The Chautauquan, Vol. 04, July 1884, No. 10

ALASKA ITS MISSIONS.

By the Rev. WM. H. LEWIS.

No one familiar with the spiritual obstacles that missionaries encounter expects that characters that shall be Christian from highest principle, and through and through, will be formed in the first, or even the second generation of converts, as a rule, though every mission field furnishes shining exceptions to this rule. We shall not be disheartened, then, when we come to look into the history of Alaska, if the present state of society there is found to be slightly savage still.

Dall, in his work, “Alaska and its Resources,” speaking of the Indian character, says: “They are hospitable, good humored, but not always trustworthy. They will steal, and have sometimes attacked small vessels in the straits.… They sometimes have as many as five wives, though one or two is the usual number. Drunkenness is a common vice among them. They have an uncontrollable passion for alcohol, which is plentifully supplied them by the whalers and traders. They hate the Russians, and will not trade with them.… Their customs in regard to the treatment of the old and infirm are, from a civilized point of view, brutal and inhuman.… When an old person was sick for more than seven days the others put a rope around his body and dragged him by it around the house over the stones. If this did not kill or cure, the sick person was taken to the place of the dead.… Here the individual was stoned or speared, and the body left for the dogs to devour, the latter being themselves eaten by the natives.” Of the Aleuts proper he says: “Since the time of their first intercourse with the Russians, their character, habits, mode of life, and even their very name, have been totally changed. Originally they were active, sprightly, and fond of dances and festivals. Their mode of worship partook more of the character of religion than that of any of the tribes, which still remain unchanged. Ground into the very dust by the oppression of ruthless invaders, their religious rights, gay festivals and determined character have all passed away. A shade of melancholy is now one of their national characteristics. All speak some Russian, and many of them can converse fluently in that language. The Aleuts are light, and nearly the same color as the Innuits of the Northwest. Their features, perhaps from the great admixture of Russian blood, are more intelligent and pleasing. They are all nominally Greek Catholics, but there is very little knowledge of the principles of true Christianity amongst them. While further advanced than any other native American tribe, they are far from civilized, except in dress, and require careful guardianship and improved methods of education to preserve them from the rapacity of the traders. The reality of their devotion to a religion which they do not comprehend may well be doubted.” He then quotes VeniamÍnoff’s description of the native character, with the comment that it is marked by partiality confessed, and that it is mainly due to his goodness of heart and love for the people.… In another place, speaking of mission work not Russian, he says; “In the evening, the Indians, old and young, gathered in the fort yard and sang several hymns with excellent effect. Altogether, it was a scene which would have delighted the hearts of many very good people who know nothing of Indian character, and as such will doubtless figure in some missionary report. To any one who at all understood the situation, however, the absurdity of the proceeding was so palpable that it appeared almost like blasphemy. Old Sakhuiti, who has at least eighteen wives, whose hands are bloody with repeated and most atrocious murders, who knows nothing of what we understand by right and wrong, by a future state of rewards and punishments, or by a Supreme Being—this old heathen was singing as sweetly as his voice would allow, and with quite as much comprehension of the hymn as the dogs in the yard. Indians are fond of singing; they are also fond of tobacco; and, for a pipeful apiece you may baptize a whole tribe of them. Why will intelligent men still go on, talking three or four times a year to Indians on doctrinal subjects by means of a jargon which can not express an abstract idea, and the use of which only throws ridicule on sacred things, and still call such work spreading the truths of Christianity? When the missionary will leave the trading posts, strike out into the wilderness, live with the Indians, teach them cleanliness first, morality next, and by slow and simple teaching lead their thoughts above the hunt or the camp—then, and not until then, will they be competent to comprehend the simplest principles of right and wrong.”

