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INTERACTIONS BETWEEN RUSSIANS
AND NATIVE AMERICANS IN ALASKA,
1741-1840

Thesis for the Degree of Ph. D.
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
HENRY A. COPPDCK
197D

  
    

   

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thesis entitled

INTERACTIONS BETWEEN RUSSIANS
AND NATIVE AMERICANS

IN ALASKA, 17414840
presented by

HENRY AARON COPPOCK

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ABSTRACT

INTERACTIONS BETWEEN RUSSIANS
AND NATIVE AMERICANS IN ALASKA, 1741-1840

By
Henry Aaron Cappock

ti

Between 1741 and 1867 the present-day state of Alaska
was ruled by Imperial Russia. The actions of the men who
established Russian claims in North America, fur hunters
and traders, caused profound change in the cultures of many
primitive native groups who lived in Russian America. The
cultures of two of these groups, the Tlingit Indians and
the.A1euts, underwent significantly different changes,
although both lived within the realm of Russian occupation.
The Aleuts, during an initial contact phase between 1741
and 1781, were virtually exterminated by the fur hunters;
the lifeways of the survivors were completely dominated by
the Russians. The Tlingits, during a comparable contact
period, thwarted Russian efforts at domination and retained
almost complete control over the innerworkings of their cul-
ture .

The question drawn from.this situation is, why did

the.Aleuts succumb and the Tlingits survive? 0r stated in

 

 

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Henry Aaron Coppock

another way, were there cultural and geographical factors
that accounted for the differing results of the culture
contact that occurred between the Russians and the two
native groups? An hypothesis was formulated that focused
upon the areal connotations of population size, settlement
pattern, social structure, and economy. Initial research
indicated that the physical environment had to be included
as well. As data was gathered it was organized according
to the above-mentioned categories.

Extensive library research provided much of the data
for this study. Materials were found in several libraries
in the eastern United States, especially the Library of
Congress in Washington, D. C. The records and narratives
Written by various explorers, traders, and officials who
visited Russian America between 1741 and 1840 include eye-
witness accounts of events and changes which occurred during
that era. The works of twentieth century archeologists
and anthropologists revealed information concerning the
pre-contact cultures of both groups. Library research was
Complemented by field work done in Alaska during the summer
of 1968; material remains of both culture groups were
examined.

The five hypothesized categories were found to be
Vitally interwoven. Food sources of enormous quantity were
available in each area; the Tlingits learned h°w t° exPl°it

thEm, but the Aleuts did not. As a result, the latter had

‘. I.” w
1‘ 5.67:3.

 

 

Henry Aaron Cappock

to hunt on a year round basis, while the former had large
blocks of time available to deve10p other cultural activities.
One such activity involved the creation of an unique and
elaborate social system.
Food gathering by the Tlingits was carried out on a
seasonal basis. Large, widely separated villages could m
exist, in part, due to plentiful supplies of preserved food.
Mbreover, each village consisted socially of several inde- a
pendent clan units whose inter-village allegiances precluded
all intra-village functions. The Aleuts, on the other hand,
lived in small, numerous, widely distributed villages.
Because food gathering was a year-round task, villages
tended to locate close to food source areas. Socially,
each village consisted of one autonomous extended family
ruled by one man. Inter-village alliances, if any existed,
were ineffectual, for as the Russians pushed across the area,
village by village and island by island, they eliminated
approximately eighty percent of the Aleut population.
Acting on the basis of their experiences in the Aleu-
tian Islands, the Russians attempted to penetrate Southeast
Alaska using the same methods, i.e., domination of individual
villages. However, the areal unity inherent in the clan sys-“
tem.enabled the Tlingits to effectively resist most of the
Russians' punitive attempts at domination. Russian control

of the Aleut Culture Area was possible, in part, because of

the absence of an effective system of group unity.

 

 

INTERACTIONS BETWEEN RUSSIANS

AND NATIVE AMERICANS
IN ALASKA, 1741-1840

BY

Henry Aaron Cappock

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Geography

1969

 

 

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people have willingly contributed advice, aid,
and encouragement towards the completion of this disserta-
tion. I want to take this opportunity to thank them for
their efforts.

First of all Dr. Daniel Jacobson, the committee
chairman, provided the initial Spark of intemest in the
North American Northwest, and in the topic of culture change.
I deeply appreciate his advice, criticism, and endurance.

The other members of the committee, Dr. Ian Matley,

Dr. Arthur Adams, and Dr. Dieter Brunnschweiler also gave me
reason to strive for completion. Thanks also are due Charles
Hess for his helpful comments and criticism. During the
initial phases of research Dr. Paul Mbrrison, who passed
away in April, 1969, helped me with the overall organization.
Dr. Lawrence Sommers, chairman of the Geography Department
at Michigan State University, provided vital funds which
enabled me to carry out field research in Alaska in 1968.

I hope this work rewards his faith and patience.

In Alaska several people gave me substantial help.
Roger Paige and the "missionaires" of Kodiak, Mr. Flore
Lekanof of the Aleut League, Father Anastasis Tsonis of
Sitka, and many others deserve great thanks. During the
writing phase the atmOSphere provided by the faculty, the

ii

 

 

 

secretaries, and the resident graduate students enabled me

to complete most of the work.

Most of all, the love and understanding of my wife,
Diane, made the five years of graduate study rewarding and

worthwhile.

iii

I‘ll

 

 

 

 

 

TABLE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . .

LIST OF FIGURES . . . 9 0

LIST OF TABLES . . . . . .

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . .

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . .

Chapter

I.

II.

OF CONTENTS

PRE-CONTACT ALEUT CULTURE . .

Physical Geography
Aboriginal Culture
Origins of the Aleuts

Papulation

Settlement Pattern

House Types
Social Structure
Economy

Summary

FEE-CONTACT TLINGIT CULTURE .

Phys ice 1 Geography
Origins of the Tlingits

POpulation

Settlement Pattern

House Types
Social Structure
Economy

Early EurOpean Contact

iv

ii
vi
viii

ix

I3

48

 

 

III. RUSSIAN MOVEMENT ACROSSNORTHWEST
NORTH AMERICA: 1741 - 1799 . . . . . . .

Exploration and Discovery

Russian Mbvement into the Aleut
Culture Area

Consolidation of the Fur Trade

Russian Movement into the Tlingit
Culture Area

Summary

IV. CULTURE CHANGE COMPARISONS: ALEUT

(1743-1840) AND TLINGIT (1775-1840) . . .

Physical Geography
POpulation
Settlement Pattern
House Types

Social Structure
Economy

V. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . .

APPENDIX I
APPEND IX 1

I C C O C C O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

76

102

134
138
142
143

 

 

 

 

 

 

16.

17.

LIST OF FIGURES

Extent of Russian Territory in North
America: 1741-1867 . . . . . . ._. . .

Aleut and Tlingit Culture Areas: C. 1740
Aleut Culture Area: C. 1740 . . . . . .
Physiography: Aleut Culture Area . . . .
Generalized Aboriginal Aleut Village Site

Aleut Village Site, Nazan Bay,
Atka Is land 0 O I O I O O O O O O O O O

Settlement Pattern, Northern Unalaska
Island: C. 1740 . . . . . . . . . . .

Generalized Settlement Pattern: Aleut
Culture Area: 1740 o o o o o o o o o o

Tlingit Culture Area: 1740 . . . . . . .
Physiography: Tlingit Culture Area . . .
Known Pre-Contact Village Sites . . . . .
Tlingit Tribal Areas: C. 1740 . . . . .
Lineage Lands: Tongas and Sanya Tribes .
Major External Trade Routes . . . . . . .

Russian Expansion into Northwest North
America: 1743-1810 c o o o o c o o o a

Russian Settlement on Kodiak Island:
1783-1791 0 O O O O O O O O O O O 0 I 0

Selected Russian and Tlingit Settlement
Sites: 1799-1834 a a o o c c o o o c 0

vi

Page

14
16
26

28

33

34
49
50
57
61
64
71

80

88

96

 

fl

 

l8. Aleut Settlements External to'the

Aboriginal. Culture Area:

19. Aleut Settlement Pattern:

vii

c.1830..... 114
cc 1830 o o o a a 115

sap I

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LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

1. Islands Settled Prior to 1741:
Aleut Culture Area . . . ... . . . . . . . 30

2. Known Village Papulations:
UnaLaSka, 1760's 0 o o o o o o o o o o o ’0 36

 

3. Russian Mbvement into Northwestern
North America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

4. Areal Decline of the Northern Sea
Otter: 1750-1810 e o o o o c c 0 .° 0 o a 93

Aleut and Tlingit Populations:
1740-1910 c o o o o o o o o o o c o a o c 107

viii

 

 

Illustration .
1. Tlingit Memorial Pole . . . . . . . . .
2. Tlingit Memorial Pole ‘. '. '. . . . '. . .
3. Spruce Fbrest, Kodiak Island . . . . .
4. Baranof Castle, Kodiak Island . .fl. . .
5. Site of Redoubt Archangel Michael,. , V
Baranof Island' . . . . . , . . . . .
6. Site of Indian River Village,
Baranof Island . Q . . . . . . . . .
7. Vegetation Cover Typical of the Aleut
Culture Area . . . . . . . . . . . .
‘ 8. Vegetation Cover Typical of the Tlingit

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Onlt‘me Area 0 o o o o o o o o o o o

Page
73
73
9O
9O

95

95

106

1.06

 

 

 

 

 

INTERACTIONS BETHEEN RUSSIANS AND NATIVE

 

AMERICANS IN ALAS_KA. 1741-1840
INTRODUCTION

Imperial Russia exercised control over significant
portions of Alaska between 1741 and 1867 (See Figure #1, p. 2).
During those 126 years the native peoples who came into con-
tact with Russian fur hunters and traders experienced profound
culture changes, ranging from the alteration of family and
community life, to the near extermination of entire culture
groups. Analysis of the areal interrelatedness of population
density, settlement pattern, social structure, and economy for
each group can be used comparatively to illustrate the reason
or reasons for the differing results of culture contact with
the Russians.

The inhabitants of the Aleutian Islands -- the Aleuts
-- encountered the Russians soon after the Bering-Chirikoff
voyage of 1741. Prior to Russian contact and occupation, the
population of the Aleutian Island chain stood at approximately
16,000.1 By the 1820's the Aleut pOpulation had been reduced

through violence, disease and starvation to one-tenth of its

 

1Theodore P. Bank, "The Aleuts," Scientific American,
CXCIX (November, 1958), 113.

 

 

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former size. Today on the island of Umnak, Nikolski is the

only surviving village of the twenty-two present in 1759.2

The Tlingit Indians or Kolosh, as the Russians called

 

them, present a much different picture. At the time of Rus-
sian contact their population stood at approximately 10,000.3
Prior to the 1790's when the Russians began to penetrate the
Tlingit area, European and Yankee traders Spurred on by the
reports of Captain James Cook and others were doing a thriving
trade in furs with the tribes of the Northwest Coast. It was
through this contact with "white material culture"4 that the
Tlingit came to appreciate firearms, not only as trade items,
but also as weapons.5 In 1802 the Russian settlement on
Baranof Island, Archangel Michael, was overrun. In 1804
Alexander Baranof established a fortress near the same site,

naming it Novoarchangelsk, which the Russians occupied until

the sale of Alaska in 1867.6

 

2Gerald D. Berreman, "Inquiry into Community Integra-
tion in an Aleutian Village (Nikolski)," American Anthropolo-
gist, LVII (February, 1955), 50.

3Alfred L. Kroeber, Cultural and Natural Areas of
Native North America (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1 4 , p, I ,

4U.S., Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of North Ameri-
can Ethnology, The Native Brotherhoods, Phillip Drucker,
Bulletin 168 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office,
1958). P. 92.

5Joyce A. Hike, The Effect of the Maritime Fur Trade

on Northwest Coast Indian Society (Coiumbia Universigy Publi-
cat on

: Co umb a Un vers ty Press, 1951), p. 9 .
6Urey Lisianski, A Vo a e Round the world in the
X§££§11893. 4. 5. and 6 (Lonaon: S. Hamilton, 1814;,

PP. 143-70,

 

 

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Even though there were threats to the safety of Novo-

archangelsk and other Russian settlements following 1805, none
were destroyed. However, the Russians, in Spite of claims to
the contrary, never extended their control far beyond the
immediate vicinity of any of their settlements in the Alex-
ander Archipelago.7 Thus, much of Tlingit culture remained
intact in contrast to the disintegration of Aleutian culture.
Since the 1830's the number of Aleuts has continued
to decrease. Not until December, 1967, when the Aleut League
was formed, has there been any effort by the Aleut people to
preserve the remnants of their culture.8 The Tlingits, on the
other hand, even though reduced in numbers, have been making
steady and successful efforts to preserve their cultural
heritage through the auspices of the Alaskan Native Brother-
hood, formed in 1912.9

Definition of the Problem

The problem then can be stated in this way: Why did
the Tlingits survive and the Aleuts succumb? 0r stated in
another way, what were the cultural and geographical factors
that accounted for the differences in the results of the cul-
ture contact that occurred between the Russians and these two

I: 7S. B. Okun, The Russian American Co an , trans. from

the Russian by Carl GI33BEE§_YCEESEIEEE:—MES%E?-1Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1951), p. 193.

8"Aleut Leaders . . .," Alaska S ortsman, XXXIV,
February, 1968, p. 37.

 

9
Drucker, The Native Brotherhoods, pp. 16-17.

 

 

 

native groups? While the Tlingits had the advantage of,prof-

itable contacts with European and Yankee traders before the
Russians arrived, which was not the case with the Aleuts,
this single factor is not by itself sufficient to explain
their survival. The answers must be sought in the culture of
the respective groups.

An examination of contact conditions will reveal a
number of the answers. The social structure of both groups
provide cases in point. Each Aleut village was controlled by
a chief who had final authority over all the activities of his
particular village. If clans or societies existed, they were

subordinate to the village chief.10

Tlingit society was quite
different. Each village or town was made up of several clans
who owed allegiance only to their local clan organization.
Hence, the unwritten policy of intimidation, kidnapping, or
murder of village chiefs used by the Russians in the Aleutian
Islands, had very different results when applied to the Tlin-
git area. In Aleut villages the Russians were able to gain
complete control with this policy; in Tlingit settlements
similar actions netted them emnity and hatred--and virtually

no control.

 

10The Russian Orthodox Priest Ivan Veniaminov, stated
that there is no evidence to either prove or disprove the
existence of Aleut clans or societies. See Ivan Petroff
(Special Agent), "Report on the Population, Industries and
Resources of Alaska," in; U.S., Department of the Interior,
Census Office, Tenth Census of the united States- 1880,
Vol. VIII (HashIngton, D.C.: Government Printing OffIce,

1884), p. 154.

 

 

 

 

The settlement pattern of the Aleuts differed widely

from that of the Tlingits. Aleut villages were small in size
and population, and widely distributed throughout the island
chain; Tlingit villages tended to be larger, fewer in number,
and relatively isolated from one another. However, Tlingit
society was more highly organized than that of the Aleuts;
its pattern of organization and larger villages thwarted Rus-
sian attempts at domination.

Another important question relates to the signifi-
cance of economic specialization. The lives of the Aleuts
centered on the sea, for it was the source of nearly all their
basic necessities. The Tlingits, on the other hand, were much
more diversified. They utilized both sea and land resources
for their survival. The change in the relationship between
the animal ecology and the cultures in both areas, brought
about by a heavy emphasis on the hunting of sea otters, caused
significant changes in the economies of both groups. The Rus-
sians forced the Aleuts into a deteriorating economic situa-
tion, but the Tlingits retained control over their economy and
experienced a great increase in wealth.

The physical nature of the regions occupied by these
cultures contains great differences as well as important sim-
ilarities. The decisions of the Aleuts and Tlingits with
regard to the physical realm played a role in shaping their
cultures. These were subsequently altered by the arrival of

foreign groups.

 

 

l...l (7’51.

 

For example, the Russian Orthodox Church has had a

lasting effect in Alaska. It serves today as one of the few
channels of communication between the white and native com-
munities, and has been a significant factor in Alaska since
its introduction in the mid-1700's. Its early impact had
much to do with the culture change of the Aleuts, but that

of the Tlingits was affected to a lesser degree.

The Spud! Area

The study area is largely encompassed by two major
island groups (See Figure #2, p. 8) -- the Aleutian Island
Chain and the Alexander Archipelago. The Aleut Culture Area,
actually a subregion of Kroeber's Arctic Eskimo Region,
includes, besides the island chain, the Shumagin Islands and
a portion of the Alaska Peninsula.11 The Tlingit subregion
of the Northwest Coast Culture Area extends northwest along
the Gulf of Alaska coast to the vicinity of Cape St. Elias
and Kayak Island. The southern boundary of the area crosses
Prince of Wales Island where the Tlingit area borders that of
the Haida, a tribe whose culture is similar to that of the
Tlingit. The crestline of the Pacific Coast Range on the
mainland forms the eastern boundary.

The boundaries of both areas indicate their areal
extent at the time of first contact with the Russians. Both

cultures were evidently expanding areally, the Aleuts northeast

 

11Kroeber, Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North

Aggrica, Map #6.

 

 

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along the Alaska Peninsula, and the Tlingit northwest along

the coast of the Gulf of Alaska.

Both areas are strikingly linear in pattern. Natural
forces were responsible for the linearity of the Aleutian
Chain. The Tlingits, as Kroeber has observed, were charac-
terized as a former riverine culture group which was becoming
sea-oriented.12 Even though the Tlingits'area appears to be
effectively ringed in by the Pacific Coast Range the several
river valleys that cross the mountains could have been used
as routes of expansion. Hence, it appears that the Tlingits'

growing orientation to the sea influenced their areal pattern.

Methodological Approach.
The problem of presenting and explaining the differ-

ences in culture change as experienced by these two groups

is best approached through the methodologies of cultural
anthropology and historical geography. Anthropologists have
defined the boundaries of the Aleut and Tlingit culture areas.
They have based their definitions chiefly on an assemblage of
customs, traits, social structure, economy, and settlement
patterns. Hrdlicka compiled the most elaborate discussions
of these criteria for the Aleut area, and Krause did the same

13

for the Tlingit area. Sauer verified that such definitions

 

12

13Alex Hrdlicka, The Aleutian and Commander Islands
and Their Inhabitants (PhIIadelphia: WIstar Institute, I945);

and AureI EEause, The Tlin it Indians grans. from the German
Egsggna Gunther (SeattIe: UfiIversIty of Washington Press, ‘

Ibid. , p. 28.

 

 

10

are acceptable to geographers:
The forms of material culture with which the anthro-
pologist deals are identical with those of human
geography. His observation of culture traits, his
synthesis of these into culture complexes, 2r areas
are, or should be entirely familiar to us.1
Anthropologists and geographers have deveIOped var-
ious ways of looking at cultures. The problem of change
brought about by contact with an outside group has been
examined in detail by Spicer.15 A major theme of his work
is concerned with directed and non-directed contact, terms
apparently derived from earlier concepts of acculturation.
Kroeber, for example, defined acculthration as comprising:
. . those changes produced in a culture by the
influence of another culture whiig result in an
increased similarity of the two.
Spicer broke down acculturation into directed contact and
non-directed contact.
Directed contact involves interaction in specific
roles between members of two different societies
and effective control of some type and degree by
memberi7of one society over the members of the
other.
There is interaction between members of the differ-

ent societies, as in directed situations, but there

is no control,of one society's members by the other.18

 

14Carl 0. Sauer, "Foreword to Historical Geography,"
Aggals AAG, XXXI (March, 1941), 6.

15Edward H. Spicer (ed.), Persgective in American

an Culture Cha e (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
13%1), pp. 519-21.

16A1fred L. Kroeber, Anthro olo : Culture Patterns
and Processes (New York: Harcourt, Brace and florid, 1963),
P0 233.

17Spicer, Pers ectives, p. 520.

181bid.

 

 

 

11

The situation as it existed between the Russians and the two
cultures, Aleut and Tlingit, can be viewed as one of directed
and non-directed contact.

Historical geographers have devised several ways of
presenting the results of the study of area change. In a
recent article, Merrens has proposed that the task of area
studies can be interpreted as analyzing change through time

19

and areal variation. His view is that the central purpose

of historical geography is the investigation of areal change.
In the past historical geographers used two basic approaches}0
The first, sequent occupance, regards geographic change as a
phenomenon to be characterized by definite periods. Change
was represented through a series of abrupt steps, each fol-
lowed by an era of relative stability.21

The second approach is the reconstruction of past
geographies for specific points in time, an outstanding
example of which is Brown's work on colonial America.22
Selected points in time were represented as being static; the

process of change is clearly omitted.

 

19H. Roy Merrens, "Historical Geography and Early
American History," Hilliam and Mary ggarterly, XXII (October,
1965), 529-48.

20Ibid.

2I'Derwent Hhittlesey, "Sequent Occupance," Annals

AAG, XIX (September, 1929), 162-65.

22Ralph Brown, Mirror for Americans (New York:
American Geographical Society, 1 4 .

