REPORT OF POPULATION AND RESOURCES OF ALASKA AT THE ELEVENTH CENSUS: 1890 WASHINGTON, D.C. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1893 Submitted by Barb Ziegenmeyer LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, CENSUS OFFICE, WASHINGTON, D. C., February 9, 1893. SIR: I have the honor herewith to transmit the report on the population and resources of Alaska. This remote portion of our territory presents difficulties in the way of enumeration scarcely conceivable in the older portion of the country. On an estimated area greater than that of all the states north of Tennessee and east of the Mississippi there is a population less than in most single counties of the populous east. Let one imagine that all railroads and wagon roads, all vehicles and horses, were here wanting; let him imagine that enumerators could only reach this eastern section by a coasting vessel or pierce its interior by the Ohio river; let him imagine this section pushed north till its upper portion was in almost perpetual frost and its one navigable river was open but a few weeks in a year, and he can begin to measure the obstacles met in mountainous Alaska. A part of the people are migratory, and the same band is liable to be reported from two places, or a spot correctly reported as populated is liable to be found desolate when visited later. The Census Office has endeavored to reduce the elements of error to the lowest possible limit. The number of white persons who have gone 5 miles from the vessel on which they were viewing the magnificent coast scenery, or prospecting on the Yukon river in the brief interval when its icy bond is loosed, is exceedingly small. A goodly number of men know intimately some portion of Alaska. It is safe to say that no one man can speak from personal knowledge of all portions. The local enumeration as far as possible was put in the hands of men personally familiar with their fields of labor. After great difficulties, often in peril, in canoe and other travel along uncharted routes, they have made the returns which are aggregated in this report. The resources of Alaska, its fisheries and mines, are important to the nation.   Before another census it is hoped that the facilities for their accurate determination will be greatly improved, and that at least the more stable population of the southeastern portion will be in easy communication with the rest of the country. I have the honor to be, sir, respectfully yours, ROBERT P. PORTER, Superintendent of Census. Hon. JOHN W. NOBLE, Secretary of the Interior. INTRODUCTION. To take the census of Alaska even at this date, after 23 years of possession by the United States, involves a special condition in statistics. We are all familiar with the favorite illustration by means of parallel columns differing in color and length and denoting increase or decrease of population in successive periods of enumeration. In dealing with Alaskan statistics of population we have no previous diagram to which we may refer, not even a solitary column of definite figures upon which to build or base our present structure. The people who discovered the region now known as Alaska, and who held it for nearly one and a half centuries, never knew nor even tried to ascertain the number of all the people therein contained. Yitus Bering, who commanded the Russian naval expedition which discovered the northwestern extremity of the American continent, never saw any of its people, and sacrificed his life upon an uninhabited island which still bears his name. Captain Alexis Chirikof, who commanded the second vessel of Bering's expedition, saw a few canoes filled with Thlingit warriors, probably on the coast of Baranof island, who approached his ship after having decoyed and massacred 2 boats' crews of his command. On his return voyage Chirikof and his officers saw a few natives belonging to one of the islands of the Shumagin group, and a few more belonging to islands of the Aleutian chain; but they made no estimate as to the probable population of the country they had discovered for their imperial mistress. After the discovery of Alaska had been accomplished and duly heralded to the world the Russian imperial government rested upon its glory for many years, leaving it to the enterprise and courage of its hardy Siberian and Kamchatkan pioneers to develop the new discovery. As the horde of fur hunters advanced from island to island along the Aleutian chain in their frail boats of fir planks lashed together with rawhide thongs they observed and reported a multitude of good-natured savages at nearly every point visited in the course of their dangerous voyages, but did not venture upon estimates. The first government officials to visit this newly discovered domain of Russia were Captains Krenitzin and Levashef, of the Russian navy, who explored a few of the Aleutian islands and the western extremity of the Alaskan peninsula. These men included in their report some rather vague statistics as to population, but asserted quite positively that even at that early date the population had decreased at least one-half since the advent of the Russian fur hunters. This expedition performed its work during the years 1768 and 1769. Previous to this, in 1762, one of the "irrepressible" Kamchatkan traders had already reached the island of Kadiak, which he reported as thickly inhabited. 22 years later, in 1784, Grigor Shelikof, the founder of the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska, established himself on Kadiak island, and reported to the empress that "by his discovery he had increased her subjects by the number of 50,000 natives, eager to adopt the Christian faith and to surrender themselves to the maternal care of his august mistress". The earliest actual count of any Alaskan natives now on record was made by Eustratus Delarof, a Greek, employed as general agent by the fur company formed by Shelikof. This enumeration, which comprised all the villages on Kadiak island and one or two settlements on the mainland opposite, was taken in the year 1792, and resulted in a total of 6,510 of both sexes. Another count taken 4 years later, in 1796, by order of Alexander Baranof, the "father of the Russian colonies in North America", and covering nearly the same ground, footed up 6,200. Captain Sarychef, one of the officers of the exploring expedition commanded by Admiral Joseph Billings, of the Russian navy, was instructed to enumerate the natives of the Aleutian islands in 1792. He reported 2,500 of both sexes, but an actual count made but a few years later at the instance of the imperial chamberlain, Nicholas Eezanof, resulted in reducing this figure to 1,492. At the time of Baranof's retirement from the