Page images
PDF
EPUB

land of America and the islands from Kamchatka west to the coast of America, and south to the shores of Japan. No rivals, even though having posts already established within these limits, if not united with the Russian American company, were permitted to do any of these things. The civil and military authorities stationed at these places were ordered to give help and protection to the officers of the company. In return for these large and exclusive privileges the company bound itself to maintain a mission of the Græco-Catholic church, the members of which were to accompany all trading, hunting, and exploring expeditions, where an opportunity for Christianizing natives might occur. The company also undertook to encourage agriculture, cattlebreeding, ship-building, and other industries among the Russian settlers in America, and to maintain friendly relations with the natives.

The news of the organization of the Russian American company reached Baranof at a time when things were looking very black for him. He was suffering from ill health, his men were short of provisions, one of his sloops had recently been wrecked, and parties of his hunters attacked and killed by the Thlinket Indians. His drooping courage was revived, and amid many dangers and hardships, he made his way to Norfolk, or Sitka sound, and landed at a place called still Old Sitka, about three miles to the north of the present town. A Sitkan chief coming up to ask his purpose, Baranof replied that the Emperor of Russia wished to establish a settlement for trade there. The chief gave him a small piece of ground, on which Baranof erected a strong two-story building, guarded by a palisade and two blockhouses, and named Fort Archangel Gabriel. In the autumn of 1800, Baranof, having fairly started the Sitka settlement, returned to Kadiak.

Matters did not long remain quiet at Sitka after Baranof's departure. The natives were supplied with guns, ammunition, and spirits, by English and American vessels trading with them, and soon became bold enough to form the plan of attacking and destroying the Russian settlement. To this end they secured allies from the Alexander archipelago and the Stikine River district. In June, 1802, the barracks and fort were attacked by large numbers of natives, while

most of the garrison were out hunting. The commander and many of his men were killed; the cattle-sheds and warehouses were taken and set on fire, and also the ships lying at anchor off the settlement. Three Russians and five Aleuts managed to escape to an English ship, whose captain made the Sitkan chiefs drunk, and recovered a large quantity of the valuable sea-otter skins which the natives had pillaged from the post. With these he sailed to Kadiak, where he received ten thousand rubles (nearly eight thousand dollars) as salvage. In 1803 Baranof received the news of his appointment as a shareholder in the company, and of permission to wear the gold medal of the Order of Saint Vladimir. But gratified as he was at these marks of imperial approval, he was burning with anxiety to recover Sitka. With this purpose he directed his lieutenant at Yakutat (where the company had a block-house and stockade for the Siberian agriculturists in their service) to build two sailing-vessels. In 1804 he started out with an expeditionary force, consisting of eight hundred Aleuts in three hundred bidarkas, and one hundred and twenty Russians on board four small vessels under the command of a lieutenant; Baranof himself commanding the sloops Ekaterina and Alexander.

Soon after Baranof had left Kadiak, a ship named the Neva came out from Kronstadt to Kadiak. Not finding Baranof there, her commander, Lisiansky, sailed after him to Sitka, where his aid proved very welcome. The Sitka natives had taken up a strong position on a bluff, called Katlean's rock, or the Kekoor, at the mouth of Indian river. Here they occupied a fort built of logs and protected by a breastwork two logs thick.

The Russians landed and attempted to take the stockade by assault, but the natives made a brave resistance, keeping up so good a fire that they killed or wounded twenty-six Russians, among whom was Baranof himself. Next day Lisiansky assumed the command, and attacked the natives so vigorously that they offered to make peace, and promised to give hostages and to evacuate the fort. But as they showed no signs of giving up the stronghold, guns were brought up on a raft and trained upon the fort. The natives endured the strange and unwonted sounds of the

[graphic][merged small]

bombardment during the day, but at night, after killing their dogs and strangling their infant children, that no sound might show their purpose, they secretly abandoned the post, which the captors burned.

The Russians then set to work to provide permanent quarters for themselves; they constructed three substantial buildings with a stockade having block-houses at each corner; kitchen-gardens were planted and cattle introduced. The name of New Archangel was given to the settlement. Part of the stockade separating the Russian quarters from the Indian rancherie remained until a recent date. The natives entered into a treaty with the Russians and were presented with cloaks and medals. In the autumn of 1806 Baranof returned from New Archangel to Saint Paul, leaving Kuskof in command, with orders to build ships and to finish certain structures already begun.

During the year 1803 (the year after the capture of Sitka by the natives) Baranof, ever desirous to extend the operations of the company, was pushing forward in the direction of the Spanish colonies, and especially of California. Baranof lent to an American captain named O'Cain twenty bidarkas and several hunters in charge of Shutzof, an employee of the company. Shutzof was instructed to take careful observations of the inhabitants of the coast of California, and to look out for new hunting-grounds. The

American vessel left Kadiak at the end of October, 1803, sailed down to San Diego, and thence to the Bay of San Quintin in Lower California, where about a thousand skins were secured. The results of this expedition were so satisfactory that Baranof was induced in 1808 to furnish Captain Ayres, of the ship Mercury from Boston, with twenty-five bidarkas, to hunt in islands not known before. The ship was to be out ten or twelve months, and on her return the proceeds were to be equally divided. On the way south sea-otter and beaver skins were procured by barter from the natives of the Charlotte islands and at the mouth of the Columbia river. Thence the ship proceeded to San Francisco and San Diego, and came back with more than two thousand skins.

