The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-06-11

The Condition OF the Natives and Their
EAn~aftnn.

Education
Mr.. and Mrs. W. Z. Roscoe and their thre<
children, Of Kodiak, Alaska, are at the Airing
ton hotel Five years ago Mr.. Roscoe, who IL Z
native Of California went to Kodiak to open and
take charge of q government school there, and
he Is now making his first trip home. This
Kodiak islands lie some 600 miles west Of sitka
and until Mr.. Roscoe went there no government
school had been established "The children are
learning quite readily" said he last evening
''and are making satisfactory progress.
ave have a mixed population. The natives
are called Aleutes, but they are really Esqui
maux, nothing more, nothing less The Rus.
slams came into the Kodiak islands, and there
are many haif-breeds-Russian and Esquinau.
Lately Scandinavians have entered the islands,
and marrying with the natives and the half
breeds have produced o new strain of blood.
Many OF the children are perfectly white.
1.-THE main industry Is the salmon canning.
Year before last nearly 100000 cases OF salmon
were sent down from the Kodiak islands, and
last year about 10000. The seal fishing Is also
an important matter. You see Kodiak is In the
outside of Bering sea and no one can interfere
with the sealing there IN open ocean. So far as
can learn there Is no apparent diminution In
the number of seals about the Kodiak islands.
Indeed, the catch this year II better than for
some time before
"There Is no mining on the islands at present,
although some promising gold and silver pros
poets have been found. Then, too, there are
good veins of coal at various points along the
whole Alaskan coast.
"The English language 10 fast becoming
dominant in all of Alaska. There was time
not many years ago when the Russian tongue
was In common use, and in the Kodiak ialands
1t is still more generally employed than
the English. But the latter has come into
sitka and is rapidly gaining ground even in
rlf ak~ 49, S~lo
on the streets use English expressions In talk
ing to each other. OF course we teach them
that in the school At FIRST their ignorance Of
the language made 1t hard for Us to teach them
other lessons, but they are going ahead steadily
in reading, writing, arithmetic and geography.
1t is difficult for them to do much In the way OF
mathematics
''One of my objects In coming to the states Is
to get either the government or some OF the
missionary societies interested in q school and
orphanage which ! wish to see established at
Kodiak. The fact Is that drink is making ter
rible ravages among the natives. They have q
beer OF their own which is pretty bad, and
added to that the Chinese employed in the can
neries have brought in a Chinese whisky. The
natives, who will buy this at any
price, also get liquor of the sailors.
These Aleutes seem unable to stand the
effect of alcohol, and ere really diving rapidly.
Sometimes whole family will die, and orphan
boys and girls with no one to look after them
are common enough. They grow up in filth,
ignorance and vice, and become worse even
than their parents were.
"To prevent this Generalization I wish TO
establish an orphanage and school where these
children may be trained and educated. The
orphans could be cared for then, and such pso-
pie as could pay for an education could get
It there. should also like to see an industrial
department in which the boys and girls could
be taught trades.
1.-THE influence of the Russian church on thu
Aleutes seems to me far from good. The priests
are drunkards and immoral, and have never
tried to elevate the people. They insist, how
ever, on the observance of about 200 great days,
on which occasion they and their charges get
intoxicated. On the whole these observances
are very demoralizing"