ing excerpt from a letter from Dr. Jackson to Rev. Clarence Thwing. dated March 14, 1896: I have told him [Mr. Young] that we are not anxious to have a large number come at once, and would rather that a small number should come at first, as I want to have the place [Saxman] modeled after Metlakahtla in some respects. I hope the friends in Alaska will continue to pray that a man with some of Mr. Duncan's power may be found to take charge of this experiment. * * BUREAU OFFICIAL ESTABLISHES GOVERNMENT SCHOOL AND RIVAL MISSION VILLAGE AT SAXMAN The fourth step was the establishment of a Government school and a Presbyterian mission at Saxman, 12 miles from Metlakahtla. In the fall of 1898, Marsden received his appointment as missionary at Saxman, through Dr. Jackson, who had also established a Government school there under the Bureau of Education. With Marsden appointed as a missionary with headquarters at Saxman, a strategic position was occupied, and plans were completed to use him to agitate and breed discontent among the Tsimshean natives at Metlakahtla and thus surreptitiously undermine the work and influence of Father Duncan. Shortly after Marsden was installed as a missionary at Saxman, he was also placed on the pay roll of the Bureau of Education as a teacher at that place, as a convenient base for the siege and invasion of Metlakahtla. The following are typical expressions from the records showing Marsden's dual relationship in the affairs of church and state at Saxman under the administration of the Bureau of Education. Ch. IX, Church and State, infra, p. 19247.) (See In a letter to Dr. Jackson, dated February 4, 1902, Marsden wrote: * Please let me know by the return mail whether or not Lucy [Marsden's wife] could continue the school during my absence in the States, and also whether or not the regular salary be given as usual. The vouchers will be made out by me, as are also the reports for April and May. In referring to the appointment of one of the teachers at Saxman, Dr. Jackson wrote to Mark Hamilton, a native, in a letter dated March 22, 1902: I will try and secure you a better teacher for next year. You remember that Miss was not my choice, but I took her upon the recommendation of Rev. Edward Marsden. On May 10, 1902, Marsden, supposed to be teaching at Saxman, wrote the following to Dr. Jackson from Cincinnati, Ohio: Enclosed please find my school reports for April. I have filled them out as usual as soon as I received Lucy's words. Please send the remittance to me care Rev. Chas. L. Thompson, D. D., 158 Fifth Avenue, New York. I shall be there May 15-22. * On May 28, 1902, Marsden wrote to Dr. Jackson, from Cincinnati, Ohio, as follows: The "special" salary of $800 a year given me as a regular missionary is such that I must ask you either to give me the school at Saxman for the coming year or appoint my wife as the assistant to the teacher there. Having traced Marsden to Saxman, where we find him on the pay roll of the Bureau of Education, we will next give details of the establishment of strategic headquarters at Saxman as a part of the plans of the plotters to invade Father Duncan's mission village at Metlakahtla. SECTION 14. BUREAU PLOTTERS ESTABLISH STRATEGIC HEADQUARTERS AT SAXMAN Bureau plotters induce Cape Fox and Tongass Indians to remove to Saxman to establish base for a rival school and mission village. Default of Bureau of Education in not fulfilling its promises to the Cape Fox and Tongass Indians. Plotters start agitation among Metlakahtlans in regard to land rights. Deception of natives by intriguers. Father Duncan's dignified rebuke to Governor Brady. A dazzling temptation and cunning plot to invade Annette Islands Reserve. A very significant fact. Marsden falsifies census returns of Metlakahtla. Peace and prosperity at Metlakahtla before plotters begin activities at Saxman. Marsden's acknowledgment of Father Duncan's great leadership. Bureau of Education participates in fomenting trouble at Metlakahtla. Although there was not even a native settlement at Saxman and no necessity existed for establishing a mission village in such close proximity to Metlakahtla, the location was selected as a strategic point from which to intermeddle and carry on agitations to create discord in Father Duncan's mission field. BUREAU PLOTTERS INDUCE CAPE FOX AND TONGASS INDIANS TO REMOVE TO SAXMAN TO ESTABLISH BASE FOR A RIVAL SCHOOL AND MISSION VILLAGE In 1895 Dr. Sheldon Jackson, while acting in his dual capacity of United States general agent of education for Alaska and general Presbyterian missionary for that Territory, with the cooperation of Gov. John G. Brady, induced the Cape Fox and Tongass Indians to remove from their home villages to a point 12 miles from Metlakahtla to form a nucleus for the rival school and mission village of Saxman. As an inducement for such removal, these Indians were promised by the Alaskan head of the Bureau of Education that they would be given lands and an industrial mission village like that established by Father Duncan at Metlakahtla. As we have already seen in a letter dated February 23, 1897, Dr. Jackson informed Marsden, then a student at Lane Theological Seminary, that the board of missions would appoint him "their missionary to the Tongass, Cape Fox, and Simptsimpsheans [Tsimsheans] people in southeast Alaska * * * with headquarters at Saxman, where we would like to have you organize and develop