XXI “A Ship! A Ship!”
While Lewis and Clark were making preparations to leave Fort Clatsop, all unknown to them a ship was trying to cross the bar into the Columbia River. And what a tale had she to tell,—of hunger, misery, despair, and death at Sitka.
Since 1787 the Boston ships had been trading along these shores. In that year 1792, when Captain Robert Gray discovered the Columbia River, there were already twenty-one American ships in the Pacific northwest.
In May, 1799, the Boston brig Caroline, Captain Cleveland, was buying furs in Sitka Sound, when coasting along over from the north came the greatest of all the Russians, Alexander von Baranof, with two ships and a fleet of bidarkas.
“What now will you have?” demanded the Sitka chief, as the expedition entered the basin of Sitka Sound.
“A place to build a fort and establish a settlement for trade,” answered Baranof.
“A Boston ship is anchored below and buying many skins,” answered the chief. But presents were distributed, a trade was made, and Russian axes began felling the virgin forest on the sides of Verstova.
The next day Captain Cleveland visited Baranof at his fort building.
“Savages!” echoed Captain Cleveland to Baranof’s comment on the natives. “I should say so. I have but ten men before the mast, but on account of the fierce character of these Indians I have placed a screen of hides around the ship, that they may not see the deck nor know how few men I have. Two pieces of cannon are in position and a pair of blunderbusses on the taffrail.”
But the land was rich in furs. It was this that brought Baranof over from Kadiak.
In three years Sitka was a strong fort, but in June, 1802, in the absence of Baranof, it was attacked one day by a thousand Indians armed with muskets bought of the Boston traders.
In a few hours the fort, a new ship in the harbour, warehouses, cattle sheds, and a bathhouse were burnt to ashes. The poor dumb cattle were stuck full of lances.
A terrible massacre accompanied the burning. To escape suffocation the Russians leaped from the flaming windows only to be caught on the uplifted lances of the savage Sitkas. Some escaped to the woods, when an English vessel providentially appeared and carried the few remaining survivors to Kadiak.
That autumn two new ships arrived from Russia with hunters, labourers, provisions, and news of Baranof’s promotion by the czar.
Tears coursed down the great man’s weather-beaten cheeks. “I am a nobleman; but Sitka is lost! I do not care to live; I will go and either die or restore the possessions of my august benefactor.”
Then back came Baranof to Sitka on his errand of vengeance, with three hundred bidarkas and six small Russian ships, to be almost wrecked in Sitka Sound. Here he was joined by the Neva just out from Kronstadt, the first to carry the Russian flag around the world.
Upon the hill where Sitka stands to-day, the Indians had built a fort of logs piled around with tangled brush. On this the Russians opened fire. But no reply came. With one hundred and fifty men and several guns, Baranof landed in the dense woods to take the fort by storm. Then burst the sheeted flame. Ten Russians were killed and twenty-six wounded. But for the fleet, Baranof’s career would have ended on that day.
But in time ships with cannon were more than a match for savages armed with Boston muskets. Far into the night a savage chant was wafted into the air—the Alaskans had surrendered. At daylight all was still. No sound came from the shore, and when the Russians visited the Indian hill, the fort was filled with slaughtered bodies of infant children, slain by their own parents who felt themselves unable to carry them and escape. The Indian fort was immediately burned to the ground and on its site arose the Russian stronghold of Sitka Castle.
That new fort at Sitka was just finished and mounted with cannon the summer that Lewis and Clark came down the Columbia. Kitchen gardens were under cultivation and live stock thriving.
At Sitka that same autumn the Elizaveta arrived, with the Russian Imperial Inspector of Alaska on board, the Baron von Rezanof, “Chamberlain of the Russian Court and Commander of all America,” he called himself.
“What is this I hear of those Bostonians?” inquired the great Baron, unrolling long portraits of the Imperial family to be hung in Sitka Castle. “Those Bostonians, are they undermining our trade in furs with China?”
“Ah, yes,” answered Count Baranof, “the American republic is greatly in need of Chinese goods, Chinese teas and silks, which formerly had to be purchased in coin. But since these shores have been discovered with their abundance of furs, they are no longer obliged to take coin with them, but load their vessels with products of their own country.”
“All too numerous have become these Boston skippers on this northwest coast,” continued Von Rezanof in a decisive tone. “Frequent complaints have been made to the American President that his people are selling firearms to our Indians, but all to no purpose. It is an outrage. We are justified in using force. I recommend an armed brig to patrol these waters.”
Food supplies were low at Sitka that winter. No ship came. The Elizaveta dispatched to Kadiak for supplies returned no more. No flour, no fish, not even seal blubber for the garrisons, could be caught or purchased. They were eating crows and eagles and devil-fish. Just then, when a hundred cannon were loaded to sweep the Yankee skippers from the sea, a little Rhode Island ship came sailing into Sitka harbour.
“Shall we expel these American traders from the North Pacific?” demanded Von Rezanof.
“For the love of God, no!” cried Baranof. “That little ship is our saviour!”
