In 1741, the Russian Second Kamchatka Expedition under the leadership of explorer Vitus Bering extended Russian sovereignty over northwestern North America. While other European nations had sailed across the Atlantic ocean to establish their rights to exploit the resources of North America, the Russians, sailing from Siberian ports, had only to cross what is now known as the Bering Sea to claim sovereignty over the Pacific Coast of North America. Officially, the Russian expedition was seeking to find out if Russia was connected to North America. As with other European explorers during this era, the Russians were also doing marketing research: that is, they were looking for valuable resources which they could exploit.
The Russians soon found that there was an abundance of sea otters along the coast. This discovery, coupled with the knowledge that the Chinese would pay premium prices for sea otter pelts, sparked a Russian invasion. Russian hunters and traders known as promyshlenniki entered into the Americas, island hopping across the Aleutians to the southern coast of Alaska looking for pelts. In an article in American Archaeology, Paula Neely reports:
“Supported by wealthy moguls, these well-armed entrepreneurs established trading posts and settlements along the way, exploiting, dominating, and at times slaughtering the native people.”
With regard to the impact of the 1741 Bering expedition, geographer James Gibson, in his chapter on the exploration of the Pacific coast in North American Exploration. Volume 2: A Continent Defined, writes:
“However, the results of Russian explorations and discoveries, both state and private, in the North Pacific were not publicized. For whatever reason—the pervasiveness of state control, the underdevelopment of private publishing, the political and cultural estrangement of Russia from the West, Russia’s siege mentality and xenophobia, the misguided belief that secretiveness would discourage the inquisitive—Russia’s geographical accomplishments, in the form of instructions, logbooks, journals, maps, reports, and letters, were either not revealed or published until long after the event.”
James Gibson also reports:
“Some Soviet scholars have asserted that Russian discoveries were deliberately misrepresented or falsified in the West in order to weaken Russian claims in the North Pacific sphere of international rivalry.”
On the Atlantic coast of North America, the French, English, Dutch, and Spanish had established a trading system to acquire furs and hides from American Indians. Instead of trading with the Natives, the Russians tend to conscript or employ them to work as hunters. Paula Neely reports:
“The Russians had to rely on natives to hunt sea otters because it required a mastery of kayaking and traditional weapons including the dart, bow and barbed harpoon arrow. The Russians’ firearms frightened the otters away.”
The initial contacts between the Russians and the Native Americans were not always peaceful. In the first encounter with the Tlingit, the Russians lost two boats, each with ten men. According to Tlingit oral tradition, the Tlingit lured the unsuspecting crew members with a bear skin and killed them.
In 1754, the Russians established an outpost on Three Saints Bay on Kodiak Island. Paula Neely reports:
“The Russians fired their canons at a steep rock promontory, now known as Refuge Rock, where 1,000 to 2,000 Sugpiat had gathered just off the coast.”
The natives were armed with bows and arrows and lances. Men, women, and children were killed with the musket fire and canon fire; others were trampled or fell to their deaths. The Russians executed the surviving men with spears.
In 1763, Russian explorers landed at Kodiak Island. The Russians assumed that the natives were Aleut, but soon found that their interpreter could not understand them because they were Sugpiaq Inuit. The Inuit left and then returned with a slave Aleut so they could talk with the Russians. The Russians told them that they were to pay homage to the Russian Empress, but the Inuit refused. The Inuit traded with the Russians only reluctantly and tended to be hostile toward them.
The Aleuts did not take kindly to Russian attempts to enslave them. In 1763, the Aleuts, in response to violent conflicts with Russian fur traders, sank four Russian ships. In retaliation, the Russians massacred entire villages. The massacres lead to the abandonment of the Aleut villages on the Islands of the Four Mountains.
In 1781, the Russian brought Kodiak Island under their control. In 1784, a Russian colony was established on Kodiak Island.
In 1786, the Russians discovered the Pribilof Islands which are the major seal breeding grounds in the Northern Pacific. In 1787, the Russian enslaved the Aleuts at Atka, where they had had a trading post since 1747, took them to the Pribolof Islands, and made them work at the fur seal harvest. Many of the women were raped. In his book The Native People of Alaska, Steven Langdon reports:
“The Russians forcibly relocated a group of Aleut to harvest the seals; descendants of those first Aleuts continue to occupy the Pribilof Islands to this day.”
In 1788, a Russian expedition made contact with the Tlingit under the leadership of Ilchak from the Chilcat River. The Russians gave Ilchak a Russian crest in copper and a picture of the heir to the Russian throne.
In 1790, the Russian-American Company was given a monopoly on fur trade in Alaska by the Russian Czar. Steve Langdon reports:
“Aleut men were taken from their ancestral homes as far as the Santa Catalina Islands off southern California and forced to hunt sea otters and fur seals for the Russians.”
The Russians would take Aleut woman as hostages and then force their husbands to work in the fur trade.
In 1793, a group of Russians and Aleuts under the leadership of Baron Baranof were attacked by the Tlingit. The Tlingit were wearing armor made of wooden rods bound together with leather thongs. Their faces were protected by masks which represented different animals and gave a frightening appearance. They were wearing wooden hats. The Tlingit fought with lances, bows, and pointed daggers. While the Russians aimed their guns at their attackers’ heads, they soon found that their bullets did not penetrate the thick head coverings. Still, with the superiority of fire power, the Russians were victorious and the Tlingit fled leaving 12 dead behind. Two Russians and nine Aleuts were killed and 15 others in the Russian party were wounded.
In 1796, Baron Baranof established a Russian colony with 80 colonists in Yukatat Bay. With regard to the Tlingit response, German geographer Aurel Krause in his 1885 book The Tlingit Indians: Results of a Trip to the Northwest Coast of America and the Bering Straits, reports:
“Even the most prominent chiefs flattered Baranof with a ceremonial visit and showed their friendly attitude by bringing as hostages some of their own children and relatives.”
In 1799, the Russians under the leadership of Alexander Baranov established a trading post at Sitka in Tlingit territory. Anthropologist Alice Beck Kehoe, in her book America Before the European Invasions, reports:
“The Russians relied on indigenous nations to supply post food supplies, stimulating the Tlingit around Sitka to raise tons of potatoes and bring in quantities of ‘mutton’ (mountain sheep meat?) and halibut.”
In 1799, the Eyak attacked and massacred a Russian hunting party. The cause of the attack was the Eyak resentment of Russian tyranny and poaching. In retaliation, the Russians tortured an Eyak to death.
Russian interaction with the Native peoples of Alaska continued into the nineteenth century.
Indians 101
Twice each week Indians 101 explores American Indian topics. More 18th century histories from this series:
Indians 101: Queen Anne's War in the North
Indians 101: The Pueblos, 1700 to 1725
Indians 101: Massachusetts, 1700 to 1725
Indians 101: Lacrosse at Fort Michilimackinac, 1763
Indians 101: The Natchez and the French
Indians 101: The Lenni Lenape and the Revolutionary War
Indians 101: Indian Resistance to the California Missions
Indians 101: The Utes, the Spanish, and Silver