A part of a unbroken weekly collection on native historical past by native historian David Reamer. Have a query about Anchorage historical past or an concept for a future article? Go to the shape on the backside of this story.
Many Alaska place names, these not named after people, have surprisingly simple, even literal origins. Anchorage is so named as a result of it was a protected place to anchor ships, an precise anchorage. The “Chester” in Chester Creek is a mangled model of Chanshtnu, the stream’s Dena’ina title. “Chanshtnu” interprets to “grassy creek,” a direct description. Moose Cross on the Kenai Peninsula is known as after the incident when a mail service struggled to move an ornery moose.
Some Alaska place names recommend extra bloody origins that, once more, typically show literal in origin. Deadman’s Slough in Fairbanks is known as after the 1904 homicide of fisherman Jacob Jaconi alongside its banks. When prospector Joe McGahy was found lifeless in a stream northwest of Wiseman, the waterway turned often known as Deadman Creek. When a U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey subject get together witnessed a deadly “battle between a whale and killer whale” in a cove southeast of Seward, they named the placement Killer Bay. The 1954 United States Coast Pilot notes that Deadman Sands on Kvichak Bay is so named as a result of “quite a lot of fisherman have been misplaced when trapped by the tides.”
Nonetheless, a few of these ominous place names obscure the extent of their horrific inspirations. A brief moniker, just like the title of a bay or seaside, may be each correct and fail to supply a real understanding of what occurred at that location so a few years in the past. That is significantly true for the various Alaska place names that instantly seek advice from tragedies skilled by Alaska Natives. From Attu to Admiralty Island, there are place names that recall a number of the darkest factors in Alaska Native histories, moments that ought to by no means be forgotten.
Because the westernmost Aleutian Island, Attu was instantly within the path of 18th century Russian fur hunters as they invaded their means east. In 1745, the Sv. Evdokim, captained by M. V. Nevodchikov, landed there, and ship steward Yakov Chuprov led a celebration that met with a number of the Unangan, or Aleut, residents. The resultant assembly devolved, and Chuprov shot an Unangan man for grabbing the rope tying the boat to shore.
Every week or so later, the Evdokim returned to Attu, and Chuprov dispatched a bunch to survey the island. The survey workforce chief tried to kidnap or rape a number of Unangan girls, prompting a violent confrontation. Per the Russians, they killed 15 Unangan residents. Attu is affected by place names that decision again to this conflict: Bloodbath Bay, Bloodbath Seashore, Bloodbath Valley West, Bloodbath Valley East, and Homicide Level. The Russian account, extra probably than not, undercounts the variety of Unangans killed within the encounter.
On the different finish of the Aleutian chain is Unimak Island. Earlier than contact with the Russians, Unimak was maybe essentially the most populous of the Aleutian Islands. In 1840, Russian Orthodox priest Ivan Veniaminov (1797-1879), who ministered in Russian Alaska for a few years, printed “Notes on the Islands of the Unalaska District,” which mixed Russian and conventional Unangan accounts of the earlier a long time. He described one Unimak village as so massive {that a} “entire whale didn’t furnish a share for all of them.”
Over time, the Russians systematically depopulated the island. In a single incident through the 1760s, they destroyed 4 villages. Veniaminov wrote that the Russians spared “solely the younger women and some younger males to be their servants.” He added that in 1800, there have been nonetheless round 12 villages on the island. By the point of his writing, there was just one village with 71 residents.
At this time on Unimak Island, there’s the Pogromni Volcano and Pogromni River. There as soon as was a village referred to as Pogromni. In Russian, “pogrom” means to destroy, to bloodbath. In current centuries, the phrase has extra narrowly been used to explain systematic ethnic cleansings, as with the Holocaust. It’s not clear which place on Unimak was first given the title. Veniaminov suggests it was the village, named after a second when the Unangans briefly turned the tables on the Russians, killing a number of and forcing the remaining to their boats. In Veniaminov’s phrases, it was “when the inhabitants made a pogrom upon the Russians.”
Although these examples are from simply two islands, they symbolize the broader actuality endured by all Unangans through the Russian occupation. Estimates for the variety of Unangans killed by the Russians fluctuate wildly, however Veniaminov claimed that 5,000 lifeless “may be accepted as possible; and it even could also be that this quantity could be very reasonable.”
After years of Russian-Unangan battle, Russian dealer Grigory Shelikhov determined to as an alternative set up a base on Kodiak Island. On Aug. 14, 1784, three ships underneath his command landed at Three Saints Bay. The Alutiiq residents within the space retreated to a small, steep-cliffed rock of an island off the coast of Sitkalidak Island, which in flip is throughout the Sitkalidak Strait from Previous Harbor.
As so typically occurs, and understandably so on this case, accounts fluctuate on the variety of Alutiiq refugees huddled atop the rock. Modern estimates assorted from 2,000-4,000 although more moderen archeological work suggests the decrease finish of that vary.
