"Report of the Governor of Alaska for the Fiscal Year 1888 [with map] Alaska and Adjoining Territory", U.S. Government

This is a significant, critical report by Governor A. P. Swineford, a former newspaper editor from Michigan, documenting the abuses by the Alaska Commercial Company that held a monopoly over the fur trade. Swineford traveled extensively throughout the territory and provided detailed examples of the company’s pattern of economic, and sometimes physical, abuse of the natives. The company paid a fraction of the value of the furs to the natives and used its leverage as operator of the trading posts to charge higher prices to the natives for food and necessities to keep the natives as “little if any better than mere serfs of that powerful company.” (p. 33) “It does rob the [natives] in the price it compels them to accept for his furs, and it robs him again in the prices it charges for the goods he must buy at their stores.” (p.34). Swineford noted that the price for coal to whites was $20 at the same time the price for the natives was $30 to $40, “the same discrimination being made against the latter in the price of everything.” (p. 36). Swineford’s indictment of the company fell upon deaf ears in Washington where the company had employed a lobbyist. This was Swineford’s final report before being replaced. His successor’s 1890 report was brief and avoided the issues Swineford had raised.

Accompanying the report is the large, folding Alaska and Adjoining Territory by the Coast & Geodetic Survey. This is an updated version of the 1884 map and shows excellent detail along with coast with numerous soundings in the waters. An inset at top extends the main map, showing the entirety of the Aleutian Islands.

56 pages. Octavo, paper wrappers. This is the copy of Whit M. Grant, U.S. Attorney in Alaska at the time, with his signature on the title page.

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Condition: B+

The map is clean and bright with several small separations at the fold junctions. Text is very good with a hint of light toning. Front wrapper has light soiling and the rear wrapper is missing.