Alaska (70 page)

'That's ridiculous,' the missionary who fathered the law grumbled, but Caldwell was far from finished with his critique: 'No one can buy land here, because Oregon's law made no provision for a land law. Worse, for the same reason, the great Homestead Act which has settled the West can't be used here to give settlers free land. But what really strangles us is that we can have no local legislature because Oregon in those days didn't have one.' On and on he went, sometimes showing Jackson chapter and line of the antiquated law, so that by the time he was finished, Jackson realized that with his help Congress had returned Alaska to a straitjacket; he saw that he would have to fight most of his battles all over again, and he began that night to flood Congress with new letters of advice and his women supporters with new appeals for funds, because when he engaged in battle, there was no truce, no surrender.

But it was not until the new officers authorized by the Organic Act of 1884 arrived in Sitka to take control of Alaska that he realized the jeopardy he was in, because President Chester Arthur, under almost unendurable pressures from office seekers, had appointed some of the most despicable rascals available at the time, and from the moment they arrived in Sitka they determined to get rid of the troublesome little missionary about whom miners, fishermen and rumrunners complained.

427

Ringleader of Jackson's enemies was the district attorney, a notorious drunk. His marshal was little better, but it was the federal judge, a man of enormous power, who was the real disaster. Ward McAllister, Jr., was the incompetent nephew of the man with the same name who served as social dictator of New York. All had received their appointments to good paying jobs through the political pull of their friends and without regard to their competency, which was nil.

They had not assumed their offices long when, with the connivance of the district attorney and Judge McAllister, they issued in secret an indictment for the arrest of Jackson, then waited till a maximum number of local citizens were at the dock to see the departure of a steamer on which Jackson was to sail. At the last possible moment Deputy Marshal Sullivan went aboard with handcuffs to arrest the little missionary and haul him off to jail.

In the next weeks Jackson suffered indignities he could not have imagined, but in the end he was rescued by a most improbable source of justice. President Arthur, responsible for these infamous appointments, left office, and almost immediately after the Democratic reformer Grover Cleveland assumed the presidency, he canceled the Arthur appointments, replacing them with more standard politicians, who served Alaska well. One of the first things the new team did was quash the indictment of Sheldon Jackson, who nevertheless continued to believe that the nation was served best when Republicans were in power.

It was about this time that Jackson participated in one of the most farseeing acts of Alaskan history, one that was rarely if ever duplicated in other newly settled frontiers. Communicating with the leaders of other American churches, he proposed a mutually enforced division of Alaska into a dozen or so religious spheres of influence, each the preserve of one denomination into which proselytizing missionaries from other sects would not intrude. What he proposed was a grand religious truce, and primarily because his reputation as a man of integrity was so widely recognized, leaders of the other groups adopted his suggestion.

As he explained it to the people of Sitka: 'Because the Presbyterians were first on the scene, we get Sitka. But since this is the easiest part, we're also taking the most difficult, Barrow in the extreme north.' Modestly he added: 'It'll be the northernmost mission in the world.' When he spelled out other terms of the agreement, he sounded like some follower of Jesus in the Book of Acts apportioning the missionary responsibilities of the infant Christian church: 'Our good friends the Baptists are taking Kodiak Island and lands

428

nearby. The Aleutian Islands, where much work needs to be done, to the Methodists.

The Episcopal church picks up the work already done decades ago by their cousin church, the Anglicans of Canada, along the upper Yukon. The Congregationalists have volunteered to accept a most difficult area, Cape Prince of Wales. And a fine church you may not know, the German Moravians of Pennsylvania, are going to take God's Word along the Kuskokwim River.'

In a later wave of ecumenical enthusiasm, other churches volunteered to become part of this grand arrangement: the Quakers of Philadelphia, always in the forefront where such work was to be done, received Kotzebue and a mining area near Juneau; Swedish Evangelists got Unalakleet; and the Roman Catholics received the vast areas about the mouth of the Yukon which had once been served by the Russian Orthodox missionaries.