management of the Russian colonies in North America, his immediate successor, Captain Hagemeister, of the Russian navy, ordered an enumeration of the natives, including, of course, only those tribes over which the Russian American Company had absolute control. Of this partial census we have two returns differing slightly in their totals. The first, dated 1818, shows an aggregate of 8,893 (4,452 males, 4,441 females), the second return, dated 1819, shows an aggregate of 14,019, including, however, an estimate of 5,000 Thlingits, omitted from the previous document. ' The next enumeration of Alaskan natives was dated 1822 and foots up 8,286, again omitting the Thlingits, who at that time successfully defied Russian authority. Baron Wrangell, chief manager of the Russian colonies, forwarded to the imperial government under date of January 1, 1825, a statement of the native population under his control, aggregating 8,481 of both sexes. In the year 1830 Veniaminof, the " apostle of Alaska", published a statement of the fluctuations of the population in the districts of Kadiak and the Aleutian islands between the years 1781 and 1830. According to this document the population of the Kadiak district had decreased within the period mentioned from 6,510 to 3,396, while in the Aleutian district the number of people had declined less rapidly, being given as 1,900 in 1781 and 1,460 in 1830. In 1831 a complete census of the inhabitants of the Aleutian islands was taken by the same priest, Veniaminof, giving a total of 1,515. 4 years later Veniaminof, who was then stationed at Sitka, made an estimate of the number of Thlingits, aggregating 5,850, which comes remarkably close to the total of our census to-day. In 1839 Veniaminof furnished for the first time a well considered estimate, including the total population of the country now called Alaska. This estimate was published in full in the Alaska volume of the Tenth Census, and furnishes a remarkable instance of close estimate, as well as reasoning, in every detail. His figures showing the strength of the various tribes and races are almost what we now know them to be, while his total of 39,813 was probably but little below the actual truth at the time of his writing. Though objections may be made to certain details of this estimate, the statement as a whole must convince us that Veniaminof then had a better conception of the population of Russian America in his day than was exhibited by the compilers of the numerous official reports furnished the imperial government by the Russian American Company during many succeeding years. From this time forward no detailed population statistics of the Russian colonies were published, beyond the fictitious total of 56,000 reported in the brief biennial reports of the chief managers of the Russian American Company, until the year 1860. In that year the Holy Synod, the highest ecclesiastical tribunal of the Russian empire, published in the annual report a census of Christians in Russian America as furnished by priests and missionaries stationed in the colonies. This report showed a total of 9,845 (5,127 males and 4,718 females), exclusive of Russian employees of the company. RUSSIAN CENSUS OF 1860 (CIVILIZED PEOPLE OF RUSSIAN COLONIES) [ Taken from Report of committee on Organization of Russian American Colonies. Volume 11) Districts Aggregate Russians Creoles Aleuts Kenaitz Kuskokwim and Aglemiut Chugatz and Cooper River   Total Male Fem. Total Male Fem. Total Male Fem. Total Male Fem. Total Male Fem. Total Male Fem. Total Male Fem. Total 9,845 5,127 4,718 557 493  64 1,886  921  965 4,486 2,268 2,218 931 440 491 1,398 699 699 587 306 281 Sitka 1,021   669    352 452 389  63   505  249  256      64      31      33  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- Kadiak 5,944 2,994 2,950  67   66   1   871  431  440 2,148 1,081 1,067 931 440 491 1,340 670 670 587 306 281 Unalaska 1,770    881    889    4     4   --   255  125  130 1,511   752    759  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- Atka   964    495    469    4    4   --   197   87  110   763   404    359  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- St. Michael   146      88      58  30  30   --    58   27    39    --   --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  --  -- During the last few years of the occupation of Alaska by the Russian American Company much confusion seems to have entered into the returns made by various colonial and imperial inspecting officers. We have two returns dated January 1, 1802, showing the same total of 10,150, but differing very much in the details of distribution. One of these re ?mis? enumerates the people by race and tribe, the otherby districts; both were printed in Tikhmeniefs Historical Review. In the second volume of this work, published in 1863, a table appears under the heading of "Population statistics of inhabitants of Russian America dependent upon and actually counted by the Russian American Company". This statement covers the years from 1830 to 1863, inclusive, and varies but little in its totals. For the year 1830 we find 10,327. About the middle of the period mentioned, in the year 1845, we find the population at to lowest, 7,224, while the highest point was reached in 1837 with 11,022. For 1863 the total is given as 10,125. We have still another count of the inhabitants of Alaska, taken under the auspices of the Russian government, in the report of a special inspector, Kostlivtzof. In this statement the total of inhabitants known and counted is given as 7,934 on January 1, 1863, 2,191 less than the company's report for the same year. To this total Kostlivtzof adds an exaggerated estimate of the Atna or Copper River Indians to the number of 2,500 and of Thlingits aggregating 20,000, making a total of 30,434, thus reaching by the wildest estimate an approximately truthful result as to the total.   This completes the population statistics transmitted to us from Russian sources. The first official table of population issued subsequent to the acquisition of Alaska by the United States formed part of the report of Major General II. W. Halleck, of the United States army, by means of unconscious duplication of tribes under similar names and the insertion of a few imaginary ones, added to the wildest exaggeration in estimating the number of Athapascans, this officer succeeded in footing up a total of 82,400 people in Alaska. In the same year, 1808, Rev. Vincent Collyer, in his report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, reproduced General Halleck's table, and added a special estimate of the Thliuyit tribes, furnished him by a trader named Mahoney. This estimate shows a total of 11,900 Thlingits.