Alaska Part 18

To-day, there is no portion of the Alaskan coast more unreliable, nor more to be dreaded by mariners, than that in the vicinity of Behring's discovery. Even in summer violent winds and heavy seas are usually encountered. Steamers cannot land at Kayak, and pa.s.sengers and freight are lightered ash.o.r.e; and when this is accomplished without disaster or great difficulty, the trip is spoken of as an exceptional one. Yet Behring remained in this dangerous anchorage five days. Several landings were made on the two Kayak Islands, and on various smaller ones. Some Indian huts, without occupants, were found and entered. They were built of logs and rough bark and roofed with tough dried gra.s.ses.

There were, also, some sod cellars, in which dried salmon was found. In one of the cabins were copper implements, a whetstone, some arrows, ropes, and cords made of sea-weed, and rude household utensils; also herbs which had been prepared according to Kamchatkan methods.

Returning, Behring discovered and named many of the Aleutian Islands and exchanged presents with the friendly natives. They were, however, overtaken by storms and violent illness; they suffered of hunger and thirst; so many died that barely enough remained to manage the ship.

Finally on November 5, in attempting to land, the _St. Peter_ was wrecked on a small island, where, on the 8th of December, in a wretched hut, half covered with sand which sifted incessantly through the rude boards that were his only roof, and after suffering unimaginable agonies, the ill.u.s.trious Dane, Vitus Behring, died the most miserable of deaths. The island was named for him, and still retains the name, being the larger of the Commander Islands.

The survivors of the wreck remaining on Behring Island dragged out a wretched existence until spring, in holes dug in the sand and roofed with sails. Water they had; but their food consisted chiefly of the flesh of sea-otters and seals. In May, weak, emaciated, and hopeless though they were, and with their brave leader gone, they began building a boat from the remnants of the _St. Peter_. It was not completed until August; when, with many fervent prayers, they embarked, and, after nine days of mingled dread and anxiety in a frail and leaking craft, they arrived safely on the Kamchatkan sh.o.r.e.

All hope of their safety had long been abandoned, and there was great rejoicing upon their return. Out of their own deep grat.i.tude a memorial was placed in the church at Petropavlovsk, which is doubtless still in existence, as it was in a good state of preservation a few years ago.

Russian historians at first seemed disposed to depreciate Behring's achievement, and to over-exalt the Russian, Chirikoff. They made the claim that the latter was a man of high intellectual attainments, courageous, hopeful, and straightforward; kind-hearted, and giving thought to and for others. He was instructor of the marines of the guard, but after having been recommended to Peter the Great as a young man highly qualified to accompany the expedition under Behring, he was promoted to a lieutenancy and accompanied the latter on his first expedition in 1725; and on the second, in 1741, he was made commander of the _St. Pevril_, or _St. Paul_, "not by seniority but on account of superior knowledge and worth." Despite the fact that Behring was placed by the emperor in supreme command of both expeditions, the Russians looked upon Chirikoff as the real hero. He was a favorite with all, and in the accounts of quarrels and dissensions among the heads of the various detachments of scientists and naval officers of the expedition, the name of Chirikoff does not appear. His wife and daughter accompanied him to Siberia.

Captain Vitus Behring--or Ivan Ivanovich, as the Russians called him--is described as a man of intelligence, honesty, and irreproachable conduct, but rather inclined in his later years to vacillation of purpose and indecision of character, yielding easily to an irritable and capricious temper. Whether these facts were due to age or disease is not known; but that they seriously affected his fitness for the command of an exploration is not denied, even by his admirers. Even so sane and conscientious an historian as Dall calls him timid, hesitating, and indolent, and refers to his "characteristic imbecility," "utter incapacity," and "total incompetency." It is incredible, however, that a man of such gross faults should have been given the command of this brilliant expedition by so wise and great a monarch as Peter. Behring died,--old, discouraged, in indescribable anguish; suspicious of every one, doubting even Steller, the naturalist who accompanied the expedition and who was his faithful friend. Chirikoff returned, young, flushed with success, popular and in favor with all, from the Empress down to his subordinates. Favored at the outset by youth and a cheerful spirit, his bright particular star guided him to the discovery of land a few hours in advance of Behring. This was his good luck and his good luck only. Vitus Behring, the Dane in the Russian service, was in supreme command of the expedition; and to him belongs the glory. One cannot to-day sail that magnificent sweep of purple water between Alaska and Eastern Siberia without a thrill of thankfulness that the fame and the name of the ill.u.s.trious Dane are thus splendidly perpetuated.