It was an extraordinary example of ecumenism at its best, and much of the credit went to Jackson.

But verbal agreements, noble though they may be, and actual implementation are two vastly different things, and years passed before any of the major American churches implemented their promises. There were no Baptist missions, no Methodist, not even a Quaker. In despair, for he saw the natives of Alaska perishing because the Word of God was denied them, Jackson implored the major churches to get moving, but with no results. He went to Philadelphia to visit with the Quakers, whom he was sure he could persuade to move north, but he accomplished nothing, so in a kind of moral despair he spent a steaming hot night in August 1883 in the Quaker city drafting a letter to the Moravian church centered in nearby Bethlehem. He implored them to continue in Alaska the noble work they had begun with the Eskimos of Labrador, and once more he received for his labors nothing but silence.

But his letter must have had some effect on the stalwart Germans of Bethlehem, for during Jackson's visit to the United States in the following winter he received without any preliminary encouragement an invitation to visit Bethlehem and present his vision of Alaska's needs to the Moravians. Hastily boarding a train in Philadelphia, he journeyed north to the quaint and lovely old German city, where he delivered one of his most inspired orations, telling the audience: 'The Moravian church has always been in the forefront where missionary work is involved. It's your tradition, your soul. Now God's call reaches you one more time: ”The Eskimos of Alaska are languishing for My Holy Word.” Dare you say no?'

The solemn burghers who supervised the church agreed that night that they would send an exploratory mission to the

429

Kuskokwim River by the end of 1885, and when the five young, devout farmers three men, two wives saw that great twin of the Yukon and the hunger among the people for medicine, education and Christianity, which they interpreted as the reason why white men prospered, the young missionaries wrote back to Bethlehem: 'We are needed,' and one of the finest groups of religious workers ever to reach Alaska followed in due course, and the logjam of indifference was broken. Quickly the Quakers took up their appointed areas, then the Baptists and the Methodists, and soon Alaska was dotted with those missions, often stuck away on remote sites, which would in time account for the civilizing of the Great Land.

ONE DAY WHEN JACKSON WAS AT WORK IN SITKA, THE new cutter Bear hove into the sound, and before it could be anchored, Jackson had made the decision which would determine so much Alaskan history: That's the kind of ship I'd like to sail in. By midday he had presented his authorization for passage to the first mate, who looked down his nose at the strange little man offering it and said: 'Captain'11

have to clear this,' and for the first time the missionary was led into the quarters of Captain Mike Healy, who had begun to drink heavily the moment the Sear reached Sitka, and who now sat with his parrot on his shoulder.

Irritated by this unwarranted intrusion, he let loose a chain of his most violent oaths, glared at Jackson, and ended: 'Now what in hell do you want?'

Had the little missionary quailed before this onslaught, the possibility of any relationship between the two men might have died there, but Jackson was a truly fearless man, and drawing himself up to his most impressive posture, he shouted in his strongest oratorical voice: 'Captain Healy! I am a man of the cloth, and I do not allow such profanation of God's name in my presence. And I have also come to Alaska to stamp out the alcohol trade, and you, sir, are drunk.'

Startled by the little gamecock, Healy began to say 'You're right, Reverend ...”

when his parrot came forth with a few choice curses of its own, whereupon Healy cuffed him so that his feathers seemed to fly as he fled to the safety of his perch: 'Shut up, you!' He then turned his attention to his visitor: 'What does your paper say?'

'It's from the Treasury Department and it says that I'm to have free passage aboard your ship as long as I am in pursuit of my duties.'

430

'And what are your duties?'

'The bringing of God's Word to the Eskimos. The education of the children of Alaska.

And the stamping out of the liquor traffic.'

To Jackson's amazement, Mike Healy, whose life had been saved by education, rose unsteadily, reached for his hand, and pledged a support which would last for twenty years: 'I'm for everything you're for, Reverend. Education saves souls, and strong liquor is the curse of the Alaskan native.'

'You seem to be well cursed yourself, Captain.'

