Russian exploration

Exploration Friday: Russian in the New World, pt. 4/4

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I only approve of wearing non-cute animals
I only approve of wearing non-cute animals

When we left off last week with Caughey’s History of the Pacific Coast, Vitus Bering and his men had heroically crossed Siberia twice, spent about 10 hours in Alaska, gotten stranded over winter in the Aleutian Islands, a bunch of them (including Bering himself) died of scurvy, and finally a few of them struggled back to Moscow. The result of all this human effort and travail was a rush to kill every last sea otter for their super soft and cuddly pelts.

As usual, I’m using “” instead of blockquotes for readability.

“Without waiting for authorization from the czar, traders scurried from Kamchatka to the Commander and Aleutian Islands. They sailed in most unseaworthy craft, small and crude, built usually of green timber, without iron, and consisting merely of a log frame covered with planks that were fastened with deer thongs and wooden peg and calked with moss and tallow for lack of pitch. … the willingness and eagerness of these adventurers to sail n such crazy craft over the stormy waters off Kamchatka testifies as to the profits in promise for successful voyages. …

“they went chiefly to the Aleutian Island, and did not visit the Alaskan mainland again until 1761. Shipwrecks occurred frequently, the estimate being one out of three… This was the period of unregulated hunting, characterized by the vilest outrages against the Aleuts, who suffered almost as much damage as the sea-otters.

Mikhail Tikhanov, Aleut in Festival Dress in Alaska, 1818
Mikhail Tikhanov, Aleut in Festival Dress in Alaska, 1818

“The Aleuts were depended upon for the actual hunting. The Russians hunted occasionally by long distance rifle shooting, but it was more convenient to utilize the natives. In calm weather they went out in kayaks and harpooned the sea-otters as they came up to breathe. Storm hunting on the kelp beds was more customary. In this wild work some of the Aleuts pursued the sea-otter in kayaks while others clubbed them as they came ashore. The danger was great, both in the fragile kayaks and on the slipper rocks. …

“the women of a village were seized as hostages and held until a satisfactory number of sea-otter pelts was brought in. This device lent itself to abuse and there were outrageous wrongs. The most spectacular concerned a ship which was blown back to Kamchatka with twenty-five hostages still on board. Rather than come into port with such incriminating evidence, the Russians unceremoniously dumped these women overboard to drown.”

Wikipedia has an interesting account of the far-reaching effects of this coercion:

Google maps would not give me driving directions for the route from the Aleutians to San Nicolas Island
Google maps would not give me driving directions for the route from the Aleutians to San Nicolas Island

There was high demand for the furs that the Aleut provided from hunting. In 1811, in order to obtain more of the commercially valuable otter pelts, a party of Aleut hunters traveled to the coastal island of San Nicolas, near the Alta California-Baja California border. The locally resident Nicoleño nation sought a payment from the Aleut hunters for the large number of otters being killed in the area. Disagreement arose, turning violent; in the ensuing battle, the Aleut killed nearly all the Nicoleño men. Together with high fatalities from European diseases, the Nicoleños suffered so much from the loss of their men that by 1853, only one living Nicoleña person remained. (See Juana Maria, The Lone Woman of San Nicolas, also known as Karana)

Back to Caughey: “By the middle 1760’s the Aleuts were aroused by these repeated atrocities to measures of retaliation. They met treachery with deceit and murder with assassination, and Russian blood flowed to atone for the slaughters of the Aleuts. This new sort of disturbance brought the region to the attention of the czar… A governor was sent out for the express purpose regulating this fur trade. … The Aleuts received but meager protection, and the czar’s revenues were not augmented to the extent anticipated. But during the period of government regulation there as an expansion of Russian fur hunting to Alaska proper. Kodiak was settled in 1783, and Shelikoff advanced to the Sitka neighborhood soon after.

“Toward the end of the century government regulation was abandoned in favor of control through a trading company modeled after those  of the English. … Under the company conditions did improve. Missions were but slightly encouraged, but the natives received some safeguarding for the very practical reason that their perpetuation was vital to the continued profits of the fur trade.”

Saint Peter the Aleut
Saint Peter the Aleut

EvX: See my post on Kabloona, Religion and the Far Reaches of the World for more on Russian Orthodox missionaries to the Alaskan natives. Wikipedia notes:

After the arrival of Russian Orthodox missionaries in the late 18th century, many Aleuts became Christian. Of the numerous Russian Orthodox congregations in Alaska, most are majority Alaska Native in ethnicity. One of the earliest Christian martyrs in North America was Saint Peter the Aleut.

