Part 18 (1/2)

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 s.h.i.+p.

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 s.h.i.+p'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 governors.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+ps and establishments there, except those who have united with the new company.”