 

 

 

12

It is the intent of this writer to use the theme of
analyzing change through time and areal variation in this
study. Because change is dynamic it is better understood
when multiple factors are considered. The time span between
1741 and 1840 includes, for both cultures, the period of sig-
nificant alterations resulting from Russian contact. From
the 1840's to the 1860's Russian attention centered on the
exploration and hoped-for development of southwestern and
interior portions of mainland Alaska. Therefore, this study
will deal with the approximate loo-year span from 1741 to
1840.

In order to discuss the changes that occurred within
the two culture areas, it will be necessary to describe the
aboriginal, or pre-Russian culture of each. Chapters One and
TWo deal with the pre-contact cultures of the Aleuts and Tlin-
gits. Chapter Three documents the Russian advance across the
Aleutians and Southeast Alaska. A discussion of culture
changes as a result of Russian contact is the topic of the
fourth chapter. The summaries and conclusions of this study

are presented in Chapter Five.

 

 

I. PRE-CONTACT ALEUT CULTURE

Physical Geography

The Aleutian Island Chain is the crest of an arcuate,
submarine mountain range. The chain, approximately 1,400
miles long, and twenty to sixty miles wide, lies between 51°
and 60° N.L. The Aleutian Islands are divided into four major
groups; from east to west they are the Fox, Andreanof, Rat,
and Near Islands (See Figure #3, p. 14‘. All are under the
jurisdiction of the United States.

In terms of land area, the Aleutian Islands occupy

about 9,600 square miles.1

The largest and oasternmost‘iéihnd-'
of the chain is Unimak, about sixty miles long and twenty
miles wide. Thirteen others can also be classed as major
islands; about fifty more are categorized as lesser in size,
but still capable of supporting settlement. Another 100 off-
shore pinnacle rocks and isletsxSupport vegetation, while the
remainder consist of innumerable rocks, reefs, andfshoals.
Wahrhaftig has classified the Aleutians as one of the
five sections of the AlaskagAleutian Province of the Pacific

Mountain System.2 The Aleutian Islands fall into three major

 

1Kroeber Cultural and Natural Apeas of uptive North
America, Table 18,—— _

2U. S., Department of the Interior, Geological Survey,
ghysiographic Divisions of Alaska, by Clyde Hahrhaftig, Geo-
logica Survey Profess onal Paper 482 (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, 1965), p. 3..
13

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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15

topographic divisions (See Figure #4, p. 16): (l) Quatern-

ary Age volcanoes, of which twenty-seven out of a total of

fifty-seven are active. These volcanoes attain heights of
2,000 to over 9,000 feet above sea level; the highest,
Shishaldin on Unimak Island, reaches 9,387 feet. Mbst of
the volcanoes are located on the northern sides of the
islands; (2) Wave-cut platforms bordered by low sea cliffs;
these platforms are generally less than 600 feet above sea
level. The western half of the Andreanofs and Amchitka
Island fall within this division; (3) Intensely glaciated
mountainous islands, including fiords and bays bordered by
cliffs of up to 2,000 feet in height. Altitudes range from
600 to 3,000 feet. This category contains the largest number
of islands.3

The portion of the Aleut Culture Area lying on the
Alaska Peninsula's northern side is part of the Nushagak-
Bristol Bay Lowland which is a moraine and outwash mantled
plain with a local relief from fifty to 250 feet above sea
level.4 The Shumagin Islands, a group of twenty or so small
islands directly south of the Alaska Peninsula, are a partly
submerged outlier of the Aleutian Range.5

Many small lakes and streams are found throughout the

entire culture area. Apparently, the Shumagins were the only

 

31b1d
4

Ibid., p. 31.
slbid., p. 32.

 

 

16

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17

group of islands in Southwestern Alaska that escaped glaciation
during the Pleistocene. Some of the higher mountains and vol-
canoes throughout the rest of the region still have small
glaciers on their upper levels.

Climatically, the state of Alaska can be divided into
four major zondp. The Aleut Culture Area is included in the
Maritime climate zone,6 which is characterized by

. . small temperature variations, high humidities,
high fag frequencies, considerable cloudiness, and
abundant precipitation. . .

The position and intensity of the Aleutian Low is the
dominant factor influencing the weather of the island chain.
In the fall and early winter, i.e., September through December,
the low pressure center shifts toward the eastern end of the
chain, thus causing relatively heavy precipitation in this
region. Annual rainfall averages range from sixty inches on
the Fox Islands in the east, to about thirty inches on the
Near Islands in the west.8

High wind velocities are quite common because the
Aleutians are located in the general zone of the polar front,
and because they are exposed to the open sea. Hind speeds of

seventy-to-ninety miles per hour are recorded in almost all

 

6U.S., Department of Commerce, Weather Bureau, Cli-
tes of the States- Alaska, by C. E. Watson, Heather Bureau
Publication 50-39 Zwashington, D.C.: Government Printing
Office, 1959), p. 1.
7Ibid., p. 2.

81b1d., p. 2.

 

 

Mm

 

18

months.9 Unofficially, wind speeds of up to 120 miles per
hour have been reported.10
Temperatures range from a January mean minimum of
20° F to a July mean maximum of 60° F. The greatest extremes
occur at the eastern end of the chain. Fog, a weather pheno-
menon common to the entire region, most frequently occurs dur-
ing the summer months. On occasion temperatures may fall low
enough for ice to form in the harbors and along island fringes,
but the action of tides and winds foregoes its continued pres-
ence.11
Hulten, a Swedish botanist, made the following state-

ment about vegetation in the Aleutians:

The Aleutian Islands are completely destitute of

trees (with the exception of a little grove of Sitka

Spruce planted at Unalaska), and the vegetation is

to be regardedlfis belonging almost entirely to the

alpine region.
Alders and willows grow in sheltered ravines and draws, but the
specimens are too small and straggling for economic use. Hulten
credits the high wind speeds with preventing natural tree
growth, and indeed, claims that they dominate and control most

of the vegetation pattern in the Aleutians.13

 

9

Ibid.
10Theodore P. Bank, "Aleut Vegetation and Aleut Cul-
ture," Michi an Academ of Sciences Arts and Letters, XXXVII
(1951), l .

11

Ibid.
12
Eric Hulten, Flora of the Aleutain Islands (Stock-
holm: Bokforlags Aktiebo aget u e, , p. .
13

Ibid., pp. 37-38.

 

 

 

 

Ale:

haul

Hm
313111
1m
range
“I 0!
1mm

%

 

19

Bank classified the plant habitats of the island
chain, suggesting four categories:14 (1) shoreline; (2) lower
grass meadow; (3) rock cliff; and (4) wind slope. A variety
of mosses, lichens, small shrubs, grasses, and ferns dominates
each of these zones. Many of the plants found in the shoreline
and lower grass meadow zones were used by the Aleuts for medi-
cinal purposes and for diet supplements. The Aleutian Islands
belong, in general, to the same vegetational province as the
Kamchatka Peninsula, a relationship which is obviously most
pronounced at the western end of the chain.15

Except for Unimak, where bear and caribou are found,
the Aleutians are devoid of large land animals. Throughout the
chain small animals such as foxes, lemmings, and rats exist in
great numbers. Literally thousands of sea birds live in the
Aleutians, usually nesting in huge colonies on cliffs and high
banks.16

A wide variety of sea mammals live in the North Paci-
fic-Bering Sea realm, of which the sea otter is particularly
significant-to this study. The Northern Sea Otter (Enhzdra
lutris lutrih) is a non-migratory, carnivorous mammal whose
range in the past extended from the Kurile Islands around the
rim of the North Pacific to Baja California. Today its range

includes only several localities within its old range:

 

14Bank, Michigan Academy of Sciences, Arts and
Letters, p. 13.

15Hulten, Flora of the Aleutian Islands, p. 44.

161bid., p. 25.

 

20

1) the Andreanofs; 2) Prince William Sound; 3) Alaska; and

4) the Kamchatkan coast.17

A sub-species, the California Sea
Otter (Enzdra lutris nereis) is still represented by a few
specimens living off the California coast between Pacific

18

Grove and San Simeon. The total world population of the sea

otter stands today at about 30,000.19

Aboriginal Culture

The Aleutian Culture Area has yet to undergo a thor-
ough investigation from the geographical point of view. Arche-
ologists and anthropologists are carrying out extensive work
in the area, but the results of their efforts leave some ques-
tions unresolved. The most thorough pre-World War II studies
were those done by Jochelson (1908-10)20 and Hrdlicka (1936-
39)21. Several more recent efforts, limited in scope, have
been carried out since the war. The continuing endeavors of
Laughlin, based on extensive field work, have resulted in sig-
nificant contributions. Laughlin deals not only with the A1-
ent, but also with the problems of early migration to North
America.22

17Karl W. Kenyon, "Recovery of a FUr Bearer," Natural
fiistory, LXXII (November, 1963), 38.

18Tom Myers, "Those Resilient Sea Otters," National
Wildlife, VI (June-July, 1968), 17.
19

 

Kenyon, Natural Histor , p. 18.

20Waldemar JOchelson, Archieolo ical Investi ations in
the Aleutian Islands (New York: Carnegie Institute, i925).
21Ales Hrdlicka, The Aleutian and Commander Islands.

22W. S. Laughlin, "Human Migration and Permanent Occu-
pation in the Bering Sea Area," in D.M. HOpkins (ed.), The Ber-

tr Land Brid e (Stanford, California: Stanford University
ess, I967).

 

 

 

21

Significant sources of first hand data are the written
accounts of the adventurers and fur traders who were the first
people to contact the Aleuts. TWO translations of these 8C-
counts are of major importance: Coxe's Account of the Russian
Discoveries Between Asia and America,23 and Masterson and

Brower's Bering's Successors, 1745-1780.24 The latter was ori-

ginally compiled in German by Peter Simon Pallas in the late

 

1700's. Another valuable source of information, especially
with regard to settlement pattern, social structure, and popu-
lation, was written by Ivan Veniaminov,25 a Russian Orthodox
priest who lived and worked in the Aleutians from 1824 to
1834.26 In the course of his duties in Russian America he
devised an alphabet for the Aleuts, wrote and translated sev-
eral religious tracts into the Aleut tongue, and compiled one
of the few known reliable accounts of pre-contact Aleut cul-

ture and history.

 

23William Coxe, Account of the Russian Discoveries
Between Asia and America (London: T. Cadell in the Strand,

24James Masterson and Helen Brewer, Berin 's Suc-
cessors, 1745-1780. Contributions of Peter Simon Paiias to

the History of Russian Exploration toward Alaska (Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 1948).

2“Sivan Veniaminov, Za iski ob Ostrovakh Unalaskin-
skova Otdela (Notes on the Isiands of the UnalasEE District),
quoted in Ivan Petroff, Tenth Census of the U.S.: 1880.

26Ivan Barsukov, The Life and Work of Innocent the
Archbishop of Kamchatka (San Francisco: Cuberry and C0,,
1897), pp. 5-11.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

th(

Pen

plat

Stel
the 1
late
that

Geolog
Aleuti

Wm

imam

 

22

Ori ins of the Aleut Peo les

 

The Aleutian Islands have been occupied for at least
8,000 years, and maybe as long as 12,000 years. The oldest
radio-carbon date thus far obtained, 8,425 years 1 275 years,
was determined from debris found in a village site¢nzAnaniu1iak
Island in the Fox Group.27 On Adak Island in the Andreanofs
a Carbon-14 date of 4,620 years i 100 years has been estab-
lished.28 Laughlin theorizes that some of the present-day
Aleuts living on Umnak Island are direct descendants of the
ancient inhabitants of the south shore of the Bering Land
Bridge.29 Umnak, during the height of the Wisconsin stage of
the Pleistocene, was at the tip of the then-extended Alaska
Peninsula. The heavy concentration of sea and land mammals,
birds, and fish, made this now-innundated peninsula a good
place to live.30

Early investigators in the Aleutians, Veniaminov and
Steller,31 believed that the Aleuts had migrated eastward from
the Asian continent. This view went unchallenged until the
late 180093 when anthropologists began to express the belief

that the Aleuts were of Eskimo stock, and had actually migrated

 

27Robert F. Black and W. S. Laughlin, "Anangula: A

Geologic Interpretation of the Oldest Archeologic Site in the
Aleutians," Science, CXLIII (March 20, 1964), 2.

28Theodore Bank, "The Aleuts," Ex lorer's Journal,
XXXVII (1959), 8.

29

Laughlin, The Bering Land Bridge, p. 445.
Solbid.

l
Georg Wilhelm Steller was a botanist and natural
scientist who accompanied Vitus Bering in 1741.

 

 

 

23

westward along the chain from the North American mainland.32

This is borne out because the Aleuts' language and their cul-
tural assemblage are related to North American Eskimoes. More-
over, the Commander Islands, the island group between Kamciatka
and the Aleutians, were uninhabited prior to 1741.33
Ball, writing in 1877, hypothesized that the Aleuts
arrived on the chain with only a rudimentary culture. All
refinements and improvements came after their arrival.34 30th
Hrdlicka and Jochelson, through extensive excavation and anal-
ysis, proved that this was not the case. Hrdlicka pointed out:
Moreover these excavations have definitely.established
the fact that both the pre-Aleut and Aleut material
cultures were brought into the Islands full-fledged,
:ign?3§, as Dall supposed, in any rudimentary condi-
It.is reasonably safe to assume that the Aleutian
Islands have been occupied for at least the past 8,000 years,
that the inhabitants came from the North American side of the

land bridge, and that their culture was refined before movement

into the chain took place.

 

32Henry Field, "Contributions to the Anthropology of

the Soviet Union," Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collection 1110
(1948), p. 230.

33Hrdlicka, Aleutian and Commander I§1§B§S. p. 397.

34William Healy Dall, "On Succession in the Shell
Heaps of the Aleutian Islands," in, U.S., Department of the
Interior, Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky
Mountain Region, Contributions to North American Ethnolo
Vol.4: (gashington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1877),
PP. " o

35Hrdlicka, Aleutian and Commander Islands, p. 432.

 

 

24

Population

Prior to Russian contact and occupation the Aleuts
were a numerous, thriving people. The records and estimates
of population size recorded by Veniaminov are the most often
cited:

. . ., but as far as we can trust the accounts of
the Aleuts, as well as of Russians who lived here at
the end of the last century, and who saw with their
own eyes the destruction of many villages, it seems
very probable that the numbgg of Aleuts once reached
twelve to fifteen thousand.

Veniaminov talked with Aleuts who believed that the
pre-contact population exceeded 25,000. He was also informed
that prior to Russian contact in 1741, internecine wars raged
throughout most of the island chain.

The causes in decrease in population are, in the
opinion of the Aleut's themselves, internal wars,
the Russians, and diseases; the first, occuring
previous to the arrival of the Russians, were con-
ducted with such cruelty that in retaliation for
the murder of ong, whole settlements were
destroyed; . . .
More particularly, a comment translated by Pallas concerns
the natives of Unalaska:
. . . they are engaged in frequent and bloody

quarrels, ang commit murder without the least
compunction. 8

 

36Veniaminovuquoted in'PetroffggTenthrOensus'of the
U.SI; ‘1880, p. l 8.

37Ibid., p. 149.

38

Masterson and Brower, Beri 's Successors,
pp. 58-59.

 

 

25

Most other authorities tend generally to agree with Veniami-
nov's figures. Both Kroebers9 and Mooney4O accept the 16,000
figure. Laughlin broke this figure down into the following
categories: Eastern area - 10,000; Central area - 5,000;

Western area - 1,000.41

Settlement Pattern

 

Prior to Russian contact in the 1740's the majority
of the Aleut settlements were located in the sIoreline zone on
the northern sides of the islands. Three men who carried out
field work in the Aleutians since the 1870's came to the same
general conclusions concerning site characteristics. Ball,
in 1877, wrote:
The favorite spots appear to have been on narrow
necks of land, across which an easy pongge
could be made from one body to another.

and:
The two necessities for settlement appear to have
been a stream of water or a spring, and a lace
where canoes could land in rough weather.4

Figure 5 (p. 26), shows what Dall referred to as a

fairly typical settlement site; it resembles a site on Amchitka

 

39Alfred L. Kroeber, Cultural and Natural Areas of

Native North America, p. 135.

40James Mooney, "The Aboriginal Population of America

North of Mexico," Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collection £80
(1928), p. 32.

41

42Dall, Contributions to North American Ethnolo ,

laughlin, Bering Land Bridge, p. 427.

p. 43.

43Ibid.

 

 

—
I7s' EU

26

 

 

 

BERING SEA

 
    
 
 

_ AMCHITKA or 30' up
ISLAND

PACIFIC OCEAN

 

 

 

 

 

//
///
/
////

//
’//

 

beach

/

h

   

   

’//

  

mHHHIIIHHHI/

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.1 //}/i-__. - _ .
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\\”/I//// ’1 '

[cull/0,

 

   
 

I:

    

 

 

 

GENERALIZED
ABORIGINAL ALEUT
VILLAGE SITE

No Scale Given
:1

\ulllm

House Pits
Swamp
Steep Slopes

Source: Dali. Contributions to NW"! American
Ethnology. Vol. I

 

 

 

 

I969

 

 

 

Figure 5

 

27

‘3x95“1. The individual house sites are of varying ages, for
only UWO or three were occupied at any given time. Jochelson

wrote:

All the ancient villages were situated on the sea-
shore, not the high land above the sea, and usually
on land between two bays, so that their skin boats
could be easily carried from one body of water to
another at the approach of foes. Thus, the usual
location of villages was on narrow isthmuses, on
necks of sand between two ridges, on promontories,
or narrow sand banks. An indispensible adjunct to
a village was a supply of easily accessible fresh
water -- a brook, fall, or lake. River mouths were
never used as permanent dwelling places, because
topographical conditions were conducive to unexpected
attacks . . . For this reason villages were built
on open places, whence observations could be made
far out to sea.

Hrdlicka pointed out:

A favorable place for their location was by or on

an isthmus between two parts of lazg, or close to

the mouth of a fresh water stream.
And again:

As a rule they are on or very close to the seashore,

in bays or coves that offered necessary protection,

close to a fresh water stream, and gather on ele-

vated flats, or on suitable bluffs.
Figure 6 (p. 28), depicts one of the sites on Atka Island where
Jochelson worked in 1909.

The record of the distribution of villages throughout

the culture area is incomplete. One fact that emerges most
clearly is that every island capable of settlement was appar-

ently occupied.

 

44Jochelson, Archeological Investigations in the Ale-

utians, p. 23.
45Hrdlicka, The Aleutian and Commander Islands, p. 409.
46Ibid., p. 482.

 

 

 

28

 

 

 

In- 09' zo'l

Nazan Bay

 

 

 

ALEUT VILLAGE SITEI
NAZAN BAY,
ATKA ISLAND

Village Site I
Burial Caves o
Cflfis \mw

Contour Interval = IOO'

O 500
yards

Scum: Jochelson. Archeological Investigations
In the Aleutian Islands. l925.

 

m- 09' oo‘I

  
  

 

 

l969 MAC

 

BEMNG SEA

  
 

Q15
ATKA BLAND

 

  

 

2!

Nazan Bay

52' I0‘ 407

   
  
 

52' IO' 20"-

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 6

 

 

29

Old men relate that a long time ago, before the
art‘ival of the Russians, the inhabitants of the
Oomualashka District were so numerous that every
islan27and every convenient location was settled,

Sites of former settlements are found in the Aleutian
Islands wherever there was a suitable place for human

habitation8 Collectively their number must run into
hundreds.4

Shell heaps are found on nearly all islands of the
Aleutian group. They are most abundant and extensive
in the islands east of Unalashka, and on the few
islands from Amchitka eastward, which are less high
and rugged than the others; or on those wherz the
greater amount of level land is to be found. 9

From the statements above, it appears that settlement
was extensive. A search of available literature tends to bear
out such claims. Table 1 (pp. 30-31), is a list of all islands
mentioned as being settled in pre-Russian times. In all, the
table includes a total of fifty-two known settled islands and
the Alaska Peninsula. That the total of inhabited islands
undoubtedly exceeded sixty, as some authorities claim,50 is
indicated by the presence of approximately fifteen unmentioned
inhabitable islands in the Rat and Andreanof groups.

The density of the settlement pattern was not uniform
over the entire culture area. Dall implied that the eastern

end was more densely settled than the western end.

 

47Veniaminov, quoted in Petroff, Tenth Census of the
U,S,; 1880, p. 148.

48Hrdlicka, The Aleutian and Commander Islands, p.409.

49Dall, Contributions to North American Ethnolo ,
p. 43.

50Hulten, Flora of thg Aleutian Islands, p. 12.