Continuing with Caughey, “Following an uprising of the natives, [Baranof] reestablished Sitka in 1803 and made it the capital of Russian America. Shipbuilding was one of his principal innovations; some fourteen vessels being launched in Alaska during his regime, 1799 to 1818. …

“Russian America’s insecurity was well revealed during the course of the inspection by Nikolai Rezanof in 1805-1806. … He found Sitka threatened with starvation because one of the supply ships from Siberia had not arrived. Scurvy had broken out, causing several deaths, and no prospect of securing supplies was apparent. He gave temporary respite by purchasing the American ship Juno with its cargo of supplies, but to develop a permanent source of supplies for Russian Alaska he decided to make a voyage to Spanish California. …

“Rezanof soon discovered that Spanish law forbade any traffic with foreigners and that the California official were not inclined to countenance trade with him. A battle of wits ensued in which he endeavored to conceal the dire straits at Sitka, …

EvX: Rezanof got engaged to the daughter of the Spanish commander of San Francisco, who convinced her father to convince the governor to let Rezanof trade for a shipload of food for the Russian colony. Rezanof set off for Moscow to report back to the Czar, but died on the way. His fiance, ever faithful, became a nun and waited thirty-five years for news of his fate.

“Besides the cargo of supplies, Rezanof carried to Alaska a very enthusiastic description of California. … Three years later [Kuskoff] returned to poach twelve hundred sea-otter skins from San Francisco Bay and to purchase from the natives enough land for a post. The price was “three blankets, two axes, three hoes, and a miscellaneous assortment of beads.”

“Kuskoff came again in 1812 with one hundred Russians and eighty Aleuts and established Fort Ross, a short distance north of Bodega Bay. … Agriculture and stock raising flourished. Eventually two hundred cows were milked, and butter and cheese could be sent to Sitka. …. Fort Ross served as headquarters for Russian fur hunting as far south as the Santa Barbara Channel.

The reconstructed Russian Orthodox chapel at Fort Ross, CA, photo by Introvert
The reconstructed Russian Orthodox chapel at Fort Ross, CA, photo by Introvert

“With the practical extermination of the sea-otter, Fort Ross’ value waned. …in 1841, the Russian American Fur Company was quite willing to dispose of the fort and its furnishings to Captain Johann Sutter, marking the termination of Russian control south of Alaska.”

EvX: The Russian presence in America, especially south of Sitka, was never more than a thread, thinly stretched, but it had a significant impact on the lives of the natives (and otters) they encountered. According to Wikipedia:

Prior to major influence from outside, there were approximately 25,000 Aleuts on the archipelago. Foreign diseases, harsh treatment and disruption of traditional society soon reduced the population to less than one-tenth this number. The 1910 Census count showed 1,491 Aleuts. In the 2000 Census, 11,941 people identified as being Aleut; nearly 17,000 said Aleuts were among their ancestors.[9] Alaskans generally recognize that the Russian occupation, while the colonists were limited in number, resulted in few full-blooded Aleuts today. Full-blooded Aleuts still exist and are growing in number, and there are also people who may be part Russian or other descent but solely identify as Aleut.

In 1942, during World War II, Japanese forces occupied Attu and Kiska Islands in the western Aleutians. They later transported captive Attu Islanders to Hokkaidō, where they were held as prisoners of war. The United States government evacuated hundreds more Aleuts from the western chain and the Pribilofs during WWII, placing them in internment camps in southeast Alaska, where many died. The Aleut Restitution Act of 1988 was an attempt by Congress to compensate the survivors.

It is often amazing just how small–on the grand scale–these first movements to reach around the globe really were. Even now, only 12 men have ever stepped foot on the moon.

It’s also amazing that anyone at all managed to survive in the Aleutian islands.

Book on a Friday: the Russian Exploration of America (pt. 2)

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Welcome! Today we are continuing with Caughey’s History of the Pacific Coast, Chapter XI: Russian America. (Part one is here.) We left off with the death of Yermak and defeat of his Cossack warriors at the hands of Kutchum Khan’s Tartar forces on the banks of the Irtysh, Siberia.

800px-ob_watershedAs usual, quotes are in “” rather than blockquotes.

“Tartar hostility checked southward expansion, but the rivers invited progress toward the north, while their interlocking tributaries facilitated eastward advance. In common with other frontiers this one advanced irregularly rather than phalanx-like. Around Lake Baikal, for example, Buriat resistance was so stubborn that progress was greatly retarded and Irkutsk was not founded until 1651. In the meantime an ostrog had been built on the Lena in 1632, and traders had pushed on to the waters of the Pacific at Okhotsk in 1639, to the Amur by 1643, and to the Anaduir by 1649. The Kamchatka peninsula was reached in 1650, but the hostility of the natives delayed its occupation for half a century. …

russia-far-eastern-region-map-1“The waves of the North Pacific wafted to Kamchatka some intimations of America: trunks of tall firs and other trees not to be found on the bleak Siberian coast, an occasional dugout canoe, whales with strange harpoon heads imbedded in their back. Land-birds came from the east and went away again. Among the Chukchi in the Anaduir district were a few peculiar women, wearing walrus ivory lip-plugs and speaking a foreign tongue.”

