All History

Eating the flesh of animals, considered in itself, is somewhat profane; for in the most ancient times they never ate the flesh of any beast or bird, but only grain . . .especially bread made of wheat . . . the fruits of trees, vegetables, milks and such things as are made from them, as butter, etc. To kill animals and eat their flesh was to them unlawful, being regarded as something bestial. They only took from them uses and services, as is evident from Genesis 1, 29-30. But in the course of tiume, when mankind became cruel like wild beasts, yea more cruel, then first they began to kill animals and eat their flesh. And because man had acquired such a nature, the killing and eating of animals was permitted and is permitted at the present day. -Heavenly Arcana

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https://archive.org/details/emanuelsedenbor00wilkgoog/page/n6

In 1762 a conflict occurred which marked the turning point of

Aleut-Russian relations. Promyshlenniks patrolled the waters of the Alaska

Peninsula for food and furs and landed on one of the islands. Their

uncivilized attitudes and actions toward the natives were habitual now.

ingrained into their already rough personalities. Suddenly, a group of

well-organized natives attacked and killed two Russians and injured three

others. Another group almost simultaneously attacked the Russian base

camp, killed four more Russians, and wounded four others. The

makeshift shelters were burned to the ground. The Aleuts were clearly

taking the initiative this time. Later in spring, two more intruders from

the east were killed about three and a half miles inland from where their

ship was anchored. This time the Russians killed seven native hostages in

retaliation. In return for this, the Aleuts attacked the Russian camp but

were unsuccessful. Offensive actions by the natives put the Russians in

temporary retreat. They repaired their ship and returned home with their

rich cargo of 900 sea otter pelts and 350 fox skins.

Even in their retreat they continued their outrages. Twenty-five

young native girls were kidnapped from their home island and given the

task of gathering wild berries and roots for the crew. The ship eventually

reached the coast of Kamchatka where fourteen of the twenty-five girls

and six Russians went ashore. Two girls immediately escaped into the

bills. One was killed by the men. On the small-boat trip back to the ship

the remaining eleven girls drowned themselves either in shame or

despair. To protect themselves, the Russians threw all the remaining

natives overboard to drown.

Authorities in St. Petersburg were aware of the atrocities committed

by the unrestrained fur hunters. But authorities were a quarter of the

world distant in the transportation and communication systems of the

eighteenth century. Efforts at checking the lawlessness which represented

the Russian nation to the people of the new world would come later in

the formation of privileged trading companies. But during the decades of

totally free traffic and totally free enterprise, authorities could only issue

stern warnings against the promyshlenniks.

One such warning read in part:

As it appears from reports forwarded by Colonel Plenisner, who was

charged with the investigation and final settlement of the affairs of the

Bechevin Company, that that company during their voyage to and from the

Aleutian Islands on a hunting and trading expedition committed

indescribable outrages and abuse on the inhabitants, and even were guilty

of murder, inciting the natives to bloody reprisals, it is hereby enjoined

upon the company about to sail, and especially upon the master, Ismailov,

and the perevodchik, Lukanin, to see that no such barbarities, plunder and

ravaging of women are committed under any circumstances.

Such warnings were respected until anchor was pulled.

In 1763, four ships, the Zacharias and Elizabeth, the Holy Triniry, the

John, and the Adrian and Natalie, were visiting Umnak and Unalaska,

two of the larger islands of the Aleutian chain that Russians had dis-

covered only four years earlier. The captains collected iasak from local

Aleuts and demanded amanaty to ensure prompt payment and their own

safety. Then they divided their crews into hunting parties, as Aleuts

from Unalaska, Umnak, and neighboring islands had expected. The

Aleuts hatched a plan. As Solov'ev reported it, local residents would

"live in friendship at first," but when the Russians split up to hunt and

trade, they would take them by surprise. "Using this ruse," they hoped

to "kill all the Russians."

On Unalaska, the Aleuts ambushed the hunting parties from the

Zacharias and Elizabal. Four survivors, fleeing along the coust to their

vessel, spotted a locker washed ashore, then bits and pieces of the ship

itself, and finally the bodies of their mates, mangled and strewn about

the beach. Months later, they reached the Holy Trinity, where they

learned that, besides themselves, only three of their chirty-seven crew-

mates had survived."