a community on the same general line as at Metlakahtla." The removal of the Cape Fox and Tongass Indians from their respective villages, which the United States Government, under its treaty with Russia, was pledged to preserve for them, and their settlement at Saxman at the instance of Dr. Jackson, was an injustice to those natives because Congress had granted them no rights at Saxman as it had the Metlakahtlans on Annette Islands. DEFAULT OF BUREAU OF EDUCATION IN NOT FULFILLING ITS PROMISE TO THE CAPE FOX AND TONGASS INDIANS Twenty-five years after the removal of the Tongass and Cape Fox Indians to Saxman, and after the complete failure of the Saxman project, morally, educationally, and economically, the remnants of these Indians still in that vicinity had not been provided with lands on which they could establish permanent homes. To support this assertion the following is quoted from a letter of Charles W. Hawkesworth, superintendent of schools of the southeastern district of Alaska, to William T. Lopp, superintendent of education of natives of Alaska, dated January 22, 1921: Last night I made my second trip to Saxman. They came over here to get me that I might meet with the elected council. The chief object was that the mile square of land promised them by Jackson and Governor Brady might actually be made a fact. There is no record of any tract of land being set aside for Saxman in the Juneau land office. All there is there relates to the 40 acres for a school reserve, and that has never been surveyed. With its advance in civilized life, under the leadership of Father Duncan, Metlakahtla was a happy, contented, and prosperous community, while Saxman, under Marsden's leadership, always was and remained a demoralized heathen village until it finally was abandoned by the plotters after they had used it as a stepping stone from which to reach Metlakahtla. From the beginning of the plot Metlakahtla was the real objective of the conspirators. PLOTTERS START AGITATION AMONG METLAKAHTLANS IN REGARD TO LAND RIGHTS Almost immediately after Marsden was appointed a missionary at Saxman the plotters began their intrigues to deceive the natives with respect to their rights on the special reserve of Annette Islands set apart by Congress for the exclusive use of the Metlakahtlans. DECEPTION OF NATIVES BY INTRIGUERS The methods employed by Marsden and Governor Brady in deceiving the Metlakahtlans as to their rights on this special reserve, and arousing in the minds of the natives distrust of both Father Duncan and the Government, are shown by the following documents arranged in parallel: gates to proceed to Sitka and confer has not taken any steps to correct the with Judge C. S. Johnson and myself upon these matters. On Monday evening the 20th instance Messrs. Atkinson, Simpson, Usher, and Marsden, all native Tsimpsheans, met me at my office and I went over the questions which so intimately concern you. For the past 2 years, I have been giving a good deal of attention to the problem of your situation and have been trying to study out a solution. It is now about 12 years since you came to Alaska, and today your position as a people in the Territory is uncertain. This is made so by a law in reference to you which was passed March 3, 1891, and is as follows: "SEC. 15. That until otherwise provided by law the body of lands known as Annette Islands, situated in Alexander Archipelago in southeastern Alaska, on the north side of Dixons Entrance, be, and the same is hereby, set apart as a reservation for the use of the Metlakahtla Indians, and those people known as Metlakahtlans who have recently emigrated from British Columbia to Alaska, and such other Alaskan natives as may join them, to be held and used by them in common, under such rules and regulations, and subject to such restrictions, as may be prescribed from time to time by the Secretary of the Interior." Your position then is as natives upon a reservation until otherwise ordered by Congress, and you are bound to observe and live under the rules and regulations which the Secretary of the Interior may prescribe from time to time. If he sees fit to put an agent over you and confine you to the limits of Annette Island, he would have this law as his authority for doing so. Your being on a reservation gives your neighbors certain ideas concerning you, and these will become stronger and more frequently repeated as that part of the territory becomes more thickly settled. I do not know upon whose advice this law of March 3, 1891, was passed, whether it was your own seeking or was advised independently of you by people who were friendly disposed, but surely not well informed as to the working of the reservation system upon the natives. As matters now stand you cannot all make your living upon Annette Island, or at least are not doing so. So it would be absurd to think of confining you to its limits unless the Government wishes to build your houses and fur conduct of Edward Marsden, for he is getting worse rather than better, since the visit of Dr. Jackson here. You can judge how much, or rather how little, he is attending to his duties as a Missionary for Saxman-where I suppose the board of missions sent him-when I tell you he has paid five visits to Metlakahtla in his steam launch within the last 4 weeks, each visit occupying him from 2 to 4 days. His last two visits have stirred up quite a commotion as he is agitating