 

30

EABLE 1

ISLANDS SETTLED PRIOR TO 1741:

ALEUT CULTURE AREA

 

 

 

Island Name Sources
A. Alaska Peninsula a; b; e
B. Andreanof Islands
1. Adak c; e
2. M118 b; e; e. s; h
3. Atka c; d; e, f; g; h
5. Ilak c
6. Kanaga c; d; f; g; h
7. Naugaman (7) g
8. Sitkin (Great Sitkin) g
9. Tagalak f; g; h
10. Tanaga c; d; g
11. Tstechina (7) f
12. Unyak.(?) g
C. Fox Islands
1. Aaktak.(Aiktak) a
2. Akun a; b; g
3. Akutan a; b; g
4. Amak. a
5. Amaknak.(Amoknak) a; c; d
6e MUkhta a
7. Avatanak a; b; 8
8. Caguliak (Herbert) a
9. Chuginadak a
10. Kagamil a; C; e
11. Kigalga (Uliaga?) a
12. Samalga a
13. Sanak a
14. Split Rock C
15. Sidanka a; b
16. Tigalda a; b; s
17. ugamak a
18. Uknadok (Hog Island) a; d
19. Uligan (Carlisle) a
20. Unmak a; b; C; d; e
21. Unalaska 8; b; c; e; f;
22. Unalga a; b; 8
23. Unimk a; b
24. Veselov (Winslow) a; b; C
25. Yunaska 3

Ananiuliak Is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

31

TABLE 1 -- Continued

 

Island Name Sources

 

D. Near Islands

1. Agattu b; c, e
2. Attu b; c; d; e
3. Semichi Islands (3) d; f
E. Rat Is lands
1. Amchitka c; e; g
2. Kiska c; e
3. Little Kiska c
F. Shumagin Islands (6) a; b; e
l. Unga e

 

Total Islands Listed: 51

 

aVeniaminov, quoted in Petroff, Tenth Census of the
United States: 1880.

 

bU.S., Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of North Ameri-
can Ethnology, The Indian Tribes of North America, by John R.
Swanton, Bulletin I55 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing

Office, 1952).
cHrdlicka, The Aleutian and Commander Islands.

dJochelson, Archeological Investigations in the Ale-
utian Islands.

 

eDall, Contributions to North American Ethnologx.

fCoxe, Account of the Russian Discoveries.

 

8Masterson and Brower, Bering's Successors.
hVasili Berkh, The Chronolo ical Histor of the
Discovery of the Aleutian Islands (St. Petersburg: N. Grech,

3H. S. Laughlin, "Eskimos and Aleuts: Their Origins
and Evolution," Science, CLXII (November 8, 1963).

 

32

On the islands west gf Amchitka, shell-heaps are
1988 abundant, . . .

Veniaminov strengthened this implication in his comment on
settlement in the Unalaska Division, i.e., the Fox Islands,
the Alaska Peninsula, and the Shumagins:

The Aleuts declare that before the arrival of the
Eggstiniaggzrgzwere in the Unalaska Division about

Figure 7 (p. 33) depicts a heavily settled area on
Unalaska Island referred to by Veniaminov. For the entire
Aleut area, a total of 170 aboriginal village sites have been
tabulated; Figure 8 (p. 34), indicates their general distri-
bution. Appendix 1 lists the known villages by island.

The eastern end of the chain includes 115 of the known sites.
Veniaminov's estimate of approximately 120, therefore, appears
to be reasonably accurate.

Substantial information pertaining to village size is
also scarce. Veniaminov recorded the few fragments that do
exist. Appendix II contains his figures. The five instances
where population and the number of villages were recorded are
not a sound basis for computing an average.

A more detailed look at village size is afforded by
examining data from reports written in the 1760's. In all
probability, the Fox Islands were discovered by the Russians

between 1753 and 1754 when a trader;Serebranikoff,landed

 

51Dall, Contributions to North American Ethnolo ,

p. 43.
52Veniaminov, quoted in Hrdlicka, The Aleutian and
Commander Islands, p. 40.

 

 

 

33

 

 

   

C: IICG' 30' W. L.
BERING

: ~

I; E

54- NL. SEA
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PACIFIC
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I67' W. L. ISS' W. L.
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Hog Island?

Unalaska Island

 

 

 

SETTLEMENT

Unalaska Island (5 PATTERN,
D NORTHERN UNALASKA

ISLAND: c.1740

Village Sites O
Lakes and

Slreams W

source: Veniaminov. waved in Hvdlicka.
0 s

The Alwllon and Command" Islands. I945.

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35

there.53 Ivan Nikiphoroff arrived on Unimak in 1757, and
Demetri Paikoff came the following year.54 At any rate, Rus-
sian contact had not been extensive at the time the figures
of Table 2 (p. 36) were recorded by Solovioff in 1764.
Coxe attributed the following statement to Solovioff:

The Fox Islands are in general very populous;

Unalashka, Which is the largest island (sic),

is supposed to contain several thousand inhabi-

tants. These savages live together in separate

communities, composed of fifty, and ggmetimes.two

or even three hundred persons; . . .
The implication of the above statement is that, while larger
villages existed, most consisted of about fifty persons.
Jochelson concurred with this estimate.

The Aleut tukux (i.e., master, elder, chief)

often ruled over only a few families of relatives,

consisting of forty to sixty ggople, inhabiting

two or three earth dwellings.

Aboriginal villages were located throughout the Aleut

Culture Area, but with a probable greater density at the east-
ern end. Native awareness of the environment is evidenced
by the careful regard given to site selection in terms of
accessibility, availability of resources, and visual command

of the immediate area. The type of house constructed by the

Aleuts illustrates another facet of their perception.

 

 

SBCoxe, Account of the Russian Discoveries, p. 49.
54Ibid., pp. 57 and 61.
551bid., p° 149.

56

Jochelson, Archeolo ical Investi ations in the
Alss£122_12l222§. p. I1§. ' _s____________s_____________

 

 

36

TABLE 2
KNOWN VILLAGE POPULATIONS: UNALASKA, 1760'sa

 

 

 

Village Papulation
Kalaktak 220
Totchikala 200 plus
Agulok 63 (13 men. 40 women and
children)
~ Igonok 60 plus
Unnamed Village 200 plus
" " 180
" " 200
" " 7O

 

Total Villages: 8
Average Village Size: About lSO/village

 

aCoxe, Account of the Russian Discoveries, pp. 137-

 

142.

 

37

House Type
Several thorough descriptions of the Aleut house type
exist. The construction varied only slightly from one end of
the area to the other. The quotation below was taken from the
log of an unnamed vessel that visited the Near Islands in the
1750's:
Their dwellings are hollowed in the ground, and
covered with wooden roofs resegpling the huts
in the peninsula of Kamchatka.
The similarity in house types between the Aleutian
Islands and the Kamchatka Peninsula was one of the factors
which led early investigators to believe that the Aleuts came
originally from Asia. Krasheninnikov described the Kamchatkan
house type:

The huts are built in the following manner: they
dig a hole in the earth about five feet deep, the
breadth and length of which is proportioned to
the number of people designed to live in it. In
the middle of this hole they plant four balks,
upon which they form their roof or ceiling, leav-
ing in the middle a square opening which serves
them-fer-a‘windew~aad-chimney; this they cover
with grass and earth, so that the outward appear-
ance is like a round hillock; . . . 58

Korovin, who hunted in the eastern Aleutians in 1762, depicted
the Aleut houses on Umnak and Unalaska this way:

They first dig a hole in the earth proportioned

to the size of their intended habitation, of

twenty, thirty, or forty yards in length, and
from six to ten broad. They then set up poles

 

57Coxe, Account of the Russian Discoveries, p. 104.

588. P. Krasheninnikov, The Histor of Kamtschatka,
Trans. from the Russian by James Grieve (St. Petersburg:
1754), p. 181.

[F‘T’i Tn: :-

 

 

38

of larch, fir, and ash driven on the coast by

the sea. Across the top of these poles they

lay planks, which they cover with grass and

earth. They enter tgfiough holes in the top

by means of ladders.
Von Staehlin, a German who collected and translated accounts
of the Russian discoveries in the Aleutians, wrote the fol-
lowing about Aleut house types in general.

They are frequently from five, ten, fifteen,

to thirty fathoms long, and commonly four fathom

broad: the gargest are carried upto two or three

fathom high.

Aleut houses then, were permanent features on the cul-
tural landscape. Materials for their construction were drawn
from the immediate area, i.e., driftwood, sod, bone, and grass.
The only variation throughout the entire area was apparently

in size, larger houses being built in the east.

Social Structure

 

Information on the aboriginal social structure is
rather incomplete. Veniaminov recorded what is, perhaps,
the most thorough of the existing statements on this subject.
The social structure was apparently closely tied to the settle-
ment pattern.

The form of government of the Aleuts may be called
patriarchal. Every village consisted always of
relatives and formed only one family, where the
oldest of the tribe was called Toyone (Toukhoukh),
and had power over all, but this power was very
much that of a father over a large family; that
is, he was obliged to look after the common

 

59

6OJakob von Staehlin, An Account of the New Northern
Archi ela 0. Trans. from the German original London:
C. Heyainger, in the Strand, 1774), p. 39.

Coxe, Account of the Russian Discoveries, p. 104.

 

 

 

39

‘welfare, and to protect his territory (every

‘village had its grounds set apart); strangers

*were~not allowed to hunt in grounds thus set

aside; igfraction of this rule often gave rise

to wars.
Jochelson, who probably derived part of his information from
the work of Veniaminov, added the following:

It.must also be remembered that-the ancient Aleut

settlements were not very populous. The Aleut f

tukux (i.e., master, elder, chief) often ruled

over only a few families of relatives, consisting

of forty to sixty persons, inhabiting two or’

three earth dwellings. That many more pits were

found at all ancient village sites than would

account for two or three dwellings does not mgan

that all the pits were inhabited at one time.

According to the translations of Coxe and Pallas,
the men of several villages on the same island would, in
times of duress, band together against the Russian traders.
This implies some sort of organization beyond the village
level. In all probability neither social nor political
organization extended beyond the island itself. Indeed,
the Aleuts did not seem to comprehend the unity of the
island chain, for Hrdlicka claims that the Aleuts did not
63
have a generic name for the Aleutian Islands.
All in all, the social structure and settlement

pattern were closely interwoven. An average village con-
tained two or three houses; each represented one extended

family of several generations. A pattern of small,

 

61Veniaminov, quoted in Petroff, Tenth Census of the
g 1880, p. 152.

62

Jochelson, Archeological Investigations in the
.Aleutian Islands, p. .

63Hrdlicka, The Aleutian and Commander Islands,p5 30.

U,S.

 

   

40

independent village units was distributed about is land
peripheries throughout the is land chain. Interrelation-
ships may well have existed between villages, but nothing
is known as to their particular nature.

Even less can be said about Aleut religion. It was
apparently animistic, and closely keyed to elements of the
environment. Veniaminov attributes the lack of data on
their religion to the efforts of the selfastyled fur hunter-
missionaries of the 1700's, who destroyed all material evi-
dences of any religious practices, and "converted" the

natives toRussian Orthodoxy. 64

Economy

The economy of an aboriginal culture group has
important relationships with the physical environment. It
is the physical environment that contains most of the mate~
rial utilized by the group for survival. If the ways of
obtaining food, the type and effectiveness of tools and
weapons, the methods of transportation, and the materials
involved in trade, can be analyzed in relation to the envi-
ronment, then an evaluation can be made of the geographic
viability of the economy. In other words, such assessment
serves to illustrate the character of the relationships
established by the Aleuts between themselves and the natu-

ral environment. In the world of the aboriginal Aleuts,

, 64VeniaminOv, quoted in Petroff, Tenth Census of.
the U,S,; 1880, p. 156.

 

41

the sea, as might be surmised, was the major focus of their
economy. 7

The Aleuts were hunters, gatherers, and fishermen
as indicated by the numerous middens, or shell-heaps. The
contents of the shelloheaps are bones, tools, and esthetic
objects discarded or lost by the village dwellers, as well
as tons of shells.

The food of the Aleuts consisted mainly of shellfish,
fish, sea mammals, and sea and land plants. The dominant
remains in the middens are shellfish, i.e., sea urchins,
mollusks, mussels, clams, and snails. The bones of sea mam-
mals include those of seals, sea lions, sea otters, and
whales. Remains of birds, esPecially ducks, were also
found.65 A summary of the food habits of the Aleuts was
provided by Von Staehlin:

They feed upon the flesh 8f several animals,
and commonly eat it raw.6

Fer their common food, they are content with raw
fish, . . . If they are hindered in fishing by
contrary winds, ghey live upon seakail, . . .,
and sea oysters.

The whalesdwhich the sea casts on thgsshore are
a great addition to their provision.

Coxe also generalized about their food;

 

65Hrdlicka, The Aleutian and Commander Islands,

 

p. 484.

66Staehlin, Account of the New Northern Archi-

pelago, p. 36.
67Ibid., p. 29,

681bid., p. 36.

 

 

 

42

Their principal food consists of fish and other
sea animals, shell-fish and sea-plants; their
greatest delicacies are wild lillies and other
roots, together with different kinds of berries.

Most of the food then, both plant and animal, was
taken from the sea and its margins. The narrow peripheral
shoreline and lower grass meadow zones provided them with
‘ few plants, but the island interiors, which constitute the

great majority of the land area of the Aleut domain, were

virtually ignored.

The assemblage of tools and weapons which the Aleuts

used in providing for their wants gives further proof of
their close relationship to the sea. Open sea fishing was
accomplished through the use of bone hooks attached to long
strands of kelp, the length of which often exceeded 900
feet. Heirs made from willow shoots were built across
streams to catch fish during the spawning season.70

The main weapon used for killing sea mammals and
humans was a four to five foot long dart, tipped with stone
or bone, and thrown by means of an atlatl. The head of the
dart could be made to detach when it struck its victim.
Tolstykh mentioned that the Aleuts used them as effectively

as the Russians used their guns.71

 

69Coxe, Account of the Russian Discoveries, p. 168.

7oWaldemar Jochelson, History, Ethnology, and

Anthro 010 of the Aleut (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie
Institute, 1933), pp. II-and 51.

7llbid., p. 11.

 

tr" “era‘s-t-

 

43

Through the excavations he made, Jochelson was able
to amass a considerable collection of stone implements, rang-
ing from the above-mentioned dart points to adzes, choppers,
knives, chisels, sinkers, and lamps from his excavations.

In only a few instances did the materials of these tools
come from areas other than the immediate surroundings.72
melements made of bone were also found in great abundance. '
Dart points, arrow heads, knives, picks, needles, spoons,
and facial ornaments give ample evidence of the importance

of bone in the Aleut culture.73 Obviously, most of the bone

f:"“+‘—Tr1-j

came from the animals killed for food.

The Aleuts clothing was made exclusively from animal
skins, intestines, and bird skins. The earliest description
of their clothing comes from the diary of Georg Steller, the
naturalist who accompanied Bering in 1741. He recorded that
the Shumagin Aleuts were

. . . dressed in shirts with sleeves, handsomely
sewn, of whales guts° The shirts reached the

calves; some engirdle them about the belly with
a belt.7

The long shirts (or kamleikas) were extraordinarily
well suited to the needs of these maritime peOple. The
kamleika was made from the cleaned and dried intestines of

sea lions, seals, and whales. The wearer was protected from

 

72Jochelson, Archeolo ical Investi ations in the
Aleutian Islands, p. 39. ""“"""‘

731bid.

74

Frank Golder (ed.), Bering's Voyages, Vol. II
(New York: American Geographical Society, 1922), p. 41.

 

 

44

weather elements by this hooded garment. Underneath this
shirt the hunter usually wore a coat of bird skins with the
feathers turned inward. These two garments formed the basic
male dress.75 women and children wore coats and parkas made
of bird feathers and seal skins, and only rarely did anyone,
male or female, wear any kind of shoe. Von Staehlin recorded
a general description of Aleut dress:

In the depth of winter, by the severest cold, they
go just as in summer, with their fishoskin and bird-
skin upper and under garmeneg, without breeches,
stockings, caps, or gloves.

The most remarkable of all aboriginal Aleut manu-
factures was the skin boat (or bidarka)°

The Aleut bidarka is such an accomplished piece

of work of its kind, that a finished mathemati-
cian would not be able to add much or even anyyhing
to the perfection of its sea-going qualities.

A more specific account was provided by Jochelson, who cited
the log of Tolstykh:

For sea-going they make small bidarkas, the frames
of which consist of hoops forming the ribs, cov-
ered with seaalions' or seals' skins. In the
middle of the boat is a rounded hatch, into which
the hunter sits, stretching out his legs. Around
the projecting rim.of the hatch is fastened a
skirt made of seal guts, the upper edge of which
is tightly drawn about the body under the armpits
of the hunter, who rows with double paddles. In
the summer they.go to sea, sometimes sailing as
far as two and a half versts (1.65 miles) from the

 

7SJochelson, History, Ethnology, and Anthropology
of the Aleuts, p. 10.

76Staehlin, Acco t of the New Northern Archi ela 0,
pp. 29-30.

77Veniaminov, quoted in Hrdlicka, The Aleutian and
Commander Islands, p. 24.

 

x- I :c “4%?
llacmwuumht Mm \.M «m

 

 

45

shore, and catch halibut and cod, which are abun-
dant; in winter they have to go as far as tvgnty
versts (13.2 miles) or more from the shore.

The Aleut hunter in his bidarka, wearing a kamleika,
represents one of the best relationships that primitive man
has ever developed for sea travel. An expert hunter could
stay at sea, if necessary, for about ten days before the
skin covering of the boat became waterlogged. A paddler
could maintain speeds of six to seven knots per hour,. and
survive even though continually buried by high waves. Indeed,
Martin Sauer described the Aleuts as resembling amphibious

79

animals more than humans. Beside the bidarka the Aleuts

 

. also built a larger open boat (or baidar) which had a carry-
ing capacity of forty persons. Seal and sea lion skins were
lashed over a framework of wood and/or bones, thus providing
transportation for the populations of entire villages.

Trade was evidently carried on throughout the culture
area and with groups living on the Alaskan mainland. Hrdlicka's
work verified in part the following comment made by Coxe:

They barter among one another sea-otters, seaabears,
clothes made of bird skins and dried intestines,
skins of sea-lions and sea-calves for the coverings
of baidars, wooden maska, darts, threads made of

sinews and reindeefiohair, which they get from the
country of Alaska.

 

' 78JochelsonhHistory, Ethnolggy,¢and‘Anthropology
of the*£1eutsylp. 11. ' " "

79Martin Sauer, A Geo ra hical and Astronomical
Egpedition (London: T. EEdeIE, Jun. and W. Davies, IS the
Strand, 1 02), p. 157.

80Coxe, Account of the Russian Discoveries, p. 169.

 

 

46

Hrdlicka added to the above items such things as
walrus ivory, caribou and wild sheep horn, bear teeth,
quartz crystals, amber, and rolls of birch bark. In other
words, trade with the mainland involved items not native to

the Aleutian Islands.

Summagy

The aboriginal Aleuts occupied a portion of the
earth's surface that in many respects must be considered
harsh and isolated to a modern observer. An evaluation
based on today's standards does not provide a realistic pic-
ture of their world, for as this brief chapter has attempted
to indicate, they had a thriving and viable culture.

They located their villages throughout the the
island chain on the basis of perceived resources. Evidence
from the eastern end of the culture area indicates that pop-
ulation numbers were greatest in regions where marine life
was densest. The choice of village sites and the remains
found in the resulting middens amply demonstrates their
maritime orientation. Perhaps the single best manifestation
of this orientation is the skin boat; this is to be expected,
for much of their livelihood depended upon functions per-
formed by the hunter-bidarka combination. Transportation,
communication, and food supply were all based upon it.

Whether or not such a culture would have been able
to continue evolving along the established pattern is un-

known. Internecine war, a common feature prior to Russian

 

 

47

contact, was generating change. The alterations caused by
the actions and ideas of the promyshlanniki‘(the Russian

fur hunters) are discussed in Chapter Four.

 

II. PRE-CONTACT TLINGIT CULTURE

Physical Geography
The aboriginal Tlingit Culture Area was located

along the northwest coast of mainland North America between
55° N.L. and 60° N.L. Today this region, which included the
coast and islands between Icy Cape and the Dixon Entrance,
is often referred to as the-"panhandle" of Alaska (See Fig-
ure 9, p. 49). In terms of land area, the Tlingits occupied
approximately 36,500 square miles,1 about two-thirds of
which consisted of the islands of the Alexander Archipelago.
The islands range in area from over 2,000'8quare miles
(Prince of Hales and Chichagof islands) to vast numbers of
small rocky islets incapable of supporting vegetation.

The complex topography of the area is encompassed
by seven sections included in the three provinces of the
Pacific Mountain System:2 (1) Coastal Trough Province,
(2) Pacific border Ranges Province, (3) Coast Mountains
Province (See Figure 10, p. 50). Local relief varies from
the rolling, glaciated terrain of Kupreanof Island (300 to
500 feet), to the high, ice-clad barrier of the Fairweather
Range (12,000 to 15,000 feet). The remainder of the area

 

1Kroeber, CultUral and Natural Areas of Native North
America, Table 18.