The history of the early dealings of the Russian expeditions with the natives is one of continued outrages and retaliations. Almost every record of voyages for discovery or trading from 1648-1800 tells of atrocities committed by the sailors, and of wholesale massacres by the natives. The sole purpose of these expeditions was gain, and no attempt was made even to conciliate, much less to evangelize, the Indians. It was not until 1793 that a ukase was issued by the Empress of Russia, authorizing the introduction of missionaries into the American colonies, but unfortunately the same ukase ordered the shipment thither of convicts from Russia, and was obeyed in the proportion of a hundred convicts to one missionary. In 1794 (May) ShÍlikoff brought over 190 emigrant convicts, two overseers and eleven monks, and IÓasaph, elder of the Augustine Friars, was invited to settle in the colony. All the monks were obliged to support themselves by constant work, as no provision was made for them by the government, and IÓasaph complained bitterly of the treatment they received from the ShÍlikoff Trading Company’s officials. At the same time, in 1795, one year after his landing, he reported the conversion of 1,200 natives, thus quite justifying the hard criticisms quoted above. The census of this colony of KadiÁk in the same year gave a population of 3,600 natives. In 1796 Father IÓasaph was made bishop by imperial ukase, and returned to IrkÚtsk to receive his consecration. Father IuvenÁti was murdered by the natives for attempting to put down polygamy. The first Russo-Greek Church was built at KadiÁk during this year. In 1799 Bishop IÓasaph, with a company of clergy, set sail for his new diocese in the ship “Fenie,” which was lost at sea with all on board, and from this time to 1810 only one monk was left in the colonies. On the 10th of June, 1810, Captain GolÓfnin brought one priest to Sitka in his sloop of war “Diana,” and in 1816 Father SÒlokoff arrived from Moscow, and took charge of all the mission work in the colonies. There were at the death of Governor BarÁnoff in 1819 five colonies of the company in the Aleutian Isles, four on Cook’s Inlet, two on ChujÁch Gulf, and one on BarÁnoff Island, in Sitka Bay, with three priests in charge, three chapels and several schools, where, however, nothing was taught except reading and writing in the ecclesiastical characters. Father MordÓffski reached KadiÁk in 1823, and in 1824 the real history of the mission begins with the arrival of the noble and devoted Innocentius VeniamÍnoff, the Russian Selwyn, at UnalÁshka, and the commencement of his life-long labors among the Aleuts. He was made bishop and transferred to Sitka in 1834, and the record of his life gives all that there is to be said about the progress of religious work among the natives, so far as the Russian Church is concerned, up to the time of the transfer of the territory to the United States. Mr. Dall’s estimate of his labors is well worth quoting here to counterbalance some other quotations that have been made from his book. He says, “Whatever of good is ingrained in their (the natives’) characters may be in great part traced to the persevering efforts of one man. This person was the Rev. Father Innocentius VeniamÍnoff, of the IrkÚtsk Seminary, since Bishop of Kamchatka. He alone of the Greek missionaries to Alaska has left behind him an undying record of devotion, self-sacrifice and love, both to God and man, combined with the true missionary fire.”

John VeniamÍnoff was born September 1st, 1797, graduated from the seminary at IrkÚtsk in 1817, and was ordained in May of that year. He was advanced to the priesthood in 1821, made Bishop of Kamchatka in 1840, and took the title of Innocent. In 1850 his see was made archiepiscopal, and in 1868 he was recalled to Russia and made successor of Philaret as Metropolitan of Moscow. In 1823 he offered himself as a missionary, and was sent by his bishop to UnalÁshka. The following extracts from his own published account of his mission (“The Founding of the Orthodox Church in Russian America,” St. Petersburg, 1840) will give the best idea of what he had to do, and how well he did it:

Although the Aleuts willingly embraced the Christian religion, and prayed to God as they were taught, it must be confessed that, until a priest was settled amongst them they worshiped one who was almost an unknown God. For Father Macarius, from the shortness of time that he was with them, and from the lack of competent interpreters, was able to give them but very general ideas about religion, such as of God’s omnipotence, His goodness, etc. Notwithstanding all of which the Aleutines remained Christians, and after baptism completely renounced Shamanism, and not only destroyed all the masks which they used in their heathen worship, but also allowed the songs which might in any way remind them of their heathen worship to fall into disuse, so that when, on my arrival amongst them, I through curiosity made inquiry after these songs, I could not hear of one. But of all good qualities of the Aleutines, nothing so pleased and delighted my heart as their desire, or to speak more justly, thirst, for the Word of God, so that sooner would an indefatigable missionary tire of preaching than they of hearing the Word.

