Читать книгу The St. Petersburg Connection - Alexis S. Troubetzkoy - Страница 13

The Pacific Frontier

By the mid-eighteenth century, the Spanish had taken possession of the Pacific coast, from Mexico north to San Francisco. The lands north of San Francisco’s Bay area, up through Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, remained largely virgin territories open for exploration and development.

The Aleutians and Alaska, however, had long been strong drawing cards for Russian traders. The forests along the shores teemed with foxes, and shoal areas abounded with millions of sea otters. (That the waters were also home to an abundance of whales was initially unappreciated.) It was furs, furs, furs that propelled the initial Russian forays into the distant northwest Pacific regions. They thought little of crossing vast Siberian distances, embarking on vessels built in Kamchatka shipyards, and then sailing east to America.

The first to make a mark in the region was a barely literate Cossack sergeant from the Kamchatka garrison, a man whose name does not stand out among the giants of fur traders. Emelian Basov witnessed with interest the return home of Vitus Bering’s fur-clad crew, and he cast a particularly covetous eye the bales of furs they lugged ashore. If they could do it, so could he. Mustering all his persuasive powers, Basov talked a wealthy trader, a certain Andre Serebrenikov, into financing the construction of a small vessel for a fur-gathering expedition. He planned to sail the 115 miles to Bering Island where, he was confident, plenty of sea otters romped. In the summer of 1743, the tiny Kapiton, a two-masted, flat-bottomed riverboat, departed from Kamchatka and within weeks returned home, laden with furs. Basov made three subsequent voyages, the second one of which records a detailed inventory, including 1,600 otter pelts, 2,000 fur seals, and 2,000 blue fox, for a value of 200,000 rubles — an astronomical sum in those days. Basov certainly made it rich, and in the process precipitated what can only be called a “fur rush.”

The first to join the rush was Yakov Chuprov who in 1745 made his way to Attu, one of the westernmost Aleutian Islands, aboard the Eudoxia, a vessel similar in design to Basov’s but larger. The expedition was notable not so much for the success it met, but rather for the first contact that Russians had with North American Natives. Having one dark evening dropped anchor at Agattu, an island adjacent to Attu, the expedition awaited morning’s daylight. Dawn revealed scores of excited Aleuts dancing about on the shore, brandishing spears and other weapons. Was this an act of hostility or an indication of welcome? To test the waters, Chuprov catapulted to the shore bundles of manufactured goods: pots, knives, tin mirrors, and so on. In return, the Natives tossed to the Eudoxia freshly killed birds and small game. It was all non-threatening, and with his men on deck at the ready with muskets, Chuprov went ashore with a small party in the ship’s utility boat.

Initially, all progressed well amid a friendly atmosphere. The inquisitive Aleuts displayed unfettered curiosity, poking at this and that. Items of one sort or another were exchanged, including an offering by Chuprov of a pipe and pouch of tobacco. This bewildered the Aleuts, who were at a loss as to what to do with the strange gift, but, nevertheless, they politely accepted it. In return, they presented the Russians with a bone sculpture. At this point, the principal among the Natives indicated his desire for one of the muskets carried by the sailors. Chuprov refused curtly.

The positive atmosphere soured immediately and became charged. Faces initially radiating goodwill turned bitter, and some Natives moved threateningly toward the Eudoxia’s utility boat. A scuffle ensued on the water in which one Aleut was shot, but the ship’s crew returned safely to their vessel. Anchor was raised and Chuprov made for a return to Attu.

Word of the unfortunate events on Agattu preceded Chuprov’s arrival at Attu, and by the time the Eudoxia dropped anchor, the locals had fled into the hinterland. After gentle coaxing and patience, however, rapport with the Aleuts was eventually re-established, and the hunt for sea otter resumed. With the onset of winter, the men took to the comfortable quarters they had erected for themselves and adapted to Native ways. They dressed in the same sort of skins and assumed the local diet of fish, meat, and even blubber.

In their dealings with the Aleuts, every effort was made to show courteousness and friendliness. The unfortunate incident at Agattu was soon forgotten and harmony once again prevailed among the lot. Attu Natives were persuaded to enter the service of the Russians — the men to hunt sea otter and the women to tend to the kitchens. In fact, Russians arriving in those parts encountered little opposition in their expansionary initiatives, certain isolated indigenous tribes excepted. They met far more success in coexisting with the Natives than did the Americans or British.