 

2H'ahrhaftig, Ph sio ra hic Divisions of Alaska, p. l.
48

 

 

 

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51

is represented in general by heights of 3,500 to 7,000
feet. Kruzof Island, on the western side of Baranof Island,
has a cinder cone and two inactive volcanoes, the highest
of which is Mt. Edgecumbe (3,271 feet).3

Another characteristic of the Tlingit area is the
intricate network of waterways. Most of the channels owe
much of their existence to the effects of.glaciation, but
Chatham Strait apparently is a major fault line. The
Strait, a trench.four to fifteen miles wide, has an average
depth of 1,900 feet.4

The Gulf of Alaska Coastal Section, the only vari-
ant in what is‘a mountainous region, is a coastal plain with
longitudinal beach and dune ridges backed by marine terraces
of up to 800 feet. Several fiords, i.e., Lituya, Dry,
Yakutat, and Icy bays, interrupt what is otherwise a straight
exposed coastline.5

All of Southeastern Alaska has a maritime climate
similar to that of the Aleutian Islands.6 Even though the
rugged topography of the region produces significant varia-
tions in temperature and precipitation, the characterization
of the area as having cool, moist weather holds true. July

‘and August, the warmest months, usually have temperatures

 

31bid., p. 42.
4Ibid., p. 39.

51bid., p. 41.

6Watson, Climates of the States- Alaska, p. l.

 

 

 

52

in the high fifties to the low sixties. Mean minimum tem-
peratures in the coolest month, January, fall in the mid-
twenties to the low thirties. In the winter occasional
outbreaks of cold interior air may override the mountain
barriers, but such occurrences are not common and should
not be considered typical.7

Average wind velocity is not as high as in the Aleu-
tians,5 but winds of sixty to seventy miles per hour are
recorded by most stations for all months.8 Precipitation
is quite abundant; southeastern Alaska has the highest
annual averages of the entire state. Several stations
report over 100 inches per year. Little Port Halter on
Baranof Island reports over 221 inches per year.9

The entire culture area receives snow during the
winter months, but a permanent cover usually exists only
as far south as Juneau. For all intents and purposes the
entire area is open to navigation throughout the year.10

Spruce and hemlock forests dominate the vegetation
of the region, with the latter found more frequently in the

north.11 The rough terrain, plus the dense forest cover of

 

7%? 9 Po 2-
81bid.

9Ibid., p. 3.

lolbid.

11Federal Field Commission for Development Planning
in Alaska, Alaska Natives and the Land (Hashington, D.C.:

U.S. Government Printing Office, 1963), p. 349.

 

 

re
.d

. a‘ son... . . . u .

war

 

53

most of the area, makes travel over land extremely diffi-
cult. Heavy growth frequently extends right to the shore-
line. These dense forests help to create the greatest
visual difference between the Tlingit and the Aleut culture
areas, for the Aleutians lack trees.

A wide variety of fish and mammals (marine and
land) were found in southeastern Alaska. Land animals
included bear, deer, mountain goats and sheep, wolves,
beaver, mink, and others. The Tlingits hunted all of the
animals. Marine life, both fish and mammal, was extremely
rich. Seals, sea-lions, whales, and sea otters were abun-
dant, as were a variety of migratory birds and waterfowl.
But important as the wildfowl and mammals were, the several
varieties of fish in the waters of the region overshadow

all other sources of food.12

The five varieties of salmon,
i.e. king, silver, sockeye, dog, and humpback, along with
herring and olachen (candlefish) were the staple foods of
the Tlingits. Summer spawning runs in the area's many
streams and bays initiated a period of extreme activity on
the part of the natives, for it was during these runs that
the bulk of the food supply was obtained. The see also pro-
vided shellfish and seaweed for food as the numerous village

middens indicate.13

 

12Herbert H. Krieger, "Indian Villages of Southeast

Alaska," Annual Re ort of the Board of Re ents of the Smith-
sonian Institution (1927), 467-94.

131b1d., p. 477.

 

54

origins of the Tliggits

Cultural anthropologists are doing a great deal of
revealing work on the tribes of the Northwest Coast. Archeo-
logical work, on the other hand, has lagged somewhat. As a
result the dating of the arrival of the Tlingits and the
identity of their predecessors remains unclear. Since World
War II, de Laguna has directed what are apparently the only
archeological investigations in the Tlingit area.14

According to Riddell, who worked with de Laguna, the
northern portion of the culture area, the Gulf of Alaska
Coastal Section and the Fairweather Range, was probably un-
inhabitable due to glaciation prior to 6,000 or 7,000 years
ago,15 whereas the southern part of the region was probably
open to settlement several thousand years earlier.

The Tlingit Indians were evidently the last abori-
ginal group to migrate into the area before western Euro-
peans arrived on the scene. Even though exact dates have
not been established for the beginnings of Tlingit settle-
ment, it seems probable that they arrived within the past
1,500 years. This claim is based upon the fact that clan
legends are still.accurate enough to indicate where and how

the Tlingits arrived on the coast.16 Furthermore, workers

14U.S., Smithsonian Institution, Bureautof North

American Ethnology, Archeolo of the Yakutat Ba Area,
Alaska, by Fredericka 3e Laguna, BuIIetE 192 Washington,

D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1964).

 

15Riddell, Kroeber Anthropological Society Paper
#11, 105.
16

Phillip Drucker, Indians of the Northwest Coast.

.Anthropological Handbook #10 (New York: McCraw-Hill Book
Co., 1955), p. 112.

 

 

 

55

in the field of glotto-chronology have tentatively estab-
lsihed that Tlingit speaking peoples split off from the
basic Na-Dene language group in interior Canada about 2,000
years ago.17 If this proves to be true, the duration of
Tlingit settlement of the coast will be better substan-
tiated. The main routes of movement from the interior to
the coast were undoubtedly the several river valleys which
penetrate the Coastal Ranges: the Skeena, Nass, Taku,
Stikine, and Alsek rivers. Once in the area, the Tlingit's
former riverine orientation shifted to a beach culture
phase, and then, prior to white contact, began to change
to a sea-going culture.18
Population

The size of the aboriginal Tlingit population has

been agreed upon by several authorities. Mooney19 and

Swanton20 both use the figure 10,000 people. Kroeber

divided this figure into a northern group of 2500 persons,

21

and a southern group of 7500 persons. The first recorded

 

l7Morris Swadesh, "Time Depths of American Linguis-
tic Groupings," American Anthropologist, LIV (1956), 375.

18Kroeber, Cultural and Ngtural Arggs of Native
North America, p. 28.
19 |

Mooney, Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collection £80,
p. 32.

20Swanton, Indian Tribes of North America, p. 542.

21Kroeber, Cultural and Natural Areas of Native
North America, p. 135.

‘ Yet ”‘1' w

P”...

 

 

56

contQCt between white men and the Tlingit occurred in
1741.22 Thirty years passed without any known contact,
but at the beginning of the 1770's, British, French, Span-
ish, and Yankee traders began to arrive. Not until 1805,
however, did any white adventurer make an estimate of pop-
ulation size. Lisiansky, second-in-command of the first
Russian Round the world Expedition, said of the Tlingits: '
They amount to aboutzgen thousand, and are I
divided into tribes.
Settlement Pattern
Aboriginal Tlingit settlements were located through-
out southeastern Alaska on bays, inlets, and lower river
courses.24 A village would usually be situated on the nar-
row sand beach between the forest in the rear,and the high
tide line in front. Figure 11 (p. 57), indicates the loca-
tion of forty-three of these villages; approximately twenty
more could not be located due to a lack of reliable data.
Krause provided more explicit information on settlement
sites:
The houses themselves are built close to the
shoreline, barely out of the reach of high tide.
Almost without exception they are set with the

gable end, in which the door is cut, facing the
shore. Often one finds a platform in front of

 

22Golder,.Berin 's.Vo.a es, Vol. I, pp. 96 and 290.
23

Lisiansky, A Vo a e Round the World, p. 242.

24Aurel Krause, The Tlipgit Indians, trans. from
the German by Erna Gunther Seatt e: University of Wash-
ington Press, 1956), p. 86.

 

 

 

 

57

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58

time gable end, which overhangs the shore 53 that
one must mount several steps to reach it.

and:

Since fishing supplies the principle subsistence

of these people, the choice of a place of settle-

ment depends largely on the proximity of good

fishing grounds and safe landing places for canoes.

Village size varied considerably throughout the

region. The best description was recorded by Krause:

Some consist only of a few houses which are set

in a single row, others have as many as fifty

or sixty houses of varying sizes which are 27

arranged in two more or less regular rows, . . .
Olson agreed,in general with Krause, stating:

The homes usually were arranged in a single row

spaced at intervals of from 50 to 100 feet,

though some might form a separate cluster a

distance from the others.
House es

There were two types of towns: permanent winter

villages and temporary summer hunting and fishing camps.
Lisiansky described winter village houses on Baranof Island
as follows:

The barabaras of the Sitkan pe0ple are of a

square form, and spacious. The sides are of

planks; and the roof resembles that of a Rus-

sian house, except that it has an opening all
along the top, of the breadth of about two feet,

 

25
26

27Ibid., p. 86.

28Ronald L. Olson, "Social Structure and Social Life of

the Tlingit in Alaska," Anthro olo ical Records, XXVI (1967),
p. 5.

Ibid.
Ibid., p. 85.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ili

BEHoli

also .

4 neon—a

Di:

0!?

59

to let out the smoke. They have no windows;
and the doors are so small, that a person must
stOOp very low to enter. In the middle of the
building is a large square hole, in which fire
is made. In the houses of the wealthy, this
fire-place is fenced round with boards; and the
space between the fire-place and the walls
partitioned by curtains for the different fam-
,ilies of relations, who liVe together in the
same house. Broad shelves are likewise fixed
to the sides of the room, for domestic purposes.

DeHOIf, captain of the Juno out of Bristol, Connecticut,

also commented on the Sitkan houses:

The houses . . . were placed in regular rows,
and built of thick planks, fastened to posts
which formed the framework, and covered at

the tap with bark. The entrance was at the
gable ends, and was often stained with dif-
ferent colored earths. The interiors of their
dwellings were indescribably filthy, filled
With smoke and perfumed with decayed fish and
train 011.30

Dixon recorded his impressions of a summer fishing village

on Yakutat Bay in 1788:

Their habitations are the most wretched hovels
that can possibly be conceived; a few poles
stuck in the ground, without order or regular-
ity, enclosed and covered with loose boards,
constitute an Indian hut, and so little care
is taken in their construction, that they are
quite insufficient to keep out the snow or
rain: the numerous chinks and crannies serve,
however, to let out the smoke, no pasficular

apeture being left for that purpose.

 

29Lisiansky, A Voyage Round the werld, pp. 2

39.240.

30John newolf, "Voyage of the Jono," in Wilfred H.

Munro (comp.), Tales of an 0 d Sea ort (Princeton:
ton University Press, , p. .

Prince-

31George Dixon, A Vo a e Round the world (London:
George Goulding, 1789), p. I72.

 

 

60

A summer village was usually a temporary affair;
when the hunting or fishing fell offthe planks were loaded
into canoes and taken to a more promising site. The winter
villages, although permanent in nature, were frequently com-
pletely abandoned during the hunting and fishing season in

the summer months.

Socia 1 Structure

For purposes of identification, anthropologists
define a number of tribes, using the nativesI own geographi-
cal definitions. The areas of the fifteen most frequently
mentioned tribes are indicated in Figure 12 (p. 61).32 The
area occupied by the tribes was the only criterion applied.

Socially, the Tlingits are divided into two groups,
or moieties, called Raven and Eagle (or sometimes Wolf).
The Raven (Yehl) was more common in the south, while the
Eagle (Chak) or Wolf (Goch) occurred more frequently in the
north.33 All Tlingits, except for the Sanya (Cape Fox)
tribe, belonged to one or the other of these moieties.
Within each of the moieties were a number of clans, or con-
sanguinal bands, of which there were twenty-three in the
Raven moiety, and twenty-four in the Eagle. The Cape Fox

Indians, apparently a former Tsimshean group who were

 

32

33H. W. Henshaw and J. R. Swanton, "Tlingit,"

Bulletip g: the Bureau of American Ethnology, XXX (1910),
p. 765.

Krieger, Smithsonian Institution, p. 483.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

61

«a one»:

 

                   
                   

.32 62.22 58: so 8...... 8.3 £25..»

.52 £28... 338.8255 .820

sun. .333 £88.53» 3 802.3 5...... comes. 33.58
8a. .380 32:82 ..: so 2.2!. 5.2.5

 

 

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Bo... .d 2.3.5 i. 9.3m .... Bob .m 23o: .m
noose... .z 8.3. .x 023.52 .o ..:< .o .233» .4

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O¢td nm<mm< 1.49m: .5023...

 

 

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<o<z<o <2m<4<

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

62

undergoing assimilation into the Tlingit nation, belonged
to neither.34

Each clan was made up of several lineages. Accord-
ing to Drucker a lineage is

. . . a unilateral group consisting, among our

matri-lineal northern nggions, of a nucleus of

men related maternally.
In other words, a lineage was made up of a group of brothers
and their male cousins (on their mother's side) who, together
with their families, lived in one or more houses, depending
upon their number.

An overall view of Tlingit society indicates that
every one of the fifteen geographical groups, or tribes,
contained members of both moieties. Each moiety group in
every village, regardless of tribe, usually contained sev-
eral clans made up of individual lineage groups. Lisiansky,
who was on Baranof Island for several months in 1804 and
1805, commented on Tlingit social structure:

These tribes so greatly intermix, that families
of each are found in the same settlement. These
families, however, always live apart; and, to
distinguish the cast to which they belong, they
place on the top of their houses, carved in wood
or painted, the bird or beast that represents
it. The different tribes seldom go to war with
one another, and are always ready to make common

cause,3%n case of an attack from any strange
tribe.

 

341bid.

35
36

Drucker, Indians of the Northwest Coast, p. 110.
Lisiansky, A Vo a e Round the H rld, p. 243.

 

 

          

_ f

63

 

V!
A! I

/
// ‘ '
. - 1
:5

  

a
i
I

uuuuuu

 

Understanding this social hierarchy is of major
importance, for the smallest unit, the lineage, was poli-

tically and socially autonomous. As an example, the Chilkat
village of Klukwan, on the Chilkat River, consisted of five

lineage groups: Daklawedih, Klilkukedg, Gaggxtedi,
gpgwantan, and Dakistenah.37 Each lineage had a chief,
usually the eldest brother of the group who owed allegiance
to no one. Each of the several house groups within each
lineage also had a house chief who owed allegiance only to
the lineage chief in the main house. This situation pre-
vailed throughout the Tlingit area. Neither the Tlingit
nation, the various tribes, nor the many villages had any
form of formal organization. Drucker stunned up the local
autonomy of the Tlingit lineage system:

This social unit, among the northern nations,

was ordinarily politically independent. Even
where, as among the Tsimshean, it had entered
into formal alliances with other lineages, it
retained its important economic possessions --
fishing stations, hunting areas, berrying grounds
-- it had its own house or houses, its own chiefs,
and operated socially -- and, as-a 531e, cere-
monially -- as an independent unit.

Tribal areas included fishing stations, hunting
grounds, and berrying areas. Figure 13 (p. 64), indicates

the specific lineage holdings of the two southernmost tribes.

 

37Olson, ApthrOpological Records, p. 5.

38Drucker, Indians of the Northwest Coast, p. 110.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

64

 

  
 
  
 
  
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

LINEAGE LANDS:
TONGAS AND
SANYA TRIBES

Sonya Lineage Lands

 

Tonga: Lineage Lands

Approximate Tribal

Boundaries A-/
Source: Olson.
Anthropological Records. XXVI HAC
..-

 

 

 

 

 

DIXON ENTRANCE

° 25

l l

 

 

1 miles

   
     
   

 

|969

 

 

 

Figure 13

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

65

Econopy

The aboriginal Tlingits were a unique primitive
peeple. .All their food was procured by hunting, fishing,
and gathering, as was the case with many so-called primitive
peoples. However, the culture of the.Tlingits also included
an intricate social system, elaborate artistic techniques,
complex house types, and a wide-spread profitable trade sys-
tem. Such achievements were due, in large part, to their
ability to utilize efficiently the abundant resources of
theirsulturearea.39 ‘

As already’mentioned, a wide variety of food re-
sources were available to these-Northwest Coast inhabitants;
herring, olachen, several varieties of salmon, and sea and
land manuals. The Tlingits added to this by gathering many
kinds of berries and edible roots, as well as plant and ani-
mal life from the tidewater zone, i.e., shellfish, mussels,
and kelp. The most preferred items were salmon, olachen oil,
and berries.40

During salmon runs, the winter villages would often
be completely abandoned, with each lineage group going to
its own fishing grounds. Thus, Vancouver in the early 1790's
perplexedly reported seeing many deserted villages during

his summer-month cruises.41

 

' 391b1d., p. 2.

40Krieger, Smithsonian Institution, pp. 478e79.

4l'George vancouver,A Voyage of Discovery to the
Nerth Pacific Ocean and Round t e'wor d. S o umes

Lon on: Jo Stoc e, .

 

66

Tlingit fishing methods were so highly developed
that enormous numbers of salmon could be taken rather
quickly. The fish, once caught, were taken to the shore
where processing for storage began. The women split and
cleaned the salmon, then hung them on racks for drying and/
or smoking. Upon completion of this process they bundled
_the dried fish with wooden thongs and placed them in large,
nearly air-tight wooden boxes, which were taken back to
the main village.42 The whole process, i.e., fishing, dry-
ing, and storage, was so efficient that several weeks work
produced enough food for the remainder of the year.

The olachen, or candle fish, was taken by seining
or scooping and processed by boiling. The oil thus pro-
duced was highly valued as a trade item and as a diet
supplement. It, too, was processed in large quantities.43

Berries also supplemented dried fish, the Tlingit
staple. Severalwvarieties, gathered in late summer and
early fall, were ground and mixed with olachen oil to be
eaten with dried salmon.44 Throughout the remainder of the
year, individuals or groups hunted land and sea mammals at
.their own disgression. Land hunting, however, accounted
for only a small part of the food supply; the Chilkat and

the Stikine, perhaps, were the most active land hunters.45

’ 42Krieger, Smithsonian Institution, p. 478.
4312;2-
44Drucker, Indians of the Northwest Coast, p. 40.
452g. , p. 37.

 

 

 

 

67

The only instance of any kind of agricultural activ-
ity carried out by the Tlingit was noted by Vancouver on
Admiralty Island, in 1792 or 1793: ‘

On each side of the entrance [to the harbor]
some new habitations were constructing, and for
the first time during our intercourse with the
Northwest American Indians, in the vicinity of
these habitations were found some square patches
of ground in a state of cultivation, producing
a plant that appeared to be a species of
tobacco; . . .

Fur seals and sea otters were hunted for fur and
meat. Even though their fur was highly valued, especially
that of the sea otter, they were not intensively hunted.

The time and effort required to kill either animal set an
effective limit on the numbers taken. They were hunted both
from the shore or in canoes; bows and arrows and harpoons
were used in stalking these sea mammals as they slept.

The procurement of food was not a year round activ-
ity for the Tlingits. A surplus of food items was caught
or gathered and preserved during a relatively short period
in the summer and fall. These brief but intense periods of
activity allowed them to devote time to other aspects of
their lives.

Although there are no contemporary statements avail-
able on the weapons of the aboriginal Tlingits, comments
concerning such items were recorded by traders and adven-

turers who visited their southern neighbors. Statements by

Ledyard, who accompanied Cook in the late 1770's, provide a

 

46Vancouver, A Vo a e of Discover , Vol. V, p. 441.

 

 

68

brief, general view of the weapons used by.the Northwest
Coast tribes:

These people are possessed of a variety of
impliments calculated for war, hunting, fish-
ing, and other purposes, some of which are
remarkable analogous to ancient models, parti-
cularly the lance, which is every way similar
to that used ancient tournaments and feats
of chivalry.

They also have good bows and arrows, and stone
hatchets; also a variggy of snares for both
fowl and quadrupedes.

Ledyard also observed native clothing styles before
European and Yankee traders introduced western attire to the
Northwest Coastzl

Their cloathing generally consists of skins,
but they have two other sorts of garments, the
one is made of the inner rind of some sort of
bark twisted and united together like the

woof of our coarse cloaths, and the other very
strongly resembles the New Zealand Togo, and
is also principali; made with the hair of
their dogs, . . .

The dugout canoes of the Tlingits played an impor-
tant role in their culture. One of the earliest descrip-
tions of the Tlingit canoes was recorded by Dixon, in 1787.
Tlingit canoes were

. . . made entirely of one large tree, rudely

excavated and reduced to no particular shape,
but each end has the resemblance of a butcher's

 

47John Ledyard, A.J0urnal of Ca tain Cook's Last
Voyage to the Pacific Ocean,.and IE Quest of a North-Nest
Eassage, Between 8 a an America; gerformed t e Years

, 3 l , and . Hartfor , Connect cut:
nope, 9 p0. '
481b1d.
49

Ibid., pp. 71-72.

 

 

69

tray, and generally are lagfie enough to hold
twelve or fourteen people.