To-day, his name is heard in Alaska a thousand times where Chirikoff's is heard once. The glory of the latter is fading, and Behring is coming to his own--Russians speaking of him with a pride that approaches veneration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by F. H. Nowell, Seattle

KOW-EAR-NUK AND HIS DRYING SALMON]

Captain Martin Petrovich Spanberg, the third in command of the expedition, was also a Dane. He is everywhere described as an illiterate, coa.r.s.e, cruel man; grasping, selfish, and unscrupulous in attaining ends that made for his own advancement. In his study of the character of Spanberg, Bancroft--who has furnished the most complete and painstaking description of these expeditions--makes comment which is, perhaps unintentionally, humorous. After describing Spanberg as exceedingly avaricious and cruel, and stating that his bad reputation extended over all Siberia, and that his name appears in hundreds of complaints and pet.i.tions from victims of his licentiousness, cruelty, and avarice, Bancroft naively adds, "He was just the man to become rich." Wealthy people may take such comfort as they can out of the comment.

CHAPTER XVI

Inspired by the important discoveries of this expedition and by the hope of a profitable fur trade with China, various Russian traders and adventurers, known as "promyshleniki," made voyages into the newly discovered regions, pressing eastward island by island, and year by year; beginning that long tale of cruelty and bloodshed in the Aleutian Islands which has not yet reached an end. Men as harmless as the pleading, soft-eyed seals were butchered as heartlessly and as shamelessly, that their stocks of furs might be appropriated and their women ravished. In 1745 Alexe Beliaief and ten men inveigled fifteen Aleutians into a quarrel with the sole object of killing them and carrying off their women. In 1762, the crew of the _Gavril_ persuaded twenty-five young Aleutian girls to accompany them "to pick berries and gather roots for the ship's company." On the Kamchatkan coast several of the crew and sixteen of these girls were landed to pick berries. Two of the girls made their escape into the hills; one was killed by a sailor; and the others cast themselves into the sea and were drowned. Gavril Pushkaref, who was in command of the vessel, ordered that all the remaining natives, with the exception of one boy and an interpreter, should be thrown overboard and drowned.

These are only two instances of the atrocious outrages perpetrated upon these innocent and childlike people by the brutal and licentious traders who have frequented these far beautiful islands from 1745 to the present time. From year to year now dark and horrible stories float down to us from the far northwestward, or vex our ears when we sail into those pale blue water-ways. Nor do they concern "promyshleniki" alone.

Charges of the gravest nature have been made against men of high position who spend much time in the Aleutian Islands. That these gentle people have suffered deeply, silently, and shamefully, at the hands of white men of various nationalities, has never been denied, nor questioned. It is well known to be the simple truth. From 1760 to about 1766 the natives rebelled at their treatment and active hostilities were carried on. Many Russians were killed, some were tortured. Solovief, upon arriving at Unalaska and learning the fate of some of his countrymen, resolved to avenge them. His designs were carried out with unrelenting cruelty. By some writers, notably Berg, his crimes have been palliated, under the plea that nothing less than extreme brutality could have so soon reduced the natives to the state of fear and humility in which they have ever since remained--failing to take into consideration the atrocities perpetrated upon the natives for years before their open revolt.

