THE RUSSIAN SEALING INDUSTRY, 115 



formation of a dominant company, which soon swallowed up the smaller concerns and 

 obtained a monopoly of the entire trade of the region. 



By the establishment of the great Russian-American Company, in 1799, Shelikof 's 

 enterprise was merged into the larger concern, and the Commander Islands became 

 part of what was from now on in reality a Russian colony. The supply of fur-bearing 

 animals must have become practically exhausted on the Commander Islands by that 

 time, for the islands were abandoned and vessels touched but seldom, scarcely one in 

 live years, though an attempt at a permanent settlement on Bering Island .was made 

 in 1811 (Savitch, Otchet, 1893, p. 38, footnote, and p. 10). As stated above (p. 36), 

 there appears also to have been a more or less temporary population located on the 

 islands about 1819. In 1826, during the second term of the Eussian-American 

 Company, a new district, the district of Atkha, was formed, consisting of the Com- 

 mander Islands and the western portion of the Aleutian chain from Attn to the 

 island of Yunaska, consecLuently including the Near Islands, the Eat Islands, and the 

 Andreanof group. The agency was located on Atkha Island. 



Shortly afterwards the permanent colonization of the Commander Islands was 

 undertaken, and Aleuts and half-breeds from the Andreanof Islands and from Atta 

 were transferred to the new settlements on Copper and Bering islands. This was 

 accomplished before 1828, in which year Admiral Liitke, in the corvette iSeniavin, 

 visited the latter island and communicated with the promyshlenik Senkoff at Saranna, 

 on the north coast.^ 



Very little is known concerning the islands and the seal industry on the islands 

 during their occupancy by the Eussian-American Company. Its jealousy of both 

 foreign and domestic interference caused it to keep all details of its dealings secret, 

 and as the islands were entirely away from the ordinary line of travel, scarcely any 

 outside information is to be had. The overseers were probably unimportant, possibly 

 uneducated, persons, and the reports of the inspectors occasionally visiting the islands 

 are probably buried in the St. Petersburg archives of the company. 



There can be no doubt that the alarming decrease in the Pribilof catch, which in 

 ten years dropped from 60,000 skins to less than 20,000, caused the company to colo- 

 nize the Commander Islands in order to work the seal rookeries there. In 1821 this 

 decrease was threateniug enough to make the board of administration of the company 

 suggest stopping killing on the Pribilofs altogether for one season, if certain islands 

 which were supposed to exist north of the Pribilof Islands should be found to be 

 fictitious or not to harbor the hoped-for fur seals (Fur Seal Arb., viii, p. 323), The 

 discovery was evidently not made, and the reoccupation of the Commander Islands 

 resulted. 



It seems, however, that the Greek war of independence against Turkey had a 

 depressing effect on the fur market of Europe, and it is therefore not improbable that 

 the Pribilof Islands were capable of filling the demand until the restoration of order 

 in that part of the world, about 1830. By this time the annual yield of the Pribilofs 

 had fallen to 16,000, and shortly after even as low as 6,000, the average during the ten 



'Senioff told Liitke that the settlement was located on the west side of the island (now 

 Nikolsbi), and that he was only at Saranna with a few natives to build some huts for the fox hunters 

 in the winter. There were then 110 inhabitants on Bering Island, but no permanent colony as yet on 

 Copper Island (LUtke, Voyage aut. Monde, i, 1835, p. 275). This fact shows that Dybowski's 

 statement that the settlements were not established until 1830 (Wyspy Komand., p. 36) is erroneous. 