Into the starving garrison the Yankee Captain De Wolf brought bread and beef, and raised the famine siege of Sitka Castle. Baranof bought the little ship, the Juno, with all her cargo, for eight thousand dollars in furs and drafts on St. Petersburg. In addition Rezanof gave De Wolf a sloop, the Ermak, to carry his men and furs to the Hawaiian Islands.
“God grant that they may not have paid dear for their rashness in trusting their lives to such a craft!” exclaimed Von Rezanof, as the gallant Yankee Captain spread sail and disappeared from Sitka harbour.
The Juno, a staunch, copper-bottomed fast vessel of two hundred six tons, built at Bristol, Rhode Island, in 1799, was now fitted out for the Russian trade and dispatched to Kadiak.
The storms that Lewis and Clark heard booming on the Oregon coast that winter, devastated Alaskan shores as well. When the breakers came thundering up the rocks and the winds shook Sitka Castle, Count Baranof in his stronghold could not sleep for thinking, “Oh, the ships!—the ships out on this stormy deep, laden with what I need so much!”
The little Juno returned from Kadiak with dried fish and oil, and news of disaster: “The Elizaveta has been wrecked in a heavy gale. Six large bidarkas laden with furs on the way to you went down. Two hundred hunters have perished at sea. Our settlement at Yakutat has been destroyed by an Indian massacre.”
“My God! My God!” Baranof cried, “how can we repair all these disasters!”
But ever and ever the gray sea boomed upon the shore where the wretched inmates of Sitka Castle were dying. The relief from the Juno was only temporary. By February not a pound of bread a day dared they distribute to the men.
Long since Rezanof had declared they must have an agricultural settlement. Now he fixed his eye on the Columbia River. Sitting there in the dreary castle he was writing to the czar, little dreaming that in a hundred years his very inmost thought would be read in America.
Starvation at Sitka was imminent,—it was impossible to delay longer. Into the stormy sea Rezanof himself set the Juno’s sail on his way to the Columbia.
While Lewis and Clark were writing out the muster roll to nail to the wall at Fort Clatsop for any passing ship, Rezanof was striving to cross the Columbia bar. None could see beyond the mists. Contrary winds blew, it rained, it hailed.
Rezanof sighted the Columbia March 14, 1806, but the current drove him back. Again on the 20th he tried to enter, and on the 21st, but the stormy river, like a thing of life, beat him back and beat him back, until the Russian gave it up, and four days later ran into the harbour of San Francisco.
In June he returned with wheat, oats, pease, beans, flour, tallow, and salt to the famished traders at Sitka.
But notwithstanding all these troubles, in 1805-6 Baranof dispatched to St. Petersburg furs valued at more than five hundred thousand roubles.
More and more the Boston traders came back to Alaskan waters. Baranof often found it easier to buy supplies from Boston than from Okhotsk.
“Furnish me with Aleutian hunters and bidarkas and I will hunt on shares for you,” proposed a Boston Captain.
“Agreed,” said Baranof, and for years fleets of bidarkas under Boston Captains hunted and trapped and traded for sea otter southward along Pacific shores.
“These Boston smugglers and robbers!” muttered the Spaniards of California. “Where do they hide themselves all winter? We know they are on our shores but never a glimpse can we get of their fleet.” Meanwhile the Boston traders on the coasts of California raked in the skins and furs, and sailing around by Hawaii reached Sitka in time for Spring sealing in the north.
Some hints of this reached the Russian Directory at St. Petersburg, but no one dared to interfere with Baranof.
Shipload after shipload of furs he sent home that sold for fabulous sums in the markets of Russia. The czar himself took shares and the Imperial navy guarded the Russias of North America.
All honour to Baranof, Viking of Sitka, and builder of ships! For forty years he ruled the Northwest, the greatest man in the North Pacific. His name was known on the coast of Mexico, even to Brazil and Havana. The Boston merchants consulted him in making up their cargoes. In 1810 he went into partnership with John Jacob Astor to exchange supplies for furs.
Above all disaster he rose, though ship after ship was lost. But it must be admitted the Russians were not such seamen as the gallant Boston skippers.
Never again will this land see more hardy sailors than the American tars that travelled the seas at the close of our Revolution. Our little Yankee brigs were creeping down and down the coast and around the Horn, until every village had its skippers in the far Pacific. Some went for furs and some for whales, and all for bold adventure.
In July, 1806, the Lydia, having just rescued two American sailors from the savages at Vancouver Island, came into the Columbia River for a load of spars, the beginning of a mighty commerce. Here they heard of Lewis and Clark, and ten miles up, faithful old Chief Coboway gave Captain Hill the muster roll left at Fort Clatsop. This, sent by way of China, reached the United States in 1807, to find the great explorers safe at home.
With the death of Baranof in 1819 ended the vast plan of Russia to make the northern half of the Pacific its own. Baranof was small and wrinkled and bald, but his eye had life. He would have made a czar like Peter the Great. To him and him alone was due the Russia of America, that for seven million dollars was sold to us in 1870, an empire in itself.