HISTORY
OF ALASKA.
CHAPTER
IX.
EXPLORATION
AND TRADE.
1770-1787.
It was a time of rapid and sweeping
political changes at the imperial court. All along the road to Siberia, to
Yakutsk, and even to Okhotsk and Kamchatka, one batch of exiles followed
another, political castaways, prisoners of war, or victims of too deep diplomacy,
as much out of place in this broad, bleak penitentiary as would be promyshleniki and otters in St Petersburg. In one of these
illustrious bands was a Polish count, Augustine Benyovski by name, who had played somewhat too recklessly at conspiracy. Nor was Siberia
to deprive him of this pastime. Long before he reached Yakutsk he had plotted
and organized a secret society of exiles with himself as chief. The more
prominent of the other members were a Doctor Hoffman, a resident of Yakutsk,
Major Windblath, Captain Panof,
Captain Hipolite Stepanof,
Colonel Baturin, and Sopronof,
the secretary of the society. The object
of this association very naturally was to get its members out of limbo; or in
other words mutual assistance on the part of the members in making their escape
from Siberia. The chief exacted from each his signature to a written agreement,
done in the vicinity of Yakutsk, and dated the 27th of August 1770. After a
month of tedious progress through the wastes of eastern Siberia, the count’s
party was overtaken by a courier from Yakutsk who claimed to have important despatches for the commander of Okhotsk; at the same time
he reported that Dr Hoffman was dead. The suspicions of Benyovski and his companions were aroused. Persuading the tired courier that he needed a
little rest, they feasted him well, and after nightfall while he slept they
ransacked his satchel, and took therefrom a formidable-looking document which
proved to contain an exposé of their plans, obtained from Hoffman’s papers. Benyovski was equal to the emergency. He wrote another
letter upon official paper, with which he had provided himself at Yakutsk, full
of the most sober recommendations of the exiles to the commander of Okhotsk.
This document was inserted into the pilfered envelope, and carried forward to
its destination by the unsuspecting messenger.
The
forged letter did its work. When Benyovski and his
companions arrived at Okhotsk they were received with the greatest kindness by
Colonel Plenisner the commandant, who regarded them
as unfortunate gentlemen, like himself, not for a moment to be placed in the
category of criminals. Hence he granted them every privilege, and supplied them
freely with food, clothing, and even arms. Being a man of little education and
of dissipated habits, Plenisner was easily deceived
by the plausible tongue of the courtly Pole, who quickly perceived that he had
made an egregious mistake in framing his forged letter. He saw that residence
at Okhotsk promised favorable opportunity for escape in view of the confidence
reposed in him by the commander, though he had thought that Kamchatka offered
the best facilities, and had urged in the letter early transportation of the
exiles to that locality. Though willing to oblige his new friends, in every
possible manner, Colonel Plenisner did not dare to
act in direct opposition to his orders, and in October a detachment of exiles,
embracing all the conspirators, was sent by the ship Sv Petr i Sv Pavel to Bolsheretsk, Kamchatka, where they were
transferred to the charge of Captain Nilof,
commandant of the district.
We
may as well take it for granted before proceeding further that three fourths
of all that Benyovski says of himself are lies; with
this understanding I will continue his story, building it for the most part on
what others say of him.
In Kamchatka as in Okhotsk through his superior social
qualifications the count was enabled to gain the confidence and good-will of
the commander, so that the hardships of his position were greatly alleviated.
He was not obliged to join his companions in the toilsome and dangerous chase
of fur-bearing animals, finding more congenial employment in Captain Nilof’s office and residence. The count accompanied his
patron on various official tours of inspection, in which he came in contact
with his numerous fellow-exiles scattered through the interior in small
settlements. His original plan of escape from the Russian domains was ever
present in his mind and he neglected no opportunity to enlarge the membership
of his secret society. In order to ingratiate himself still more with Nil of he
resorted to his old trick of forgery, and revealed to the credulous commander
an imaginary plot to poison him and the officers of his staff. He claimed in
his memoirs that in consideration of this service Nilof formally revoked his sentence of exile.
While
still travelling with Nilof in the beginning of 1771, Benyovski intercepted a letter directed to the former
by one of the conspirators betraying the plot. The traitor, whose name was
Leontief, was killed by order of the court. The plan settled upon for final
action was to overcome the garrison of Bolsheretsk,
imprison the commander, plunder the public treasury and storehouses, and sail
for Japan or some of the islands of the Pacific with as many of the
conspirators as desired to go.