The Basov and Chuprov expeditions ignited ambitions — scores of fur traders trod off to suffer hardships in favour of profit. Fridtjof Nansen, the twentieth-century arctic explorer and Nobel laureate paints the scene: “An unending stream of straggling, struggling, frostbitten men bundled in heavy clothing, some erect and powerful, some so skinny and bent that they could hardly drag themselves or their sleds; wasted, starved, plagued with scurvy, but all gazing forward into the unknown, beyond the edge of the northern sun toward the dream which they sought.”

Mounting success came to these entrepreneurs as they pushed further south along the continent’s coastline. Financing the ventures, however, grew in complexity — the problem of supply in particular. Ever larger sums were required for financing expeditions; individual traders had difficulty in raising capital. A score of small fur companies thus came into being, which in time merged to form the Northeastern Company. The new entity was forced to operate exclusively on its own, without any form of government subvention or protection. Trans-Pacific imperialism was not for Empress Catherine. From the outset, she declared that “it was for the fur traders to traffic where they please.… I will furnish neither men, ships nor money. I renounce forever all possessions in America.”

Subsequently, as an afterthought, she added, “England’s experience with the American colonies should be a warning to other nations to abstain from such efforts.” However, after Ivan Golikov, the co-owner of the Northeastern Company, presented the empress with a handsome gift of costly furs, Catherine looked more benignly on the developments in the Pacific. She granted the company tax-free status, and also ordered the company “to treat your new brothers, the aborigines of those lands, with gentleness, neither oppressing nor cheating them.”

With Russians in the north and Spaniards in the south, the territories between the two powers drew the interest of Britain and the United States. Before long, their explorers and settlers were making way to those shores.

Among the first of these explorers was Captain James Cook, an Englishman who in his early years set the goal for himself of going not only “farther than any man has been before me, but as far as I think it possible for man to go.” In his continuing search for the elusive Northwest Passage, Cook took his ship, HMS Resolution[1] and the collier HMS Discovery around the Cape of Good Hope into the Pacific — his third such venture.

He eventually reached Nootka Sound, midway up Vancouver Island’s west coast. It became instantly clear that this was not the entrance to the Northwest Passage. It did offer, however, a well-protected anchorage — and it was home to uncharacteristically friendly Natives, the Mowachahts. Cook stopped there for a spell to give his crew a rest.

Chief Maquinna appeared unperturbed by the appearance of these unusual strangers aboard the formidable-looking vessel. He encouraged his awestruck people to put aside anxieties and to welcome the new arrivals. Thirty-two war canoes embarked from shore and were soon circling the Resolution in ceremonial greeting with flourishing strokes of the paddles. All the while the lead stroke chanted, one officer writes, “a single note in which they all join, swelling it out in the middle and letting the sound die away in the calm of the hills around us … the effect was by no means unpleasant to the ear.… One young man with a remarkable soft effeminate voice afterwards sang by himself, but he ended so suddenly and abruptly, which being accompanied by a peculiar gesture, made us all laugh. He, finding that we were not ill pleased repeated his song several times.”

The amused sailors reciprocated by bringing out their fifes and drums, which they played at length and with gusto. The trilling sounds of British military marches were not exactly familiar to the Mowachahts, and the audience floating on the waters below received the musical offering with “the profoundest silence.” Lieutenant James King concludes his journal entries with the reflection that through all the encounters Cook’s ships ever experienced with indigenous people anywhere, “these were the only people we had seen that ever paid the smallest attention to any of our musical instruments, if we except the drum.”

Cook notes that the amicable cultural exchanges resulted in “a trade commenced betwixt us and them, which was carried on with the strictest honesty on both sides. Their articles were foxes, deer, raccoons, polecats, martins and in peculiar, the sea beaver [sea otter], the same as is found on the coast of Kamchatka.”

Mowachahts and English were soon totally at ease with one another, so much so that the unrestrained Natives began to help themselves to various bits and pieces of the ship’s ironware. Cook’s gold watch was whisked away from his cabin under the nose of the posted guard. “They made no scruples when stealing,” observed Cook, “but upon being detected they would immediately return whatever they had taken and laugh in our faces, as they considered it as a piece of dexterity that did them credit rather than dishonor.”