Major entry to the rock was through a slim strip of land solely uncovered at low tide and shortly blocked by Russian forces. Negotiations for give up and an tried breakout by Alutiiq warriors failed. Lastly, the Russians attacked at daybreak, by way of a barrage of arrows and supported by cannon fireplace. No Russians have been killed, and solely a handful have been injured. On the opposite facet, tons of of Alutiiqs died from the assault or drowned within the water beneath. A whole lot extra have been taken hostage, and Alutiiq resistance on Kodiak was successfully ended.
The rock is named Refuge Rock, or Awa’uq in Alutiiq, which interprets as “to grow to be numb.” Researchers solely verified its location in 1990.
Peril Strait is in Southeast Alaska, between Chichagof and Baranof Islands, north of Sitka. Off the strait are Poison Cove and Deadman Attain. These names — Peril Strait, Poison Cove, and Deadman Attain — originate from the identical 1799 incident. The Russians typically pressed Alaska Natives into service as hunters, typically underneath risk to their households. That summer season, a Russian-led group of Unangan hunters, probably Koniag Alutiiq, entered what the Russians then referred to as Khutznov Strait.
After consuming a number of the mussels frequent to the realm, half of the get together turned violently unwell. A number of the hunters compelled themselves to vomit by ingesting a combination of gunpowder, tobacco, and alcohol. Nonetheless, round 100 of the Alaska Native hunters died, killed by paralytic shellfish poison, or PSP, produced by the algae consumed by shellfish. The Russians subsequently renamed the strait.
Close to the southern tip of Admiralty Island is an inlet often known as Homicide Cove. The backstory of that title started with an insult. On Jan. 1, 1869, an American guard at Fort Sitka harassed three Tlingit clan leaders, together with Shkeedlikháa from Haines, on their means out. Shkeedlikháa tore the guard’s rifle away from him and left. An try by the Military to arrest Shkeedlikháa devolved right into a shootout. With tensions quickly escalating, Shkeedlikháa surrendered to stop additional bloodshed.
The morning after the arrest, troopers opened fireplace on a Tlingit canoe that not solely had permission to go away Sitka however was additionally flying a white flag per the Military commander’s instruction. Two unarmed Kéex’ Kwáan Tlingit males have been killed. Per Tlingit regulation, the killers may both compensate the clan or count on equal punishment. After the Military refused to supply compensation, members of that clan killed two trappers at what’s now referred to as Homicide Cove.
The Military commander, Gen. Jefferson Davis, ordered the usSaginaw to proceed to Kéex’ Kwáan Tlingit lands, “seize a number of of their Chiefs as hostages,” and “burn their villages.” The Saginaw, a sidewheeler gunboat, destroyed two deserted forts and three villages, together with one identified in the present day as Kake. The villages have been abandoned prematurely of the Saginaw’s arrival, however the troopers destroyed canoes and provisions. Per Tlingit oral histories, many subsequently died from hunger and poisoning.
This battle is understood to historical past because the Kake Conflict. As historian Zachary R. Jones notes, “The title given to those occasions is a misnomer, as this battle was not a warfare however moderately a one-sided navy assault on Tlingit civilian communities that mounted no resistance to the Military’s aggressive actions.”
Alaska place names at all times inform a narrative. These tales could also be well-known, misplaced to historical past, or simply ready to be rediscovered. They might be brief or lengthy. And, as proven right here, too many of those tales are tragic, albeit in ways in which essentially provoke reminiscence.
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Key sources:
Berkh, Vasili. The Chronological Historical past of the Discovery of the Aleutian Islands or the Exploits of the Russian Retailers. Translated by Dimitri Krenov. Seattle: Works Progress Administration Undertaking No. 5668, 1938.
Grinëv, Andrei Val’terovich. Russian Colonization of Alaska: Preconditions, Discovery, and Preliminary Improvement, 1741-1799. Translated by Richard L. Bland. Lincoln, NE: College of Nebraska Press, 2018.
A Historical past of the Russian American Firm, Quantity 2. Translated by Dimitri Krenov. Edited by Richard A. Pierce and Alton S. Donnelly. Kingston, Ontario, Canada: Limestone Press, 1979.
Jones, Zachary R. “‘Seek for and Destroy’: US Military Relations with Alaska’s Tlingit Indians and the Kake Conflict of 1869.” Ethnohistory 60, no. 1 (2013): 1-26.
Knecht, Rick, Sven Haakanson, and Shawn Dickson. “Awa’uq: Discovery and Excavation of an 18th Century Alutiiq Refuge Rock within the Kodiak Archipelago.” In To the Aleutians and Past, edited by B. Frohlich, and R. Gilberg, 177-191. Copenhagen: Division of Ethnography, Nationwide Museum of Denmark, 2002.
Orth, Donald J. Dictionary of Alaska Place Names, Geological Survey, Skilled Paper 567. Washington, D.C.: United States Authorities Printing Workplace, 1971.
Torrey, Barbara Boyle. Slaves of the Harvest. St. Paul Island: TDX Corp., 1983.
Veniaminov, Ivan. Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District. Translated by Lydia T. Black and R. H. Geoghegan. Edited by Richard A. Pierce. Kingston, Ontario, Canada: Limestone Press, 1984.