and at an early date in the foreign occupation of Alaska became a basis for supplies.
The entire fur trade in Russian America was placed by charter in the hands of the Russian-American Fur Company in 1799, which, like the Hudson's Bay Company, had territorial jurisdiction as well as trade monopoly. This powerful company maintained its existence under various renewals of its charter until the purchase of Alaska by the United States in 1867. The authority conferred on the Russian company gave it exclusive right to purchase furs from the natives, and thus to dictate prices. This system was fraught with evil to the natives, and their extinction would no doubt have resulted had it not been for the influence of missionaries of the Russian-Greek Church, among whom the name of Veniaminoff will ever be held in blessed memory. In a measure the gross oppression of the Russians brought its own punishment to the offenders. The decrease in the number of the Aleutians meant a decline in the number of pelts secured. To insure the gathering of the highly prized furs the native hunters must be maintained. The later days of Russian occupation were characterized by more humane treatment of the natives, schools were established among them, liquors withheld, and their rapid decline checked. When Alaska was purchased by the United States the Russian-American Fur Company was supplanted by the Alaskan Commercial Company, to whom a lease of the Pribilof Islands was granted. In this lease provision was made for the support and education of the Aleutians on the Pribilof Islands. As the chief and almost the sole employment open to the Aleutians during the past thirty years has been the taking of sealskins on these islands, this wise provision had a beneficent influence on the entire tribe. How faithfully the Alaskan Commercial Company carried out its contract has been seriously questioned, but it is, nevertheless, a fact that the Aleutians have fared better under American than under Russian rule. A gradual adverse change in their condition has come about, however, owing to the decrease and threatened extinction of the sea-otter, and the great decline in the number of the fur-seals owing to the attacks made
on them during their annual migrations, which amounts to commercial extinction. The lucrative industries of the natives have thus practically disappeared, and there is nothing to take their place. The surviving members are objects of charity, but as yet the United States Government has made no adequate provision for their support. One method of ameliorating the existing adverse conditions that is practicable is the introduction of domesticated reindeer; another, not so easy to accomplish, is the suppression of the liquor traffic.
The Indians
The aborigines of the New World to the southward of the narrow strip of arctic coast-land inhabited by the Eskimo are designated by the term Indian, as already explained. There is no sharp line of demarcation between the Indians of North and South America, one shading into the other, but only those of the northern continent are here considered.
In many scientific treatises, as well as in books of travel and general literature, the Indians are frequently referred to as "red men," and the term "copper coloured" commonly applied to them. To the writer each of these expressions seems infelicitous. It is true that throughout America the Indians have a reddish undertone in their colour, but in numerous tribes it is not pronounced. As to copper colour, the meaning of the term is vague. What is copper colour? Presumably the colour of the pure metal when unoxidized. No such colour is more than suggested even by the aborigines having the lightest skins in the members of the many tribes that have come under the writer's notice. A more correct term—but this is a matter of opinion, in which differences are permissible—would be brown, of which many shades occur, ranging from light cinnamon colour to dark chocolate, and even nearly black. There is no recognisable connection between variations in colour and climatic conditions. The faces, hands, and other freely exposed portions of their bodies are darker than the parts usually covered with clothing, and frequently suggest the appearance of bronze statutes
not fully darkened by exposure to the weather. In colour they more nearly approach that of the Polynesians than any other peoples, but in general are of a darker hue. The members of the various Indian tribes, although presenting a wide range of differences, have many physiological and mental resemblances, which, like their languages, serve to set them apart from all other peoples. A composite picture of their persons would show a man sinewy rather than heavy in build, but there are many exceptions; of average stature, 5 feet 8 or 10 inches, but there are tribes whose average is more, and others in which it is less; dark brown, with a reddish undertone, in colour; deep-set, black, and in general small eyes, their alignment straight; the nose prominent and frequently well shaped; mouth large, with strong, frequently perfect teeth; lower jaw massive; and face beardless or nearly so, and the hair of the scalp long, coarse, and black. In order to make such a sketch realistic, the bronze-like athletic figure must be clothed in a blanket worn with the grace of a Roman toga or wrapped in a robe of bison-skin; the feet encased in moccasins of tanned deerskin, and usually decorated with beads or variously coloured porcupine-quills; the face striped, dotted, or blotched with various colours; the coarse hair falling like a thatch to the shoulder, or braided, and in certain tribes shaved or plucked, except only the traditional scalp-lock, and decorated with feathers, most frequently of the eagle; necklaces, rings in the ears, amulets, etc., made of the claws of the bear, shells, beads, quills, etc., bespeak various tribes; the primitive weapons were the hatchet-like tomahawk, the bow and arrow, and the spear. The Indian has been idealized in the writings of poets and novelists, but occasionally, even at the present day, one meets with an approach to the ideal. Judged by the standards of civilization, as he is seen to-day on numerous reservations and about the streets of towns, he is a lazy, dirty vagabond. A far more favourable and agreeable picture is presented, especially in the eastern portion of Canada and adjacent States to the south and in the Indian Territory, where the blessings of civilization have been accepted and the once roaming savage has become a tiller of the soil, an owner of
cattle and sheep, and lives in a comfortable house supplied with furniture such as white men use.
While a racial likeness impossible to conceal unites all of the various tribes, no single picture or generalized description, however carefully prepared, can convey to one unfamiliar with the Indian an accurate idea of his personal appearance. A typical example from one tribe when critically studied is found to differ widely from an equally representative example of another tribe, not only in speech, dress, methods of wearing the hair, ornaments, etc., but also in physique and in mental traits.
In temperament the Indian is usually described as being moody, reserved, wary, grave, and his face expressionless, the current of his thoughts being unrevealed in his proud, indifferent bearing. In his own mind he seems to consider himself superior to all other beings, and to regard them with contemptuous indifference. All this is true enough as seen by a stranger, but in his home life, and not infrequently when in the presence of trusted white men, the mask of indifference is laid aside and the laugh and jest indulged in. The extreme of assumed indifference is exhibited, as has been well attested by many witnesses, when death by torture is inflicted on a captive, as, for example, burning alive, when no outward sign is permitted to reveal his intense suffering.