From the foregoing quotation it appears likely that
Dixon did not see a very wide range of canoe types. A state-
ment by Lisiansky, even though recorded several years later,
provides a fuller picture of these craft:
The canoes of these people are made of a light
wood, called Chaha, which grows to the south-
ward. A canoe is formed out of a single trunk,
and is.in some instances large enough to carry
sixty men. I saw several that were forty-five
feet long; but the common ones do not exceed
thirty feet. When paddled, they go fast in
smooth water. The largest are used for war,
or for transporting whole families from place
to place. The smaller serve for fishing, or
other purposes that require giw hands. They
are ingeniously constructed.
The Tlingits in general preferred travel on water,
although overland trails existed along the larger rivers
and streams and across some of the mountain passes. Journeys
of.hundreds of miles were frequently undertaken for purposes
of trade, to find new fishing and hunting grounds or for
the thrill of adventure or war. The bulk of native travel,
however, was between established fishing and hunting areas
and the permanent winter villages.52
The large canoes could not be taken very far up the
trade rivers; the Stikine River, navigable by canoe for

about 140 miles from its mouth, was the only exception.

 

50

51Lisiansky, Vo a e Round the World, p. 240.
52

Dixon, A Vo a e Round the world, p. 173.

 

Krieger, Smithsonian Institution, p. 474.

 

 

 

 

70

Trade with the interior was carried out on foot trails
along the rivers and across low passes. Once mountain
barriers had been crossed, the Yukon and the Mackenzie
river systems were available to the Tlingits. The Chilkat,
Taku and Stikine actively traded with interior groups.
Figure 14 (p. 71), shows the major inland routes, often
called "grease trails" in the literature. This name was
derived from the oil of the candlefish or olachen, which
the Tlingit traded in great quantities with interior groups
for skins, jade tools and.copper, to mention only the major
items.53 Trade, then, was an important aspect of the Tlin-
git economy, both between tribal groups and with the tribes
‘ of the interior.

No discussion of Tlingit culture is complete with-

out reference to the elaborate wood working complex shared
by all Northwest Coast tribes. wood was the basic material
of these cultures. It was used for everything from canoes
and houses, to bowls and boxes. In pre-contact times all
wood was worked with stone and bone tools, and with fire.
A few stray iron implements also existed among the tribes.54
Almost every wooden item possessed by the Tlingits had some
form of totemic creature carved or painted on it. Lisiansky
probably recorded the earliest statement concerning their

woodworking skills:

 

531bid., p. 475.

54Drucker, Indians of the Northwest Coast, pp. 42-44.

 

 

 

71

 

 

Yohum Bay 3
Q 0

\
/
g
E
:r
o
a:
<
\
I:
m
o
E
u
.1
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/

 

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..
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IM‘L.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I52°IL
O IOO
_z-zflz-Z-Zi
miles
ISWL.
/~
am?
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Pa
404‘ 3/
V6"?
1 war.

 

 

 

MAJOR EXTERNAL
TRADE ROUTES
TLINGIT CULTURE

A

REA
Chilkoof Pass V *
Main Rivers W
Culture Area

Boundary .. ——-- -

Souce: Krona. The Two Indiana. m.

’ in” W

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 1 4

 

 

 

 

72

They have, however, some skill both in sculp-
ture and paintingvnm seeing. their masks,
tineirhdifferent domestic utensils, which are
painted, and carved with.various figures, and
their boxes, the tops of which are curiously
inlaid with a shell resembling human teeth,
one might suppose these productions the work
of a people greatly advanced in civilisation,
The custom of painting the face every day,
contributes, I have no doubt, to their skill
in painting other things. Black, light green,
and dargsred, are the colours generally pre-
ferred.

The individual item most widely known is the totem
pole (see Illustrations 1 and 2, p. 73). The highly abstract
designs which came to represent the totemic creatures were
and are some of the most sophisticated examples of primitive
art in the.wor1d.

Overall, the aboriginal Tlingit culture of c. 1740
was quite impressive. The most significant aspect, perhaps,
was the region's abundance of food resources, a factor which
the Tlingits utilized in attaining levels above that of mere
subsistence. Surplus food was also a valuable trade item
which, through interaction between villages and with other
tribes, not only led to the acquisition of wealth, but also
to a highly developed awareness on the part of every indi-
vidual of the unity of Tlingit culture. The social order
also enhanced this awareness. Throughout the entire Tlingit
Culture Area a traveler could always locate a member of his
moiety, if unable to contact.someone of his clan. The
social order, therefore, helped to provide a system of unity

over the entire Tlingit domain.

 

55Lisiansky, A Vo a e Round the World, p. 241.

 

Illustration 1 Illustration 2
Tlingit Memorial Pole Tlingit Memorial Pole

7
. e
a

‘ .

'\-.

_U‘
- 4

Photos by author July, 1968

 

 

tr

0 IL”

 

74

Early European Contact

Traders of several European nations contacted the
Tlingits prior to significant Russian advances in the 1790's.
Spain, England, France, Portugal, and the United States all
had sent trading expeditions along the Northwest Coast.
The first Spanish explorers and traders, Juan Perez and
Bodega y Quadra, sailed this coast in 1774 and 1775.56
James Cook, whose reports indicated the trading possibilo
ities with northwestern North America, coasted southeastern
Alaska in 1778.57 The first Englishman to follow his advice,
a Captain Hanna, was on this coast in 1785 and 1786 under
the flag of the British East India Company.58 la Perouse,
a Frenchman, whose two ships were lost in the South Pacific,

traded at Lituya Bay in 1786.59 A Portuguese brig, the

Ephigenia, cruised Tlingit waters in 1789.60 Robert Gray,
captain of the Columbia, and a Captain Kendrick apparently
were the first Yankee traders on the Northwest Coast in

178861. Between 1774 and 1792 there were at least thirty-six

 

56Wendell Oswalt, This Land Was Theirs (New York:
Wiley, 1966), p. 297.

57James Cook, A Vo a e to the Pacific Ocean. Vol. II
(London: Lord Commissioner of the AaEIEalty, I735}.
58Dixon, A Vo a e Round the World, pp. xvii-xviii.

59J F. G. De La Perouse A'Vo a e Round the World
88. Trans. from the

in the Years 1785 ‘1786 1787 1?

French (London: J. Johnson, T7995

6oVancouver, A Voyage of Discovery, p. 340.
611bid., p. 41.

 

 

75

individual trade ventures carried out in southeastern
Alaskaanaters. The impact of this early trade was the
subject of a study by Wiko in 1951. It is her contention
that the virtual glut of trade items did not disrupt the
Tlingit economy or culture, for the channels of diaposing
of the new foreign goods already existed. In a word, they
enhanced the system. She also pointed out that

. . . not only did this trade bring tremendous

quantities of good, new materials and new tech-

niques, but it brought them without the usual

disruptive effects of colonization because it

was a seaborne commerce. The trading vessels

anchored along the Coast, conducted their busi-

ness, and left with no interest in proselytising

the Indiagfi or incorporating them into any colonial

holdings.

The independence of the Tlingits was unhampered by
outside forces and events. Culture change, when it began
to occur, was initiated at their own volition. As She Rus-
sians began to probe Tlingit waters in the 1780's, they

encountered a people who tolerated no interference with

their lives and habits.

 

62Joyce Annabel Wike, The Effect of the Maritime
Fur Trade on Northwest Coast Indian Societ iColumbia Uni-
versity Publication 345T: Columbia University Press, 1951),

pp. 2-3.

 

 

 

 

III. RUSSIAN MOVEMENT ACROSS NORTHHESTERN NORTH

AMERICA: 1791-1799

Exploration and Discovery

In the late 17th and early 18th centuries much geo-
graphic speculation centered upon the North-Pacific Realm
consisting of the North Pacific Ocean, the Bering Sea, North-
east Asia, and Northwest North America. The focus of much
of the attention given this region centered on two problems:
1) the whereabouts of the western end of the Northwest Pas-
sage; and 2) whether or not Asia and North America were
joined somewhere in the Arctic. The exPeditions that began
to penetrate this region in the 18th century were usuallyr
concerned with one or the other of these two questions.

The Northwest Passage was still being sought in the
19th century. To the question of continental connection, a
series of three Russian expeditions between 1725 and 1741 pro-
duced a tentative answer, but it was not until Captain James
Cook charted Bering Strait in 1778 that the separation could
be stated as a fact. However, Russian adventurers and fur
hunters did not wait for such clarification before they
pushed into the North Pacific Realm, for the results of the
Bering Expedition of 1741 had a different significance for

them.

76

 

 

77

The century leading to the Bering Expedition of
1741 saw Russians moving eastward across Siberia. A.major
impetus in their drive was an almost insatiable desire for
furs. As-a result new hunting and trapping areas were con-
tinually sought. In 1639 the port of Okhotsk was founded.1
By 1711 the Kamchatka Peninsula had been partially explored.2
With penetration into easternmost Siberia, vague reports
began to filter back to European Russia about a large island
lying to the east. A number of these reports were given
enough credence to be passed on to Tsar Peter the Great.
This information and his familiarity with contemporary geo-
graphic knowledge inspired him to initiate three expeditions.
The first, led by Vitus Bering, set out in 1725 to determine
whether hr not Asia was jgined to North America. Although
Bering did clear the straits now bearing his name, at the
time he was not sure just where he had been.3 A second
expedition, under Mikhail Gvozdev, set out for the same area
in 1732, but its findings were negligible.4 Bering also
commanded the third expedition (1732-1749). After much
hardship and confusion he sailed from.Petr0pavlovsk-on-

Kamchatka.in.the spring-of 1741, finally.making.a landfall

 

Masterson and Brower, Bering'g Successors, p. 1.

Coxe, Account of the Russian Djscoveries, p. 4.
Golder, Beriggis.Voyages, Vol. I, p. 93.

 

wal‘

Masterson and Brower, Bering's Successors, p. l.

 

 

78

on the Alaskan coast at Cape St. Elias on July 17, 1741.5

Chirikov, captain of the accompanying vessel, made a land-
fall, likely at Cape Edgecumbe, on July 15, 1741.6
On their return voyages both vessels made several
other landfalls in the Aleutian Islands. Chirikov returned
safely to Kamchatka, but Bering was shipwrecked and died of
scurvy on one of the Commander Islands (Bering's Island).
The survivors of his crew, after wintering on the island,
reached Kamchatka in a rebuilt vessel. The significance
is that the surviving crew members killed and skinned hun-
dreds of sea otters and returned to Kamchatka with the
highly valued pelts.7 The news of the value of their cargo
spread like wildfire over eastern Siberia, inspiring many
with dreams of easy wealth. One year after the shipwrecked
crew's return, Emelian Basov on the vessel Capiton sailed
to Bering's Island, returning to port the following spring.
A lack of seamanship and bad luck precluded a successful
hunt, but Basov did verify the presence of thousands of sea
otters in the Eastern Ocean.8 Thus, the Russian movement
into the Aleutian Islands began; the goal, of course, was

the procurement of furs.

 

5
6

7

Golder, Berin '3 Vols es, Vol. I, p. 93.
1 id., p. 290.
Ibid.; V01. 11, pp. 159-83.

8Berkh, The Chronolo ica-l Histor of the Discover
of the Aleutian Islands, p. 5.

 

 

 

 

 

 

79

Russian Movement into the cut Culture as

The next fifty-six years (1743-1799) witnessed the
movement of the Russians across the Aleutian Chain, along
the Gulf of Alaska coast to the Alexander Archipelago
(See Figure 15, p. 80). The more significant voyages are
listed in Table 3 (p. 81). The main impetus for this con-
tinued movement was the hope of discovering richer fur-
hunting grounds. Between 1743 and 1783 all the sea-going
ventures were staged from the Siberian ports of Okhotsk or
Petropavlovsk. As the data in Table 3 indicates, such voy-
ages lasted at least one year. Later efforts, beginning in
the 1750's, were extended in duration and distance, most
likely due to the need to range farther to procure a full
cargo.

All of the expeditions shared common characteris-
tics. One, two, or more Siberian merchants would raise
enough money to build and outfit a ship.9 During the 18th
century most of the vessels were of a very crude but sea-
worthy nature. As a class they were known as fishitiks,"
or "shishiks," a name meaning "sewed vessel." In Sauer's
words, such a vessel was

. .: a large boat sheathed with plank, which
is fastened to the timbers with twisted oziers;
the interstices are stuffed with moss, instead

of caulking; the seams are covered with laths of
about two inches wide, to prevent the washing

 

9Coxe, Account of the Russian Discoveries, p. 8.

 

 

 

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81

TABLE 3

 

RUSSIAN MOVEMENT INTO NORTHWESTERN NORTH.AMERICA

 

 

Year of

 

 

Date Captain Destination Return Source
1743 Basov Commander Islands 1744 Berkha
1745 Nevodchikov Near Islands 1746 Berkh
1753 Bashmakov umnak Islands 1754 Berkh
1753 Serebranikoff Fox Islands 1754 Coxeb
1758 Paikoff Andreanof Islands 1762 Caxe
1760 Poushkarev Alaska Peninsula ---- Berkh
1762 Glotov Kodiak Island 1766 Berkh
17 83 She lekhov Kodiak Is land 1786 She lekhovc
1783 Zaikov Chugash Sound 1785 Berkh
1788 Ismailof & d
Bocharof Yakutat Bay ---- Krause
1799 Baranof Sitka Sound 1801 Krause
aBerkh

b

:Gregori Shelekhov,
. f

' \
Coxe, Account-of the Russian Discoveries.

..The Chronological History of the Discovery
3 an s.

of the Aleutian

The V0 a e of Gre ori Shale ov,

 

. Var at sea L terature rom Fore 7n Literar Journals and

Orgg na Mss, Now F

at Pub
Pr to for J Debrett,

s e , Vo .

dKrause, The Tliggit Indians.

11 Lon on:

 

 

82

out of the moss; these are enclosed in oziers.
The name implies sewn, as they are made with-
out nails or pegs.

The cargo capacity of these keelless, two-masted
boats ranged from about ten tons in early models to about
150 tons in later models. The most attractive qualities
of such ships were that they could be easily beached and
that they did not require highly skilled labor to build
them.11 After sailing from.either Okhotsk or Petropavlovsk,
usually in late summer, the crew would steer for the Comp
:mander or Near Islands where the winter would be spent.

The vessel was beached and hunting began almost immediately.
From.the very beginning, Aleuts were forced into the role
of hunters. Upon landing, the Russians would take a number
of hostages, usually the children of the village chief. If
the chief refused to obey Russian orders he was killed. In
order for the hostages to be released the men of the village
had to bring in a specified number of fox, sea otter, and
seal pelts. If more furs than the specified amount were
brought in, the Aleuts could trade the excess for beads,
false pearls, goats‘wool, capper kettles and hatchets.12
While the village men.hunted, the promyshlenniki lived in

the native houses with Aleut women. In the l790's,when a

 

10Sauer, A Geo ra hical and Astonomical Ex edition,

xvi.
11Coxe, Account of the Russian Discoveries, p. 264.

12Ibid.

 

 

83

few non-Russian adventurers visited the Aleutians, comments
on the condition of the Aleuts began to be made. George

Mbrtimer, an English merchant who landed on the Fox Islands
in 1789, commented:

And here I must observe, that these poor people
seem to be completely subdued by, and are in a
state of the most abject dependence upon, the
Russians, who oblige the men to set and look
after their fox traps, to fish and hunt for
them, etc., and the women make their boots.

The Russians, beside, sisip them of all their
most valuable furs. . .

Such behavior on the part of the Russians met with
much resistance. The first voyage to the Near Islands in

1745 under Mikhail Nevodchikov resulted in the deaths of

thirty-two of his crew, and of at least fifteenAleuts.14

Attu Island still bears witness to those deaths, as seen in

15

the names Massacre Bay and MMrder Point. In 1762 the

entire crews of the ships commanded by Alexi Drujinin and

Stephan Glotov were killed on Unalaska.16 Ivan Soloviev,

who arrived on the same island in 1764, revenged his Rus-

sian comrades by killing approximately 300 Aleut males.].’7

 

13George Mortimer,.Observations and Remarks (London:
Printed for the author, and sold by T. Cadell, in the Strand,
- [791), p. 59.

14Berkhé gistory of the Discovery of the Aleutian

Islands, pp. 6- .

15U.S., Department of the Interior, Geological Sur-
vey, "Attu,” Alaska To 0 re hic Series, 1:250,000.

16Berkh,-History of the Discovery of the Aleutian

Islands, pp. 44-47.
171bid., pp. 55-57.

84

From.these and other instances, too numerous to
cite, it is evident that the Aleuts could ably defend them-
selves against depradations by the Russians. However, the
Russians kept coming in ever greater numbers, while the
Aleut papulation did not rapidly replenish itself. The
journals of two of the men who were members of the Billing's
EXpedition (1788-1793) present a gruesome picture of the
fate of the Aleuts. Joseph Billings, who had also voyaged
with Captain Cook, sailed from.Okhotsk in 1788 under orders
from Catherine the Great to investigate reports of cruelty
to the natives.18 The diaries kept by two of his subordi-
nates, Martin Sauer and Lt. Gawrila Sarytschew, contain
succinct statements on the Aleutian situation. Sauer, the
expedition's secretar?, made the following statement about
treatment of the natives on Tanaga Island in the.Andreanofs:

This island was formerly very well inhabited;
but the Russians have almost depOpulated it,

which is igmpletely the case with those to
the'west.

Laughlin's estimation of papulation distribution
(869 p. 25, Chapter 1), suggests that the approximately
1,000 Aleuts who lived on the Near and Rat Islands had been

exterminated during the first fifty years of Russian occu-
Pation. In 1791, the same year of the preceeding citation,
Sarytschew commented-that Uhalaska Island-was

18Sauer,.£ Geographical and Astonomical Expedition,

191bid., p. 222.

iii.

 

 

85

. . . sufficiently peopled before the arrival

of the Russians, but hunger and other untoward

accidents had reduced the population to less

than one-half, and at present not more than

one-third was remaining.2

Besides outright killing, famine accounted for many

.Aleut deaths. When male Aleuts were forced to hunt for the
Russians, they were not permitted to gather food for their
families; hence, in the winter the women and children
starved. The full impact of the actions of the Russians
comes into clearer perspective by comparing the population
estimates of 1741 and 1781. Per the year 1781 Veniaminov

recorded 1,900 for the total Aleut population.21

In forty
years the papulation of the Aleutian Islands decreased by
12,000 to 13,000 or a loss of about 80%.

An indication of the character of the Russian
hunters is provided by a citation from the log of the
sloop Kamchatka :

They were.for the most part exiles or corrupt
wastrels who coulg find for themselves no
place in Russia.

and:

 

20Gawrila Sarytschew, Account of a Voyagg.of Discovery.
to the Northeast of Siberia 55a Frozen.Ocean an t e No..h-
east Sea. Trans. from the Russlan (London: WEfis,

e Street, 1806), p. 17.

21Veniaminov, quoted in Petroff, Tenth Census of the

Qpited States; 1889; p. 148.
.. 22F. A. Tikhmenev, The Historical Review of Formation
the Russian American Com an . Trans.. rom.t e Russ an
by ggitri Krenov (St. Patersburg: Edward Veimar, 1861),
P. o

 

 

 

 

 

86

. . . a band of men of desperate character, . . .23

Langsdorff, who visited Russian America in 1804,
described the hunters and crewman as adventurers, drunkards,
bankrupt traders, mechanics or branded criminals who were
in search of fortune.24 More recently Okun referred to the
crews as being comprised of "idle people," i.e., runaway
peasants, small merchants, and bankrupt artisans who were
trying to keep away from areas of strong governmental author-

25

ity. Obviously, murder, rape, and pillage were accepted

in their lives.

Consolidation of the Fur Trade

In the late 1770's and early 1780's, the small fur
trading companies began to merge into larger units in order
to meet the rising costs involved in financing expeditions
to Alaskan waters. A company headed by Shelekhov was the
first to found a permanent settlement in Russian America,
an example which was quickly followed by two or three other
companies. Shelekhov correctly reasoned that greater profits
and reduced costs could be attained by gathering locally

processed pelts at a central point and waiting until a full

 

23Ibid.

24G. H. von Langsdorff, Voyages and Travels in Vari-
ous Parts of the World Durin the Years 1 . l - l .
1856 and 1857 ZPhiladelphia: M. Carey and Son, 1817),
p. 313.

2SOkun, Russian American Com an , p. 175.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Mame

 

 

 

87

cargo was available before shipping them to Okhotsk. Thus,
in 1783, the Russian presence added a significant feature
to Northwest North America, for it was in that year that
Shelekhov established a permanent post at Three Saints Bay
on southern Kodiak Island (See Figure 16, p. 88).26
Shelekhov's tactics in establishing this post did

not differ from.those of his competitors, for that same
summer his men killed 200 to 300 male natives of Kodiak
when the latter resisted his attempts at taking hostages.
Shelekhov claimed that he and his men killed 3,000 Kodiak
natives (Koniags) in this encounter.27 His exaggerated
estimates of native numbers were apparently calculated to
impress Empress Catherine 11 with the need to support his
venture financially and materially. According to Shelekhov

. . ., the number of new subjects I have acquired

22 3;:.?§§°3§’s‘3‘303°p§3§§:§efi3526:2338

9 0

Catherine evidently was not overly impressed, for she awarded

him a medal and a sword, but no aid.29 Nonetheless,

Shelekhov was not discouraged.

