Vikings of the Pacific
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VIKINGS OF THE PACIFIC
The Adventures of the Explorers Who Came from the West, Eastward
Bering, the Dane; the Outlaw Hunters of Russia;
Benyowsky, the Polish Pirate; Cook and
Vancouver, the English Navigators; Gray of
Boston, the Discoverer of the
Columbia; Drake, Ledyard, and Other
Soldiers of Fortune on the
West Coast of America
by
A. C. LAUT
Author of "Pathfinders of the West," Etc.
[Frontispiece: Seal Rookery, Commander Islands.]
New York
The MacMillan Company
London: MacMillan & Co., Ltd.
1905
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1905,
by the MacMillan Company.
Set up and electrotyped. Published December, 1905.
{vii}
Foreword
At the very time the early explorers of New France were pressing from
the east, westward, a tide of adventure had set across Siberia and the
Pacific from the west, eastward. Carrier and Champlain of New France
in the east have their counterparts and contemporaries on the Pacific
coast of America in Francis Drake, the English pirate on the coast of
California, and in Staduchin and Deshneff and other Cossack plunderers
of the North Pacific, whose rickety keels first ploughed a furrow over
the trackless sea out from Asia. Marquette, Jolliet and La
Salle--backed by the prestige of the French government are not unlike
the English navigators, Cook and Vancouver, sent out by the English
Admiralty. Radisson, privateer and adventurer, might find counterpart
on the Pacific coast in either Gray, the discoverer of the Columbia, or
Ledyard, whose ill-fated, wildcat plans resulted in the Lewis and Clark
expedition. Bering was contemporaneous with La Verendrye; and so the
comparison might be carried on between Benyowsky, the Polish pirate of
the Pacific, or the Outlaw Hunters of Russia, and the famous buccaneers
of the eastern Spanish Main. The main point is--that both tides {viii}
of adventure, from the east, westward, from the west, eastward, met,
and clashed, and finally coalesced in the great fur trade, that won the
West.
The Spaniards of the Southwest--even when they extended their
explorations into the Northwest--have not been included in this volume,
for the simple reason they would require a volume by themselves. Also,
their aims as explorers were always secondary to their aims as treasure
hunters; and their main exploits were confined to the Southwest. Other
Pacific coast explorers, like La Perouse, are not included here because
they were not, in the truest sense, discoverers, and their exploits
really belong to the story of the fights among the different fur
companies, who came on the ground after the first adventurers.
In every case, reference has been to first sources, to the records left
by the doers of the acts themselves, or their contemporaries--some of
the data in manuscript, some in print; but it may as well be frankly
acknowledged that _all_ first sources have _not_ been exhausted. To do
so in the case of a single explorer, say either Drake or Bering--would
require a lifetime. For instance, there are in St. Petersburg some
thirty thousand folios on the Bering expedition to America. Probably
only one person--a Danish professor--has ever examined all of these;
and the results of his investigations I have consulted. Also, there
are in the State Department, Washington, some hundred old log-books of
the Russian hunters which {ix} have--as far as I know--never been
turned by a single hand, though I understand their outsides were looked
at during the fur seal controversy. The data on this era of adventure
I have chiefly obtained from the works of Russian archivists, published
in French and English. To give a list of all authorities quoted would
be impossible. On Alaska alone, the least-known section of the Pacific
coast, there is a bibliographical list of four thousand. The
better-known coast southward has equally voluminous records. Nor is
such a list necessary. Nine-tenths of it are made up of either
descriptive works or purely scientific pamphlets; and of the remaining
tenth, the contents are obtained in undiluted condition by going
directly to the first sources. A few of these first sources are
indicated in each section.
It is somewhat remarkable that Gray--as true a naval hero as ever trod
the quarter-deck, who did the same for the West as Carrier for the St.
Lawrence, and Hudson for the river named after him--is the one man of
the Pacific coast discoverers of whom there are scantiest records.
Authentic histories are still written, that cast doubt on his
achievement. Certainly a century ago Gray was lionized in Boston; but
it may be his feat was overshadowed by the world-history of the new
American republic and the Napoleonic wars at the opening of the
nineteenth century; or the world may have taken him at his own
valuation; and Gray was a hero of the non-shouting sort. The data on
{x} Gray's discovery have been obtained from the descendants of the
Boston men who outfitted him, and from his own great-grandchildren.