'In my private life. As captain of this ship, one of my major duties, stamp out the trafficking in hooch.'

'And what is hooch?'

'Rotgut, booze, John Barleycorn. It kills Eskimos. It wipes out entire villages.'

He fell back in his chair, reached for a glass which Jackson had not seen before, and finished his drink. Then he looked up with a roguish smile and said: 'Bring your gear aboard. We sail for Kodiak and Siberia at four.' And thus the partnership between these two unlikely men was initiated.

Healy was six feet two, five years younger and twenty years more powerful; Jackson was exactly a foot shorter, so that the top of his head came to Healy's windpipe.

Healy was a believing Roman Catholic, with brothers and sisters occupying important roles in that religion; Jackson was a devout Presbyterian who, like John Knox before him, railed against Catholics. Healy was a Georgia Negro who legally should have been a slave; Jackson was the product of that social and religious ferment which had swept the rural area of upper New York State Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Joseph Smith, to whom the secrets of Mormonism were revealed, sprang from the same source and he believed that Negroes, Indians and Eskimos were humans who deserved God's love but not social equality with white men. Healy was a man devoted to a profane vocabulary and booze; Jackson was a man of rectitude who felt it his duty to lecture miscreants and save them from their folly. Their differences were tremendous, and they were never hesitant about displaying them.

But they had three beliefs in common, and it overrode all these differences: they both believed that Alaska could be governed if one found men of good will to make the effort; they were prepared to volunteer for that duty; and both sought justice for the natives.

Their first cruise together sealed their friendship, because whatever difficulty they ran into, they seemed to perceive instantly its moral overtones, and to a startling degree, each

431

approved of what the other recommended. Now it was no longer Captain Healy of some grubby revenue cutter dispensing rude justice along the shores of the seas; it was the noble ship

Bear

steaming into harbor, its engine puffing smoke, with a distinguished ship's captain aboard, supported by a self-appointed doctor of divinity. They formed a majestic pair, two giants moving into an area that had been pestered by midgets, and after the first visit of this

Bear

to a new village, the authority of Healy and Jackson was established.

On this first trip together they straightened things out at Kodiak, provided stores to the Russian garrison at Petropavlovsk, delivered and enforced a set of judgments along the Siberian coast, and wound up at Cape Navarin, whose settlers streamed out in canoes once they learned that Captain Healy was back, for they remembered the gifts with which he had been so generous on his last trip. It was here that Healy took Jackson ashore to inspect the reindeer herds upon which these Siberians lived so bountifully, but the missionary did not at first appreciate the significance of the visit, for he had not yet seen Alaskan Eskimos starving for lack of winter food.

'Reindeer!' Healy cried. 'You load the Bear with them, a good wind offshore, and two days later you land them in Alaska.'

'Would that be possible?'

'We could do it right now if we had the authority, and the money to pay these people for their surplus.' The two Americans became so excited by the prospect of utilizing Siberian experience to save Alaskan lives that they assembled the herders of Cape Navarin, and Healy harangued them about the possibility of a trans-Bering trade in reindeer, and when he told them what they would receive in return, they became so enthusiastic that Healy told Jackson: 'When you get to Washington, see if funds are available.'

'But are the reindeer that necessary?'

'You'll see.'

And when they crossed the Chukchi Sea and landed at a chain of settlements Barrow, Desolation, Point Hope, Cape Wales and Jackson saw the devastation that an uncertain food supply wreaked at these points, he reached a firm conclusion: 'Captain Healy, you and I must do two things to save the Eskimos. Bring them a mission which has a school attached, and bring them reindeer.'

On the way home the Bear diverted for a stop at St. Lawrence Island, where Healy showed his missionary friend the ruination wrought by the rum and molasses from the Erebus.

Jackson was appalled when he saw the skeletons still 432

lying about, and that night as the sturdy Bear plowed southward he sought out Healy as he conned the ship on its way through the Bering Sea: 'Captain, if you were the man who discovered the death of those villages, and if you knew the reason, how can you possibly go on drinking?'