The Holy Trinity had also come under attack and would soon be

destroyed. The skeleton crew, reduced in number and weakened by

scurvy, could not control the vessel, and in heavy winds it was driven

to Umnak and crushed on the rocky shore. Aleuts set upon fifty-four

castaways that same night. In July 1764, the twelve survivors of that

raid built a skin boat and rowed around the island, searching for the

John, the third of the four ships that had been trading in the islands.

In a steam bath constructed by the Russians, they found only a charred

frame and the garroted bodies of twenty countrymen. (No one from the

Job survived to recount its story, but in 1970, archaeologists discovered

the steam bath and the remains of the crew. The refugees from the

Zacharias and Elizabeth and the Holy Trinity were soon rescued by the

last surviving ship, the Adrian and Natalie. In September 1764, relief

arrived when Solovey anchored off Unalaska and learned of the plight

of his fellow promyshlenniki."

In retaliation, Solover killed at least seventy Aleuts in five differ-

ent engagements. "I preferred to talk them out of evil intentions so

that they could live in friendship with the Russian people," he main-

tained. But elderly promyshlenniki, interviewed in the early nine-

tenth century, would remember differently. On one occasion, Solovev,

after being provoked, killed one hundred Aleuts "on the spot." The 

bloodshed was "terrible," they recalled. On another, Solovev blew up

a fortified structure sheltering three hundred Aleuts and cut down

the survivors with guns and sabers. One trader stated that Solovev

had killed more than three thousand in all, perhaps an exaggera-

tion; another insisted that he had killed no more than two hundred.

Considering that Unalaska sheltered only a few thousand inhabitants,

even two hundred deaths would have represented a crushing blow to

the population."

Years later, Aleuts insisted that Solovief, above all others, was

responsible for their decline. The Russian captain had killed hundreds

or thousands, they said, and many others had fled at his approach. He

made a practice of destroying their haidarkat, as kayaks are known in

the Aleutians. The boats were essential for hunting, "as indispens-

able as the plow and the horse for the farmer," observed one Russian.

Many of the refugees died from starvation or exposure while laboring

to replace the skin-covered vessels, which took over a year to build."

On Unalaska and surrounding islands, Solover "shot all the men;

three residents recalled in 1789. He reportedly practiced a cruel experi-

ment: arranging the Aleuts in a line, he fired at the first to discover

how many people the bullet would pass through. On one occasion,

villagers sought refuge on Egg Island, a tiny outcropping with cliffs

four hundred feet high, lying in deep water just off the eastern edge

of Unalaska. Its rocky shoreline hindered Solov'ev's approach, but he

made landfall on the second attempt and killed the men, women, and

children who had gathered there. "The slaughter was so atrocious,"

Aleuts said, "that the sea around the islet, became bloody from those

who threw themselves or were thrown into it."6

In his journal, Solover remained largely silent about his thirty-five

months on Unalaska and the surrounding islands, where his crew

harvested the vast majority of the furs that would eventually be

sent on to Kyakhta. There was "nothing worthy of notice" in the journal,

declared the Russian Senate, which ordered future voyagers to keep bet-

ter records. Solov'ev's reticence may have been grounded in knowledge

of the fate of Ivan Bechevin, a wealthy Irkutsk merchant who was put

on trial in 1764 for the actions of his company. The official investigation

concluded that Bechevin's promyshlenniki-_who kidnapped, raped,

and murdered a number of Aleut women--committed "indescribable

abuses, ruin and murder upon the natives."3

Nonetheless, enough details exist to reveal that relations berween

Solover and the Aleuts rapidly deteriorated. Shortly after Solov'ev set

up camp on Unalaska, he sent out two hunting parties. A detachment

from the first became stranded in a cove surrounded by high cliffs.

The Aleuts who discovered the vulnerable men severed their arm and

leg tendons and then cut off their limbs and heads. Later, they boasted

to Solovev, "we are going to kill all of you just like we killed Russian

people before." Solov'ev ordered two Aleut captives stabbed to death."