Benyovski’s statement of his exploits at Kamchatka, for unblushing impudence in the
telling, borders the sublime. Arriving at Bolsheretsk on the 1st of December a half-starved prisoner clothed in rags, he was
advanced to the position of confidant of the acting governor before two weeks
had elapsed, being also the accepted suitor for the hand of his daughter.
During the same time he had succeeded in rousing the spirit of revolt not only
in the breasts of his fellow-exiles, but among the free merchants and government
officials, who he claimed were ready to rise at a moment’s warning and
overthrow their rulers. Within a few days, or weeks at the most, this grand
conspiracy had not only been called into existence but had survived spasms of
internal dissensions and attempted treason, all suppressed by the strength and
presence of mind of one man—Benyovski. Then he tells
how he cheated the commander and others in games and sold his influence for
presents of furs and costly garments. On the 1st of January 1771 a fete took
place at the house of Captain Nilof. Benyovski claims that it had been arranged to celebrate his
betrothal to Afanassia Nilof,
to whom he had promised marriage, though already possessed of a wife in Poland.
In his diary he states at length how he suppressed another counter-conspiracy a
few moments before proceeding to the festive scene, and sentenced two of his
former companions to death. Meanwhile Benyovski’s cruel and arbitrary treatment of his associates had made him many enemies, and
reports of his designs reached the authorities. He succeeded repeatedly in
dispersing the growing suspicion, but finally the danger became so threatening
that he concluded to precipitate the execution of his plot.
On
the 26th of April Captain Nilof sent an officer with
two Cossacks to Benyovski’s residence with orders to
summon him to the chancellery, there to give an account of his intentions. The
summons of the chief conspirator brought to the spot about a dozen of his
associates, who bound and gagged the captain’s messengers. Then hoisting the
signal of general revolt, which called all the members of the society together,
he proceeded to Nilof’s quarters, where the feeble
show of resistance made by the trembling drunkard and his family furnished
sufficient excuse for a general charge upon the premises. During the mêlée the
commander was killed. The murder was premeditated, as the best means of
preventing participants from turning back.
Before
resolving upon the final attack, Benyovski had
secured the services of the commander of the only vessel then in port, the Sv Petr i Sv Pavel, and as soon as the momentary success of the
enterprise was assured his whole force was set to work to repair and fit out
this craft. The magazines and storehouses were ransacked, and not satisfied
with the quantity of powder on hand, he shipped a supply of sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal necessary for the manufacture
of that article.
The
interval between Benyovski’s accession to power and
his departure to Bolsheretsk was filled with brief
trials and severe punishments of recreant members of his band who endeavored to
open the way for their own pardon by the old authorities by betraying the new.
The knout was freely used, and the sentence of death imposed almost daily. At
last on the 12th of May the Sv Petr i Sv Pavel sailed out of the
harbor of Bolsheretsk midst the firing of salvos, the
ringing of bells, and the solemn te deum on the quarter-deck. The voyage is involved in
mystery, caused chiefly by the contradictory reports of Benyovski himself. He says he anchored in a bay of Bering Island on the 19th of May,
after a passage of seven days, took on board twenty-six barrels of water, and
sailed again, after a brief sojourn on the island, during which he claimed to
have fallen in with a Captain Okhotin of the ship Elizaveta,
whom Benyovski describes as an exiled Saxon nobleman.
On
the 7th of June he claims to have communicated with the Chukchi in latitude
64°, and only three days later, on the 10th of June, he landed on the island of
Kadiak, over 1,000 miles away. Another entry in the count’s diary describes his
arrival on the island of Amchitka, one of the Andrianovski group, on the 21st of June, and two days later the arrival of the ship at Ourumusir, one of the Kurile Islands, is noted. In
explanation of this remarkable feat he gives the speed of his vessel at ten
and a half knots an hour, which might be true, driven by a gale. The only part
of this journey susceptible of proof is the arrival of the survivors in the
harbor of Macao on the Chinese coast.
The
successor of the murdered Nilof was Major Magnus Carl
von Behm, who was appointed to the full command of Kamchatka by an imperial oukaz dated April 30, 1772, but he did not assume charge of
his district until the 15th of October of the following year, having met with
detention in his progress through Siberia.