The Mowachahts welcomed the visitors into their village where they offered generous entertainment. Chief Maquinna beckoned the officers to his cedar-planked house. Vast drying racks were suspended from the ceilings for the curing of herring and salmon; cooking utensils and varied baskets lay scattered about the place. Exquisitely carved corner posts with figures of birds and animals stood in shocking contrast to the overall mess. A banquet was laid out with a variety of foods, both cooked and raw.

One clearly identifiable dish from which all refrained was a roasted human arm.

Time came to leave Nootka Sound, so there was an exchange of gifts. Cook received a full-length beaver cloak, in return for which he presented to Chief Maquinna a choice sword with a brass hilt. The chief “importuned us to return to them again and by way of encouragement promised to lay in a good stock of skins for us.” Final farewells were had, and the ships sailed away to continue the voyage. “Our friends the Indians attended upon us till we were almost out of the Sound, some on board the ships and others in canoes.”

(En route home, the expedition stopped in Hawaii, where it was greeted with hostility by the Natives. A number of tense encounters were had, and in one punishing skirmish, Cook was killed — a particularly tragic end to one of history’s notable explorers.)

When the Resolution reached Macau months later, word spread of the successes with the Mowachahts. The cargo of luxuriant furs in the holds was sold for handsome sums, further fuelling the fur rush.

On board the Discovery on that fateful voyage was the twenty-two-year-old George Vancouver, who would eventually join his commanding officer in the pantheon of notable explorers. Some years earlier, as Cook prepared his ship for the second voyage of exploration, he had been persuaded by Vancouver’s father to take on the fifteen-year-old boy as a supernumerary. George thus received a thorough training in seamanship, navigation, and surveying. Subsequently, he entered the navy, was commissioned, and before long came to command his own ship. In 1791, he was sent by the British government to make a detailed survey of the entire northwest coast, and to continue the search for the elusive Northwest Passage. Vancouver spent three years in those waters, meticulously charting and surveying the coastline as far north as Cook Inlet in upper Alaska. Before it was over, he had circumnavigated Vancouver Island, passed by the mouth of the Fraser River without recognizing it, and moved south as far as the mouth of the Columbia River at latitude 46° 25' — his discovery, he thought, but not so. Five months earlier, another explorer — Captain Robert Gray, the first American to appear in the Pacific Northwest — had arrived and laid claim to it for the United States.

The Rhode Islander Gray had served in the Continental Navy during the American Revolution and subsequently joined a Boston merchant house. In 1792, he sailed the Columbia into the far north of the Pacific coastline, well into Russian territory. His unwelcome arrival was viewed with displeasure by the unhappy authorities, who viewed it as an unlawful incursion. But they lacked the means to expel the American. Instructions, however, were issue to the Natives not to trade with him or render any form of assistance. Gray did not linger where he clearly was not wanted. He left and eventually came to the mouth of the Columbia River, and adroitly established friendly relations with the Natives — soon beads, buttons, cloth, knives, and other manufactured items were being traded for pelts of sea otter.

Its holds brimming with valued cargo, the Columbia sailed on to China where the pelts were exchanged for silk, spices, and tea. With this fresh cargo, Gray made for home by sailing west around the Cape of Good Hope, thus becoming the first American to circumnavigate the globe. Inspired by Gray’s successes, other New Englanders followed suit, and by the end of the century came to control the otter trade of a large part of the region. The presence of U.S. ships on the Pacific coast solidified and soon the Stars and Stripes flew over the Oregon Territory.

It would be well to note here the story of another American who sailed those Pacific waters. John Ledyard’s brief lifetime had no impact on the events of the day; his legacy merely rests in the journals he kept. His story may be nothing more than a footnote in the pages of U.S. history, but it is one that’s so original and reflective of the fearless American frontier spirit, that it begs our attention. Thomas Jefferson was an admirer of the adventurous young Ledyard, calling him “a man of genius, of some science and of fearless courage and enterprise.”

Ledyard was born in Groton, Connecticut, where he received his early education. At age twenty-one, he entered the newly founded Dartmouth, then called the “Indian Charity School.” The school had been provided with land by the governor of the Royal Province of New Hampshire, and its charter stipulated that the place was “for the education and instruction of youth of the Indian tribes of this land — and also for English youth and any other.” John was from among the handful of “English youth and any others.” He soon decided that the quality of instruction was uninspiring and boring — not for him — so he decided to escape the place.

