XXX FUK-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



Q. How loug have you beeu in tlie employ of the Alaska Commercial Company ? — 

 A. Since June, 1870. 



Q. Does the company build any houses? — A. We have built a large number of 

 houses at Oonalaska and several in other parts of the Territory. The sea-otter busi- 

 ness was formerly profitable, but during the last three years in the entire Aleutian 

 Archipelago it is non-paying. 



Q. It is open to competition ? — A. Yes, sir ; and in the portion west of Athka we 

 get almost nothing. I think in the country west of and including Athka we have 

 during the last year spent not less than |4,000 or $5,000 to obtain $500 worth of furs. 



Q. For what purpose ? — A. To keep up stations and to keep the people from starv- 

 ing. At Attoo Island there are about one hundred people now. From there we get 

 absolutely nothing, except a dozen or two of fox skins. Now it is proposed to take 

 the people from that island and carry them to Oonalaska, and thence to the seal 

 islands, if they can be induced io go and if the Government gives us permission. 



Q. Are you supporting them without remuneration? — A. Yes, sir. 



Q. Are the sea-otters diminishing in numbers? — A. Yes, sir; because white hunters 

 who have better facilities for killing them than the natives follow them long dis- 

 tances from the coast and kill old and young indiscriminately. The native hunters 

 can not compete with white hunters without assistance, and under most favorable cir- 

 cumstances are beaten by them. 



Q. Would it seem that that may soon result in their extermination ? — A. I think it 

 will. 



Q. Who are engaged iu the extermination of these sea-otters ?— A. White hunters 

 entirely, independent of the company and iu competition with each other. 



Q. Do traders from San Francisco and other places go there? — A. Yes, sir; six or 

 seven vessels are on the sea-otter grounds from some of these places this season, while 

 the company has but one, and this one is manned wholly by native hunters, with 

 their skin boats and otter spears. 



Q. They get the trade while you feed the natives? — A. Yes, sir. 



Q. What would be the condition of these people if the Alaska Commercial Company 

 should fail to provide for them ? — A. They would be left in a very deplorable condi- 

 tion. I do not think they could get the means of subsistence. I think they would. 

 starve. *' 



George Wardman sworn and examined. 



• # * # « • * « 



Cross-examination by Mr. Jeffkees : 



Q. You are editor of the Pittsburgh Press, are you not?— A. Yes, sir. 



Q. How long did you say you had been on St. George Island ?— A. I was stationed 

 there four years ; that was my station. 



Q. Subsequent to that you had been over the entire Territory of Alaska? — A. Pre- 

 vious to that, in 1879. 



Q. You have written a book on Alaska ? — A. Yes, sir. 



Q. I want to ask you now how the natives of St. George Island compare with the 

 other natives of Alaska— I meau the different parts of Alaska ?— A. Well, the natives 

 of St. Paul and St. George rank about alike, and they are considered the native aris- 

 tocracy of the Territory. There is one of the St. George girls, Natalia Merculiff, 

 who had several offers of marriage from Oonalaska men ; but she would not marry 

 them. She said she would rather live single all her life than marry them. She 

 could not marry anybody on St. George or St. Paul because she was connected by ties 

 of consanguinity, some remote to the forty-seventh degree, with about everybody on 

 the two islands. The Russian Church does not permit the marriage of such relations. 

 She bad the reputation of being a very nice and decent girl — the best of the lot, the 

 general report went. The real facts iu the case I do not know. 



Q. You have been on the Aleutian Islands?- A. Yes, sir. 



Q. I want to ask you now, from your own observation, what do you say as to the 

 condition of the natives of Alaska before and since the transfer of the Territory to 

 the United States, whether it has been improved or not? — A. You mean natives gen- 

 erally ? 



Q. Yes, sir.— A. When I made that cruise in the Bush in 1879, down about Fort 

 Wrangel and Sitka they had some mission schools, and the general reputation of the 

 native women there was exceedingly bad ; that is, they would send girls to the mis- 

 sion schools until they learned to wash and clean themselves, and then sell them to 

 the miners. That was common report, but I never knew anything like that on the 

 Aleutian Islands. The women at Athka were considered the handsomest and neatest 

 women in the Territory, and I think they were the beat looking women I saw except 

 on the seal islaJids. 



