Russian-Tlingit War

For the first time, Russian industrialists encountered Tlingits in 1792 on the island of Hinchinbrook , where an armed conflict occurred between them with an uncertain result: the head of the party of industrialists and the future ruler of Alaska, Alexander Baranov, nearly died, the Indians retreated, but the Russians did not dare to gain a foothold on the island and also sailed for Kodiak Island ^[1] . Tlingit warriors were dressed in wicker wooden kuyaks , moose cloaks and bestial helmets (apparently from animal skulls) ^[2] .

In May 1802, a powerful Tlingit uprising began (the Russians called them spikes or spikes ), seeking to expel the Russians along with kayak flotillas from their land and territorial waters. The first skirmish on the mainland occurred on May 23 . In June, a detachment of 600 Indians, led by a toyon (leader) Katliana attacked the Mikhailovsky Fortress (on the island of Sitka). They waited for the Sitka party to go fishing and attacked the fortress, in which 15 people remained. A day later, the Indians destroyed almost the entire small party of Vasily Kochesov , returning to the fortress from the Steller Sea Lion . The Sitka party (165 people) was attacked by the Tlingits in the area of ​​the Frederick Strait on the night of June 19 to 20 and completely defeated. Sailing into the area a little later, the English brig "Unicorn" ( Eng. Unicorn ) captain Henry Barber ( Eng. Henry Barber ) rescued by a miracle the surviving Russians. Captain Barber sank one Indian canoe and forced them to return the surviving prisoners (about 20 - mostly women and children). The loss of Sitka was a terrible blow for the Russian colonies and personally for the governor of Alaska A. A. Baranov . The total losses of the Russian-American company amounted to 24 Russians and 200 Aleuts .

At the outpost of Russian colonization in America on the island of Kodiak in November 1802 arrived six-gun brigantine "St. Elizabeth, ”which stopped the Indians from further assaulting the Russian colonies. In early May 1803, Baranov sent the galliot "St. Alexander Nevsky ”to Yakutat to Ivan Kuskov , where there was a significant Russian garrison. Kuskov dissuaded Baranov from a hasty punitive expedition for a year.

In the winter of 1803-1804, the Indians attacked two Russian reconnaissance squads in the Copper River basin.

In 1804, Baranov moved from Yakutat to conquer Sitka. In his detachment there were 150 Russians and 500-900 Aleuts on their kayaks and with the ships Ermak, Alexander, Ekaterina and Rostislav. In September, A. A. Baranov reached Sitka. Here he discovered the sloop "Neva" Lisyansky , who circumnavigated the world. The Indians built a wooden fortress, in which about a hundred fighters settled. The Russians, shelling the settlement with naval guns, began an assault, which, however, was repelled. During it, Baranov was seriously wounded in the arm. However, the siege and shelling continued. Realizing the futility of the resistance, the Indians left their fortress. About 30 dead Indians were found in an abandoned fortification. On October 8, 1804, the Russian flag was hoisted above the native settlement. The construction of the fort and a new settlement began. Soon the city of Novo-Arkhangelsk grew up here. The losses of the Russian coalition amounted to about 20 people.

On August 20, 1805, Ejaki warriors of the Tlahaik-tekuedi (tlukhedi) clan led by Tanuh and Lushvak and their allies from among the Tlingit of the Kuashkukan clan burned Yakutat and killed the Russians who remained there. The attack was carefully planned and organized by Tanuh, who, using his confidence, entered the fortress and killed the chief of the fortress, after which, according to Native American traditions, at his signal, “every soldier killed his Russian”. Of the total population of the Russian colony in Yakutat in 1805, according to official figures, 14 Russians "and with them many more islanders", that is, allied Aleuts, died. The main part of the party, along with Demyanenkov, making sure that Yakutat was burned, went to a distant sea passage and was sunk into the sea by a storm that had flown up. Then about 250 people died. Only about 30 people were saved, who, due to extreme exhaustion, refused to sail, decided to surrender to the Tlingit and moved along the coast ^[3] . The fall of Yakutat and the death of the Demyanenkov party became another heavy blow for the Russian colonies. An important economic and strategic base on the coast of America was lost.

An easy victory inspired and united the Tlingits, about 200 warriors in 8 canoes decided according to the same plan, using the good reputation of Tanukh among the Russians, to attack the Konstantinovsky fortress in the village of Nuchek ^[4] in the Gulf of Chugat . 70 soldiers, led by the leader, arrived in the fortress in two canoes, ostensibly for trade and dances with cast-iron men . The rest were left to wait for a signal at the mouth of the Copper River . The chief of the fortress, Ivan Repin, warmly received Tanuha and allowed dancing, which even the Chugachi Tlingit enemies were glad of. However, one slave-chugach fled from the Indians at the mouth of the Copper River and, reaching the fortress, informed Repin about their plans. The commandant took measures, the Indians were invited to a holiday in a neighboring village, and at night the Chugach men gathered their strength and cut them out. The leader taken into custody was stabbed to death. Few survivors reported failure to the main forces. Frightened Tlingits, fearing an attack and despite the stormy weather, rushed to swim through the breakers of a canal that jutted far out into the mouth of the river. The canoes were smashed by the breakers, the majority of the Indians drowned, having sailed to the shore polls killed the Chugachs. After this failure, feuds began between the Tlingit themselves, and the Tanuh clan, weakened by losses, was exterminated ^[3] .