The remainder of the first party went west, to hunt dt Umnak and

other western islands. It mer with success, according to Solov'ev. The

men lived peacefully with the islanders, who "voluntarily" gave them

hostages, traded with them, and paid dasak. "I was always happy wich

those foreigners and nothing bad happened while we stayed there,

" he stated. (lozemtry, meaning "foreigners," was the term Russians applied to

the native peoples of Siberia, as well as to the Aleuts.) Their acquiescence

to Solov'ev's presence may have been forged in the 1760s, when, accord-

ing to one report, promyshlenniki had virtually "exterminated" the

'"disobedient" populations on southern Umnak and its western islets.**

Word that the native people of the Aleutians had dared to take the

initiative against the Russians spread among the fur hunters and

eventually led to the final domination of the natives. A leader named

Solovief heard of the death of his fellow Russian hunters at the hands of

the Aleuts the preceding year and set out to teach the natives their place

once and for all. He first put his own camp and men in order and

discipline. Without strict adherence to the rules he set, there could be no

success in revenging his people.

The natives attacked Solovief and his men and were driven back

with heavy losses. One hundred Aleuts were killed; their boats were

smashed. Then Solovief joined forces with several other companies of

promyshlenniks until a substantial, though ragtag, force of arms and men

resembled a small army. A blood-thirsty scourge of the islands ensued.

Isolated settlements were destroyed and burned to ashes. Families were

routed and killed. Tools, boats, and food were ruined. Elimination, not

subjugation, of the native became the primary goal of the attacks.

Finally, Solovief led his forces to a fortified Aleut village of 300 and

proceeded to attack the natives in full strength. Bows and arrows were no

defense against the firearms of the Russians. No doubt about the outcome

existed, even among the natives. The Russians filled bladders with

gunpowder and blew up the log foundations of the village walls and

houses. The natives had no chance and were quickly routed and

slaughtered by the promyshlenniks. Perhaps as many as 3,000 Aleuts were

killed during all the Solovief scourges. The exact number of deaths

cannot be known, but the unrelenting savagery of the traders was clear.

Solovief once experimented with the power of his musket by tying twelve

natives together, one behind the other. He fired the rifle at point-blank

range to learn that the bullet stopped with the ninth man. The Aleuts

never attacked the fur hunters again.

The crude reign of Solovief in 1766 ended the free life of the Aleut

people. No longer could the native people live in their own land without

paying tribute in money, skins, work, and lives to the strangers from

across the sea. Their skill as hunters was exploited beyond reasonable

compensation.

Michaels recounts that William Heberden, one of the “most learned physicians of the day,” presented the first properly recorded cases of chest pain to the Royal College of Physicians of London on July 21, 1768. The afflicted “are seized, while they are walking . . . a painful and most disagreeable sensation in the breast, which seems as if it would take their life away if it were to increase or to continue.” These attacks would continue for months, or even years, until the final blow came. Heberden called the condition angina pectoris (severe pain of the breast) (Michaels 2001, 9).

The remaining part of this month passed on without any interruption, or material occurrence, to disturb our repose, worth relating: our fishing nets provided us with daily food, and the Indians had too much philosophy about them to give themselves much additional trouble; for during the whole time not one of them offered to look for a partridge, or anything else which could yield a change of diet.

As the time may now be supposed to have lain heavy on my hands, it may not be improper to inform the reader how I employed it. In the first place, I embraced every favourable opportunity of observing the latitude of the place, the mean of which was 58° 46' 30" North; and the longitude by account was 5° 57' West, from Prince of Wales's Fort. I then corrected my reckoning from my last observation; brought up my journal, and filled up my chart, to the place of our residence. I built also some traps, and caught a few martins; and by way of saving my ammunition, set some snares for partridges. The former is performed by means of a few logs, so arranged that when the martin attempts to take away the bait laid for him, he with very little struggle pulls down a small post that supports the whole weight of the trap; when, if the animal be not killed by the weight of the logs, he is confined till he be frozen to death, or killed by the hunter going his rounds.[77]

1770. April.

To snare partridges requires no other process than making a few little hedges across a creek, or a few short hedges projecting at right angles from the side of an island of willows, which those birds are found to frequent. Several openings must be left in each hedge, to admit the birds to pass through, and in each of them a snare must be set; so that when the partridges are hopping along the edge of the willows to feed, which is their usual custom, some of them soon get into the snares, where they are confined till they are taken out. I have caught from three to ten partridges in a day by this simple contrivance; which requires no further attendance than going round them night and morning.