 

 

26Shelekhov, in Tooke, Varieties of Literature, p. 18.
27Ibid., p. 22.

28Ibid.

29

U.S., Congress, Senate, Russian Administration of

§1aska and the Status of Alaskan Natives, Senate fiocument
, st Congress, n Sess on , p. 4.

 

 

 

 

 

   
 
      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

53"“ L ISZIWL
ALASKA " 59 E {P 59 —
C3
BERING
SEA
. D
(Z) G' o 300
l
:55 w.L.
ALASKA
PENINSULA
se~
GULF
ISLAND
OF
ALASKA
Three Saints
—57 ISZJW. L. 57 —-
RUSSIAN
5O SETTLEMENT ON
KODIAK ISLANDI
flCb I783-l79l
Russian Settlements .
Southern Limit of
Wooded Country ,.._.-'-
~55 56_
0 so
'55 W. L‘ MILES I53 W.L.
I l Il969 HAC

 

Figure 16

 

 

89

During the 1780's the individual trading companies
were literally at war with one another. The native peoples
suffered accordingly because they were forced not only to
fight for the different companieg but they were also killed
by the Russian hunters to prevent their recruitment by
competitors.30

By the 1790's, Shelekhov began to emerge as the vic-
tor in this struggle. His competitors‘ posts and forts,

probably located on Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound,

 

were either absorbed or destroyed by his firm. In 1791
Baranof moved the Shelekhov Company's headquérters to a new
site on the northeastern end of Kodiak Island at Chiniak
Bay, naming it Saint Paul's Harbor (present-day Kodiak).31
Baranof made this move because of: l) the availability of
timber on northern Kodiak; and 2) more suitable harbor*con-
ditions.32 The native spruce was a boon to the Russians who
needed a dependable source of construction materials and
ship stores. In their earlier Aleutian experience: what
little wood they used had been scavenged from the sea shore
or taken from the rather inadequate specimens of elders and
willows which grew in ravines and gullies. The_heavy stands

of tall, straight spruce (see Illustration 3, p. 90) allowed

 

3oOkun, The Russian Anaerican Co n , p. 56.
311bid.

32Von Langsdorff, Vo a es and Travels, p. 359..

 

             
 
 

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'1'

      

  

t. . | t .- J. .

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Io‘“.lokr\ , . o .. ..: .I. A it I? "BV‘ §.OI.IV.H . _‘I .3 tin v .. .H ‘ U m; .. . ‘tinl . bv(Ab ii. ...-)i.. All
. , , t A. k , ,

       

     

     

.I .Qll ...vou. .‘IttalIL.b\: t'ln ..lrtt 0

 

9O

Illustration 3
Spruce Forest, Kodiak Island

     

Photo by author July, 1968

Illustration 4
Baranof Castle, Kodiak Island

 

Photo by author July, 1968

 

91

,them.to undertake.necessary ship.repairs and to construct
the more traditional style Russian buildings. One of these
structures, "Baranof Castle" in Kodiak, still stands (see
Illustration 4, p. 90).

Throughout the 1790's, Shelekhov and his heirs
tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Empress Catherine 11
and her successor, Paul I, to gghnt the Shelekhov Company
sole rights to the fur trade. with the ascension of Alex-
ander I in 1799, Shelekhov's heirs were successful in their
quest for this monopoly. The Russian crown decreed the
formation of the Russian American Company, stipulating that
all other trading companies had either to submit to the new
company or quit the trade entirely.33 In effect, the Rus-
sian American Company was put in control of all affairs in
Russian America. Alexander Baranof, the manager of~the
interests of Shelekhov's heirs was appointed as the first

governor.

Russian Movement Into the T it Culture.Area

The establishment of permanent Russian settlements
did not alter the pace of expansion. As mentioned above,
the continual quest for new sea otter hunting grounds was

the chief impetus to dispersal,although the dense stands

 

33"Imperial Decree of July 8, 1799," First Collec-

tion of erial Laws, 1799, Vol. XXV, Law 19130; quoted
in, Kissian deinistration of Alaska and the §tatus of

Alaska Natives, p. 4.

 

 

 

 

92

of hemlock and spruce in Southeastern Alaska were also
attractive. The rapid decline of the total number of sea
otters over increasingly larger portions of the North Paci-
fic realm is shown in Table 4 (p. 93).

Nevement into southeastern Alaska was focused on the
acquisition of sea otter pelts. Russian experience in the
Aleutian Islands had shown that large hunting parties had
the best chance of taking a maximum number of pelts. The
hunting parties that were sent out from Kodiak were veri-
table flotillas, sometimes including as many as 600 to 700
men and 200 bidarkas.34 As these fleets moved along the
coast any sea otters that were sighted were chased until
exhausted, surrounded and then killed. The carcass was
skinned immediately and the pelt placed inside the bidarka.
Such a force could nearly exterminate the otter from a par-
ticular area in one sweep. Thus, as the Russians moved
into Tlingit territory, they came as a single unit under
the unilateral control of Baranof. The small. independent
expeditions of the Aleutian hunting era (1743-1788) were a
thing of the past.

In 1788, Eustace Delarof, Baranof's predecessor,
sent out his foremen, Sturman Ismailof and the Cossack

Bocharof, with a force of hunters that went as far as

 

34Sauer, An Astronomical and Geographical Expedi-
tion, p. 171.

 

 

 

93

 

 

 

TABLE 4

AREAL DECLINE OF THE NORTHERN SEA OTTER: 1750-1810
Area of Extinction
or Near Extinction Year Source
Kamchatka Peninsula 1750 Berkha
Kurile Islands 1780 Berkh
Aleutian Islands 1791 Sauerb
Shumagin Islands 1791 Sauer
Kodiak Island and Vicinity 1795 Berkh
Kenai Peninsula and Cook Inlet 1795 Berkh
Prince William Sound 1797 Berkh
Yakutat Bay 1799 Berkh
Cross Sound 1804 Lisianskyc
Alexander Archipelago 1810 Berkh

 

aBerkh, Chronological History of the Discovery of

the Aleutian Islands. '

bSauer, A Geggraphical and Astonomical Expedition.

cLisiansky, A Voyage Round the World.

.. «I '0.

t it. ‘I

 

 

 

94

Yakutat and Lituya bays.35 In 1795 Baranof led another
large band of hunters into the Lynn Canal area, where the
aggressiveness of the Chilkat Tlingits impressed him. In
1796 a group of perhaps thirty families from Russia was
sent from Kodiak to Yakutat Bay to establish an agricultural
colony.36 The settlement, named Slawa Rossia (Glory of
Russia), undoubtedly owed much of its existence to the fur
hunters who lived there because the Gulf ofAAlaska is cer-
tainly not an area where agriculture could thrive. The
founding of this may also have represented an attempt by
Baranof to counter the growing influence of British and
Yankee traders who were conducting a profitable trade with
local Indians.

In 1799, Baranof again led a large group of Russian
and native hunters to Sitka Sound, where after seemingly
friendly negotiations with the Sitka Tlingits,\a small fort
named Redoubt Archangel Michael was founded (see Illustra-
tion 5, p. 9? and Figure 17, p. 96).37 Baranof returned to
Kodiak, probably in 1801, where he was given an imperial
directive to move the company headquarters to the new fort
on Baranof Island. Okun claims that this secret order

represented a Russian attempt to seriously block the growing

 

35
36
37

Krause, The Tli it Indians, p. 28.
Ibid., p. 30.
Ibid.

 

 

 

95

Illustration 5
Site of Redoubt Archangel Michael, Baranof Island

July, 1968

Illustration 6

Photo by author

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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97

menace of the Hudson's Bay Company in this area.38 The

promise of new sea otter grounds, unlimited timber and a
good harbor probably inspired Baranof to comply rather-
enthusiastically with the directive.

Meanwhile,.the Russians who remained at the new
fort completely misjudged the aggressive potentials of the
Sitkans, who were incensed by the farmer's attempts at
seizing hostages. The Sitkans, driven by and taunted by
other clans and.villages,attacked and destroyed Redoubt
Archangel Michael in June, 1802.39 All of the fort's
inhabitants were killed, except for a few who were even-
tually returned to Kodiak by an English trader. The latter
might have taken part in the attack.40

In 1804 Baranof returned to Sitka Sound with a

41*42 The Sit-

force of 120 Russians and about 800 Aleuts.
kans, after destroying the Russian fort, abandoned their

main town of Sitca and built a new fortified town at the

 

mouth of the Indian River, perhaps in anticipation of a Rus-

sian return (see Illustration 6, p. 95 and Figure 17, p. 96).,

 

38

'39Tikhmenev, Formation of the Russian American Com-
m. p- 110- ‘

40Ibid., pp. 110-11.

Okun, The Russian American Co an , p. 53.

41

Ibid., p. 143.
42The term "Aleut," used by many of Baranof's con-
temporaries, did.not necessarily refer to natives of the
Aleutian Islands. The word was applied to almost any Alaskan
who was not a Tlingit.

 

 

 

 

 

98

Bararusf's force occupied Sitgg in September, 1804, naming
it Novoarkangelsk (New Archangel). Then Baranof, with the
aid of several armed Russian naval vessels commanded by
Captain Urey Lisiansky, mounted a clumsy, but successful

eight day siege of the Indian River fort.43

In 1804,
Novoarkangelsk (present-day Sitka) became the headquarters
for the Russian American Company.

The defeat at Sitka Sound did not deter the Tlingits.
In 1805 they overran the Russian colony at Yakutat Bay and
killed all the inhabitants.44 Such aggressiveness on the
part of the Tlingits apparently stopped further Russian
colonization attempts in the Alexander Archipelago until
1834. In that year a fortified post named Redut Syataya
Dioniciya (Redoubt St. Dionysius) was established on Wrangel
Island (see Figure 13, p. 64). This fort (present-day
Wrangel) was established to counter the growing presence
of the Hudson's Bay Company. Paradoxically, the Russians
had recently leased the southern half of the Alexander
Archipelago to the English Company. The renewable lease
was effected during the Russo-English Convention of 1825,

which set Russia's southern boundary at 540 40' N.L.45

 

43Lisiansky, A Vo a e Round the World, p. 161°

44Krause, The Tlin it Indians, po 96.

45
Okun, The Russian American Com an , ppo 80:85.

 

 

 

 

       

I) y.-tltoyr t t , til

\

 

99

By 1810, sea otters were becoming scarce in the
Tlingit area. With Baranof's hunters and the Tlingits both
combing the region for this animal, its numbers dwindled
rapidly. -About this time Baranof decided to set hp a new
post far south on the North American coast, ostensibly to
produce supplies for the settlements in Alaska, but in real-
ity to pursue the California Sea Otter.46 Thus, in 1812,
the colony of Ross was founded near Bodega Bay, some thirty

to forty miles north of San Francisco Bay.47

In 1814 or
1815 an abortive attempt was made to establish a fort on the
island of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands, its purpose allege
edly being to capture the Canton trade.48

Within seven years of the founding of Ross, the Cali-
fornia Sea.0tter had been nearly eradicated by the Russians.

49 The fort con-

In 1819 only thirteen otters were caught.
tinued to be of some use to the Russians because of an
illegal but thriving trade carried on with nearby Spanish

missions.so By the late 1830's, the Russian American Company

 

46Otto Von Kotzebue, A New Vo a'e Round the World
(London: Colburn and Bentley, 18305, p. I21.

47Donald C. Davidson, "Relations of the Hudson's
Bay Company with the Russian American Company on the North-

west Coast, 1829-1867," British Columbia Historical Quarterly,
v (1941), p. 33.

48

Stuart R. Tompkins, Alaska: Prom shlennik and Sour-
doggh (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, I943),
p.4.

4?A P. Kashevaroff, "Fort Ross," Alaska Ma azine,

1, May, 1925, p. 238.
5°1b1d., p. 236.

 

 

 

 

100

decided to sell Ross, because it was not only outside the
Russian domain, but also had never adequately supplied the
Alaskan settlements with food as was planned. Therefore,

in 1842 Fort Ross was sold to John A Sutter of New Helvetia,

California, for 42,857 rubles.51

Summary

The Russians, in 1804, permanently established their
presence in Southeast Alaska, i.e., the Tlingit Culture
Area. However, their influence was limited for the most
part to the vicinity of Novoarkangelsk on Baranof Island;
the Russians were never strong enough to seize effectively
more territory from the Tlingits. The Kolosh, or Kalushes
as the Russians called them, were not passive neighbors, but
actively hostile for at least three reasons. First, the Rus-
sian habit of seizing hostages and women undoubtedly stirred
up much resentment and hatred. Second, the intrusion of
huge sea otter hunting parties into the Alexander Archipelago
deprived the Tlingit of their most valuable trade item --
sea otter pelts. Third, the fourteen Tlingit tribes were
quick to taunt one another about the presence of unliked
outsiders.

The Russian hold on Southeast Alaska was in general

much more tenuous than their grasp on the Aleutian Islands.

 

51E. O. Essig, "The Russian Settlement at Ross,"

Quarterly of the California Historical Society, XII (Septem-
ber, l , .

 

 

 

101

In the Aleutians, after beating down all resistance, the

Russians moved about freely, doing as they pleased. The
situation in Southeast Alaska was quite the opposite --

all settlement had to be heavily guarded as did any move-

ments in or through the area. Thus, it would appear that

the opportunity to influence native cultures varied

greatly between the two areas, Aleut and Tlingit.

 

 

IV. CULTURE CHANGE COMPARISONS: ALEUT (1743-1840)

AND TLINGIT (1775-1840)

The Aleuts and Tlingits experienced great differences
and varieties in culture change. Dissimilarities in.both
environmental resources and pre-contact cultures account for
some of the disparities. Tlingit experience resulting from
contact with European traders brought about an increased
sense of independence, an Opportunity which the Aleuts did
not share. The formation of the Russian American Company
(1799) near the midpoint of the era of contact and change
(1743-1840) was the manifestation of changing Russian atti-
tudes as the Tlingit area was approached. This chapter
stresses the geographic significances of the above-mentioned
factors, as well as the contrast in changes that occurred
in papulation size, settlement pattern, social structure,

and economy.

[pysical Comparisons
The two culture areas include physical similarities

as well as differences, the most notable of which are en-
tailed in the relative configuration and location of both
island complexes. The Aleuts inhabited an island chain that

was completely isolated, except at the eastern end, from any

102

 

 

 

103

0th£nz.land area. The pronounced linear character of the
Aleutian chain added to the isolation of the islands from
one another and from the rest of the world. The Tlingit
area, although similarly consisting of numerous islands,
was much more compact; it included considerable portions of
the mainland along which the island complex is located.

The possibility of contact with other culture groups was
more likely than in the Aleutian region and occurred fre-
quently. The Tlingits also had a relatively sheltered sys-
tem of travel and communication routes because of the pro-
fusion of inlets, channels, and bays. The Aleuts, on the
other hand, were always faced by the combined hazards of
the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean for all but the very
shortest trips.

The chapters devoted to the pre-contact cultures of
both groups pointed out the presence of an abundance of
food resources. Some writers, for example Drucker and
Wike, justifiably emphasized the richness of the Tlingit
area in regard to available food resources. Still it is.
necessary to consider that the.Aleut population was one and
one-half times that of the Tlingit (16,000/10,000), and
maintained itself effectively in an area only one-fourth .
as large as the Tlingit region (9,600 square miles/36,700
squaremiles).1 The point is that the Tlingit devised ways

 

1Kroeber, Cultural and Natural Areas of Native
North Aperica, p. 135.

 

 

 

 

104

to capitalize on the huge seasonal fish runs that occurred
throughout their entire area, but the annual migration of
fur seals through the Aleutian Islands was never fully
utilized by the Aleuts. The A1euts hunted for food through-
out the year, and suffered periods of starvation during the
winter months. The Aleut names for their counterparts of
the months of March and April illustrate this: March --
"foregoing hunger time," and April -- "near hunger time."2

Topographically, the Aleutian area lacks the high,
rugged mountains such as the Fairweather Range of the Tlin-
git domain. Several individual peaks in the series of vol-
canoes located in the Aleutians, another distinguishing
feature, approach the 9,000 foot level, but these are not
comparable to the jagged, 12,000-to-15,000 foot barriers
of parts of Southeast Alaska. Both areas receive the abun-
dant precipitation of the maritime climate zone, although
certain localities in the southeast receive over 100 inches
more of annual rainfall than do the Aleutians. The high
winds and dense fogs of the Aleutian chain also set that
area off from the southeast.

Perhaps the most notable visual difference between
the two areas is created by the complete lack of native
trees in the Aleutians. The presence of driftwood furnished

the Aleuts with a limited supply of wood, but the Tlingits

 

2

Jochelson, History, Ethnology, and Anthropology
of the Aleut, pp. 85- . ‘

 

 

 

 

105

had no such problems as far as wood availability was con-
cerned. The dense forest cover so characteristic of South-
east Alaska served as a distinct tactical advantage to the
Tlingits. They used it as a shield for aggressive actions
and movements. Illustrations 7 and 8 (p. 10§), depict the

difference.

Papulation

The drastic reduction of the Aleut papulation was
an important factor in the differences in culture change.
Both groups suffered heavy losses, but the time and degree
of such reductions were not concurrent. Table 5 (p. 10?),
documents the falling population totals of both groups.

Corresponding figures were established for only
two dates, 1740 and 1910; the remainder, except for 1781,
can be paired for approximate comparison. Camparing the
first forty years of Russian contact with the Aleuts (1741-
1781) with the equivalent period of contact for the Tlin-
gits (l795~1835), it becomes apparent that the former were
literally devastated (80% population loss), while the latter
were still a force to be reckoned with (46% population loss).

The fifty-eight years (1741-1799) that preceeded the
formation of the Russian American Company were disasterous
from the standpoint of the Aleuts. Once in the Aleutian
Islands, the actions of Russian fur traders were beyond

effective governmental control, and the Aleuts suffered

 

 

106

Illustration 7
Vegetation Cover Typical of the Aleut Culture Area

     

. ,- .41}; f7 hi3;
Photo by author , ,,, July, 1966:

Illustration 8
Vegetation Cover Typical
of the Tlingit Culture Area

 

Photo by author July, 1968

 

 

107

 

 

 

 

 

TABLE 5
ALEUT AND TLINGIT POPULATIONS: 1740-1910
”POPULATION

YEAR ALEUT TLIfiETT"' SOURCE
1740 16,000 10,000 Kroebera
1781 1,900 --- Veniaminovb
1804 --- 10,000 Lisianskyc
1806 1,898 --- Veniaminov
1813 1,508 --- Veniaminov
1834 1,494 --- Veniaminov
1835 --- 5,850 Veniaminov
1844 --- 5,455+ Swantond
1848 1,400 --- Swanton
1910 1,451 4,426 U.S. Censuse

 

 

 

aKroeber, Cultural and-Natural Areas of Native

North Agerica.

bVeniaminov, quoted in Hrdlicka, The Aleutian and

Commander Islands.

Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States.

cLisiansky, A Voyage Round the World.

d

Swanton, The Indian Tribes of North.éggrica.

eU. 8., Department of Commerce, Bureau of the

1910.

 

 

 

108

accordingly. Murder and oppression continued in spite of
imperial decrees which directed that the natives receive
good treatment. An example of one such decree handed doun
by Catherine the Great in 1766, has been extracted from
Russian imperial laws;

Impress upon the traders that they must be good
to their new fellows, the inhabitants of the
islands rgfraining from the slightest opression
or deceit.

All of the known decrees issued by the Russian
government up to 1793 reflect a benevolent attitude toward
the natives,4 but the almost complete absence of governmental
authority in Alaska rendered them meaningless. In 1757,
after a skirmish on Tanaga Island, an Aleut boy was taken
hostage by the Cossack Bashmakov.

Three days after the skirmish the father of
the boy accompanied by relatives came to pro-
pose a ransom for the boy. The Aleut refused
to land, fearing vengeance. But by some ruse
the Elder Aleut.and another man were lured to
the Russian ship. They were put on the deck
and, with their arms and legs stretched out
by thongs, subjected to tortures; scalding
hot tar was poured on their bodies. After
that the Elder was beheaded. Some time later
Bashmakov sent to the village his laborers,
who committed an awful butchery agd then
plundered and burned the village.

 

3First_CompletenCollection-of Imperial Laws, Vol.
XVII, Law 12589, 1766; inrRussian Administration of Alaska
andthe Sitatusof Alaska Nat ves, p. .

4Russian Administration of Alaska and the Status
of Alaska Natives, p. 3.

 

5"Translation of Bashmakov's Log," in Jochelson,
, history, Ethnology, and Anthr0201ogy of the Aleut, p. 3.