Subsequently, a truce was concluded with the Indians, and the RAC tried to fish in the Tlingit waters in large batches under the cover of Russian warships. However, the Tlingits organizedly sailed to the place of fishing and opened fire from rifles, but not at people, but at the beast, which made fishing almost impossible. Also, under convenient circumstances, they intercepted and quietly killed single employees of the company so that it was impossible to prove it ^[3] .

As a result of the attacks of the Indians, 2 Russian fortresses and a village in southeastern Alaska were destroyed, about 45 Russians and more than 230 natives were killed (approximately 250 more from the Demyanenkov party became indirect victims of the conflict in Yakutat). All this for several years stopped the advance of the Russians southward along the northwestern coast of America. The Native American threat further fettered the forces of the RAC in the area of the Alexander Archipelago and did not allow to begin the systematic colonization of Southeast Alaska. However, after the cessation of fishing in the lands of the Indians, relations improved slightly and the RAC resumed trade with the Tlingits and even allowed them to restore the clan village near Novoarkhangelsk.

Relapse of the war continued after 1805.

So, on February 4 (16), 1851, an Indian military detachment from the Koyukuk River attacked a village of Indians living with a Russian loner (trading post) Nulato in the Yukon . The loner herself was also attacked. However, the attackers were repulsed with damage. Russians also suffered losses: the chief of the trading post, Vasily Deryabin, was killed and the company employee (Aleut) and the English lieutenant Bernard, who arrived in Nulato from the British military sloop Enterprise , were lost to search for the missing members of Franklin’s third polar expedition . In the same winter, the Tlingit ( Sitka ears ) arranged several quarrels and fights with the Russians in the market and in the forest near Novo-Arkhangelsk . In response to these provocations, the main ruler, N. Ya. Rosenberg, announced to the Indians that if the unrest continued, he would order the closure of the "Koloshen market" altogether and stop all trade with them. The reaction of the Indians to this ultimatum was unprecedented: the next morning they attempted to capture Novo-Arkhangelsk. Some of them, armed with guns, sat in the bushes near the fortress wall; the other, having fixed the prepared stairs to a wooden tower with guns, the so-called “Koloshenskaya Battery”, almost mastered it. Fortunately for the Russians, the sentries were on the alert and raised the alarm in time. An armed detachment in time to help threw down three Indians who had already climbed onto the battery, and stopped the rest.

In November 1855 , another incident occurred when several natives captured Andreevskaya alone in the lower reaches of the Yukon . At that time, her manager was here - Kharkov tradesman Alexander Shcherbakov and two Finnish employees serving in the RAC. As a result of a surprise attack, a kayaker Shcherbakov and one worker were killed, and a loner was plundered. The surviving RAC employee Lavrenty Keryanin managed to escape and safely reach the Mikhailovsky redoubt . Immediately a punitive expedition was set up, which sought out the natives hiding in the tundra who had ravaged the Andreevsky loner. They sat in the barracks (the Eskimo half dugout) and refused to give up. The Russians were forced to open fire. As a result of the shootout, five natives were killed, and one managed to escape ^[5] .

Two hundred years after the battle at Shisgi Nuvu Fortress, in autumn 2004, an official ceremony of reconciliation between the Kiksadi clan and Russia was held in the territory (the truce of 1805 concluded between Katlian and Baranov without observing the intricacies of the “Indian Protocol” , not recognized as Tlingits). According to the requirements of the Kiksadi clan and thanks to the cooperation of the National Park Service , the Library of Congress , Russian historians and the South-East Alaskan Indigenous Cultural Center, the ceremony was attended by I.O. Afrosin, a direct descendant of the main ruler of the Baranov colonies, living in Moscow. An official reconciliation ceremony was held in a clearing next to the totem pole of the Kiksadi Katlian warlord, established in 1999. Under the history of long-standing hostility, the last line was drawn. ^{[3] [6]}

• Zorin A.V. Indian war in Russian America: Russian-Tlingit military confrontation . - Kursk: historical and cultural center "Indians of North America", Kursk State Medical University, 2002. - 419 p.
• The battle for Sith and the fall of Yakutat. // History of Russian America (1732-1867) / Academician N. N. Bolkhovitinov .. - M .: International Relations, 1997. - 480 p.