Though he died a poor man, the red blood of his courage and ability
seems to have come down to his descendants; for their names are among
the best known in contemporary American life. To them my thanks are
tendered. Since the contents of this volume appeared serially in
_Leslie's Monthly_, _Outing_, and _Harper's Magazine_, fresh data have
been sent to me on minor points from descendants of the explorers and
from collectors. I take this opportunity to thank these contributors.
Among many others, special thanks are due Dr. George Davidson,
President of San Francisco Geographical Society, for facts relating to
the topography of the coast, and to Dr. Leo Stejneger of the
Smithsonian, Washington, for facts gathered on the very spot where
Bering perished.
WASSAIC, New York,
July 15, 1905.
CONTENTS
PART I
DEALING WITH THE RUSSIANS ON THE PACIFIC COAST OF
AMERICA--BERING, THE DANE, THE SEA-OTTER HUNTERS,
THE OUTLAWS, AND BENYOWSKY, THE POLISH PIRATE
CHAPTER I
1700-1743
VITUS BERING, THE DANE
Peter the Great sends Bering on Two Voyages: First, to
discover whether America and Asia are united; Second, to
find what lies north of New Spain--Terrible Hardships
of Caravans crossing Siberia for Seven Thousand
Miles--Ships lost in the Mist--Bering's Crew cast away on a
Barren Isle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
CHAPTER II
1741-1743
CONTINUATION OF BERING, THE DANE
Frightful Sufferings of the Castaways on the Commander
Islands--The Vessel smashed in a Winter Gale, the Sick are
dragged for Refuge into Pits of Sand--Here, Bering
perishes, and the Crew Winter--The Consort Ship under
Chirikoff Ambushed--How the Castaways reach Home . . . . . 37
CHAPTER III
1741-1760
THE SEA-OTTER HUNTERS
How the Sea-otter Pelts brought back by Bering's Crew led
to the Exploitation of the Northwest
Coast of America--Difference of Sea-otter
from Other Fur-bearing Animals of
the West--Perils of the Hunt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
CHAPTER IV
1760-1770
THE OUTLAW HUNTERS
The American Coast becomes the Great Rendezvous for Siberian
Criminals and Political Exiles--Beyond Reach of Law,
Cossacks and Criminals perpetrate Outrages
on the Indians--The Indians' Revenge wipes
out Russian Forts in America--The Pursuit
of Four Refugee Russians from Cave to
Cave over the Sea at Night--How they escape after a
Year's Chase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
CHAPTER V
1768-1772
COUNT MAURITIUS BENYOWSKY, THE POLISH PIRATE
Siberian Exiles under Polish Soldier of Fortune plot to
overthrow Garrison of Kamchatka and escape to West Coast
of America as Fur Traders--A Bloody Melodrama enacted
at Bolcheresk--The Count and his Criminal Crew sail to
America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
PART II
AMERICAN AND ENGLISH ADVENTURERS ON THE WEST COAST
OF AMERICA--FRANCIS DRAKE IN CALIFORNIA--COOK,
FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA TO ALASKA--LEDYARD, THE
FORERUNNER OF LEWIS AND CLARK--GRAY, THE
DISCOVERER OF THE COLUMBIA--VANCOUVER, THE LAST OF
THE WEST COAST NAVIGATORS
CHAPTER VI
1562-1595
FRANCIS DRAKE IN CALIFORNIA
How the Sea Rover was attacked and ruined as a Boy on the
Spanish Main off Mexico--His Revenge in sacking
Spanish Treasure Houses and crossing Panama--The Richest
Man in England, he sails to the Forbidden Sea, scuttles all
the Spanish Ports up the West Coast of South America
and takes Possession of New Albion (California) for
England . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
CHAPTER VII
1728-1779
CAPTAIN COOK IN AMERICA
The English Navigator sent Two Hundred Years later to find
the New Albion of Drake's Discoveries--He misses both
the Straits of Fuca and the Mouth of the Columbia, but
anchors at Nootka, the Rendezvous of Future
Traders--No Northeast Passage found through Alaska--The True
Cause of Cook's Murder in Hawaii told by Ledyard--Russia
becomes Jealous of his Explorations . . . . . . . . . . . 172
CHAPTER VIII
1785-1792
ROBERT GRAY, THE AMERICAN DISCOVERER OF THE COLUMBIA
Boston Merchants, inspired by Cook's Voyages, outfit Two
Vessels under Kendrick and Gray for Discovery and Trade
on the Pacific--Adventures of the First Ship to carry the
American Flag around the World--Gray attacked by
Indians at Tillamook Bay--His Discovery of the
Columbia River on the Second Voyage--Fort Defence and the
First American Ship built on the Pacific . . . . . . . . . 210
CHAPTER IX
1778-1790
JOHN LEDYARD, THE FORERUNNER OF LEWIS AND CLARK
A New England Ne'er-do-well, turned from the Door of Rich
Relatives, joins Cook's Expedition to America--Adventure
among the Russians of Oonalaska--Useless Endeavor
to interest New England Merchants in Fur Trade--A
Soldier of Fortune in Paris, he meets Jefferson and Paul
Jones and outlines Exploration of Western America--Succeeds
in crossing Siberia alone on the Way to America, but
is thwarted by Russian Fur Traders . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
CHAPTER X
1779-1794
GEORGE VANCOUVER, LAST OF PACIFIC COAST EXPLORERS
Activities of Americans, Spanish, and Russians on the West Coast
of America arouse England--Vancouver is sent out
ostensibly to settle the Quarrel between Fur Traders and
Spanish Governors at Nootka--Incidentally, he is to complete
the Exploration of America's West Coast and take Possession