But VeniamÍnoff, true missionary that he was, was not content with his quiet, peaceful labors among the Aleuts. There was a fierce tribe that hunted the Russians like wild beasts in the neighborhood of Sitka, and to them he determined to carry the gospel. He began to get ready for his mission to these Koloshes in 1834, but was detained a year, and at last, ashamed of himself for his cowardice, he resolved that immediately upon the close of the Christmas holidays he would take his life in his hand and go. “Four days before I came to these Koloshes,” he says, “the small-pox broke out among them. Had I begun my instruction before the appearance of the small-pox they would certainly have blamed me for all the evil which came upon them, as if I were a Russian Shaman or sorcerer, who sent such plagues amongst them. But glory be to God, who orders all things for good.” (Think of thanking God for opening such a door of entrance, a door from whose opening in such a place any one but a man of iron nerves and complete self-surrender would have fled away and thanked God for his escape!) “The Koloshes were not what they were two years previously” (when he meant to come among them). “Few were baptized then, for, while I proclaimed the truth to them, I never urged upon them, or wished to urge upon them, the immediate reception of holy baptism, but, seeking to convince their judgment, I awaited a request from them. Those who expressed a desire to be baptised I received with full satisfaction.” After sixteen years of missionary toil in such a field VeniamÍnoff was sent to St. Petersburg to plead for help for the mission. The Czar proposed to the Synod to send him back as a bishop, but that body objected, because, though he was an excellent man, he had “no cathedral, no body of clergy, and no episcopal residence.” “The more, then, like an apostle,” said the Czar, and he was consecrated. No sooner was he consecrated than he was impatient to get back to his see, and on April 30th, 1842, he writes: “At last, thank the Lord God, in America! Our doings since we came to Sitka (September 26th) have not yet been very important. A mission was sent to Noushtau, which will reach its destination not sooner than the middle of next June. December 17th a sort of Theological School was opened, containing now twenty-three persons, creoles and natives. The theological student I. T. was sent to KadiÁk to learn the language, and in four months has had wonderful success. The monk M. has been preaching to the Koloshes, and ? has about eighty candidates for holy baptism, and asks it for them; but I do not care to be over hasty with them. The more and the better they are taught, the more can they be depended upon. I went this spring to KadiÁk to examine into the affairs of the Church there, and was comforted beyond expectation. The church is full every holy day, and Lent was kept by more than four hundred of them, some coming from distant places.”

April 5, 1844.—“The children here (at Sitka) between the ages of one and eighteen are very numerous. In the Theological School, in the Company’s School, and in two girls’ schools, there are about one hundred and forty, and yet I gathered about one hundred and fifty others.” He reports four hundred children under instruction, and thirty-five adults baptized at their own request. 1845.—The Kwichpak Church numbered two hundred and seventy natives and thirty foreigners. Priests visited the Kenai and Koetchan tribes, staying with them some months and baptizing several converts. And so the good bishop went on from year to year, as the Russian Mouravieff says, “Sailing over the ocean, or driving in reindeer sledges over his vast, but thinly settled diocese, thousands of miles in extent, everywhere baptizing the natives, for whom he has introduced the use of letters and translated the gospel into the tongue of the Aleutines.”

“The good bishop has little to say of himself. We are told he became master of six dialects, spoken in the field committed to his charge. He himself translated, or assisted others in translating, large parts of God’s Word and the liturgy of his church for the use of the natives. For forty-five years, ten of them as Bishop of Kamchatka, eighteen more as its archbishop, he labored on, in season and out of season.” (Hale’s “Innocent of Moscow.”) And when, in 1867, Philaret died and Innocent was chosen Patriarch of Moscow, one of the first works he undertook was the organization of the Orthodox Missionary Society, which was the cause of as much good at home in awakening the spirit of missions in the church as it was abroad in supporting the work in distant fields. This society in 1877 raised and expended 141,698.65¾ roubles in missionary work.

