Career
Peter Simpson was most likely born July 4, 1871, in Metlakatla, British Columbia or Lax Kw"alaams (aka Portuguese Simpson), British Columbia, though there is conflicting information on his date and place of birth. He was listed as twenty-three years old in 1887 when approximately 800 Tsimshians from "Old Metlakatla," British Columbia, founded the community of "New Metlakatla," Alaska. He was also related to the Review
Edward Marsden.
When Simpson was a young man, he was one of the eight people sent in a canoe by Duncan from New Metlakatla to dismantle the church they had left behind at Old Metlakatla. In one version of the story they hacked it to pieces and burned it to the ground and escaped back to Alaska before they could face prosecution. Not all histories of Old Metlakatla record this as the cause of the fire that destroyed the church in 1901.
The story may arise from a much earlier incident.
Simpson along with another Metlakatla Tsimshian, Mark Hamilton, were the principal investors in the sawmill community of Portuguese Gravina, near Ketchikan, Alaska, from its founding in 1892 until it burned in 1904. After the fire, Simpson moved to Juneau, and then to Sitka where he was the owner of a boat-building business.
In 1912, Simpson became chairman of the committee that was eventually to form the Alaska Native Brotherhood (ANB), and the committee"s only non-Tlingit member. He is considered the father of the ANB and also "the father of Land Claims" in Alaska, the long process that led to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Acting (without Metlakatla"s participation), long after his death.
Simpson is widely known for his famous quotation, uttered to the Tlingit land-claims activist William Paul at the 1925 ANB convention: "Willie, who owns this land?" William Paul (after a long pause): "We do." Peter Simpson: "Then fight for lieutenant" One biography of Paul, Then Fight for lieutenant, by Fred Paul (William"s son), derives its title from this exchange.
Simpson helped build Sitka"s sawmill in 1935 and was closely involved in the life of the Sheldon Jackson School there (later Sheldon Jackson College). The school"s workboat the SJS was built by Simpson in 1936, and in 1942 it became a United States. Navy patrol boat. Simpson"s wife, Mary Sloan, was a Tlingit from Sitka.
They raised fifteen children.
He died December 27, 1947, in Sitka.