364 FUR-SEAL FISHERIES OF ALASKA. 



It appears to us that Mr. Gavitt had nursed his personal troubles and petty griev- 

 ances, many of them no doubt imaginary, until he had -wrought himself into a state 

 of nervous irritability such as to render himself almost irresponsible, and we think 

 that, under the circumstances, his charges do not merit serious consideration. 

 Very respectfully, 



A. Buhner, 



First Lieutenant. 

 F. M. Dun WOODY, 



Second Lieutenant. 

 A. L. Churchill, 



Chief Engineer. 

 W. D. Bratton, 

 Passed Assistant Surgeon M. R. S. 



Capt. M. A. Healy, U. S. R. M., 



Commanding Revenue SteamerBear. 



Extract from the report of A. P. Sivineford, governor of Alaska^for 1887, to the Secretary 

 of the Interior. 



CONDITION OF THE NATIVES. 



In southeastern Alaska the natives are largely employed by the white people in 

 various kinds of work, and generally receive fair wages. They are not only a provi- 

 dent and self-sustaining people, but to a large extent ambitious of betteriug their 

 Condition by adopting civilized ways of living and providing for the education of 

 their children. As fast as they can accumulate the means they tear down their old 

 houses and build new ones of more modern style. One of these, recently completed 

 by a native at Wrangell, is the finest and most pretentious private residence I have 

 seen anywhere in the Territory. But for the chronic diseases prevalent among them, 

 -and for the eradication of which, in my opinion, some etfective steps should be taken 

 by the Government, they would be, generally, a happy, contented, and progressive 

 people, not more than one or two generations distant from intelligent and useful cit- 

 izenship. 



1 regret very much the fact that I can not make a similar report concerning the con- 

 dition of the native people in other parts of the Territory, The fur trade of Alaska 

 is practically monopolized by the Alaska Commercial Company, a non-resident corpo- 

 ration, which does not confine its operations to the seal islands leased to it by the Gov- 

 ernment, but holds and possesses most of the Aleutian chain and the greater part of 

 the mainland as a principality of its own, over which it exercises undisputed sway 

 and control. Clothed by the Government with a monopoly of the seal-fur trade, by 

 which it has profited to the extent of many millions, it has, octopus-like, thrown out 

 its great tentacles and gathered to itself about all there is of value in the fur trade of 

 the whole Territory. It has, by the power of its great wealth, driven away all com- 

 petition and reduced the native population, wherever its operations are not supervised 

 by Government officials, to a condition of helpless dependence, if not one of absolute 

 and abject slavery. Unhampered by a healthy competition, it off'ers and compels ac- 

 ceptance by the natives, on pain of starvation, such beggarly prices for their peltry 

 that it manages invariably to keep them in its debt and at its mercy. In order to 

 more etfectually monopolize the trade in furs, it at one time marked and mutilated 

 the coin of the United States and refused to receive any other from the natives in pay- 

 ment for goods necessary to their comfort and well-being. Its insatiable greed is such 

 that it is not content with robbing the poor native in the price it sets upon the prod- 

 uct of his dangerous toil, but it robs him also in the exorbitant prices it exacts for 

 the goods given in exchange. And there is no appeal ; no alternative. There are no 

 other trading stations in all that vast section, and the natives must pay the price 

 asked and accept that which is offered — the first a hundred per cent, advance on the 

 amount at which the same goods are sold to the whites, and the last low enough to 

 add still another hundred per cent, to the company's protit. As, for instance, there is 

 no timber on the Aleutian Islands, and the native who goes out to hunt the sea-otter 

 has no time to provide himself with fuel by gathering drift-wood from the shore?, as 

 many are able to do. He must have fuel for the winter, and the company generously 

 takes his sea-otter skins at half their real cash value and pays him in coal at $40 per 

 ton — coal of the same quality as that which it sells to the few white residents for |-20. 

 The native who dares to sell his furs for cash to others than the agents of the com- 

 pany finds that his money has no purchasing power at perhaps the only trading sta- 

 tion within a distance of several hundred miles, and is thus starved into submission. 