Among his friends, one stood particularly close, a “youth of the Indian tribes of this land.” This Iroquois friend assisted John in felling a large white pine on the banks of the Connecticut River from which the young men hacked out a thirty-foot-long dugout canoe. Equipped with essentials — including the New Testament and a book by Ovid — Ledyard shoved off to begin a life of extraordinary adventure. He left behind a cryptic note to the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, the school’s founder: “Farewell, dear Dartmouth, may you flourish like the greenbay tree.”

Ledyard travelled to London where he signed on as a seaman on a West Indian trading ship. During the course of his brief service under Captain Richard Deshon, he visited a number of ports in the Caribbean and plied the shores of the Barbary Coast. Three years later, John joined the Royal Navy and was seconded to Captain Cook. With this admired explorer, he visited the Canary and Cape Verde Islands, the Cape of Good Hope, Tasmania, New Zealand, Tahiti, California, and Oregon. Ledyard was on board the HMS Resolution when that ship’s crew exchanged musical offerings with the Mowachahts — he was one of the drummers. (It was he, incidentally, who noted the human delicacy offered at Chief Maquinna’s banquet.)

The Resolution sailed on to the Orient, Ledyard continuing all the time to keep a journal (it’s the only account by an eyewitness of Cook’s death in Hawaii). In 1782, he jumped ship in New York, and took up residence in the eastern extremity of Long Island. But resting feet developed an itch. Memories were ingrained of the Pacific Northwest, particularly of his exchanges with indigenous peoples and meetings with Russians. Ledyard left Long Island to return to Europe where he set about organizing a fur-trading expedition to the Pacific Northwest.

Ledyard’s valiant efforts to obtain financial backing came to naught. In desperation, he approached John Paul Jones, who at the time was residing in Paris, then the Marquis de Lafayette, and finally Ambassador Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson writes that Ledyard “was disappointed in [not raising capital], and being out of business and of a roaming, restless character. I suggested to him the enterprise of exploring the western part of our continent by passing through St. Petersburg to Kamchatka and procuring a passage thence in some of the Russian vessels to Nootka Sound, whence he might make his way across the continent to the United States.”

Ledyard eagerly accepted the proposal, and wasted little time in laying out plans. It was straightforward: he would travel to Stockholm and then walk across the frozen Baltic to St. Petersburg, where he would secure the permission of the empress to carry out his further travel arrangements. He would then continue by foot through Russia, across the Urals and traverse Siberia all the way to Kamchatka. Per Jefferson’s suggestion, he would then seek passage to Alaska on a Russian vessel and, once on North American shores, he would continue his solo trek down the coast to Oregon. He then planned to walk east, cross the Mississippi and terminate the journey at home on Long Island. He would thus become the first American to cross the North American continent on foot.

Jefferson forewarned Ledyard — “the roaming restless character” — that Empress Catherine’s permission for the project was absolutely essential, and he suggested that the impatient man bide his time in Paris until such was received. Furthermore, the ambassador offered to set the process into motion by meeting with his Russian counterpart with whom he was on excellent terms. “Ledyard would not relinquish [his determination to press forward] … persuading himself that by proceeding to St. Petersburg he could satisfy the Empress of its practicability and obtain her permission.”

And so John set off. He made his way by boat to Stockholm, and on arrival was devastated by the magnitude of problems related to his hike across a frozen Baltic. Undaunted, Ledyard trekked around Stockholm, crossed the frozen Gulf of Bothnia into Finland, and after an arduous winter passage reached St. Petersburg in March 1787.

The empress at the time was away from the capital on an extended visit to the Crimea — her sanction was not to be had. Our hero was unprepared to dally, and he attached himself to a certain Dr. Brown, one of many Scottish physicians working in Russia at the time, who was journeying to Siberia. Brown’s journey terminated at Barnaul in central Siberia, and there Ledyard left him to continue his solo hike to Tomsk and Irkutsk — a distance of twelve hundred miles.

In Irkutsk, the long arm of Her Imperial Majesty’s police reached out and plucked up luckless Ledyard. Suspicion had been aroused that this unknown, unregistered foreigner was a spy. He was arrested, transported back to Russia, escorted to the Polish border and banished forever from the country. Ledyard’s grand plan of being the first American to cross the North American continent was shattered — at least for the moment.