In 1776 we find the first mention of Grigor Ivanovich Shelikoff; but it was not until 1784 that he succeeded in making the first permanent Russian settlement in America, on Kodiak Island,--forty-three dark and strenuous years after Vitus Behring saw Mount St. Elias rising out of the sea. Shelikoff was second only to Baranoff in the early history of Russian America, and is known as "the founder and father of Russian colonies in America." His wife, Natalie, accompanied him upon all his voyages. She was a woman of very unusual character, energetic and ambitious, and possessed of great business and executive ability. After her husband's death, her management for many years of not only her own affairs, but those of the Shelikoff Company as well, reflected great credit upon herself.

It was the far-sighted Shelikoff who suggested and carried out the idea of a monopoly of the fur trade in Russian America under imperial charter. As a result of his forceful presentation of this scheme and the able--and doubtless selfish--a.s.sistance of General Jacobi, the governor-general of Eastern Siberia, the Empress became interested. In 1788 an imperial ukase was issued, granting to the Shelikoff Company exclusive control of the territory already occupied by them. a.s.sistance from the public coffers was at that time withheld; but the Empress graciously granted to Shelikoff and his partner, Golikof, swords and medals containing her portrait. The medals were to be worn around their necks, and bore inscriptions explaining that they "had been conferred for services rendered to humanity by n.o.ble and bold deeds."

Although Shelikoff greatly preferred the pecuniary a.s.sistance from the government, he nevertheless accepted with a good grace the honor bestowed, and bided his time patiently.

In accordance with commands issued by the commander at Ohkotsk and by the Empress herself, Shelikoff adopted a policy of humanity in his relations with the natives, although it is suspected that this was on account of his desire to please the Empress and work out his own designs, rather than the result of his own kindness of heart.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau

Courtesy of Webster & Stevens, Seattle

STEAMER "RESOLUTE"]

With the clearness of vision which distinguished his whole career, Shelikoff selected Alexander Baranoff as his agent in the territory lying to the eastward of Kodiak. In Voskressenski, or Sunday, Harbor--now Resurrection Bay, on which the town of Seward is situated--Baranoff built in 1794 the first vessel to glide into the waters of Northwestern America--the _Phoenix_. At the request of Shelikoff a colony of two hundred convicts, accompanied by twenty priests, were sent out by imperial ukase, and established at Yakutat Bay, under Baranoff. During the years that followed many complaints were entered by the clergy against Baranoff for cruelty, licentiousness, and mismanagement of the company's affairs. But, whatever his faults may have been, it is certain that no man could have done so much for the promotion of the company's interests at that time as Baranoff; nor could any other so efficiently have conducted its affairs.

It was during his governorship that the rose of success bloomed brilliantly for the Russian-American Company in the colonies. He was a shrewd, tireless, practical business man. His successors were men distinguished in army and navy circles, haughty and patrician, but absolutely lacking in business ability, and ignorant of the unique conditions and needs of the country.

After Baranoff's resignation and death, the revenues of the company rapidly declined, and its vast operations were conducted at a loss.

It was in 1791 that Baranoff a.s.sumed command of all the establishments on the island of the Shelikoff Company which, under imperial patronage, had already secured a partial monopoly of the American fur trade. Owing to compet.i.tion by independent traders, the large company, after the death of Shelikoff, united with its most influential rival, under the name of the Shelikoff United Company. The following year this company secured an imperial ukase which granted to it, under the name of the Russian-American Company, "full privileges, for a period of twenty years, on the coast of Northwestern America, beginning from lat.i.tude fifty-five degrees North, and including the chain of islands extending from Kamchatka northward to America and southward to j.a.pan; the exclusive right to all enterprises, whether hunting, trading, or building, and to new discoveries, with strict prohibition from profiting by any of these pursuits, not only to all parties who might engage in them on their own responsibility, but also to those who formerly had ships and establishments there, except those who have united with the new company."

In the same year a fort was established by Baranoff, on what is now Sitka Sound. This was destroyed by natives; and in 1804 another fort was erected by Baranoff, near the site of the former one, which he named Fort Archangel Michael. This fort is the present Sitka. Its establishment enabled the Russian-American Company to extend its operations to the islands lying southward and along the continental sh.o.r.e.

We now come to the most fascinating portion of the history of Alaska.

