Sven Haakanson
Sven Haakanson, Jr. (born 1967) (Alutiiq) is an American anthropologist who specializes in documenting and preserving the language and culture of the Alutiiq. He served, from 2000-2013, as Executive Director of the Alutiiq Museum in Kodiak, Alask ...
, 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 an event of killing people who are not engaged in hostilities or are defenseless. It is generally used to describe a targeted killing of civilians Glossary of French words and expressions in English#En masse, en masse by an armed ...
Kodiak Island
Kodiak Island (, ) 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 largest island in the Un ...
by
Russian
Russian(s) may refer to:
*Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*A citizen of Russia
*Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages
*''The Russians'', a b ...
fur trader
The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal ecosystem, boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals h ...
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, t ...
.
Massacre
Since 1775 Shelekhov had been trading with Alaska Natives in the Kuril and Aleutian islands of present-day
Alaska
Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...
. In April 1784 he returned to found a settlement on
Kodiak Island
Kodiak Island (, ) 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 largest island in the Un ...
and the coast of the mainland. The people occupying the area initially resisted, and fled to the secluded
stack
Stack may refer to:
Places
* Stack Island, an island game reserve in Bass Strait, south-eastern Australia, in Tasmania’s Hunter Island Group
* Blue Stack Mountains, in Co. Donegal, Ireland
People
* Stack (surname) (including a list of people ...
island Refuge Rock (''Awa'uq'' in
Alutiiq language
The Alutiiq language (also called Sugpiak, Sugpiaq, Sugcestun,Sitkalidak Island. It was across Old Harbor in the
Kodiak Archipelago
The Kodiak Archipelago () 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 Anchorage in the Gulf of Alaska. The largest island in the archipelago is Kodiak Islan ...
.
The Russian ''
promyshlenniki
The ''promyshlenniki'' (, промышленник, ''promyshlennik'') were Russian and Indigenous Siberian artel members, or self-employed workers drawn largely from the state serf and townsman class who engaged in the Siberian, mariti ...
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 (, ) 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 Unalaska, Alaska, covers part of the island a ...
.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
naturalist
Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...
and
ethnographer
Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...
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 was a state-sponsored chartered company formed largely on the basis of the Shelikhov-Golikov Company, United American Company. Emperor Paul I of Russia chartered the c ...
, 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'', (; 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 yasak can be trace ...
(ясак) tax was banned by
Catherine the Great
Catherine II. (born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 172917 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter I ...