Between 1806 and 1812 Baranof entered into several similar contracts with American captains. In 1808 he sent two vessels to the coast of New Albion, a land of vague extent, the southern limit of which was somewhere between Point Reyes and San Diego. One of these was wrecked at the mouth of Quay harbor, and the other, commanded by Kuskof, returned after an absence of about a year with more than two thousand otter skins, and the information that the coast had many localities suitable for agriculture and ship-building, and that the whole country to the north of San Francisco was unoccupied by any European power.

Accordingly, Baranof gathered men suitable for an agricultural settlement, skilled in raising stock and tilling fields, and sent them in 1810 to New Albion with orders to make further explorations. On the way the crew was attacked by the Queen Charlotte islanders, and returned to New Archangel. Next year they started out again, and on this voyage Kuskof selected a spot eighteen miles north of Bodega bay, where he bought some land from the natives. In 1812 the colony was founded and named Ross. But as a place for agriculture and ship-building it was a failure, and the hunting-grounds near it were soon exhausted. The story of Fort Ross has been fully told by Mr. Charles S. Greene in the OVERLAND for July, 1893. Quiet and dull as Sitka now looks under the government of the United States, it was in Baranof's day a very busy place. Bricks for the huge fireplaces in the Russian houses were made there: boats and sailing-vessels were built in a well-equipped shipyard: there were wood-turneries and woolen manufactories; and agricultural implements from the foundries were sold all down the Pacific Coast as far as Mexico. Axes and knives were made for bartering with the natives at the trading posts, and almost all the Mission churches from the north of Alaska to Mexico were supplied with bells from the brass-foundries of Sitka. From six hundred to eight hundred whites lived in the town in those days; and more than a dozen sailing vessels were constantly employed in trading.

In 1809 a serious plot was formed by some Siberian ex-convicts against Baranof, but it was betrayed to him and promptly crushed. Baranof had for some time been growing anxious to be relieved from his onerous labors as Chief Manager, and the discovery of this plot increased his desire. He repeatedly requested the directors of the company to appoint a successor, but twice the man selected to relieve him died before reaching his post.

In 1815 the imperial government, in conjunction with the Russian American company, sent out two vessels, the Kutuzof and the Suvarof, under command of Hagemeister, who was authorized to assume control of the affairs of the company in place of Baranof, if upon investigation he thought it necessary to do so. Hagemeister did not inform Baranof of the extent of his powers,

but quietly examined the condition of the company. Baranof was still working earnestly in its service, but the intrepid pioneer's fierce energy was beginning to flicker out. He had always been careless of religion, but now he suddenly conceived a liking for the church, and constantly kept a priest near him. Yanovsky, the first lieutenant of the Suvarof, fell in love with Baranof's daughter, and obtained her father's consent to their marriage. But Hagemeister's consent was also necessary, and was only granted on the condition that Lieutenant Yanovsky should stay for two years at New Archangel, and act as representative of the Chief Manager.

On January 11, 1818, Hagemeister told Baranof of his instructions, which so surprised and prostrated the old man that he never quite recovered from the shock. But it was the work of months to render full accounts, and to turn the affairs of the company over to the company's commissioner, Klebnikof. The commissioner estimated the value of the property at New Archangel, to say nothing of that at the many other stations of the company, at two and one half millions of rubles; and besides this, the Suvarof took furs to the value of two hundred thousand rubles to Europe, and left behind in the storehouses furs worth nine hundred thousand rubles more. The buildings and vessels of the company were in excellent condition, and the accounts in perfect order. In September, 1818, the work was done and the complete statement handed over to Yanovsky. It was nearly thirty years since Baranof had landed on Kadiak island; he was already seventytwo years old, and had spent himself in the service of the company. Thrown unceremoniously aside in his old age by the company whose leading spirit he had been, and whose interests he had enormously extended and firmly consolidated, he could not tear himself away at once from the scenes of his labors, dangers, privations, and achievements. He resolved to pay farewell visits to Kadiak and the various settlements he had founded, and then go to live with a brother in Kamchatka. But he was urged to return to Russia, where his advice would be of the highest value to the directors of the company. He decided to do this, and late in November set sail in the Kutusof, which, on her way home, stopped for more

now

than a month at the unhealthy port of Batavia. Here Baranof insisted upon going ashore. He was seized with sickness, and died soon after the vessel had set sail again.