for England of Unclaimed Territory--The Myth of a
Northeast Passage dispelled Forever . . . . . . . . . . . 263
PART III
EXPLORATION GIVES PLACE TO FUR TRADE--THE EXPLOITATION
OF THE PACIFIC COAST UNDER THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN
FUR COMPANY, AND THE RENOWNED LEADER BARANOF
CHAPTER XI
1579-1867
THE RUSSIAN AMERICAN FUR COMPANY
The Pursuit of the Sable leads Cossacks across Siberia; of the
Sea-otter, across the Pacific as far south
as California--Caravans of Four Thousand Horses
on the Long Trail--Seven Thousand Miles
across Europe and Asia--Banditti of the Sea--The
Union of All Traders in One Monopoly--Siege
and Slaughter of Sitka--How Monroe Doctrine
grew out of Russian Fur Trade--Aims of Russia to
dominate North Pacific . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
CHAPTER XII
1747-1818
BARANOF, THE LITTLE CZAR OF THE PACIFIC
Baranof lays the Foundations of Russian Empire on the Pacific
Coast of America--Shipwrecked on his Way to Alaska,
he yet holds his Men in Hand and turns the Ill-hap to
Advantage--How he bluffs the Rival Fur Companies in
Line--First Russian Ship built in America--Adventures
leading the Sea-otter Hunters--Ambushed by the Indians--The
Founding of Sitka--Baranof, cast off in his Old
Age, dies of Broken Heart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
ILLUSTRATIONS
Seal Rookery, Commander Islands . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
Peter the Great . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Map of Course followed by Bering . . . . . . . . . . . . 20-21
The _St. Peter_ and _St. Paul_, from a rough sketch
by Bering's comrade, Steller, the scientist . . . . . . . 29
Steller's Arch on Bering Island, named after the scientist
Steller, of Bering's Expedition . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
A Glacier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Sea Cows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Seals in a Rookery on Bering Island . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Mauritius Augustus, Count Benyowsky . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Sir John Hawkins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Queen Elizabeth knighting Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
The _Golden Hind_ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Francis Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
The Crowning of Drake in California . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
The Silver Map of the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Captain James Cook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
The Ice Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
The Death of Cook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Departure of the _Columbia_ and the _Lady Washington_ . . . 211
Charles Bulfinch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Medals commemorating _Columbia_ and _Lady Washington_ Cruise 215
Building the First American Ship on the Pacific Coast . . . 223
Feather Cloak worn by a son of a Hawaiian Chief, at the
celebration in honor of Gray's return . . . . . . . . . . 226
John Derby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Map of Gray's two voyages, resulting in the discovery
of the Columbia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
A View of the Columbia River . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
At the Mouth of the Columbia River . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Ledyard in his Dugout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Captain George Vancouver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
The _Columbia_ in a Squall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
The _Discovery_ on the Rocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
Indian Settlement at Nootka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
Reindeer Herd in Siberia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Raised Reindeer Sledges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
John Jacob Astor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Sitka from the Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
Alexander Baranof . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
{1}
PART I
DEALING WITH THE RUSSIANS ON THE PACIFIC
COAST OF AMERICA--BERING, THE DANE, THE
SEA-OTTER HUNTERS, THE OUTLAWS, AND
BENYOWSKY, THE POLISH PIRATE
{3}
Vikings of the Pacific
CHAPTER I
1700-1743
VITUS BERING, THE DANE
Peter the Great sends Bering on Two Voyages: First, to discover whether
America and Asia are united; Second, to find what lies north of New
Spain--Terrible Hardships of Caravans crossing Siberia for Seven
Thousand Miles--Ships lost in the Mist--Bering's Crew cast away on a
Barren Isle
We have become such slaves of shallow science in these days, such firm
believers in the fatalism which declares man the creature of
circumstance, that we have almost forgotten the supremest spectacle in
life is when man becomes the Creator of Circumstance. We forget that
man can rise to be master of his destiny, fighting, unmaking,
re-creating, not only his own environment, but the environment of
multitudinous lesser men. There is something titanic in such lives.
