*Photo of Wrangell, Alaska taken around 1905. To the right stands the Kadashan home with the two prominent totems in front.*

John Kadashan

As the 19th century drew to a close, no home in Fort Wrangel represented the changing times more than Kadashan’s house. His two-story Victorian-style residence would have been impressive anywhere, but what set him apart were his two ornately carved totem poles out front. These poles suggested his wealth, status, and power as the leader of the Kaasx’agweidí clan, which had occupied that spot since before the arrival of the United States in 1868. As photographed by Eadweard Muybridge, Kadashan’s home was part of the village of Ḵaachx̱ana.áakʼw. But decades passed, and by 1898 the Wilson & Sylvester Sawmill surrounded Kadashan’s house with construction and towering stacks of lumber. Tourists flocked to Kadashan’s home to see this mixture of old and new.

Like his house, Kadashan was a mixture of Tlingit and Western ways. Kadashan was one of the first members of the Presbyterian mission, taking the Christian name John Kadashan. He was a skilled orator, storyteller, and peacemaker. As the Reverend S. Hall Young described him:

“Kadishan was the shrewdest and most diplomatic of the Stickeens. His face was pockmarked, with one eyelid partly eaten away, giving him the comical appearance of executing a wink. He was a born after-dinner speaker and a master of metaphors, oily phrases and compliment. He had a never-failing fund of native legend, Indian lore, song and story.”

Kadashan befriended John Muir in 1879 and traveled on his canoe voyage north. According to Muir, when white people cut down one of Kadashan’s family totem poles, an outraged Kadashan demanded to know:

“How would you like to have an Indian go to a graveyard and break down and carry away a monument belonging to your family?”

Near the end of the 1880s, private canneries began to seize salmon streams and exclude Tlingit fishermen from ancestral fishing grounds. In 1890, lawyer Willoughby Clark wrote a letter to President Benjamin Harrison on behalf of the Tlingit, but they received no response. As the decade came to an end, the problem only grew worse as more fish traps decimated salmon streams and boxed the Tlingit out. The growing flood of newcomers with the Klondike Gold Rush accelerated the feeling that the Tlingit were losing control.

Once again, Kadashan’s skills as an orator would play an important role. In 1898, Kadashan had an opportunity to address Alaska’s governor, John G. Brady. As Kadashan would remind Brady, the two men were not strangers. In fact, they had a history.

John G. Brady

President William McKinley appointed John G. Brady as the Governor of Alaska in 1897. Brady had been a well-known Presbyterian minister in Alaska, and it all began in Fort Wrangel in March 1878. He arrived to find a passionate group of Christian Tlingit converts eager for a minister to serve their congregation. The group was supported by missionary Amanda R. McFarland, but as a layperson she could not officiate religious services. One of Brady’s first acts in Fort Wrangel was to hold the first Christian wedding ceremonies for two Tlingit couples, a landmark event.

But Brady’s time in Fort Wrangel would be short-lived and disappointing for the Tlingit. As Amanda McFarland recalled in a letter to Reverend Sheldon Jackson on March 26, 1878:

“Mr. Brady returned from Sitka on the Steamer, but informed me that he only expected to remain at Wrangel until the next trip, when he should go back to Sitka, and commence work there. I am much surprised and disappointed. Particularly, as he tells me, he does not think there can be another man here before July or August. It discourages me very much. I feel that it will be much harder for me to carry on the work alone, after he has been here a month, than it was before he came. Indeed I have thought it would have been better if he had not stopped here at all. It will only increase the feeling among the Indians, that they can not depend on the promises of the white men. They say they have been deceived, and disappointed so often by the white men, that they do not know what to expect.”

Reverend Brady stayed in Sitka, where he continued to work for the Presbyterian mission as Reverend Sheldon Jackson expanded the church’s influence within Alaska.

