FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. XXI 



leave the seal islands and return to their former homes (possibly fearing 

 the same hardships under American rule that they had experienced un- 

 der Russian, viz, enforced labor, with a compensation of only $10 per an- 

 num, coarse and poor food, and wretched shelter), so that only about 150 

 laborers remained to do the work of taking seal skins under the lease 

 made by the Government. This number in eighteen years has dimin- 

 ished to a present number of less than 80 laborers. 



The ratio of births on the island does not keep pace with the propor- 

 tion of deaths, mainly because the laws of consanguinity in the Greek 

 Church, of which these people are devout adherents, only permit mar- 

 riage between people so remote in kin that it is imi)08sible in a limited 

 population for the people to marry. Young men may find wives in 

 Uonalaska and elsewhere and bring them to St. Paul and St. George, 

 but the women of these islands, if they marry abroad, must follow the 

 settlement of the husband, as he can not come to the seal islands and 

 be enrolled as a sharer in the seal fund, so called. It maybe proper 

 here to state from what source this fund is derived and to whose use it 

 is limited. When the United States Government leased the privilege 

 of taking 100,000 seal skins annually on these islands it stipulated that 

 all work connected with the killing and skinning should be done by the 

 natives of St. Paul and St. George Islands. The lessees fixed the com- 

 ])eusation for this work at 40 cents per skin, say $40,000 per annum, to 

 be divided amongst these laborers for less than six weeks' work. Other 

 labor than that above specified is paid by the lessees at the rate of $1 

 per day. 



The native inhabitants of the two islands named, in addition to 

 the above, are by the lessees furnished with comfortable frame houses 

 for each family, sufficient fuel, seal meat, and salt fish, medicines and 

 medical attendance, schools with competent teachers for eight months 

 of the year, and all entirely without charge and at the expense of the 

 lessees,.*aud in addition are enabled to purchase on the islands such 

 articles as they may desire, at a cost not exceeding the price of the 

 same goods in San Francisco. From this statement it will appear that 

 the iidiabitant of St. Paul and St. George enjoys privileges and bene- 

 fits that make his lot very desirable in the eyes of his fellow-men of the 

 Aleutian chain. 



The "inhabitant" is equally sensible of his advantages and is natur- 

 ally^ unwilling to have the population of his islands increased and his 

 undivided share thus diminished. So long as there were laborers suffi- 

 cient to do the sealing and so long as the Aleuts of the chain had the 

 sea otter to look to as source of support, the state of affairs was well 

 enough ; but now that the time has come when the population of the 

 seal islands is insufficient to properly do the work of killing, skinning, 

 and salting, and the assured speedy extinction of the sea otter will 

 leave the Aleuts from Oonalaska to Attoo in a state of destitution, the 

 question of what to do in the premises becomes urgent and demands 

 attention. 



The Pribylov Islands, when discovered by the Russians in 1790, were 

 uninhabited and people from the Aleutian Islands were transferred to 

 them to carry on the required work. Under Russian rule life there 

 was deemed a hardship, from which the people desired escape. Under 

 American rule the conditions are all changed and the desire of the 

 Aleuts now is to have a settlement on these islands. The people being 

 all of one race or tribe, and their distribution being an enforced one 

 originally, it is but just that the resources ofthe islands occupied should 

 contribute toward the support of all the people. The people are docile 