-- April 1st, 1770

I have already observed that nothing material happened to disturb our repose till the first of April, when to our great surprise the fishing nets did not afford us a single fish. Though some of the preceding days had been pretty successful, yet my companions, like true Indians, seldom went to sleep till they had cleared the tent of every article of provision. As nothing was to be caught in the nets, we all went out to angle; but in this we were equally unsuccessful, as we could not procure one fish the whole day. This sudden change of circumstances alarmed one of my companions so much, that he began to think of resuming the use of his gun, after having laid it by for near a month.

 Early in the morning we arose; when my guide Conne-e-quese went a hunting, and the rest attended the nets and hooks near home; but all with such bad success, that we could not procure enough in one day to serve two men for a supper. This, instead of awakening the rest of my companions, sent them to sleep; and scarcely any of them had the prudence to look at the fishing nets, though they were not more than two or three hundred yards from the tent door.

-- April 1770. 

My guide, who was a steady man, and an excellent hunter, having for many years been accustomed to provide for a large family, seemed by far the most industrious of all my crew; he closely pursued his hunting for several days, and seldom returned to the tent till after dark, while those at the tent passed most of their time in smoking and sleeping.

--April 10th 1770.

Several days passed without any signs of relief, till the 10th, when my guide continued out longer than ordinary, which made us conjecture that he had met with strangers, or seen some deer, or other game, which occasioned his delay. We all therefore lay down to sleep, having had but little refreshment for the three preceding days, except a pipe of tobacco and a draught of water; even partridges had become so scarce that not one was to be got; the heavy thaws had driven them all out towards the barren grounds. About midnight, to our great joy, our hunter arrived, and brought with him the blood and fragments of two deer that he had killed. This unexpected success soon roused the sleepers, who, in an instant, were busily employed in cooking a large kettle of broth, made with the blood, and some fat and scraps of meat shred small, boiled in it. This might be reckoned a dainty dish at any time, but was more particularly so in our present almost famished condition.

-- April 11 1770.

After partaking of this refreshment, we resumed our rest, and early in the morning set out in a body for the place where the deer were lying. As we intended to make our stay but short, we left our tent standing, containing all our baggage. On our arrival at the place of destination, some were immediately employed in making a hut or barrocado with young pine trees; while one man skinned the deer, the remainder went a hunting, and in the afternoon returned to the hut, after having killed two deer.

Several days were now spent in feasting and gluttony; during which the Indians killed five more deer and three fine beavers; finding at last, however, that there was little prospect of procuring either more deer or beavers, we determined to return to our tent, with the remains of what we had already obtained.[79]

-- April 22 1770.

The flesh of these deer, though none of the largest, might with frugality have served our small number, (being only six) for some time; but my companions, like other Indians, feasted day and night while it lasted; and were so indolent and unthinking, as not to attend properly to the fishing nets; so that many fine fish, which had been entangled in the nets, were entirely spoiled, and in about twelve or fourteen days we were nearly in as great distress for provisions as ever.

Beside the inconvenience of being exposed to the open air, night and day, in all weathers, we experienced real distress from the want of victuals. When provisions were procured, it often happened that we could not make a fire, so that we were obliged to eat the meat quite raw; which at first, in the article of fish particularly, was as little relished by my Southern companions as myself.

-- June 1770

Notwithstanding these accumulated and complicated hardships, we continued in perfect health and good spirits; and my guide, though a perfect niggard of his provisions, especially in times of scarcity, gave us the strongest assurance of soon arriving at a plentiful country, which would not only afford us a certain supply of provisions, but where we should meet with other Indians, who probably would be willing to carry part of our luggage. This news naturally gave us great consolation; for at that time the weight of our constant loads was so great, that when Providence threw any thing in our way, we could not carry above two days provisions with us, which indeed was the chief reason of our being so frequently in want.

-- June 23 1770.

