SITKA Administrative History

Chapter 2:
SITKA -- HISTORICAL OVERVIEW (continued)

By the 1860s Russia's interest in North America was waning. It had relinquished its claims to lands south of Prince of Wales Is land in the 1840s. The sea otter were virtually extinct in Alaska waters. Efforts to engage in whaling or in the land fur trade had not been economically successful. Company profits had declined. The settlements in Russian America had not become self-sufficient. Their remote location would make them difficult to defend. Russian and United States representatives signed a treaty to sell Russian America to the United States for $7.2 million on March 29, 1867. The U.S. Congress ratified the treaty on June 20, 1867 The formal transfer ceremony took place on Castle Hill at Sitka on October 18, 1867. Alexei Pestchouroff, commissioner of the tsar, formally transferred all of Russian American to Maj. Gen. Lovell H. Rousseau, commissioner for the United States.

After the formal transfer of ownership, many details had to be attended to. Russian citizens in Alaska were given the option to return to Russia or become American citizens. At least 537 people left Alaska for Russia on Russian American Company vessels in 1867-1868. The Native people were expected to obey American laws, but did not become citizens until 1924. The U.S. Government made no provision for a territorial government. The first efforts to organize a civil government at Sitka in 1869 failed for lack of interest and lack of laws and the government disbanded in 1873. [85]

Instead, the American government assigned the U.S. Army to administer affairs in Alaska. An Alaska District was created, with headquarters at Sitka. Brig. Gen. Jefferson C. Davis was the first commanding officer. The five sub-posts established around the territory at Tongass, Wrangell, Kodiak, Kenai, and the Pribilof Islands in 1868 were closed in 1870 and the district was merged with the Department of Oregon headquartered at Vancouver Barracks, Washington.

A number of fortune seekers, traders, and adventurers, most from the western United States, rushed to Sitka in 1867 and 1868. The warehouses of the Russian American Company were emptied; much of the stockpiled merchandise was carried to San Francisco. With no organized government, drunkenness, crime, and prostitution flourished. The soldiers stationed at Sitka were no better behaved than the civilians. After the initial activity, Sitka's economy declined. [86]

By 1870 when the U.S. Army conducted a census of the residents at Sitka, the population totalled 391 Russians and Creoles, 49 Americans excluding military personnel, and an estimated 1,200 Natives. [87]

The town had several stores, meat shops, a barber shop, a bakery, a sawmill, two breweries, and many saloons. Sitka traders collected about $20,000 worth of pelts that year. The other major economic activities were fishing and shipping. The Tlingits continued to be allowed into the center of Sitka only during the day. One of the army's activities at Sitka in 1869 was construction of a one and one-half mile corduroy road from the town to Indian River to enable wagons to haul water and wood. [88]

The U.S. Army troops left Sitka in 1877. The remaining representatives of the U.S. Government were the customs collector and deputy and the postmaster. The non-Native people at Sitka felt that the military presence had guaranteed safety from attacks by the Indians. A week after the troops departed, Sitka Tlingits tore down a portion of the stockade. Tensions between Natives and non-Natives at Sitka increased, until the non-Natives appealed first to the United States and then to the British for protection. The British sent HMS Osprey from Esquimault, Vancouver Island, to Sitka. Osprey arrived before USS Alaska. They found all quiet at Sitka. Following the public outcry over this incident, the U.S. Government assigned the navy to administer affairs in Alaska. The navy stationed Marines and a gunboat at Sitka. Although the U.S. Government established a civil government five years later, the navy remained at Sitka until 1912. [89]

In 1884 Congress passed an Organic Act that provided for an appointed governor of Alaska and four commissioners. President Chester A. Arthur appointed John H. Kinkead, Sitka's postmaster, to be Alaska's first governor. The district headquarters for these government officials was Sitka.