The following statistics are taken from a report in the Mission Journal of IrkÚtsk: “There are in the diocese of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska, including about two hundred Sclaves and Greeks at San Francisco, eleven thousand five hundred and seventy two members of the Eastern Church. The church buildings are nine—viz., at San Francisco, at Sitka (where there are about three hundred orthodox), at KadiÁk, at Renai, at Bielkoffsky, at Ounalashka, at Nonschatchak, on the Island of St. Paul, and at the Michaeloffsky Redoubt at Kwichpak. There are two vacancies among the clergy at Sitka and at the Kenai Mission.”

Bishop Iohn succeeded Innocent, but soon returned to Russia. Bishop Nestor, a man of ability, went out in 1879. He died in 1880, and has had no successor. The most influential Russians left the country when the territory was ceded, and interest in the missions has largely been withdrawn, so that in the last two reports of the Orthodox Missionary Society no mention whatever is made of Alaskan Missions.

And this brings us to speak of another work going on there, viz., the mission of the Presbyterians. On the 10th of August, 1877, the Rev. Sheldon Jackson and Mrs. McFarland reached Fort Wrangel as the first missionaries of the Presbyterian body to Alaska. Mr. Jackson reports that one of the first sights he saw was an Indian ringing a bell to call the people to school. The Indian was Clah, from Fort Simpson, and about twenty pupils attended. The Lord’s Prayer was recited in Chinook jargon (a mixture of French-Canadian, English, and Indian words), and the long meter doxology was sung at closing. The book stock inventoried four Bibles, four hymn books (Moody and Sankey), three primers, thirteen First Readers, and one wall chart. Twelve thousand dollars were raised as a special fund by Mr. Jackson’s efforts at home, and two other missionaries were sent out in 1878. In 1880 one missionary and one teacher went to Alaska. In 1879 the mission buildings were erected, and the First Presbyterian Church of Fort Wrangel organized. The mission includes a church building, a Girls’ Industrial Home and school houses, with stations among the Chilcats, Hydahs and Hoonyahs, neighboring tribes. There are at present three ministers and five male and female teachers at the different stations.

To provide for the Swedes and Germans in the employ of the Russian American Fur Company, a Lutheran minister was sent to Sitka in 1845 and remained till 1852. He was succeeded by the Rev. Mr. Nintec, preaching in Swedish and German, who remained until the transfer in 1867, when, his support being withdrawn by the Russian government, he returned to Europe.

A Roman Catholic bishop, with one priest, also came to Fort Wrangel in 1879 to establish a mission, but it is believed that the work has now been stopped and the priest withdrawn.

It must be remembered that all that has been cited of the missions so far has only to do with the Indians in the neighborhood of Sitka and Fort Wrangel, along the southern coast, and on the Lower Yukon. So far, the great continent, with its vast and almost unexplored interior, has only been trimmed around the edges. Full 40,000 of the possible 60,000 natives are yet without Christianity, and one might as well establish a mission in Cuba to evangelize Spain, or in the Jerseys to reach the Mahometans, as to sit down in a mission at Sitka and hope to reach the scattered tribes of Alaska. If we should send missionaries to that neighborhood it would only be to make of it a Fort Wrangel indeed, but the whole country is open to us, and on the Grand Yukon and its tributaries and among the Eskimos of the northern coast there is work enough, yet untouched, for all the men the church could send.

Here, then, in as small a compass as possible, is the field, its past history and its present condition; a few Greek priests, whose congregations are decreased by removals and will eventually die out; eight or ten Presbyterians, men and women, who confine their labors to Sitka and Fort Wrangel, and have enough to do there; and one clergyman of the Church of England, on a river 2,500 miles long, whose banks from end to end are his parish; 11,000 members of the Greek Church, 700 or 800 Presbyterians, and between 2,000 and 3,000 Church of England folk familiar with her services and loving her ritual; and at the very least calculation 5,500 natives that might be reached and cared for, and should be cared for. Here is a chance to show the people of America that the church does know how to deal with the Indian question. There will be a clear field and no favor for several years to come. A fund of $15,000 appropriated by Congress in 1878 for educational purposes, but never called for, might be claimed by any party proving to Congress by their works that they meant to educate the people. A government of some sort, military perhaps, will soon be established. Prospectors after everything valuable will overrun the country as soon as it is safe and profitable to do so. What shall be done by Christian people for all these heathen souls?

decorative line

Clyx.com