EvX: I believe the “Anaduir” district is now the Anadyrsky District. The Chukchi people live in one of the world’s coldest environments, and traditionally lived similarly to other arctic peoples, like the Sami (Lapps):

aleutsandrelativesdna eskimoandneighborsdnaThe Chukchi are traditionally divided into the Maritime Chukchi, who had settled homes on the coast and lived primarily from sea mammal hunting, and the Reindeer Chukchi, who lived as nomads in the inland tundra region, migrating seasonally with their herds of reindeer. The Russian name “Chukchi” is derived from the Chukchi word Chauchu (“rich in reindeer”), which was used by the ‘Reindeer Chukchi’ to distinguish themselves from the ‘Maritime Chukchi,’ called Anqallyt (“the sea people”).

The Chukchi of far north eastern Russia are closely related to the Eskimo people of Alaska. Their neighbors, like the Selkups and Evens, are more closely related to the Aleutian people.

Back to Caughey:

“Cartographers, in the meantime, exercised their speculative faculties in plotting an island of continental proportions in the North Pacific. They called it Terra de Jeso or Gama Land, and according to popular belief, it was rich in gold and silver. A companion idea, that of the Strait of Anian, caught the fancy of Peter the Great and impelled him, as one of his last official act, to send out an expedition in search of the Northeast Passage. From several who volunteered the czar selected Bering, a Danish sailor who had enlisted in the Russian navy in 1704 and had risen rapidly from the ranks because of his bravery, excellent seamanship, and experience in the East and West Indies.

mysterious, non-existent blob-land
Go explore the mysterious blob-land near Kamchatka!

“Peter’s instructions to Bering were to go to Kamchatka, to build one or two boats, to sail north to determine whether or not America was connected to Asia, to sail to some European settlement in America  or to speak to a European ship in those waters, to make a landing, to draw up an account and prepare a chart, and to bring them back to St. Petersburg.”

EvX: Wikipedia has nothing on specifically “Terra de Jeso” or “Gama Land,” but it does mention “Joao-da-Gama-Land,” which is clearly the same thing, on the page about Bering’s expeditions. Joao-da-Gama-Land, however, does not have its own page. (Go forth, my friends, and make one!)

Peter’s directions were much easier given than filled:

“The overland journey to Kamchatka was itself a stupendous task. Leaving St. Petersburg at the end of January, 1725, Bering traveled to Tobolsk, down the Irtysh, up the Ob, across a long portage to the Yenisei, and up the Tunguska and Ilima to Ilimsk where he had to tie up for the winter on September 29th. the next season’s journey began with a descent of the Lena to Yakutsk. Her Bering divided his force into several groups, the largest of which went overland by pack train to Okhotsk. Cold set in earlier than usual and all the horses were lost, and because they did not reach Okhotsk in time to provide food for their cattle, he had to butcher them. … The division under Spanberg had greater difficulty. These men attempted a part water route. When their boats froze in, they struggled on with hand sledges, often with no other provender than the carcases of Bering’s horses. Relief parties came back to their assistance early in 1727, but by no means all of the men or materials arrived at Okhotsk even then.

“During the winter Bering had built a boat…. he transported his party across the Okhotsk Sea to the mouth of the Bolshaya River on the inner side of the Kamchatka peninsula. But when ascent of this stream proved impossible for the small boats built for the purpose, sledges were resorted to for crossing of the peninsula. …

“For his stupendous achievement in crossing Russia and Siberia and constructing and equipping the St. Gabriel at Kamchatka, Being has received just encomiums of praise. But in connection with his voyage to Icy Cape he has been stigmatized as a common ship captain, devoid of the explorer’s instinct, and unfit to lead a scientific expedition into the Arctic. He went far enough to assure himself that Asia and America were not connected, but not far enough to acquire convincing proof. It was left for Captain Cook a half century later to clarify the question of the width of Bering Strait and for Baron Wrangell a century later to prove positively that the continents are separate.

“Four more winters passed before Bering reached St. Petersburg to make his report. The Empress was favorably impressed and ordered a second expedition to carry out the rest of the original instructions. This time Bering attacked the task with appreciably diminished enthusiasm…

“Not until 1741 could the actual voyage begin. On june 4th of that year the two vessels Bering had built at Okhotsk sailed from Petropavlovsk, Chirkoff and seventy-five men on the St. Paul, Bering with an identical number on the St. Peter. Their plan was to sail southeast to 46 degrees where they expected to find Gama Land, then to turn northeast to America, north to 66 degrees, the latitude of Icy Cape, then due west to determine the width of Bering Strait.”

To be continued…