In
1776 the name of Grigor Ivanovich Shelikof is first mentioned among the
merchants engaged in operations on the islands and coast of north-west America.
This man, who has justly been called the founder of the Russian colonies on
this continent, first came to Okhotsk from Kiakhta on
the Chinese frontier and formed a partnership with Lebedef-Lashtochkin for the purpose of hunting and trading on the Kurile Islands. This field,
however, was not large enough for Shelikof’s ambition, and forming another
partnership with one Luka Alin, he built a vessel at Nishekamchatsk,
named it of course the Sv Pavel, and despatched it to the islands. Another vessel of
the same name was fitted out by the most fortunate of all the Siberian
adventurers, Orekhof, Lapin, and Shilof.
The command was given to Master Gerassim Grigorovich Ismailof, a man who subsequently figures prominently in
explorations of Alaska, and of whom Cook speaks in terms of high commendation.
Leaving
the discussion of the voyages of English and French explorers, which took place
about this time, to another chapter, we shall follow the movements of Siberian
traders and promyshleniki up to the point of final
amalgamation into a few powerful companies. In 1777 Shelikof, Solovief, and the Panof brothers
fitted out a vessel named the Barfolomei i Varnabas, which sailed from Nishekamchatsk and returned after an absence of four
years with a small cargo valued at 58,000 rubles. In the same year another
trader, who was to play a prominent part in the development of the Russian
colonies in the Pacific, first appears upon the scene. Ivan Larinovich Golikof, a merchant of the town of Kursk, who held
the office of collector of the spirits tax in the province of Irkutsk, formed a
partnership with Shelikof. At joint expense they built a ship named Sv Andrei Pervosvannui,
that is to say St Andrew the First called, which sailed from Petropavlovsk for
the Aleutian Islands. This vessel was subsequently wrecked, but the whole
cargo, valued at 133,450 rubles, was saved. Another ship, the Zossima i Savatia, was despatched in
the same year by Yakof Protassof, but after remaining
four years on the nearest Aleutian isles, the expedition returned with a small
cargo valued at less than 50,000 rubles. In 1778 the two Panof brothers associated themselves with Arsenius Kuznetzof,
also one of the former companions of Benyovski, and
constructed a vessel named the Sv Nikolai, which sailed from Petropavlovsk. This craft was absent seven years and finally
rewarded the patience of the owners with a rich cargo consisting of 2,521
sea-otters, 230 land-otters, and 3,300 foxes of various kinds. The
same firm despatched another vessel in the same
year, the Kliment, which returned in 1785 with a cargo of 1,118 seaotters,
500 land-otters, and 830 foxes. The commander of this expedition was Ocheredin.
The
ship Sv Ioann Predtecha,
or St John the Forerunner, belonging to Shelikof and Golikof,
sailed from Petropavlovsk in 1779, and remained absent six years without
proceeding beyond the nearest Aleutian Islands, finally returning to Okhotsk
with a cargo of little value. In the following year the brothers Panof fitted out once more the Sv Yevpl. This old craft was wrecked on her return
voyage not far from Kamchatka, but the cargo, valued at 70,000 rubles, was
saved and brought into port by another vessel.
With
the funds realized from the sale of the cargo of the Sv Pavel Shelikof had constructed another craft, with the intention of
extending his operations among the islands. The vessel was named the Sv Ioann Rylskoi,
St John of Rylsk, and sailed from Petropavlovsk in
1780.
The Sv Prokop, fitted out by the merchants Shuralef and Krivorotof, also
sailed in 1780, but was wrecked on the coast of Kamchatka soon after leaving
Okhotsk. Four vessels sailed for the islands in 1781, the Sv Pavel, despatched for the second time by Shelikof
and Alin; the Sv Alexei, despatched by the merchant Popof;
the Alexandr Nevski, belonging to the firm of Orekhof, Lapin, and Shilof; and Sv Georgiy, fitted out by Lebedef-Lastochkin and Shelikof, wherein Pribylof made the
all-important discovery of the Fur Seal Islands in 1786, which will be duly
discussed in its chronological order. For 1782 only one departure of a
trading-vessel for the islands has been recorded. This vessel was fitted out by
Yakov Protassof at Nishekamchatsk. Lebedef-Lastochkin organized a special company in
1783 for the purpose of extending his operations on the islands. The capital of
this enterprise was divided into sixty-five shares, most of them being in Lebedef’s hands.