They are the hero myths of every nation's legends. We {4} somehow feel
that the man who flings off the handicaps of birth and station lifts
the whole human race to a higher plane and has a bit of the God in him,
though the hero may have feet of clay and body of beast. Such were the
old Vikings of the North, who spent their lives in elemental warfare,
and rode out to meet death in tempest, lashed to the spar of their
craft. And such, too, were the New World Vikings of the Pacific, who
coasted the seas of two continents in cockle-shell ships,--planks
lashed with deer thongs, calked with moss,--rapacious in their deep-sea
plunderings as beasts of prey, fearless as the very spirit of the storm
itself. The adventures of the North Pacific Vikings read more like
some old legend of the sea than sober truth; and the wild strain had
its fountain-head in the most tempestuous hero and beastlike man that
ever ascended the throne of the Russias.
[Illustration: Peter the Great.]
When Peter the Great of Russia worked as a ship's carpenter at the
docks of the East India Company in Amsterdam, the sailors' tales of
vast, undiscovered lands beyond the seas of Japan must have acted on
his imagination like a match to gunpowder.[1] Already he was dreaming
those imperial conquests which Russia still dreams: of pushing his
realm to the southernmost edge of Europe, to the easternmost verge of
Asia, to the doorway of the Arctic, to the very threshold of the {5}
Chinese capital. Already his Cossacks had scoured the two Siberias
like birds of prey, exacting tribute from the wandering tribes of
Tartary, of Kamchatka, of the Pacific, of the Siberian races in the
northeasternmost corner of Asia. And these Chukchee Indians of the
Asiatic Pacific told the Russians of a land beyond the sea, of
driftwood floating across the ocean unlike any trees growing in Asia,
of dead whales washed ashore with the harpoons of strange hunters, {6}
and--most comical of all in the light of our modern knowledge about the
Eskimo's tail-shaped fur coats--of men wrecked on the shores of Asia
who might have qualified for Darwin's missing link, inasmuch as they
wore "tails."
And now the sailors added yet more fabulous things to Peter's
knowledge. There was an unknown continent east of Asia, west of
America, called on the maps "Gamaland." [2] Now, Peter's consuming
ambition was for new worlds to conquer. What of this "Gamaland"? But,
as the world knows, Peter was called home to suppress an insurrection.
War, domestic broils, massacres that left a bloody stain on his glory,
busied his hands for the remaining years of his life; and January of
1725 found the palaces of all the Russias hushed, for the Hercules who
had scrunched all opposition like a giant lay dying, ashamed to consult
a physician, vanquished of his own vices, calling on Heaven for pity
with screams of pain that drove physicians and attendants from the room.
Perhaps remorse for those seven thousand wretches executed at one fell
swoop after the revolt; perhaps memories of those twenty kneeling
supplicants whose heads he had struck off with his own hand, drinking a
bumper of quass to each stroke; perhaps reproaches {7} of the highway
robbers whom he used to torture to slow death, two hundred at a time,
by suspending them from hooks in their sides; perhaps the first wife,
whom he repudiated, the first son whom he had done to death either by
poison or convulsions of fright, came to haunt the darkness of his
deathbed.
Catherine, the peasant girl, elevated to be empress of all the Russias,
could avail nothing. Physicians and scientists and navigators, Dane
and English and Dutch, whom he had brought to Russia from all parts of
Europe, were powerless. Vows to Heaven, in all the long hours he lay
convulsed battling with Death, were useless. The sins of a lifetime
could not be undone by the repentance of an hour. Then, as if the
dauntless Spirit of the man must rise finally triumphant over Flesh,
the dying Hercules roused himself to one last supreme effort.