The Juneau MEeting

Near the end of 1898, Tlingit leaders from around southeast Alaska gathered with Governor John G. Brady in Juneau. As Ted C. Hinkley wrote:

“This December 14, 1898, meeting was the culminating conference in a series of consultations, initiated among the Indian villages on the first of the month by Frank Grygla, a special agent of the General Land Office. The actual concentration at Juneau had occurred because ‘many of the Indians were brought here by the Marshal as witnesses agains parties of selling or distributing alcoholic liquors to the natives.’ While Brady had talked with a number of the chiefs prior to the fourteenth, he now invited all the Tlingits to gather at Juneau’s public schoolhouse ‘to make their grievances... known in public in order to put them down in writing and present them to the Hon. Secretary of the Interior.’ ”

Kadashan’s Speech

Kadashan was given the first opportunity to address the group. His complete speech:

“Long time ago before the white people came to this country, Thlingit had laws and at every village there was a chief, some villages two or three chiefs. Now around Wrangel we have names of different mountains, different creeks, bays, points, all have names. Around Taku the Thlingit gave names in different points, islands, mountains, as well as Chilkat and other places. Three principal rivers in this country through which the natives of the country would go into interior are Stickeen River, Taku River and Chilkat River. The Sitka Thlingit as well as Hoonah and they go to Yakutat.

Ever since I have been a boy I have heard the names of different points, bays, islands, mountains; places where Thlingit get herring, hunting and make camps, that is why I think this country belongs to us. Long, long time ago before white people came to this country our people lived here are certain places where they went hunting and fishing.

When the Russians were here they did not have any stores in the interior but they used to Trade with our people here (means on the coast). I was a boy when this country was purchased and soldiers came here to Wrangel and to Sitka. There was a captain by name of Smith who told us that Americans had purchased this country. Then the business men followed the soldiers. They commenced to trade with our people. Our people did not object; did not say any thing to them. By and by they began to build canneries and take the creeks away from us, where they make salmon and when we told them these creeks belonged to us, they would not pay any attention to us and said all this country belonged to President, the big chief at Washington.

We have places where we used to trap furs; now the white man get up on these grounds. They tell us that they are hunting for gold, but the judges and governor tells them to took for gold. We know that the while people get lots of money out of these places as well as out of the Yukon River. Here at this place as well as other places they take our property, take away ground, and when we complain to them about it, they employ a lawyer and go to Court and win the case.

There are animals and fish at places where they make homes. We are not fish. We like to live like other people live. We make this complaint because we are very poor now. The time will come when we will not have anything left. The money and everything else in this country will be the property of the white man, and our people will have nothing. We meet here tonight for the purpose for you to write to the chief at Washington and to let them know our complaint. We also ask him to return our creeks and the hunting grounds that white people have taken away from us.

Of course we are not as powerful as white people. We have no soldiers. We have no strength. We ask the big chief at Washington as children ask their fathers. The missionaries and teaches tell us that no one but God made the people. We know that the same God made us. And the God placed us here. White people are smart; our people are not as smart as white people. They have a very fine name; they call themselves white people. Just like the sun shining on this earth, They are powerful. They have the power. They have men of wars. It is not right for such powerful people as you are to take away from poor people like we are, our creeks and hunting grounds. Among our people we have chiefs. We have nice people, that is why I think the white people are our chiefs.

Long time ago our fathers used to tell children who was the chief and what happened long time ago and that is why we know how the chiefs are made and what our ancestors used to do. Present are Johnson, Koogh-see, and another young man who are chiefs, and also old man by name of Shoo-we-Kah. We do not ask the whole of Alaska. We simply ask the President to give us a ground where we can raise vegetables and places where we can hunt and prepare fish. We do not want all these things we ask for by force. We have eyes, and we have sense. We see you are powerful. We do not want to be angry with you. We want to be friends with you. We simply wish you to give us all these things. What I am saying to you now are the words of our people of a great many different villages, Taku, Sitka, Chilkat, and other places. We get married; take wives from one village to the other, and what I am saying to you now are the words of our Thlingit.”

Yash-Noosh’s Speech

Chief Johnson (Yash-noosh) from Juneau immediately followed Kadashan and began:

“What Kah-du-shan has said he told you the truth. We have not said anything to you for long time, for many years. We have not said anything to you since Russians lived in this country. All the people would like to say something to the governor. We are perfectly willing to give this country Alaska to you. We know this is our country. How long we have been living here we do not know; very long time...”