In
1783 the first direct attempt was made by the Russian traders to extend their
operations to the mainland of America, to the northward and eastward of
Kadiak. The fur-bearing animals had for some years been rapidly disappearing
from the Aleutian Islands and the lower peninsula, and despairing of further
success on the old hunting-grounds the commanders of three vessels then
anchored at Unalaska came to the conclusion that it was best to embark on new
discoveries. They met and agreed to submit themselves to the leadership of
Potap Zaikof, a navigator of some reputation, and
leave to him the selection of new hunting grounds. These vessels were the Sv Alexei, commanded by Eustrate Delarof; the Sv Mikhail, under Polutof, and the Alexander Nevski, commanded by Zaikof. The latter had learned from
Captain Cook and his companions during their sojourn in Kamchatka that they
had discovered a vast gulf on the coast of America and named it Prince William
Sound. To this point he concluded to shape his course.
On
the 27th of July the three ships were towed to anchorage in a small cove,
probably on the north side of Kaye Island, which, as they subsequently discovered,
was named Kyak by the natives. Boats and bidarkas
were sent out at once in various directions in search of game and of
inhabitants—the few natives observed on entering the bay having fled to the
hills at sight of the Russians. On the third day one of the detached parties
succeeded in bringing to the ships a girl and two small children, but it was not
until the middle of August that anything like friendly intercourse could be
established, and the natives induced to trade peltries.
On
the 18th the bidarchik Nagaief returned to the anchorage with quite a number of sea-otter skins, all made into
garments, and reported the discovery of a large river—the Atnah,
or Copper—which he had ascended for some distance. He had met with a large body
of natives in a bidar and traded with them, both parties landing on the beach
at a distance of six hundred fathoms from each other and then meeting half-way.
These people informed him that at their home was a safe harbor for ships,
referring of course to Nuchek, where both English and
Spanish ships had already called. Many days were spent by Zaikof in futile attempts to secure a native guide to the safe harbor mentioned as
having already been visited by ships, but bribes and promises proved of no
avail, and at last he set out in the direction of the island of Khta-aluk (Nuchek), plainly
visible to the westward. The commanders of the two other ships must have
sailed before him and cruised about Prince William Sound—named gulf of Chugach
by the Russians—in search of hunting-grounds, and this scattering of forces
beyond the bounds of proper control proved dangerous, for the Chugatsches were not only fiercer than the Aleuts, but they
seemed to entertain positive ideas of proprietary rights.
The
combined crews of the three vessels, numbering over three hundred, including
Aleut hunters, would surely have been able to withstand any attack of the
poorly armed Chugatsches and to protect their hunting
parties, but they wandered about in small detachments, committing outrages
whenever they came upon a village with unprotected women and children. The
Russians, who had for some time been accustomed to overcome all opposition on
the part of the natives with comparative ease, imagined that their superior
arms would give them the same advantage here. They soon discovered their
mistake. The Chugatsches, as well as their allies
from Cook Inlet, and even from Kadiak, summoned by fleet messengers for the
occasion, showed little fear of Russian guns, and used their own spears and
arrows to such advantage that the invaders were themselves beaten in several
engagements.
In
the harbor of Nuchek Nagaief met twenty-eight men from the Panof company’s ship,
the Alexei, fourteen of whom had been wounded by the Chugatsches during a night attack. They had left their ships on the 15th of August, a month
previous, in search of this bay, numbering thirty-seven men, besides peredovchik Lazaref, who was in
command, but had searched in vain. One dark night, while encamped on an island,
their sentries had been surprised, nine men killed, and half of the remainder
wounded. With the greatest difficulty only had they succeeded at last in
beating off with their fire-arms their assailants armed merely with spears,
bows and arrows, and clubs. Other encounters took place. On the 18th of September
one of the parties of Russians surprised a native village on a small island;
the men fled to the mountains, leaving women, children, and stores of
provisions. The considerate promyshleniki seized
“only half” the females—probably not the oldest—and some of the food. During
the next night, however, the men of the village, with reenforcements from the neighborhood, attacked the Russian camp, killing three Russians and
a female interpreter from Unalaska, and wounding nine men. During the struggle
all the hostages thus far obtained by capture escaped, with the exception of
four women and two small boys. The Russians now proceeded to the harbor
selected as winter-quarters, and active operations ceased for the
time.
