FUE-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 97 



winter was before them ; they were in the interior, and they could not 

 get out of the country. They must do something. 



Q. How are the prices of fur there, and what prices are paid for 

 furs ? — A. The prices are fixed there by the competition which arises 

 from vessels from San Francisco and vessels from British Columbia or 

 from Puget Sound, which are always looking after possibilities in that 

 trade. So these people always have a choice of parties to whom they 

 will sell, and who make the prices for their wares. They are in no 

 sense placed under a compulsion to sell to any single individual or com- 

 pany. 



Q. Does your company or anybody else have a monopoly of that fur 

 trade with the native hunters ; are the natives dependent for the sale 

 of their furs upon any one company ? — A. ISTot in one single instance 

 that I know of. There is always a number of vessels to choose between 

 by the hunters. 



By Mr. JEFFRIES : 



Q. l^ow I want to ask you what the policy of the company is in re- 

 gard to the natives and in regard to immigration. It has been charged 

 that you oppress the natives on the main-land and Aleutian Islands, 

 and perhaps elsewhere ; that you crowded out their traders, and that 

 you are opposed to immigration. Please state to the committee what 

 are the facts in regard to it.— A. Any charge of oppression of the na- 

 tives is so unjust and so void of truth on its face that it does not require 

 an answer. We can not oppress the natives, even if we desired. They 

 are scattered over an enormous territory, and we could not get at them 

 to oppress them ; and it never has been done. In regard to immigra- 

 tioD, we have always assisted parties who desired to go there. People 

 who wish to go to the Territory on the steamers going up are taken at 

 less, considerably, than the tariff rates of other steamers, not to com- 

 pete with other steamers, but merely to oblige the people who want to 

 go into the country. There has never been a case where we have met 

 with parties of miners or other people in the country, who have failed to 

 meet with success, where we have refused to carry them if they had no 

 means to pay freight or charge. On several occasions, when there was 

 what is called a mining boom in San Francisco and Portland, and a lot 

 of people would rush up there, we, realizing from our experience of the 

 country what the probable result would be, namely, disappointment, 

 placed additional provisions in our stores up there, and instructed the 

 agents to sell to those people as their needs might be at the regular 

 prices, and never to sell in quantities to any one person in order that 

 he might speculate on the wants of his neighbors ; and if they had not 

 means to purchase, to see that none suffered, but to see that they were 

 fed and brought out of the country. 



Q. Do you come in contact with the natives except at towns where 

 you have trading stations? — A. Not at all. 



Q. How do you treat the natives out in this country ? What is done 

 there ? — A. The principal occupation of the people out in this country 

 is hunting the sea-otter. Of course in hunting the sea-otter they re- 

 quire a certain outfit; and they hunt in parties, in their canoes, along 

 the chain of Aleutian Islands at one station or another. It is the habit 

 of this company, where these people are unable to buy an outfit for 

 themselves, to furnish whatever may be necessary, and charge it against 

 them, this to be repaid with the proceeds of their catch, when they 

 came back; not the company taking the skins, but the natives selling 

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