Like Napoleon, Baranof was a little great man; insignificant in appearance, thin, short of stature, with reddish hair, and a face covered by hardship and exposure with wrinkles. He was an early riser, and ate but one meal a day, and that at no fixed time. He was fond of gayety, and kept round him a little court of reckless spirits, whom he feasted and filled with strong liquors. Ship-captains who did not drink stood but small chance of doing business with him. Washington Irving, in his "Astoria," describes, with a few touches of exaggeration, but on the whole faithfully, how the shipmasters who visited New Archangel sang and reveled with the Chief Manager. He was fitful and violent in temper, but always showed such sincere regret and desire to make amends for outbursts of passion that the women and servants of his house came to look upon them as the precursors of a feast. He was fond of music, and his daughter, to whom he was much attached, could always put him into a good humor by playing on the piano. He treated his daughter with much respect, and used to send her away from the room when he began to feel drunk. One day, finding her German governess drinking a glass of spirits, he struck her; next day he expressed regret for his act, but said that she must never let his daughter see her drinking strong liquor.

Yet rough as Baranof was, he was kind to people in distress, and generous to his employees. Though he had boundless chances of self-enrichment, he did not avail himself of them. He spent liberally but did not exceed his means. He maintained his wife well at his native place, Kargapol, and made many remittances to Russia to help the families of men who had died in the company's service; he also gave part of his shares in the company to supplement the scanty incomes of his lieutenants, Banner and Kuskof. The company's commissioner, Klebnikof, who was thoroughly familiar with the details of Baranof's management, entertained the liveliest admiration for him. He wrote a biography of Baranof, which is really, as it could not well help being, a history of the Russian colonies in America.

It may be well to say a few words about the finances of the company of which Baranof, if not the founder, was at least the controlling spirit. The original capital of the company was about $542,000, afterwards increased to about $925,000. The net earnings between 1797 and 1820 were about $5,764,000, of which rather more than half was paid out in dividends, the remainder being added to the capital. Furs to the value of twelve millions of dollars were sold or exchanged for commodities at Kiakhta, and for more than $2,600,000 at Canton. Yet the yield of furs was by no means so great during the later as in the earlier years of Baranof's administration, the sea-otters falling off very much in numbers, and the competition of American traders, who had no scruples about giving guns and ammunition in barter to the natives, doing the company much harm. The Chief Manager received $5,800 per annum, the chief clerk from $2,250 to $3,000, a priest $450, and a hunter from $45 to $112. Provisions had to be purchased at the company's stores, and were often scarce and dear, owing to the failure of ships to arrive. The company's employees frequently had to put up with serious hardships, and had but little chance of laying up anything for their old age.

Many traces of Baranof and his successors are still visible at Sitka. Near the water's edge, and overlooking the lovely bay, is Katlean's rock. On this eminence of about eighty feet Baranof built a blockhouse, which was burned. A later Chief Manager, Kupreanof, crowned the rock with a spacious residence, which was destroyed by earthquake in 1847. The next structure, generally called the Castle, measured eightysix by fifty-one feet, and was built of squared cedar logs, riveted by copper bolts to their rocky foundation. It had three stories and was surmounted by a light-house. It was handsomely furnished, and there the naval officers who succeeded Baranof lived luxuriously, entertaining visitors of all ranks with a lavish and impartial hospitality. When the "Castle" was turned over to the United States by Prince Demitrius Maksontoff, the only military governor, it was in thorough order, but the American soldiers stripped it of all its furniture and decorations, and it rapidly became ruinous and forlorn. On the arrival of a man-of-war or a revenue cutter some of the large rooms would be furnished

up for a dance, after which desolation again reigned. A year or two ago it perished by fire.

The Custom House, the barracks occupied by the United States marines, and some stout log-built warehouses near the wharf also owe their origin to the Russians. If we cross the grassy parade-ground, where once was the Russian ship-yard, and walk towards the Greek church, we pass on the right a sturdy log structure which was the main office of the Russian American company. Behind the church is a building formerly used as a clubhouse by the Russian officers. Not far from the club were tea-gardens and a race

course, both now entirely hidden under the mantle of dense vegetation that rapidly covers every deserted spot in the moist climate of southeastern Alaska. The sawmill with the flume that supplied it with water is still visible, though rapidly falling into decay. Another legacy of the Muscovite to the American is the walk leading round the curving beach to the woods bordering the banks of dering the banks of Indian river. This charming promenade furnishes the residents of Sitka with the chance of obtaining a little pedestrian exercise, a great boon in a country where there are practically no roads.

BARCAROLA

AFLOAT on ocean's heaving breast,
Rocked by the swelling tide,
Or poised upon the breaker's crest,
My boat shall gayly ride.

The salt spray dashes in my face,
Hark, how the sea birds cry,

Up with the sail, ho for a race

With the white clouds sailing by.

The mighty surges madly leap
With angry, sullen roar,

Then die away and softly sweep
Like lace upon the shore.

Oh how I love thee, restless sea,
Thy presence stirs my soul,

Blow, blow, ye wild winds, blow for me,

And roll, ye billows, roll.

Elliott Reed.

« PreviousContinue »