Not even the wild and romantic days of gold excitement in the Klondike can equal Baranoff's reign at Sitka for picturesqueness and mysterious charm. The strength and personality of the man were such that to-day one who is familiar with his life and story, entering Sitka, will unconsciously feel his presence; and will turn, with a sigh, to gaze upon the commanding height where once his castle stood.

There were many dark and hopeless days for Baranoff during his first years with the company, and it was while in a state of deep discouragement and hopelessness that he received the news of his appointment as chief manager of the newly organized Russian-American Company. Most of his plans and undertakings had failed; many Russians and natives had been lost on hunting voyages; English and American traders had superseded him at every point to the eastward of Kodiak; many of his Aleutian hunters had been killed in conflict with the savage Thlinkits; he had lost a sloop which had been constructed at Voskressenski Bay; and finally, he had returned to Kodiak enduring the agonies of inflammatory rheumatism, only to be reproached by the subordinates, who were suffering of actual hunger--so long had they been without relief from supply ships.

In this dark hour the ship arrived which carried not only good tidings, but plentiful supplies as well. Baranoff's star now shone brightly, leading him on to hope and renewed effort.

In the spring of the following year, 1799, Baranoff, with two vessels manned by twenty-two Russians, and three hundred and fifty canoes, set sail for the eastward. Many of the natives were lost by foundering of the canoes, and many more by slaughter at the hands of the Kolosh, but finally they arrived at a point now known as Old Sitka, six miles north of the present Sitka, and bartered with the chief of the natives for a site for a settlement. Captain Cleveland, whose ship _Caroline_, of Boston, was then lying in the harbor, describes the Indians of the vicinity as follows: "A more hideous set of beings in the form of men and women, I had never before seen. The fantastic manner in which many of the faces were painted was probably intended to give them a more ferocious appearance; and some groups looked really as if they had escaped from the dominions of Satan himself. One had a perpendicular line dividing the two sides of the face, one side of which was painted red, the other black, with the hair daubed with grease and red ochre, and filled with the down of birds. Another had the face divided with a horizontal line in the middle, and painted black and white. The visage of a third was painted in checkers, etc. Most of them had little mirrors, before the acquisition of which they must have been dependent on each other for those correct touches of the pencil which are so much in vogue, and which daily require more time than the toilet of a Parisian belle."

These savages were known to be treacherous and dangerous, but they pretended to be friendly, and fears were gradually allayed by continued peace. The story of the great ma.s.sacre and destruction of the fort is of poignant interest, as simply and pathetically told by one of the survivors, a hunter: "In this present year 1802, about the twenty-fourth of June--I do not remember the exact date, but it was a holiday--about two o'clock in the afternoon, I went to the river to look for our calves, as I had been detailed by the commander of the fort, Va.s.sili Medvednikof, to take care of the cattle. On returning soon after, I noticed at the fort a great mult.i.tude of Kolosh people, who had not only surrounded the barracks below, but were already climbing over the balcony and to the roof with guns and cannon; and standing upon a little knoll in front of the out-houses, was the Sitka toyon, or chief, Mikhail, giving orders to those who were around the barracks, and shouting to some people in canoes not far away, to make haste and a.s.sist in the fight. In answer to his shouts sixty-two canoes emerged from behind the points of rocks." (One is inclined to be sceptical concerning the exact number of canoes; the frightened hunter would scarcely pause to count the war canoes as they rounded the point.) "Even if I had reached the barracks, they were already closed and barricaded, and there was no safety outside; therefore, I rushed away to the cattle yard, where I had a gun. I only waited to tell a girl who was employed in the yard to take her little child and fly to the woods, when, seizing my gun, I closed up the shed. Very soon after this four Kolosh came to the door and knocked three times. As soon as I ran out of the shed, they seized me by the coat and took my gun from me. I was compelled to leave both in their hands, and jumping through a window, ran past the fort and hid in the thick underbrush of the forest, though two Kolosh ran after me, but could not find me in the woods. Soon after, I emerged from the underbrush, and approached the barracks to see if the attack had been repulsed, but I saw that not only the barracks, but the ship recently built, the warehouse and the sheds, the cattle sheds, bath house and other small buildings, had been set on fire and were already in full blaze. The sea-otter skins and other property of the company, as well as the private property of Medvednikof and the hunters, the savages were throwing from the balcony to the ground on the water side, while others seized them and carried them to the canoes, which were close to the fort.... All at once I saw two Kolosh running toward me armed with guns and lances, and I was compelled to hide again in the woods. I threw myself down among the underbrush on the edge of the forest, covering myself with pieces of bark. From there I saw Nakva.s.sin drop from the upper balcony and run toward the woods; but when nearly across the open s.p.a.ce he fell to the ground, and four warriors rushed up and carried him back to the barracks on the points of their lances and cut off his head.