From the twentieth to the twenty-third we walked every day near twenty miles, without any other subsistence than a pipe of tobacco, and a drink of water when we pleased: even partridges and gulls, which some time before were in great plenty, and easily procured, were now so scarce and shy, that we could rarely get one; and as to geese, ducks, &c., they had all flown to the Northward to breed and molt.

-- June 1770.

Early in the morning of the twenty-third, we set out as usual, but had not walked above seven or eight miles before we saw three musk-oxen grazing by the side of a small lake. The Indians immediately went in pursuit of them; and as some of them were expert hunters, they soon killed the whole of them. This was no doubt very fortunate; but, to our great mortification, before we could get one of them skinned, such a fall of rain came on, as to put it quite out of our power to make a fire; which, even in the finest weather, could only be made of moss, as we were near an hundred miles from any woods. This was poor comfort for people who had not broke their fast for four or five days. Necessity, however, has no law; and having been before initiated into the method of eating raw meat, we were the better prepared for this repast: but this was by no means so well relished, either by me or the Southern Indians, as either raw venison or raw fish had been: for the flesh of the musk-ox is not only coarse and tough, but smells and tastes so strong of musk as to make it very disagreeable when raw, though it is tolerable eating when properly cooked. The weather continued so remarkably bad, accompanied with constant heavy rain, snow, and sleet, and our necessities were so great by the time the weather permitted us to make a fire, that we had nearly eat to the amount of one buffalo quite raw.

On the seventeenth, we saw many musk-oxen, several of which the Indians killed; when we agreed to stay here a day or two, to dry and pound some of the carcases to take with us. The flesh of any animal, when it is thus prepared, is not only hearty food, but is always ready for use, and at the same time very portable. In most parts of Hudson's Bay it is known by the name of Thew-hagon, but amongst the Northern Indians it is called Achees.

-- July 22 1770.

To prepare meat in this manner, it requires no farther operation than cutting the lean parts of the animal into thin slices, and drying it in the sun, or by a slow fire, till, after beating it between two stones, it is reduced to a coarse powder.

Théwhagon or Yéwuhikun is the Cree name for meat dried and beaten as above, and it is generally known throughout the fur countries as "pounded meat." When fat is plentiful this shredded dry meat is often packed into a sack made of hide, and boiling fat is poured over and into it. This mixture of dried meat and grease is called pemican.

Having prepared as much dried flesh as we could transport, we proceeded to the Northward; and at our departure left a great quantity of meat behind us, which we could neither eat nor carry away. This was not the first time we had so done; and however wasteful it may appear, it is a practice so common among all the Indian tribes, as to be thought nothing of. On the twenty-second, we met several strangers, whom we joined in pursuit of the deer, &c. which were at this time so plentiful, that we got every day a sufficient number for our support, and indeed too frequently killed several merely for the tongues, marrow, and fat.

-- August 30 1770. 

After we had been some time in company with those Indians, I found that my guide seemed to hesitate about proceeding any farther; and that he kept pitching his tent backward and forward, from place to place, after the deer, and the rest of the Indians. On my asking him his reason for so doing; he answered, that as the year was too far advanced to admit of our arrival at the Coppermine River that Summer, he thought it more advisable to pass the Winter with some of the Indians then in company, and alleged that there could be no fear of our arriving at that river early in the Summer of one thousand seven hundred and seventy-one. As I could not pretend to contradict him, I was entirely reconciled to his proposal; and accordingly we kept moving to the Westward with the other Indians. In a few days, many others joined us from different quarters; so that by the thirtieth of July we had in all above seventy tents, which did not contain less than six hundred persons. Indeed our encampment at night had the appearance of a small town; and in the morning, when we began to move, the whole ground (at least for a large space all round) seemed to be alive, with men, women, children, and dogs. Though the land was entirely barren, and destitute of every kind of herbage, except wish-a-capucca and moss, yet the deer were so numerous that the Indians not only killed as many as were sufficient for our large number, but often several merely for the skins, marrow, &c. and left the carcases to rot, or to be devoured by the wolves, foxes, and other beasts of prey.