 

 

 

 

109

According to Andrews, Catherine's decree prompted
a saying among Russian hunters: "Heaven is high and the

‘ Czar is far away."6

Okun claims that the reasoning behind the traders'
unwritten policy of extermination was that the Aleut popu-
lation had to be reduced in order for the Russians to con-
trol the area, and hence the sea otter trade.7

The extermination of the sea otter in the Aleutian

Islands led the Russians to seek new hunting grounds to the

 

east and south at about the same time that the Russian
American Company was formed. Also, by this time (the 1790's),
the surviving Aleuts had been reduced to a slave-like status,
with the able-bodied males incorporated into the Russian
controlled hunting force. The Tlingit Culture Area, as a
result of the above, was approached by a fundamentally dif-
ferent group. In the Aleutian Islands penetration and occu-
pation had been accomplished by multiple, independent, three-
toJfour year expeditions staged from Okhotsk and Petro-
pavlovsk with crews made up of the undisciplined, and often
unscrupulous, misfits of 18th century Russian society. In
the 1190's when the first probings of the Tlingits domain
were being undertaken, Russian methods had undergone a funda-

mental change. Two or three unilaterally controlled hunting

 

6C1arence L. Andrews, The‘SgoEy of Alaska (Caldwell,
Idaho: Caxton Printers, 1938), p. 46.

7Okun, The Russian American Company, p. 194.

 

110

expeditions were staged yearly from a permanent headquarters
in Russian America (Kodiak), and perhaps most significantly,
the crews were made up of enslaved native hunters, forcibly
recruited and controlled by the Russians.

However, by the 1790's, the Tlingits had established
autonomous relations with all foreign traders that visited
their area. In the process they had acquired large quanti-
ties of firearms. The reception given these hunting ven-
tures was characteristic of the attitude of most Tlingits‘
during the entire period of Russian presence. The frequent
armed confrontations with the Tlingits almost always resulted
in a rout of the foreign hunters. As an example, an expedi-
tion led by Ismailoff to Yakutat Bay in 1789 or 1790 resulted
in the rout of approximately 200 hunters by a band of sixty
Tlingits who stumbled upon them in the night. Ismailoff
managed to return to Three Saints Bay on Kodiak with about
fifty survivors.8 Thus, the frequent encounters of this
nature resulted in little or no inroads on Tlingit popula-
tion size.

While the Russians were directly responsible for the
demise of sizeable segments of the Aleuts pepulation through
violence and the introduction of disease, the Tlingits suf:

fered no such losses until the 1830's. The earliest reports

 

9 8Sauer, An Astronomical and Geo ra hical Ex edition,
p. 1 4. .

 

i
x

 

111

of the presence of disease in Northwest North America comes
from the log of Captain Cook, who in 1778 reported what
appeared to be syphillis on Unalaska Island.9 In Southeast
Alaska the Spaniards probably carried smallpox to the

0 It is evident from the literature

natives in the 1770's.1
that until the 1830's several minor epidemics occurred in
both areas afflicting relatively small segments of the
population. In the 1830's, two major smallpox epidemics

swept across Alaska, leaving thousands dead. Krause esti-

 

mated that 4,000 Tlingits died in the 1830's from smallpox,

11 The data

reducing their population total to about 6,000.
in Table 5 indicates this loss. According to Tikhmenev,

the first of the two epidemics which swept from California
to the Arctic Ocean took the lives of 400 at Sitka, 736 on

Kodiak, and 130 on Unalaska.12

The result of the population
losses of both groups opened the way for far-reaching cul-

ture changes.

Settlement Pattern
The-huge population loss suffered by the Aleuts was
accompanied by fundamental changes in all phases of their

lifeway; the settlement pattern was no exception. The most

 

9
10Hrdlicka, The Aleutian and Commander Islands,
pp. 173-74.

11Krause, The Tlingit Indians, p. 63.
12Tikhmenev, Formation of the Russian American Comp
m1. P- 366-

Cook, A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, p. 496.

 

 

 

112

obvious change was the steady reduction of pro-contact
settlement sites. The Aleut men who were not killed or
eliminated by disease were sometimes "deported" by their
Russian masters to stations where they could be organized
into large hunting parties. In 1807, 167 Aleut men were
taken to Sitka;13 there were 200 there by 1820.14 Aleuts
from Attu and Atka islands were forcibly moved by the Rus-
sians to the previously uninhabited Commander Islands in

5

the 1820's.1 The Pribilof Islands, discovered in 1788

by Gerassim Pribilof,16 were settled in the same manner
with natives from Atka and Unalaska islands.17 In 1786,
seventy families from the Fox Islands were brought to
Kodiak;18 Lisiansky noted their presence in 1805 during

his visit there.19 Kotzebue met Aleuts at Fort Ross, Cali-

fornia, during his winter sojourn there in 1825.20

 

131151:!” p. 270
14
Ibid., p. 328.

15Jochelson, History, Ethnology and Anthropology of
the Aleut, p. 42;

 

16Clarence C. Hulley, Alaska, 1741-1953 (Portland,
Oregon: Binford and Mort, Publishers, 1953), p. 66.

17

18Valaam Monastery, One Hundredth Anniversagy of

thodox in rica 1794-18 Trans.-from the Russian
by N. Gray (St. PetersSurg: 1894), p. 109.

19

20

Petroff, Tenth Census of the 0,3,: 1880, p. 23.

Lisiansky, Voyage Round the World, p. 193.
Kotzebue, New Vo a e Round the World, p. 123.

 

113

Figure 18 (p. 114), shows the known Aleut settlements in
North America that were located outside the original Aleut
Culture Area.

In the 1820's the Russians began a program of
resettlement for all remaining Aleuts. Traditional sites
were abandoned in favor of those at river mouths thAt could
be used as harbors.21 The Russian American Company rational-
ized the founding of the new villages in this way: 1) local
officials could find out if the workers were being paid;

.and (2) church men could more easily visit them.22 More
penetrating was Jochelson's comment that such centraliza-
tion facilitated greater control over the natives.23 By
the 1830's the number of settlements in the Aleut Culture
Area had been reduced to approximately twenty-six (see
Figure 19, p. 11%). Sites on the islands of Attu and Adak
may also have been settled, but nothing in the available
literature verifies this.

Tlingit sett1ement pattern on the other hand under-
went only slight changes. The Sitkan Tlingits were driven

out of their fort at Indian River, and from the original

 

Sitca where Novoarkangelsk was founded in 1802. After the

21Jochelson, Archeological Investigations in the
Aleutian Is lands , p. .

22Tikhmenev, Formation of the Russian American Com-
m: P0 373-

23Jochelson, Archeolo ical Investi ations, p. 119.

 

 

 

 

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114

 

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116

1ndian.River defeat, the surviving Sitkans founded a new

24

town on the east side of Chicagoff Island on Chatham Strait.

Lisiansky and Von Langsdorff both commented on the new Sit-

kan

Von

the

village. Lisiansky stated:

They had passed the winter in a scattered state,
but were now united again, and had built them-
selves another fort, Opposite to the settlement
of Hoosnoff, in Chatham's Strait, similar to

the one we had destroyed. It was well situated
in a small shallow bay, and is defended on the
water side by a large rock. Other tribes resid-
ing about Sitca, had also, it was understood,
been busily employed in fortifying their settle-
ments; so that, it is to be feared, our country-
men here will in a short time be surroundsg by
very formidable and dangerous neighbours.

Langsdorff, who with Captain Devolf, a Yankee, visited
new fort in the spring of 1806, described it is detail:

Expelled from Norfolk Sound, they have forti-

fied themselves here, upon a rock which rises
perpendicularly to the heighth of some hundred

feet above the water. The only possible access

to it is on the north-west side, and they have
rendered this extremely difficult by strewing

it all over with very large trunks of trees

which they have cut down. The rock itself is
secured against the attack of an enemy by a

double palisade of large trunks of trees stuck
close together, measuring from twelve to fifteen
feet in heighth, and from three to four in thickness.
A high natural wall of earth beyond the palisading,
on the side towards the sea, conceals the habita-
tions effectigely, so that they cannot be discerned
by any ship.

 

24Dewolf, "Voyage of the Juno, 1804-1807," in Munro,

Tales of an Old Seaport, p. 134.

25Lisiansky, A Voyage Round the World, p. 220.

26Von Langsdorff, Voyages and Travels, pp. 128-129.

 

Tetra.) 1‘ 34.»:
V

 

 

 

 

 

117

In 1818-19, Governor Hagmeister (Baranof's successor)
allowed a few Sitkans who accepted Russian protection to set
up a small village on the north side of the palisade around

Novoarkangelsk.27

Muravieff, governor from 1821 to 1826,
permitted them to increase the size of this village (later
known as "the ranche") in hopes of gaining control over

them by means of the fort's cannon.28

Thus, the only area
where the Russians directly altered the Tlingit settlement
pattern was that on Baranof Island. The Russian fort on
wrangel Island, built in 1834, was established on a pre-
viously unsettled site. The population reduction by disease
obviously caused changes throughout the entire culture area,
but any movement or abandonment of villages that resulted
from this was known only to the natives and was never docu-

mented.

use es

The resettlement of the 1820's also brought about
alterations in Aleut house types. By the 1840's the former,
communal,semi-subterranean house gave way to the one-or-two
family house which was set no more than two feet into the

ground.29 As early as 1788 Captain Cook noted that some of

 

‘r

27Krause, The T11 it Indians, p. 38.

28

29Veniaminov, quoted in Hrdlicka, The Aleutian and
Commander Islands, p. 45.

Ibid., p. 39.

 

 

 

118

the native.houses on Unalaska Island had side entrances.30
By 1840 the side entrance had completely replaced the tradi-

tional roof entrance, and side windows, another change, had

appeared, made of glass or dried seal gut.31 The Aleuts

made these changes in imitation of the Russian hunters who
used the basic idea of a sunken sod hut, but adapted it to
their own ends. Mortimer, who landed on Unalaska in 1789,
noted the Russian adaptation of native housing:

0n the 2d of November, the captain made an excur-
sion on shore, and saw one of the dwellings of the
Russians; it nearly resembled the huts of the
natives, . . . The Russian however, instead of
descending into his hut by a pole, with notches
cut into it, like the natives, had the convenience
of a door, and a couple of windows made of the 32
bladder or intestines of some large fish: .

 

By the 1840's huge extended families, so common in
the 18th century, no longer existed. Hence, the large
traditional, communal houses were no longer needed. After
the resettlement of the 1820's, the largest family unit
capable of survival was the nuclear family, i.e., husband,
wife, and children.

The basic Tlingit house type changed only slightly
during this era. Doorways, instead of the former round or

oval hole, were constructed as low square openings by the

 

30Cook, AVoyagg to the Pacific Ocean, II, p. 421.

31Tikhmenev, Formation of the Russian American

Company, p. 371
32

 

Mbrtimer, Observations and Remarks, p. 61.

 

 

 

119

1840's,33 However, houses did become more ornate as indi-

vidual house groups acquired new wealth and status. Such
adornment included increasingly taller totem poles, and
highly abstract painting and carving of various parts of
the house itself. Iron tools, which were highly prized by
the Tlingits,helped make possible the elaboration and
greater size of the totem pole. Increased wealth added

to this phenomena as well, for the size and ornateness of
a pole was an indicator of the status of its owner. Poles

of fifty to sixty feet were not uncommon by the 1840's.

Soc is 1 Structure

The Aleut social system completely disintegrated
under the impact of Russian occupation. The function of
the communally chosen £E§E§9 or chief, degenerated from the
role of governor, protector, and advisor, to that of a
puppet-like foreman selected from the more cooPerative
males by the Russians.34 Any authority that the elders
may have retained was further eroded by their inability to
initiate any but the most simple activities. The decrease
in population and the resettlement of the survivors also
detracted from the former role of the Emmmm, for the new

villages consisted of members of numerous family groups from

 

33Krause, The Tlingit Indians, p. 87.

34"Rules and Regulations of the Russian American
Company, Paragraph #47," quoted in Tikhmenev, Formation of
the Russian American Company, p. 97.

 

vi

011

V0

 

 

 

14‘ It! 11.11111 I I ,

 

120

‘Widely scattered areas. Within the framework of the new
settlements, the nuclear family, living as a segregated
entity, became the primary social unit.

By the 1840's the Russian Orthodox Church was the
only purveyor of religion in the Aleut Culture Area. The
work of Veniaminov (1824-1834) was largely reaponsible for
this. The conversion from animism was initiated in the
1700's, when some of the shrewder trappers discovered that
many of the islanders believed that baptism obligated them
to work for their Russian "savior." This process of baptism
seems to have been repeated every time a new trader-priest

35

came through the islands. In 1793 ten priests and/or

religious traders were sent to Kodiak from the Valaam Monas-
tery in western Russia.36 This group dubiously claimed to
have converted the entire surviving Aleut population by the
first decade of the 19th century. Tikhmenev stated, however,
on the basis of personal contacts and intensive study, that v
the Aleuts knew nothing beyond the act of crossing them-

selves.37 Sarytschew referred to a similar situation:

. . ., our priest baptized ninety-two islanders
at their own request; but not understanding their

 

3SIvan Veniaminov, The Russian Orthodox Church in
America 1793-1853 in Russian r ca, Trans. rom t e
Russian 5y N. Gray (Kodiak, Alaska: n.p., 1925), p. 2.

36Valaam monastery, One Hundredth Anniversary of
Orthodoxy in America, p. 29.

‘ 37Tikhmenev, Formation of the Russian American
Co an , p. 356.

 

 

121

language, he could not propesby instruct them
in their new religion, . . .

The trader-priests did have an impact on Aleut cul-
ture, for they actively encouraged and aided the natives in
the destruction of all the material items in their primitive
religion.39 By Veniaminov's time, all material traces of
the former animistic beliefs and worship had been destroyed.
Veniaminov, because of his deep and active concern was
genuinely accepted by the Aleuts, for he was the first Rus-
sian to offer them something of value. This was the solace
provided by religious faith.

The social organization of the Tlingits was not
obliterated as was that of the Aleuts, even though in the
long run it suffered undeniable damage. The Russians had
little to do with this, for the main disruptive factor was
the input of staggering amounts of material wealth brought
in by EuroPean and Yankee traders,40 Social status was a
fundamental part of the system, deriving from the interrela-
tionship of heredity and wealth. By hunting and trapping
any Tlingit could quickly acquire substantial material
wealth which in turn served to raise his status. Many indi-
viduals of so-called low birth demanded and received higher

status based on their new acquisitions. One of the main

 

38Sarytschew, A Voyage of Discovery, p. 13.
39Veniaminov, Russian America, p. 13.

40Drucker, Indians of the Northwest Coast, pp. 121-

 

22.

 

122

“aye of moving up the social scale was by means of the pot-
latch. Originally, the basic purpose of the potlatch was
. . . the formal introduction of an incumbent
chief to a group of guests, or "witnesses," 4
who were rewarded as such by gifts and feasts.
The potlatch was also viewed by the Tlingits as a

42 With the

cycle of rituals to mourn the death of a chief.
input of European trade goods the character of this ceremony
changed to that of one staged solely for the purpose of dis-
playing an individual's wealth and hence status.

The influence of the Russian Orthodox Church in
Southeast Alaska was negligible prior to the arrival of
Veniaminov in Novoarkangelsk in 1834.43 He came from
Unalaska shortly before the advent of the first smallpox
epidemic.44 Supplies of vaccine had also arrived in Novo-
arkangelsk, but the Tlingit, on the advice of their shamans,

refused to be inoculated.45

As was noted earlier, 400 Sit-
kans alone died as a result of their refusal. Once the sur-
vivors realized that Veniaminov's advice had been right, the
influence of the church began to grow, albeit slowly. In

1834 there had been twenty Tlingits in the church in

 

41Ibid., p. 124.

Ibid., p. 125.
Barsukov, Life and Work of Innocent, p. 11.

44Tikhmenev, Formation of the Russian American
Company, p. 353.
45

42
43

Veniaminov, Russian America, p. 12.

 

 

123

46

NOVOarkangelsk; by 1842 there were .102 enrolled, includ-

ing two former shamans.47 Veniaminov commented that the
Tlingits' admission of superior Russian medical knowledge
was the first major instance of any change in Tlingit atti-

tudes since the Russians had arrived in Southeast Alaska.48

Economy
The Russian fur hunters forced a complete reorienta-

tion of the Aleut economy, although sea hunting was still
the major activity. However, the new goal of the hunters
was the procurement of pelts rather than of food sources.
The Aleut men who refused to cooPerate with the Russians
were eventually forced into hunting for them anyway, and
their families were left to starve. Lisiansky, on Kodiak
Island in 1805, referred to a village of fifty to sixty
women and children who were in the final stages of starva-
tion because Baranof had taken away the men.49 Ledyard,
who visited a Russian controlled village on Unalaska in
1778, had earlier noted a similar situation:

The number of Russians were about 30, and they

had with them about 70 mchadales, or Indians

from Kamchatka, these wi h some of the American
Indians whom they had entered into friendship

 

46Tikhmenev, Formation of the Russian American
Co an , p. 353.

471b1d., p. 305.

48

 

Veniaminov, Russian America, p. 12.

49Lisiansky, Vo'a e Round the World, p. 177.

 

 

 

 

124

with occupied the village, enjoyed every bene-
fit in common with the Russians, and were con-
verts to their religion. Such others of the
aborigines of the island as had not become con-
verts to their sentiments in religious and civil
matters, were excluded from such priv§6eges and
were prohibited to wear certain arms.

The Aleuts who agreed to work for the Russians were
permitted to draw upon stored supplies of food held in com-
pany warehouses. These supplies were laid in by women who,
under close supervision, spent the summer drying seal meat
and fish, and gathering berries and roots.51

According to Sauer, the Russians? knowledge of food
preservation raised their status in the eyes of the Aleuts
because the annual winter starvation period was avoided.52
Besides the food brought in by hunting and gathering, garden
products were also raised for storage. Lisiansky noted on
Kodiak:

Till the arrival of the Russians, only wild
plants and roots were to be seen; but at pre-
sent cabbages, potatoes, turnips, and other
culinary progucts are cultivated here and
‘there, .
Von Langsdorff commented on the gardens on Unalaska in

1805:

 

50Ledyard, A Journal of Cgptain 0095's Last ngage,

p. 98.

51Von Langsdorff, Voyages and Travels, p. 343.

52Sauer, An Astronomical and Geographical Expedi-
tion, p. 172.

53Lisiansky, Vo a e Round the World, p. 191.

 

 

125

In latter years the Russians have begun to
plant potatoes, which succeed extpgmely well,
and are much liked by the people.

This aspect of survival, the acquisition of food,
was no longer dependent upon the decisions of the Aleuts.
Instead, the Russians, who assumed control over its collec-
tion and distribution, used the guarantee of adequate food
as a means of insuring the continued existence of a sub-
servient labor force.

7 The Russians absorbed or controlled all aspects of
Aleut trade habits and channels.’ Okun made the only mention
of the fate of native trade in the Aleutians:

The Aleuts are under obligation to sell to the 55
Company the animal skins processed by them. . .
The Aleuts are forbidden to sell as well§%sk

to give away furs except to the Company.

The Aleuts are forbidden to enter into any
barter or commercial relationszwith anyone
except the Company, even though the object
of tgpse relations is not the furItrade at
all.

Okun further claimed that the above statutes constituted
official recognition of a situation that had existed from

the beginning of Russian occupation in the 1700's.58

 

54Von Langsdorff, Voyages and Travels, p. 335.

55"Statutes of the Russian American Company,
Octoggr 10, 1844," in Okun, The Russian American Co an ,
p.1.

561bid.

57Ibid.

580kun, The Russian American gompany, p. 197.

 

 

126

The means of transportation, vital to trade func-
tions as well as to other phases of the Aleuts culture, had
been denied to them as early as 1783, when Shelikhov ordered

the seizure of all baidars and bidarkas on Kodiak Island.59

 

In 1805 Von Langsdorff reported that all such vessels
belonged to the Company; the Aleuts had no personal posses-
sions.60 The Aleuts lived, as Sauer bluntly stated," . . .
in a state of abject slavery."61

The Russians were responsible for a variation in the
construction of the bidarka; a third hatch was added to
accomodate another hunter. Lisansky mentioned this in
1805:

At present there are three sorts in use: the
first carries three persons, the second two,
and the third only one. Before the arrival of
the Russians, the two last only, called the62
single and double bidarkas, had been built.

The popularity of the two-hatch and three-hatch
bidarka was apparently brought about through the introduc-
tion of firearms. A lone hunter could not simultaneously
discharge a gun and retain control of his boat, hence extra

paddlers were required. Also, the three-hatch boat per-

nfltted more men to be carried by fewer boats.

 

SQShelekhov quoted in Tooke, Varieties of Litera-
ture, p. 18. ‘
60

Von Langsdorff, Vo a es and Travels, pp. 341-42.

61Sauer, An Astonomical and Geographical Expedi-
tion, p. 16.

