From hunters to herders: Race, reindeer and imperial expansion in Alaska c.1890–1906

Abstract

This article traces the work of the American educationalist and missionary Sheldon Jackson as he introduced non-native reindeer to Northern Alaska. Jackson sought to improve what he considered to be a dire economic situation unfolding amongst the Indigenous Iñupiat community. The scheme involved recruiting Chukchi reindeer herders inhabiting the Siberian Peninsula to instruct the local Iñupiat communities on the handling and husbandry of these non-human Arctic animals. Following tensions between these Indigenous herders and the leaders of the colonial reindeer station, however, the Chukchi recruits were dismissed, and were replaced by a group of Sámi reindeer herders that Jackson had transported from Sápmi.

Drawing from recent geographical literatures that offer Indigenous perspectives on human/non-human relations, and combining these with ongoing scholarship examining colonial histories and legacies in the Arctic, this article contextualises this troubling imperial intervention amidst broader processes of nineteenth-century American territorial expansion. Studying the construction of a racialised ‘hierarchy of acceptability’ with regards to Arctic Indigenous peoples based on their relationships with non-human animals, the article critiques the problematic ‘civilizing’ mission that lay behind Jackson's colonial activities in Alaska. The article thus concludes by arguing that Jackson's reindeer project was just one of several colonial disruptions to Indigenous human/non-human relationships that were to have dire consequences across the circumpolar North.