Koog-See’s Speech

Koog-see of Hoonah spoke third and referred to Kadashan during several places in his speech;

“..It is true what Kah-du-shan has said; we believe that Alaska belongs to us. In all this country long time ago, before we ever saw white men, our fathers and grandfathers told us we owned it. In those days, we had our own customs. We believed and did things our way in those days, but lately missionaries came here and commenced to tell us differently…

All our people believe that Alaska is our country. I have been down to Seattle and Tacoma. I have seen very nice towns. I have seen how white men live, and I like it very much. Now, supposing I came back here and told my people, the leading men such as Kah-du-shan, to go down to Seattle and Tacoma. I have seen white men raising all kinds of fruit and vegetables in those towns. Suppose I tell these people to go with me on certain days to burn certain ground, and the next day the same thing, and the third day the same thing, and destroy all these things. Don’t you suppose the white people would say something to us if we destroyed all these grounds by fire and went to places where white people have goats and other animals and started to shoot them?”

*Alaska Governor John G. Brady around the time he was Governor of Alaska.*

Governor Brady’s Response

Speeches by Kah-ea-tchiss of Hoonah, Shoo-we-Kah from Juneau, and Ah-na-tlash from Taku followed, echoing similar themes and sentiments. The Tlingit provided a united front with a shared story.

The gathering concluded with Governor Brady’s response, who said, in part:

“It is nearly twenty one years since I came to Alaska and it was then that I saw the Thlingit for the first time. Some of these boys here tonight were babies then – little bits of fellows.

If I had my picture of old Sitka to show you the houses and the stockade you could see the difference of the Thlingit then and now. The Indians had very few cabins and clothes. They had very few shoes and blankets. It was very seldom that they had a pair of shoes. They were buying molasses then. They sold their furs for molasses.

Nearly every week in Sitka the first year I was there there was a murder. There was one Chief, a brother of Koogh-see who went across to the island and got into a fight with one Indian, who bit one check off, and another fellow took a spade and chopped him on the head. Now today you go to Sitka and see how those people are living and what kind of houses they have; see how they look and behave. Are they the same kind of people?

There is $100 in that ranch now for every 50 cents when I came there. And I would say that if some of those people were here tonight they would not talk like these people here. I know that the Thlingit are better off today than they ever were before in their lives.

But I am afraid that the Thlingit are entertaining wrong notions of how much land they own. Right here they need a little instruction. Koogh-see he has been down below and has seen fruit and vegetables growing. He said what would the white people say if the Indians would come down there and burn the ground and kill the white people’s goats. Now Koogh-see is not thinking rightly. He is not thinking correctly.

Those places that he saw and admired so much is the result of a great deal of work. God did not make the fields and did not make all the roads, but he made the men, and men had to do all the labor. Now if any Tlingit in this country goes and does likewise and by his labor makes fence, improves ground and builds a house, it is the duty of every official to see that he is undisturbed.

Now it is a different thing if there is a stream here and the ground around it. The Indian cannot claim the whole district. The government does not for a moment recognize all that ground his. The government so far has sold very little ground in Alaska. The laws remain yet to be made. We have a mining law that has been in use in Alaska and anybody can buy an placer or quartz mine. Anybody can buy a mine. But the law of other kinds of land is not in force yet. And that is why it is important that we have an understanding with the Thlingit.

The question is, Do you wish to be put on an island and not abandon your old customs? Do you wish to be citizens of the United Slates and have their protection? It is for you to say. Shall we, for instance, take a large island like Admiralty island. Shall we take the different tribes and place them on the island and let them live by themselves and not be disturbed and have agents over them to keep them straight? Or do you wish to obey the white men’s laws; have all the privileges that he has. Which do you want?”

Kadashan argued from the historical timeline, citing the events from the past to support his case. He confronted settlers—including Brady—who treated Alaska as unclaimed and up for grabs. Kadashan engaged with Brady on both a political and spiritual level, evoking their shared faith and invoking the name of God.

Challenged by the Tlingit, Brady offered a defensive response. He ignored Tlingit land claims and asserted the exclusive right of the federal government to parcel out lands. Brady may have been speaking rhetorically when he suggested relocating all the Tlingit onto Admiralty Island, but he revealed his mood at this point in the gathering.

Both Kadashan and Brady saw tremendous change in their lives. Both made great sacrifices to bring Christianity and Western ways of working into Alaska. But at this point, they were at odds over the fate of the Tlingit way of life.