Kabanof was dragged from the barracks into the street, where the Kolosh pierced him with their lances; but how the other Russians who were there came to their end, I do not know. The slaughter and incendiarism were continued by the savages until the evening, but finally I stole out among the ruins and ashes, and in my wanderings came across some of our cows, and saw that even the poor dumb animals had not escaped the bloodthirsty fiends, having spears stuck in their sides. Exercising all my strength, I was barely able to pull out some of the spears, when I was observed by two Kolosh, and compelled to leave the cows to their fate and hide again in the woods.

"I pa.s.sed the night not far from the ruins of the fort. In the morning I heard the report of a cannon and looked out of the brush, but could see n.o.body, and not wishing to expose myself again to further danger, went higher up in the mountain through the forest. While advancing cautiously through the woods, I met two other persons who were in the same condition as myself,--a girl from the Chiniatz village, Kodiak, with an infant on her breast, and a man from the Kiliuda village, who had been left behind by the hunting party on account of sickness. I took them both with me to the mountain, but each night I went with my companions to the ruins of the fort and bewailed the fate of the slain. In this miserable condition we remained for eight days, with nothing to eat and nothing but water to drink. About noon of the last day we heard from the mountain two cannon-shots, which raised some hopes in me, and I told my companions to follow me at a little distance, and then went down toward the river through the woods to hide myself near the sh.o.r.e and see whether there was a ship in the bay."

He discovered, to his unspeakable joy, an English ship in the bay.

Shouting to attract the attention of those on board, he was heard by six Kolosh, who made their way toward him and had almost captured him ere he saw them and made his escape in the woods. They forced him to the sh.o.r.e at a point near the cape, where he was able to make himself heard by those on the vessel. A boat put off at once, and he was barely able to leap into it when the Kolosh, in hot pursuit, came in sight again. When they saw the boat, they turned and fled.

When the hunter had given an account of the ma.s.sacre to the commander of the vessel, an armed boat was sent ash.o.r.e to rescue the man and girl who were in hiding. They were easily located and, with another Russian who was found in the vicinity, were taken aboard and supplied with food and clothing.

The commander himself then accompanied them, with armed men, to the site of the destroyed fort, where they examined and buried the dead. They found that all but Kabanof had been beheaded.

Three days later the chief, Mikhail, went out to the ship, was persuaded to go aboard, and with his nephew was held until all persons captured during the ma.s.sacre and still living had been surrendered. The prisoners were given up reluctantly, one by one; and when it was believed that all had been recovered, the chief and his nephew were permitted to leave the ship.

The survivors were taken to Kodiak, where the humane captain of the ship demanded of Baranoff a compensation of fifty thousand roubles in cash.

Baranoff, learning that the captain's sole expense had been in feeding and clothing the prisoners, refused to pay this exorbitant sum; and after long wrangling it was settled for furs worth ten thousand roubles.

Accounts of the ma.s.sacre by survivors and writers of that time vary somewhat, some claiming that the ma.s.sacre was occasioned by the broken faith and extreme cruelty of the Russians in their treatment of the savages; others, that the Sitkans had been well treated and that Chief Mikhail had falsely pretended to be the warm and faithful friend of Baranoff, who had placed the fullest confidence in him.