The
favorable season had been so foolishly wasted in roaming about and quarrelling
with the natives, who took good care not to reveal to their unwelcome visitors
the best fishing and hunting grounds, that food became scarce early in the
winter. Besides this it was found necessary to keep one third of the force
continually under arms to guard against sudden assaults; and this hostility
naturally interfered with the search for the necessary supplies of fish,
game, fuel, and water. The result was that scurvy of a very malignant type
broke out among the crews, and nearly one half of the men died before spring released
them and enabled Zaikof to refit his vessel and sail
for the Aleutian isles, after an experience fully as dismal as that encountered
a few years later, in nearly the same locality, by Captain Meares, who might
have saved himself much misfortune had he known of Zaikof’s attempt and its disastrous result.
Thus
unfortunately ended the attempt of the Russians to gain a foothold upon the
continental coast of America.
The
only subordinate commander of this expedition who seems to have actually
explored and intelligently described these unknown regions, was Nagaief, the discoverer of Copper River. Nearly all the
valuable information contained in Zaikof’s journal
came from this man.
This
failure to extend their field of operations seriously checked the spirit of
enterprise which had hitherto manifested itself among the Siberian merchants,
and for some time only one small vessel was despatched from Siberia for the Aleutian Islands.
The
year 1786, as already mentioned, witnessed the discovery of the Fur Seal
Islands, the breeding-ground of the seals, and therefore of the highest
importance. The Russian promyshleniki who first
visited the Fox Islands soon began to surmise the existence of some islands in
the north by observing the annual migration of the fur-seals through the
passes between certain of the islands—northward in the spring and southward in
the autumn, when they were accompanied by their young. This surmise was
confirmed by an Aleut tradition to the effect that a young chieftain of Unimak
had once been cast away on a group of islands in the north, which they called
Amik. The high peaks of his native place had guided him back after a short
stay. While furs remained abundant on the groups already known, none chose to
expose himself in frail boats to seek new lands; but in and after 1781 the
rapid depletion of the hunting-grounds led to many a search for Amik; yet while
it lay within two days’ sail from the southern isles, a friendly mist long hid
the home of the fur-seals from the hunters.
In
1786 this search was joined by Master Gerassim Pribylof, who for five years had been hunting and trading
with little profit on the islands, in the Sv Georgiy, fitted out by Lebedef-Lastochkin and his
partners. Although reputed a skillful navigator, he cruised for over three
weeks around the Amik group without finding them, though constantly meeting
with unmistakable evidence of the close proximity of land. At last, in the
first days of June, fate favored the persistent explorer; the mantle of fog was
lifted and before him loomed the high coast of the eastern end of the most
southern island. The discovery was named St George, after Pribylof’s vessel; but finding no anchorage the commander ordered the peredovchik Popof and all the hunters to land, with a supply of
provisions for the winter, while he stood away again for the Aleutian Islands,
there to spread such reports as to keep others from following his path.
The
shores of St George literally swarmed with sea-otters, which undisturbed so far
by human beings could be killed as easily as those of Bering Island during the
first winter after its discovery. Large numbers of walrus were secured on the
ice and upon the adjoining small islands; arctic foxes could be caught by hand,
and with the approach of summer the furseals made their appearance by
thousands.
On
the 29th of June, 1787, an unusually clear atmosphere enabled the promyshleniki to see for the first time the island of St
Paul, thirty miles to the northward; and the sea being smooth a bidar was at
once despatched to examine the new discovery. The
party landed upon the other island the same day, and named it St Peter and St
Paul, the saints of the day. The first half of the name, however,
was soon lost in popular usage and only St Paul retained. The group was known
as the Pribylof.
While
Shelikof was one of the partners who had fitted out the Sv Georgiy, he does not appear to have held a large interest and looked with
no little envy on the success achieved by what must be regarded as rivals to
his own company. He did not waste much time, however, in unpleasant sentiments,
but set about at once to secretly buy up more shares in the Lebedef company. In this undertaking he succeeded so well that he could look with
equanimity upon the fierce rivalry growing up between the two large firms; no
matter which side gained an advantage, he felt secure. He was certainly the
first who fully understood the actual and prospective value of Pribylof’s discovery, the first year the hunters obtained
on the newly discovered
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