- Experience 

 tive of Vermont. I went to Alaska in 1868 and to the 

 Pribilof Islands in 1869 as special United States Treasury a,gent, and 

 was employed in actual service as superintendent of tbe seal fisheries 

 of Alaska for tlie late lessees from 1870 to 1889, inclusive, and in these 

 capacities I visited the seal islands of Alaska every year covered by 

 the above dates except the years 1883, 1884, and 1885, and gained most 

 intimate acquaintance ^vith everything in and about the seal fisheries 

 and with the inhabitants of the islands. It was my duty during all 

 this time to see that they were provided with everything necessary to 

 successfully carry on the seal-fishing business and with all supplies 

 of every description required for the comfort and well-being of the in- 

 habitants of the islands. 



In the matter of the preservation of the fur-seals these inhabitants 

 should receive some consideration. Their ancestors 

 were carried to the Pribilof group more than a century i,e?rt^®"'^®"*'*' ''° ^^""^ 

 ago, and the majority of the present generation have 

 been born and bred where they now live. They number at present 

 about 350 people who know no other home, and few of whom 

 have ever seen any other land than the islands on which they 

 live. They are a simple-minded, docile, good-natured ciiaracter 

 people, far above the average aboriginal inhabitant 

 of the country in intelligence, as indeed, might be expected of 

 them in this generation, from the fact that the Aleutian blood in their 

 veins is already very much mixed with that of a better quality from 

 Eussian and American stock. Very few, if any, thoroughbred Aleuts 

 are to be found in Alaska at the present day. All are chriatianity. 

 devout Christians and earnest believers in the faith of 

 the Greco-Eussian Church, observing all its outward forms, and prac- 

 ticing, perhaps, as many of the virtues it inculcates as the average ad- 

 herent of orthodox Christianity. 



Very little is known of these people under Erissian regime in the 

 early part of this century. If their traditions are tD be ^ ,.^. ^ ^^ 



,.«',^ ,, 1 11 1 j_j. j^- J. J.1 • J.- ji Condition nndertne 



relied upon they were hardly better oft at this time than Eussian company, 

 when in absolute barbarism. Their I'ulers were hard 

 taskmasters and were themselves but meagerly supplied with such 



599 