Baranoff was well-nigh broken-hearted by his new and terrible misfortune. The ma.s.sacre had been so timed that the most of the men of the fort were away on a hunting expedition; and Baranoff himself was on Afognak Island, which is only a few hours' sail from Kodiak. Several Kolosh women lived at the fort with Russian men; and these women kept their tribesmen outside informed as to the daily conditions within the garrison. On the weakest day of the fort, a holiday, the Kolosh had, therefore, suddenly surrounded it, armed with guns, spears, and daggers, their faces covered with masks representing animals.

About this time Krusenstern and Lisiansky sailed from Kronstadt, in the hope--which was fulfilled--of being the first to carry the Russian flag around the world. Lisiansky arrived at Kodiak, after many hardships, only to receive a written request from Baranoff to proceed at once to Sitka and a.s.sist him in subduing the savages and avenging the officers and men lost in the fearful ma.s.sacre. On the 15th of August, 1804, he therefore sailed to eastward, and on the twentieth of the same month entered Sitka Sound. The day must have been gloomy and Lisiansky's mood in keeping with the day, for he thus describes a bay which is, under favorable conditions, one of the most idyllically beautiful imaginable: "On our entrance into Sitka Sound to the place where we now were, there was not to be seen on the sh.o.r.e the least vestige of habitation. Nothing presented itself to our view but impenetrable woods reaching from the water-side to the very tops of the mountains. I never saw a country so wild and gloomy; it appeared more adapted for the residence of wild beasts than of men."

Shortly afterward Baranoff arrived in the harbor with several hundred Aleutians and many Russians, after a tempestuous and dangerous voyage from Yakutat, the site of the convict settlement. He learned that the savages had taken up their position on a bluff a few miles distant, where they had fortified themselves. This bluff was the n.o.ble height upon which Baranoff's castle was afterward erected, and which commands the entire bay upon which the Sitka of to-day is located. Lisiansky, in his "Voyage around the World," describes the Indians' fort as "an irregular polygon, its longest side facing the sea. It was protected by a breastwork two logs in thickness, and about six feet high. Around and above it tangled brushwood was piled. Grape-shot did little damage, even at the distance of a cable's length. There were two embrasures for cannon in the side facing the sea, and two gates facing the forest.

Within were fourteen large huts, or, as they were called then, and are called at the present time by the natives, barabaras. Judging from the quant.i.ty of provisions and domestic implements found there, it must have contained at least eight hundred warriors."

An envoy from the Kolosh fort came out with friendly overtures, but was informed that peace conditions could only be established through the chiefs. He departed, but soon returned and delivered a hostage.

Baranoff made plain his conditions; agreement with the chiefs in person, the delivery of two more hostages, and permanent possession of the fortified bluff.

The chiefs did not appear, and the conditions were not accepted. Then, on October 1, after repeated warnings, Baranoff gave the order to fire upon the fort. Immediately afterward, Baranoff, Lieutenant Arlusof, and a party of Russians and Aleutians landed with the intention of storming the fort. They were repulsed, the panic-stricken Aleutians stampeded, and Baranoff was left almost without support. In this condition, he could do nothing but retreat to the boats,--which they were barely able to reach before the Kolosh were upon them. They saved their field-pieces, but lost ten men. Twenty-six were wounded, including Baranoff himself. Had not their retreat at this point been covered by the guns of the ship, the loss of life would have been fearful.

The following day Lisiansky was placed in command. He opened a rapid fire upon the fort, with such effect that soon after noon a peace envoy arrived, with promise of hostages. His overtures were favorably received, and during the following three days several hostages were returned to the Russians. The evacuation of the fort was demanded; but, although the chief consented, no movements in that direction could be discovered from the ships. Lisiansky moved his vessel farther in toward the fort and sent an interpreter to ascertain how soon the occupants would be ready to abandon their fortified and commanding position. The reply not being satisfactory, Lisiansky again fired repeatedly upon the stronghold of the Kolosh. On the 3d of October a white flag was hoisted, and the firing was discontinued. Then arose from the rocky height and drifted across the water until far into the night the sound of a mournful, wailing chant.