the land question and citizenship. Almost every day I have visits from our principal men who come to complain to me of his conduct and urge me to call him to account. ** * land question. He assures the people As I have said, he is harping on the that they must take immediate action if they would escape being trapped on island is surveyed, and allotted to them this island as a reserve. For, once the permanently, as a reserve, they will not De permitted to leave it. If, therefore, they wish to be free island as a reserve, and sue at once for men and citizens they must resign the citizenship. In support of his action in the matter Marsden states he got the warning note from Governor Brady, who urged him to bring the question before our people for discussion, and decision. He further stated (I am told) that Governor Brady assured him that I must have withheld from our people certain documents or messages from the Government sent through me to them bearing on the question of the reserve; and therefore they ought not to consult me in their discussion of the subject. "I do not, however, believe that Governor Brady has said, or would say, any such untruth-still I have thought it well to write him and ask him to tell me what he may have said which has led to the Marsden agitation and to assure him he must not regard any action of this clique as expressing the will of the community. I shall wait for his reply before taking up the matter with our people. While I do not regard the matter as anything serious to our community as a whole yet it will no doubt tend to unsettle the minds of some of the Tlinkits (about 60) who have joined us. This afternoon one of the chief men among them came to tell me that some were talking of leaving us on account of the fears which have been awakened through this agitation about land, and nish you with clothing and food, and I feel pretty certain that you do not want to lower yourself to such a plane. In my annual report for 1899, which has just been sent to the Secretary of the Interior, under the head of Metlakahtla, I have gone over these matters somewhat at length and I herewith enclose a copy of what I have written. It embodies my opinion of what is best for you and I need not here discuss it any further. If you have fully made up your JOHN G. BRADY, of course they will go to Saxman, where Dr. Jackson and Marsden want them to go. It is a pity to see the poor creatures thus cajoled by designing self-seekers— but I would rather be one of the cajoled than either one of the schemers. Here the Tlinkits have a home, order, peace, progress, school, and church and doctor to help them. At Saxman they have the husk without the kernel, and hard by stands Ketchikan, where there is every facility to hurry them to ruin. Last year when Marsden came I urged him to work hard at the Tlinkit language--and told him I spoke the Tsimshean tongue after being 8 months at my post. He has been twice that time and yet knows nothing of the tongue of the people, Yours gratefully, W. DUNCAN. FATHER DUNCAN'S DIGNIFIED REBUKE TO GOVERNOR BRADY Whether through ignorance or otherwise, statements contained in Governor Brady's letter of November 23, 1899, to the natives of Metlakahtla were utterly untrue, misrepresented their legal status on Annette Islands Reserve, and, coming from this high official source, had a most demoralizing effect. The statement made to the Metlakahtlans by Governor Brady that being on their special reserve subjected them to conditions of an ordinary Indian reservation, caused the natives great alarm, although this statement of the Governor was without foundation in law or fact. In a letter to Gov. John G. Brady, dated January 8, 1900, Father Duncan, protesting against untrue and misleading statements in Governor Brady's annual report for 1899, which were calculated to create fears and distrust among the Metlakahtlans, stated: * From your report I gather that you regard the congressional act of March 3, 1891, setting aside Annette Island for the natives, as a blunder. You say, "This piece of legislation in the opinion of many people is a trouble breeder, that it introduces into Alaska the reservation system of handling the natives." And in your letter to our people dated November 23, 1899, you inform them that their "position as a people in the Territory is uncertain." That they "are bound to observe and live under the rules and regulations which the Secretary of the Interior may prescribe from time to time." That "if he sees fit to put an agent over you and confine you to the limits of Annette Island, he would have this law as his authority for doing so." You further add, "I do not know upon whose advice this law of March 3, 1891, was passed, whether it was your own seeking, or was advised independently of you by people who were friendly disposed but surely not well informed as to the working of the reservation system upon the natives." You further say, "As matters now stand you cannot all make your living upon Annette Island, or at least are not doing so. So it would be absurd to think of confining you to its limits unless the Government wishes to build your houses and furnish you with clothing and food, and I feel certain you do not want to lower yourselves to such a plane." The first thought that occurred to me on reading the foregoing lines was, what a pity they were not spoken by you in person when, on your recent visit |