EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 13th and final part of a series by William S. Dodge, who was present at the Oct. 18, 1867, transfer of Alaska to the United States, and was mayor the first two years afterward. Dodge describes the successes and failures of Sitka’s attempts at self government while appealing to Congress to enact a civil government for Alaska. Dodge’s first-hand account of Sitka’s first two years under the American flag appeared in the July 9, 1876, issue of the Alaska Herald, a San Francisco newspaper. Alaska historian Chris Allan discovered this history in a university archive and made it available to the Sentinel.
Part 13 of a series.
Today: Ten years after the transfer, the writer looks back and sums up the reasons Sitka, and Alaska, failed to realize their bright promise under American rule.
By W.S. Dodge
CAUSES OF SITKA’S DECLINE
In conclusion, I will say that at the outset Sitka gave promise of being a commercial centre of importance. For a new country, it had a class of population, among the Americans, far superior to that generally first found in such communities. What was done there proves it. But Sitka’s decline is attributable to several causes: First—the failure of San Francisco merchants to appreciate the value of the country and to embark in legitimate enterprises for its development. Second—the withdrawal by Hutchinson, Kohl & Co. of all their business from the place. Third—the establishment of a military post in the heart of the town. Fourth—the policy of the War Department in not giving the people employment, such as always attaches in military districts elsewhere. Fifth—the neglect of the Government to extend civil rule over the Territory; or, in the absence of that, to extend over it any land laws, whereby the people could have operated in mines, cut timber, acquired title to the soil with a view to tillage, etc. Seventh*—the arbitrary trade regulations of the Treasury Department, which, combined with the free operations of the Hudson Bay Company, literally “froze out” every merchant engaged in business, and only offered an opportunity to contraband traders, even compelling men, otherwise honest and law-abiding, to commit wrong in order to subsist or gain means to leave the country.
I still believe that Governor Seward’s prophecy will prove true, and that within twenty years Alaska will be to the Pacific coast and to the nation what Washington Territory is to-day. But to those who remain there to welcome that bright future, it will be a life of weary and painful waiting.
W.S.D.
*As published, no “Sixth” is listed.
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