62Lisiansky, A Vo a e Round the World, p. 211.

 

127

The Aleuts were evidently willing to acquire articles
and styles of European clothing. As early as 1757 Coxe
reported that the inhabitants of the Near Islands were wear-
ing different clothes:

The original dress of the islanders was made
of the skins of birds, sea-otters and seals,
which were tanned; but the greatest part had
procured from the Russians, dog-skin coats, and
undergarments6gf sheepskin, which they were
very fond of.
Von Langsdorff stated in 1805 that the Unalaskans were simi-
larly inclined:
A few have of late years begun to wear a shirt
made of a coarse cotton cloth from China, or of
sail-cloth, which zhey procure from the Russia-
American Company.6

The Russian demand for furs was a major cause of the
change in the Aleuts style of dress. Sauer noted this on
Unalaska in 1791:

They formerly wore a.dress of sea-otter skins,
but not since the Russians have had any inter-
course with tggm. At.present they wear What
they can get.

In contrast, Tlingit economy underwent no such
changes, for they retained complete control of their area.
The Tlingits'dominance, reinforced by the willingness of

all non-Russian traders to let them retain their traditional

 

 

56 6300xe, Account of the Russian Discoveries, pp. 55-
64
Von Langsdorff, Vo a es and Travels, p. 336.
65

Sauer, ggAstronogicallnd Geographical Expedi-
tion, p. 155.

 

 

128

a\ltonomy, was also based on their ability to use firearms.

Spears and arrows, according to Lisiansky, were by 1805

almost a thing of the past;

They.have firearms, as I have already noted,
which they obtain from the traders of the
United States. Their former instruments of

war, such as spearg and arrows, are almost
wholly out of use. 6

In 1825, Kotzebue commented on the weapons of the Tlingit:

No Kalush is without one musket at least of
which he perfectly understands the use.67

Bows and arrows were formerly their only wea-
pons; now, besides their muskets, they have
daggers, and knives half a yard long; . . .68

The Russians learned all too well at Novoarkangelsk
and Yakutat Bay just how effectively the Tlingits could use
their new weapons. Until the 1850's, the only areas of cer--
tain security for the Russians were the immediate vicinities,
of Novoarkangelsk and Wrangel. A quote from the archives

of the Russian Ministry of Finance (1819) partially explains

these circumstances:

. . the hunters do not go far inland in pur-

suit of gamg9 for fear of the local popula-
tion, . . .

66Lisiansky, A Voyage Round the werld, p. 239.
67Kotzebue, A New Voyage Round the World, Vol. II,
p. 54. , .

68Ibid., p. 65.

69Archives of the General Chancery of the Ministry
<>f Einance, 2nd Division, File #10 1819, quoted in Okun,
The Russian American Company, p. 5 .

 

129

Corney, in 1817 or 1818, also cemented on the hostility of
the Chatham Strait Indians (i.e., the Killisnoo and the Kuiu

Tlingit). They were:

. . . very hostile to the Russians, whom Bhey
annoy by attacking their bodarkees . . .7

Kotzebue noted in 1825 that the Tlingits were still hostile

in attitude:

The savages thirsted for revenge; and notWith-
standing the treaties concluded with them,
increasingly sought to gratify it by secret

arts and ambushes; so that the Russians, unless
well armed, and in considerable numbers, could
not venture beyond the shelter of their fortress
without t9? most imminent danger of being
murdered.

The Russians seem to have been the only significant
focus for Tlingit hostility, for many non-Russians, at least
between 1800 and 1820, moved through the area rather freely.
Von Langsdorff (a German),72-DeWOlf (an American)73 and
Corney (an Englishman),74 who individually travelled within
the Tlingit domain against the advice of the Russians, were
POIitely received at the villages they visited in the early
1800's. As a final note on the dominance of the Tlingits

Within their traditional area, Krause pointed out why

70Peter Corney, Vo a es in the North Pacific 1813-
1818 (Honolulu: Thrum and C0,, 1856;, p. 160.

71Kotzebue', A New Vo a e Round the world, pp. 41-42.

72Von Langsdorff, Voyages apg Travels. p. 378.

73DeWolf, "Voyage of the Juno," in Mbnro, Tales of
an Old Sea ort, p. 136.

74Carney, Voyages in the North Pacific, p. 116.

 

 

130

Newcarkangelsk (Sitka) was the focus of Russian trade:
The trade of the Russians with the natives was
carried on almost exclusively at Sitka, since
the danger of direct trade in the ’gious
channels was not worth the results.

In the 1800's, the Tlingits added another source
of food to their culture. Russian-introduced gardening, as
in the Aleutians, was adapted by the Tlingits at Sitka.
Kotzebue stated in 1825:

Some vegetables such as cabbages, turnips, and
paratoes, prosper very wellrj the latter are
raised even by the Kalushes; who have learned
from the Russians the manner of cultivating
them, and consider them as a great delicacy.

During the era of Russian presence, however, the
Tlingits continued to rely upon traditional food sources --
salmon, olachen oil, and berries. Kotzebue referred to
them during his second visit to Russian America in the
1820's;

The sea, near the coast and in bays, abounds

in fish and mammalia. Whales, sea-hogs, seals,
sea-lions ac. are very numerous; but of the fish,
which chiefly afford subsistence both to the
natives and the Russians, the best are herrings, 77
salmon, and cod, of which there is a superfluity.

Tlingit dugout canoes, although made with iron tools,
remained basically the same as they had in pre-contact times.

‘Again Kotzebue provides a statement. His concluding comment

 

75Krause, The Tlipgit Indians, p. 41.

76Kotzebue, A New Voyage Round the World, Vol. II,
pp. 43-44.
77

Ibid., p. 45.

 

131

may well sum up Russian frustrations in Southeast Alaska:

The forests of Sitka, consisting principally
of fir and beech, are lofty and thick. Some
of their trees are a hundred and sixty feet
in height, and from six to seven feet in dis-
meter. From these noble trunks the Kalushes
form their large canoes, which sometimes carry
from twenty-five to thirty men. They are
laboriously and skillfully constructed; but
the credit their builders may claim for this
one branch of industry is nearly all that
belongs to a barbarous and worthless race of
men.

The style of Tlingit clothing did not change as

much as did the kinds of materials used in their manufacture.

Woolen cloth came into fairly wide use, but even so, animal

skins continued to be worn.‘ Lisiansky said of the Sitkans:

Von

The men cover their body with square pieces
of woolen cloth, or buck-skin; some dress
themselves in a kind of short pantaloon, and
a garmgnt resembling a shirt, but not so
large. 9

In the cold season they occasionally wear

fur dre ses- though woolen cloth is mostly
30 ’

in use.

Langsdorff also commented on their dress in 1805:

The clothing of these people is very simple,
consisting of a covering round the waist, and
an outer garment made of a piece of cloth, or
skin, about five feet square, two ends of which
gather with a button and button-hole. In latter
years, since they have had so much intercourse
with the people of the United States of America,
they have obtained from them a sort of carter's
frocks, made after the European fashion, of

 

78Ibid., p. 44.

79Lisiansky, A Vo a e Round the World, pp. 237-38.
80

Ibid., p. 238.

 

 

{Ill|'l“rl|l[jl‘
l‘fllllll“

 

132

Woolen cloth, so that it is no uncommon thing
to see Indiansqdressed like Europeans. Red and81
blue are the colours which they prize the most.

Two decades later Kotzebue noted the same trends

in-clothing styles.- As might be surmised, European style

garments and materials were becoming more and more common:

Their usual clothing consists of a little apron;
but the rich wear blankets, purchased from the
Russians, or from the American ships, and tied
by two corners around the neck, so that they
hang down and cover the back. Some of them
wear bear-skins in a similar manner. The most
opulent possess some EurOpean garments, which
they wear on great occasions, and which would
have an absurd effect were they not so disgusting
so as to extinguish all inclination to laugh.
They never cover the head but in heavy rain, and
then protect it by round caps of grass, so in-
geniously and closelyzplaited as to exclude
every drop of water.

The women I have seen were either dressed in
linen shifts ggaching to their feet, or in
plaited mats.

Krause made the most comprehensive statement as to

the continuity of Tlingit culture patterns.¥During the Winter

of 1880 Krause worked intensively at the Chilkat village of

Klukwan, near the head of the Lynn Canal. He wrote:

Like all inhabitants of the Northwest Coast,
the Tlingit are a sedentary people. In the
summer, however, they lead a nomadic life, for
they scatter according to clan and family lines
to their hunting and fishing territories, or
undertake extensive voyages, which sometimes
last for months, in order to trade with the

 

81

82Kotzebue, A New Voyage Round the World, pp. 49-50.

Ibid.. p. 50.

Von Langsdorff, Vo a es and Travels, p. 112.

83

 

1 .

 

 

133

whites or with neighboring Indians. With the
approach of Winter the various tribes reassemble
in their véklages and each clan reoccupies its
own house.

In general then, Tlingit culture, although modified
in some ways, went on much as before the arrival of for-
eigners. The Russians could not penetrate or destroy Tlin-
git unity, the non-Russian traders did not seriously attempt
to, and the Tlingit themselves were individualistic enough
to carry on their old traditions in spite of contact with
the industrialized society and culture of the 18th and 19th

centuries.

84Krause, The Tlipgit Indians, p. 85.

 

 

V. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

In order to discuss the results of this study
coherently, it is helpful to restate the core of the prob-
lem. Why did the Tlingits survive and the Aleuts succumb?
Or, what cultural and geographical factors accounted for
the differing results of the culture contact between the
Russians and the two native groups? It was hypothesized
that the explanation of the different results were to be
found in the following factors: population, settlement
pattern, social structure, and economy. These sapects, of
course, are all interrelated. Studying each factor sepa-
rately reveals interesting possibilities, but the analysis
after reassembly of the individual factors re-creates, at
current levels of possibility, the way in which the members
of each culture group interpreted its own existence within
the framework of that particular area.

Each culture group was oriented to the sea, although
to different degrees, mainly because of its recognition of
the variety of marine food resources. The relative richness
of each area in this respect is not really of great impor-
tance, for both literally teemed with marine life. The
Tlingits developed methods by which large quantities of

fish could be caught and preserved during a rather brief

134

 

in

J].

 

135

season, thus freeing themselves for several months of the
year from activities directly involved with survival.

The Aleuts, in contrast, did not develop similar
techniques of mass hunting and preservation despite the
existence of a food source to which such techniques could
be applied. The Tlingits exploited the seasonal Spawning
run of the salmon, but the Aleuts did not make similar use
of the huge annual migrations of the fur seal through the
island chain until after their Russian conquerors showed
them how. While the Tlingits had develoPed highly effi-
cient tools and methods for gathering food, those of the
Aleuts were just as refined, if not more so. Even though
similar possibilities existed then, only one of the groups
learned to exploit the Opportunities, for the aboriginal
Aleuts hunted on a year round basis.

The Tlingits' freedom from the necessity of year-
round pursuit of the means of survival gave them and their

Northwest Coast neighbors1

the possibility of a development
not available to the Aleuts. The contrasts that existed
between the two culture groups owed much of their existence
to the different amounts of time Spent on obtaining the
necessities of life.

In the last phases of pre-contact aboriginal cul-

ture, the Tlingits' social system had evolved to the point

 

1The Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshean, Nootka, Bella
Coola, and Kwatkiutl all shared in this feature.

 

 

llll: llllllilltlulllllullln

 

   

136

‘where every village and town consisted of several autono-
mous lineage units belonging to various clans. Inter-village
clan affiliations were more important to the Tlingit than
any intra-village arrangements because these were based on
blood relationships. The highly mobile Tlingitsthus had
established an areal unity that not only fostered and encour-
aged trade, but which significantly enhanced their invul- E]
nerability as a nation.

In contrast, the Aleut village consisted of a single

 

related group, the extended family, living together in one F‘”
or more houses. Inter-village affiliations, if indeed they

existed at all, were of secondary importance to the blood

relationships within the individual settlements. The fierce

internecine strife which the Russians interrupted illustrates

a lack of inter-village unity such as that possessed by the

Tlingit. The absence of a generic name of native origin

for the Aleutian Islands further demonstrates the lack of

such unity.

The significance of this fundamental difference in
settlement pattern, i.e., the autonomous, internally inte-
grated, family village of the Aleuts, versus the Tlingits
non-integrated, multi-family village of internally indepen-
dent units, was never comprehended.bythe Russians. The
Russians approached the Tlingit Culture Area with the atti-

tudes and methods they had learned in the Aleutians. There-

l
I
3
'C
~|

fore, their attempts at intimidation and murder of apparent

 

 

51“]llll'1llll.l
I‘ll 'l‘l-I

 

   

137

independent village leaders resulted in a confrontation
‘with the entire highly organized, aggressive, Tlingit nation.

Uhder Russian domination, the culture of the Aleuts
was transformed from.that of a peOple who, through internal
experience and decision, lived in balance with their environ-
ment to that of one oriented, through external domination,
towards irrational exploitation of the environment for pur-
poses of economic profit. 'With their concept of survival
relegated to a secondary role, the Aleut population dwindled
by 80 percent in 40 years. Cultural patterns and activities
based on several thousand years experience in their unique
environment became meaningless after their purpose was
totally distorted. Today the Aleuts are culturally extinct.

Tlingit culture, as the Aleut culture, deveIOped
out of Tlingitperception of themselves and their environment.
The unilateral Russian attempt at penetration and ~domination
failed because of the Tlingits' culturally unified view of
themselves as one people. Change, via the re-emphasis of
existing patterns and activities, occurred through internal
volition, for they retained control of their culture until
after the Russians withdrew.

Thus, the contrasting repercussions of Russian inter-
action with the Aleuts and Tlingits, i.e., directed versus
non-directed contact respectively, is illustrated by the

areal connotations of culture contact.

 

 

 

 

 

 

1llnullln

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NAME OR NUMBER OF ABORIGINAL VILLAGES
PER ALEUT CULTURE AREA ISLAND
(PARTIAL LIST)

APPENDIX I

 

 

 

 

' TOTAL OF
ISLANDS AND SOURCES KNOWN VILLAGES
VILLAGES PER ISLAND
Alaska geninsula Veniaminov 10
a. Belkofski Swanton, Veniaminov
b. Morzhovoi Swanton, Veniaminov
c. Pavlof Swanton, Veniaminov
d. Mashik Swanton
e. Nikolaief Swanton
Andreanof Islands
1. Atka Island 4
a. Korovinsky Swanton
b. Nazan Swanton
4 c. Atxalac Jochelson, Hrdlicka
d. Halaca JOchelson
2. Amlia Island Hrdlicka, Dell 2
3. Adak Island Hrdlicka, Dell 6
4. Ilak Island Hrdlicka l
5. Kanaga Island Hrdlicka, Jochelson 3
6. Tanaga Island Hrdlicka, Jochelson 2
Fox Islands
1. Akun Island Veniaminov 8
a. Akun Swanton, Pallas
b. Artelnof Swanton, Veniaminov
c. Riechesni Swanton, Veniaminov
d. Seredka Swanton, Veniaminov
2. Aiktak Island Veniaminov 1
3. Akutan Island Veniaminov 3
4. Amak Island Veniaminov 1+

 

138

 

 

 

 

,. r
.— L /l
, _ k / P '7'! .5 ‘ ‘
\. - '- / "f ' 1.: ‘. « ‘ ..

V

139

APPENDIX I (Continued)

 

 

 

n. Kutchlok
o. Takamitka
p. Totchikala

. TOTAL OF
ISLANDS AND SOURCES KNOWN VILLAGES
VILIAGES - PER ISLAND
Fox ISlands (cont'd)
5. Amaknak Island Hrdlicka, Jochelson 4
a. Amaknax Hrdlicka
b. Tanaxtaxax Jochelson
' c. Xatacxan Jochelson
6. Amuktha Veniaminov 1+
7. Carlisle Veniaminov l
8. Chuginadak Veniaminov 1+
9. Herbert Veniaminov 2
10. Kagamil Veniaminov 1
ll. Kigalga Veniaminov 1+
12. Samalgo Veniaminov 1+
13. Sanak Veniaminov 1+
14. Tigalda Veniaminov 5
15. Ugamak Veniaminov l
16. Uknadok (Hog Is) Veniaminov 1
l7. Umnak Veniaminov 20
a. Nikolski Swanton '
b. Tulik Swanton
c. Recheshnaia Veniaminov
d. Chaluka Laughlin
e. Ananiuliuk Laughlin
18. Uhalga Veniaminov 1
l9. Uhalaska Veniaminov 24
a. Chernofski Swanton, Veniaminov
b. Eider Swanton
c. Iliulink Swanton
d. Kashega Swanton
e. Makushin Swanton
f. Nateekin Swanton
g. Natiukinsk Veniaminov
h. Agulok Swanton, Coxe
1. Beaver Veniaminov
j. Chaliuknak ' Swanton
k. Kalaktak Swanton, Coxe,
I Veniaminov
l. Ikolga Swanton, Coxe
m. Imagnee Swanton, Coxe

Coxe
Coxe, Swanton
Coxe, Swanton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

APPENDIX I (Continued)

 

140

1d-
-:

 

 

 

 

a. Agaonakagna
b. Atkulik
c. Atkigyin
d. Hachimuk
e. Hamnulik

f. Hanilik
s. Hapkus
h. Kistisuk
i. Hilksuk
j. Ibin

k. Imik

l. lptugik
m. Isituchi
n. Kagugak

o. Kamulsusik
p. K38 lusus
q. Kigsitatok
r. Kikchik

s. Kikun

t. Kimituk

u. Kitak

v. Kuptagok
w. Magtok

TOTAL OF
ISLANDS AND SOURCES KNOWN VILLAGES
VILLAGES PER ISLAND
Fox Islands (cont'd)
.19. Unalaska (cont'd)
q. Ugamitzi Swanton
r. Uknadok Swanton, Coxe
s. Vesselofski Swanton, Veniaminov
t. Pestriakoff Veniaminov
u. Igonok Coxe
v. Ikaltshinsk Coxe
w. Umgaina Coxe
20. Uhimak Island Veniaminov 12
a. Pogromni . Swanton
b. Sisaguk Swanton
c. Shishaldin Veniaminov
21. Yunasks Island Veniaminov 2
Near Islands
1. Agattu Island Swanton 31

APPENDIX 1 (Continued)

 

141

[A

 

 

 

 

 

TOTAL OF
ISLANDS AND SOURCES KNOWN VILLAGES
VILLAGES PER ISLAND
Near Islands(cont'd)
l. Agattu Island (cont'd)
x. Makugnuk
y. Navisok
z. Siksatok
aa. Sunik
bb. Ugiatok
cc. Ugtikum
dd. Ugtumuk
ee. Ukashik
2. Attu Island Dell 5
a. Sin Dall
b. Ugulux Dell
3. Semichi Islands Jochelson 1+
Rat Islands
1. Amchitka Hrdlicka 2
2. Kiska ‘ Hrdlicka 4
3. Little Kiska Hrdlicka 1
Shumagin Islands Veniaminov 12
l. Unga
a. Unga Swanton
b. Delarof Veniaminov
2. Papof Swanton l
3. Vossnessenski Swanton 1
Total 170

 

aVeniaminov quoted in Petroff, Tenth Census of the

AUnited States; 1880,

Vol. VIII.

:Swanton, The Indian Tribes of North America.
cHrdlicka, The Aleutian and Commander Islands.

d

 

tian Islands.

JOchelson, Archeological Investigatipns in the Aleu-

eDall, Contributions to North.American Ethnolo

Vol. I, 1877.

masterson and Brower, eri ’s Successors. 1745-1780.
8Coxe, Account of the Russian Discoveries.

Laughlin, in The Bering Land Bridge.

h

 

I...
-:

 

APPENDIX I I

‘ABORIGINAL VILLAGES: FOX ISLANDSa

 

 

 

NUMBER OF

ISLAND POPULATION VILLAGES
l. Aiktak ‘ 30 . l
2. Akun 500 plus 8
3. Akutan 600 plus 7
4. Amaknak --- 3
5. Avatanak --- 3
6. Kagamil -s- 1
7. Cagukiak (Herbert) --- 2
8. Chuginadak 100 plus 1
9. Uliagan (Carlisle) -u- 2
10. Yunaska m-- 2
ll. Samalga 400 -
12. Tigalda 500 plus 5
l3. Ugamak --- 1
14. Unalga --- 1
15. Unalaska --- 24
16. Umnak -~- , _ 20

17. Unbmak A --- , 12 plus

 

Total Islands:_ 17
Total Villages: 93

 

aVeniaminov, quoted in Hrdlicka, Theiéleutian and
ommander Islands.

142

 

 

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1 .

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143

 

 

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Spicer, Edward H. (ed.). Pers ectives in American Indian
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Wike, Jche Annabel. The Effect 0; the Maritime Fur Trade
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s ty Publication lz-Columbia University Press,

1951.

 

 

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Hymes, Dell H. "Na-Dene and Positional Analysis of Cate-
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Veniaminov, Ivan. "The Russian Orthodox Church in Russian
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