The Awa'uq Massacre Sven Haakanson, Jr. (2010)
"Written Voices Become History"
In ''Being and Becoming Indigenous Archaeologists''. George Nicholas (editor). Left Coast press, Inc., 2010Afognak Village Timeline
/ref> or Refuge Rock Massacre, or, more recently, as the Wounded Knee of Alaska,John Enders (1992)
"Archaeologist May Have Found Site Of Alaska Massacre"
''The Seattle Times'', Sunday, August 16, 1992 was an attack and

massacre A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...

of Koniag Alutiiq (Sugpiaq) people in April 1784 at Refuge Rock near

Kodiak Island Kodiak Island ( Alutiiq: ''Qikertaq''), is a large island on the south coast of the U.S. state of Alaska, separated from the Alaska mainland by the Shelikof Strait. The largest island in the Kodiak Archipelago, Kodiak Island is the second la ...

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

fur trader

Grigory Shelekhov Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov (Григо́рий Ива́нович Ше́лихов in Russian) (1747, Rylsk, Belgorod Governorate – July 20, 1795 (July 31, 1795 New Style)) was a Russian seafarer, merchant, and fur trader who perpetrated t ...

and 130 armed Russian men and

cannoneer "Cannoneer" as a term for an artilleryman dates from the 16th century. the United States Army uses as titles for such a soldier: "13B" (thirteen bravo) M.O.S. (military occupational specialty code), a "cannon crewmember" or "cannoneer" for sho ...

s of his

Shelikhov-Golikov Company The Shelikhov-Golikov Company (SGC) was a Russian fur trading venture, founded by Irkutsk entrepreneurs Grigory Shelikhov and Ivan Larionovich Golikov in 1783. Formed in Eastern Siberia during the 1780s along with several competing companies, ...

Massacre

Since 1775 Shelekhov had been trading with Alaska Natives in the Kuril and Aleutian islands of present-day

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...

. In April 1784 he returned to found a settlement on

and the coast of the mainland. The people occupying the area initially resisted, and fled to the secluded stack island Refuge Rock (''Awa'uq'' in

Alutiiq language The Alutiiq language (also called Sugpiak, Sugpiaq, Sugcestun, Vocabulary comparison The comparison of number terms and month names in the two dialects: References Further reading * Bass, Willard P., Edward A. Tennant, and Carl Anahona ...

, approximate meaning 'where one becomes numb') of Partition Cove on

Sitkalidak Island Sitkalidak Island (russian: Ситкалидак) is an island in the western Gulf of Alaska in the Kodiak Island Borough of the state of Alaska, United States. It lies just off the southeast shore of Kodiak Island, across the Sitkalidak Strait f ...

. It was across Old Harbor in the

Kodiak Archipelago The Kodiak Archipelago (russian: Кадьякский архипелаг , translit = Kad'yakskiy arkhipelag) is an archipelago (group of islands) south of the main land-mass of the state of Alaska (United States), about by air south-west of A ...

. The Russian ''

promyshlenniki The ''promyshlenniki'' (russian: промышленники, singular form: russian: промышленник, translit=promyshlennik), were Russian and indigenous Siberian artel- or self-employed workers drawn largely from the state serf and ...

s'' attacked the people on the island by shooting guns and cannons, slaughtering an estimated 200 to 500Korry Keeker
What it means to be Alutiiq / State museum exhibit examines Kodiak-area Native culture
, Friday, April 25, 2003John Enders (1992)
"Archaeologist May Have Found Site Of Alaska Massacre"
''The Seattle Times'', Sunday, August 16, 1992 men, women and children on Refuge Rock. Some sources state the number killed was as many as 2,000,Ben Fitzhugh (2003)
''The Evolution of Complex Hunter-Gatherers: archaeological evidence from the North Pacific''
New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2003 or 3,000 persons. Following the attack of Awa'uq, Shelikhov claimed to have captured over 1,000 people, detaining some 400 as hostages, including children. The Russians suffered no casualties. This massacre was an isolated incident, but the violence and taking of hostages resulted in the Alutiiq becoming completely subjugated by Russian traders thereafter.Aron L. Crowell (2001), ''Looking Both Ways, Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People''. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2001 ''Qaspeq'' (literally: " kuspuk"), was an Alutiiq (Sugpiaq) who had been taken as a child as a hostage from Kodiak; he was raised in servitude by the Russians in the Aleutians. Having learned Russian, he became an interpreter for them with the Alutiiq. Qaspeq had once betrayed the location of a refuge island just offshore of

Unalaska Island Unalaska ( ale, Nawan-Alaxsxa, russian: Уналашка) is a volcanic island in the Fox Islands group of the Aleutian Islands in the US state of Alaska located at . The island has a land area of . It measures long and wide. The city of Unala ...

.Richard A. Knecht, Sven Haakanson, and Shawn Dickson (2002).
Awa'uq: discovery and excavation of an 18th century Alutiiq refuge rock in the Kodiak Archipelago
. In ''To the Aleutians and Beyond'':, Bruno Frohlich, Albert S. Harper, and Rolf Gilberg, editors, pp. 177–191. Publications of the National Museum Ethnographical Series, Vol. 20. Department of Ethnography, National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen. the Anthropology of William S. Laughlin. More than five decades after the massacre, Arsenti Aminak, an old Sugpiaq man who had survived the massacre, reported his account of these events to Henrik Johan Holmberg (sometimes known as Heinrich Johann) (1818–1864), a

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

naturalist and

ethnographer Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

.Drabek, Alisha Susana 2012
''Liitukut Sugpiat'stun (we are learning how to be real people): Exploring Kodiak Alutiiq literature through core values''
PhD dissertation. University of Alaska at Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska, December 2012. Holmberg was collecting data for the Russian governor of Alaska. Aminak said:

Aftermath

The years 1784–1818 were called the "darkest period of Sugpiaq history," as the Russians treated the people badly. They also suffered high mortality from infectious diseases unwittingly introduced by the Russians. In 1818 there was a change in the management of what was then known as the

Russian-American Company The Russian-American Company Under the High Patronage of His Imperial Majesty (russian: Под высочайшим Его Императорского Величества покровительством Российская-Американс� ...

, referring to Russians operating in North America.Lydia T. Black (1992), "The Russian Conquest of Kodiak." In: ''Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska''. Vol. 24, Numbers 1-2. Fall. Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska Fairbanks In 1827 collection of

yasak ''Yasak'' or ''yasaq'', sometimes ''iasak'', (russian: ясак; akin to Yassa) is a Turkic word for "tribute" that was used in Imperial Russia to designate fur tribute exacted from the indigenous peoples of Siberia. Origin The origins of yasa ...

(ясак) tax was banned by Catherine the Great. Alutiiq village

References

External links

GOOGLE Maps : Awa’uq or Refuge Rock (the secluded island in Partition Cove)
{{Russian America 1784 murders in North America Alutiiq Conflicts in 1784 Crimes in Alaska Imperial Russian war crimes Massacres committed by Russia Massacres in 1784 Massacres of Native Americans Murder in Alaska Russian America ru:Алутиик#.D0.A0.D0.B5.D0.B7.D0.BD.D1.8F .D0.B2 .D0.90.D0.B2.D0.B0.D1.83.D0.BA.D0.B5