In the evening of the twentieth, we were joined from the Westward by a famous Leader, called Matonabbee, mentioned in my instructions; who, with his followers, or gang, was also going to Prince of Wales’s Fort, with furrs, and other articles for trade. This Leader, when a youth, resided several years at the above Fort, and was not only a perfect master of the Southern Indian language, but by being frequently with the Company’s servants, had acquired several words of English, and was one of the men who brought the latest accounts of the Coppermine River; and it was on his information, added to that of one I-dot-le-ezey, (who is since dead,) that this expedition was set on foot.
September 20th 1770.

The courteous behaviour of this stranger struck me very sensibly. As soon as he was acquainted with our distress, he got such skins as we had with us dressed for the Southern Indians, and furnished me with a good warm suit of otter and other skins: but, as it was not in his power to provide us with snow-shoes, (being then on the barren ground,) he directed us to a little river which he knew, and where there was a small range of woods, which, though none of the best, would, he said, furnish us with temporary snow-shoes and sledges, that might materially assist us during the remaining part of our journey. We spent several nights in company with this Leader, though we advanced towards the Fort at the rate of ten or twelve miles a day; and as provisions abounded, he made a grand feast for me in the Southern Indian style, where there was plenty of good eating, and the whole concluded with singing and dancing, after the Southern Indian style and manner. In this amusement my home-guard Indians bore no inconsiderable part, as they were both men of some consequence when at home, and well known to Matonabbee: but among the other Northern Indians, to whom they were not known, they were held in no estimation; which indeed is not to be wondered at, when we consider that the value of a man among those people, is always proportioned to his abilities in hunting; and as my two Indians had not exhibited any great talents that way, the Northern Indians shewed them as much respect as they do in common to those of very moderate talents among themselves.

October 1770.

During my conversation with this Leader, he asked me very seriously, If I would attempt another journey for the discovery of the Copper-mines? And on my answering in the affirmative, provided I could get better guides than I had hitherto been furnished with, he said he would readily engage in that service, provided the Governor at the Fort would employ him. In answer to this, I assured him his offer would be gladly accepted; and as I had already experienced every hardship that was likely to accompany any future trial, I was determined to complete the discovery, even at the risque of life itself. Matonabbee assured me, that by the accounts received from his own countrymen, the Southern Indians, and myself, it was very probable I might not experience so much hardship during the whole journey, as I had already felt, though scarcely advanced one third part of the journey.

He attributed all our misfortunes to the misconduct of my guides, and the very plan we pursued, by the desire of the Governor, in not taking any women with us on this journey, was, he said, the principal thing that occasioned all our wants: “for, said he, when all the men are heavy laden, they can neither hunt nor travel to any considerable distance; and in case they meet with success in hunting, who is to carry the produce of their labour? Women, added he, were made for labour; one of them can carry, or haul, as much as two men can do. They also pitch our tents, make and mend our clothing, keep us warm at night; and, in fact, there is no such thing as travelling any considerable distance, or for any length of time, in this country, without their assistance.” “Women, said he again, though they do every thing, are maintained at a trifling expence; for as they always stand cook, the very licking of their fingers in scarce times, is sufficient for their subsistence.” This, however odd as it may appear, is but too true a description of the situation of women in this country: it is at least so in appearance; for the women always carry the provisions, and it is more than probable they help themselves when the men are not present.

Image: By w:Samuel Hearne, flickr upload by [1] - originally posted to Flickr as A Map of Part of the Inland Country to the Nh Wt of Prince of Wales Fort Hs, By Samuel Hearne 1772 (1969)Uploaded using F2ComButton, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8544311

As Matonabbee and the other Indians thought it advisable to leave all the women at this place, and proceed to the Copper-mine River without them, it was thought necessary to continue here a few days, to kill as many deer as would be sufficient for their support during our absence. And notwithstanding deer were so plentiful, yet our numbers were so large, and our daily consumption was so great, that several days elapsed before the men could provide the women with a sufficient quantity; and then they had no other way of preserving it, than by cutting it in thin slices and drying it in the Sun. Meat, when thus prepared, is not only very portable, but palatable; as all the blood and juices are still remaining in the meat, it is very nourishing and wholesome food; and may, with care, be kept a whole year without the least danger of spoiling. It is necessary, however, to air it frequently during the warm weather, otherwise it is liable to grow mouldy: but as soon as the chill air of the fall begins, it requires no farther trouble till next Summer.