Radisson, Marquette, La Salle, Verendrye, were reaching across America
to win the undiscovered regions of the Western Sea for France. New
Spain was pushing her ships northward from Mexico; and now, the dying
Peter of Russia with his own hand wrote instructions for an expedition
to search the boundaries between Asia and America. In a word, he set
in motion that forward march of the Russians across the Orient, which
was to go on unchecked for two hundred years till arrested by the
Japanese. The Czar's instructions were always laconic. They were
written five weeks before his death. "(1) At {8} Kamchatka . . . two
boats are to be built. (2) With these you are to sail northward along
the coast. . . . (3) You are to enquire where the American coast
begins. . . . Write it down . . . obtain reliable information . . .
then, having charted the coast, return." [3]
From the time that Peter the Great began to break down the Oriental
isolation of Russia from the rest of Europe, it was his policy to draw
to St. Petersburg--the city of his own creation--leaders of thought
from every capital in Europe. And as his aim was to establish a navy,
he especially endeavored to attract foreign navigators to his kingdom.
Among these were many Norse and Danes. The acquaintance may have dated
from the apprenticeship on the docks of the East India Company; but at
any rate, among the foreign navigators was one Vitus Ivanovich Bering,
a Dane of humble origin from Horsens,[4] who had been an East India
Company sailor till he joined the Russian fleet as sub-lieutenant at
the age of twenty-two, and fought his way up in the Baltic service
through Peter's wars till in 1720 he was appointed captain of second
rank. To Vitus Bering, the Dane, Peter gave the commission for the
exploration of the waters between Asia and America. As a sailor,
Bering had, of course, been on the borders of the Pacific.[5]
{9} The scientists of every city in Europe were in a fret over the
mythical Straits of Anian, supposed to be between Asia and America, and
over the yet more mythical Gamaland, supposed to be visible on the way
to New Spain. To all this jangling of words without knowledge Peter
paid no heed. "You will go and obtain some reliable information," he
commands Bering. Neither did he pay any heed to the fact that the
ports of Kamchatka on the Pacific were six thousand miles by river and
mountain and tundra and desert through an unknown country from St.
Petersburg. It would take from three to five years to transport
material across two continents by caravan and flatboat and dog sled.
Tribute of food and fur would be required from Kurd and Tartar and wild
Siberian tribe. More than a thousand horses must be requisitioned for
the caravans; more than two thousand leathern sacks made for the flour.
Twenty or thirty boats must be constructed to raft down the inland
rivers. There were forests to be traversed for hundreds of miles,
where only the keenest vigilance could keep the wolf packs off the
heels of the travellers. And when the expedition should reach the
tundras of eastern Siberia, there was the double danger of the Chukchee
tribes on the north, hostile as the American Indians, and of the
Siberian exile population on the south, branded criminals, political
malcontents, banditti of {10} the wilderness, outcasts of nameless
crimes beyond the pale of law. It needed no prophet to foresee such
people would thwart, not help, the expedition. And when the shores of
Okhotsk were reached, a fort must be built to winter there. And a
vessel for inland seas must be constructed to cross to the Kamchatka
peninsula of the North Pacific. And the peninsula which sticks out
from Asia as Norway projects from Europe, must be crossed with
provisions--a distance of some two hundred miles by dog trains over
mountains higher than the American Rockies. And once on the shores of
the Pacific itself, another fort must be built on the east side of the
Kamchatka peninsula. And the two double-decker vessels must be
constructed to voyage over the sleepy swell of the North Pacific to
that mythical realm of mist like a blanket, and strange, unearthly
rumblings smoking up from the cold Arctic sea, with the red light of a
flame through the gray haze, and weird voices, as if the fog wraith
were luring seamen to destruction. These were mere details. Peter
took no heed of impossibles. Neither did Bering; for he was in the
prime of his honor, forty-four years of age. "You will go," commanded
the Czar, and Bering obeyed.
Barely had the spirit of Peter the Great passed from this life, in
1725, when Bering's forces were travelling in midwinter from St.
Petersburg to cross Siberia to the Pacific, on what is known as the
First Expedition.[6] {11} Three years it took him to go from the west
coast of Europe to the east coast of Asia, crossing from Okhotsk to
Kamchatka, whence he sailed on the 9th of July, 1728, with forty-four
men and three lieutenants for the Arctic seas.[7] This voyage is
unimportant, except as the kernel out of which grew the most famous
expedition on the Pacific coast. Martin Spanberg, another Danish
navigator, huge of frame, vehement, passionate, tyrannical out
dauntless, always followed by a giant hound ready to tear any one who
approached to pieces, and Alexei Chirikoff, an able Russian, were
seconds in command. They encountered all the difficulties to be
expected transporting ships, rigging, and provisions across two
continents. Spanberg and his men, winter-bound in East Siberia, were
reduced to eating their dog harness and shoe-straps for food before
they came to the trail of dead horses that marked Bering's path to the
sea, and guided them to the fort at Okhotsk.