Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1890-11-14

U. 5. district Judge, rendered a decision |
in which the issue was determined on the |
suppostion that they were not Indians |
SO their treatment in general has not |
been like the treatment of the Indians of
the plains. The tribal relation has never |
been recognized. No Indian agents have
ever perpetrated their outrages in Alaska.
The natives haye never been educated |
into pauperism and servile dependence |
upon the government for means of sub
slstence, but they are Independent, self
supporting and self-respecting. In some
respects they resemble the Indians of the
central portions of North America. and
they have sometimes been treated as
such. But what will be the policy of
the government in its future deelings
with them it is difficult to forecast. The
treaty of purchase recognizes them as
individual residents of the land, and not
tribes from whom the land must be OBJ
tanned by treaty and purchase. 1t seems
to be the general opinion that their rights
will be ignored and that they will be
driven back without remuneration, or
exterminated without pity, at the con-
venience of their stronger neighbors, the
whites. Meanwhile the national Con-
gress, year after year, busies itself with
questions of coming silver and deciding
upon taxes on iute and hemp, and for
twenty-three years, almost a generation,
these people have been neglected and
almost ignored except when their wishes
conflicted with the schemes of the
dominant race and friction resulted, in
which cases they have been promptly
treated to liberal doses of cold iron from
the gunboats ard their villages and canoes
have been ruthlessly destroyed, the inno-
cent suffering with the guilty. Mean
while their legal and political status re-
main unsettled as before.
The neglect and Indifference of the
national government to the welfare of
these peoples, which has permitted them
to shift for themselves without law,
without facilities for carrying on the
ordinary transactions of civilized life,
and refusing to recognize rights of
property In land which constitutes one of
the most potent factors in determining
the civilization of any people, may not
be considered strange or unusual to those
who reduce all values to the standard Of
dollars and cents, but even they find the
positions taken by the government to be
! dol In, via nft ho
commercial Importance of the territory.
No bureau of statistics has prepared
tables of the business and we can only
gather few initial facts from which in
ferences may be drawn to give light upon
the subject. In 1889 the exports of the
territory amounted to nearly ten millions
of dollars. The salmon canning business
of Alaska alone is an important one. The
80 cannerieS represent capital OF more
than S4.000,000. Their pack in 1889
amounted to the enormous sum of 1923
cases of four dozen one'round cans each,
which were exported. Add to this the
sailed and dried salmon sold and used by
the people of the territory, not less than
6,0OO. 900 rounds, and we find the value
of this one product to be about S3,S34,-
600. In the canning and sailing business
there were employed between 2000 and
1000 Cinnamon, 400 or 500 white men and
more than 1000 natives. The canneries
employed about 3G steam tugs, GO to 20
large fishing scows, about 800 small boats,
and had 50 vessels engaged during the
season in transporting their freights to
and from San Francisco, where they
marketed their products.
The whaling fleet going into the Artic
in 1889 numbered At vessels. nine of
which were steamers, and the other fish
ing enterprises embrace cod, mackerel
and halibut fishing, manufacturing oil
and fish fertilizers from herring and the
catching of porpoises, sharks, trout,
capelin. anchovy, etc. These are samples
of the business of the territory, of which
some of those not described form no UNI
important feature, as, for instance, the
mining, hunting of seals, and other fur
bearing animals, the manufacture of
lumber ana the various mecnanlcal traueS
and mercantile pursuits incident to all
communities.
1t is anticipated that if Congress ever
does afford Alaska relief from its very
depressing condition of no land titles,
almost no postal facilities, insufficient
laws and want of facilities for the efficient
administration of the government, an
impetus will be given to its industries,
the cultivation of the soil will follow,
and thrift and prosperity will be manifest
in every town and hamlet in the ter
ritory.
One other feature of life in Alaska
ought to be referred to and that shall end
this inGiction upon your readers. The
! interest felt in the welfare of the native