Fort Stikine
Fort Stikine was a fur trade post and fortification in what is now the Alaska Panhandle, at the site of the present-day of Wrangell, Alaska. Originally built as the Redoubt San Dionisio or Redoubt Saint Dionysius in 1834, the site was transferred to the British-owned Hudson's Bay Company as part of a lease signed in the region in 1838, and renamed Fort Stikine when turned into a Hudson's Bay Company post in 1839. The post was closed and decommissioned by 1843 but the name remained for the large village of the Stikine people which had grown around it, becoming known as Shakesville in reference to its ruling Chief Shakes by the 1860s. With the Alaska Purchase of 1867, the fortification became occupied by the US Army and was renamed Fort Wrangel, a reference to Baron von Wrangel, who had been Governor of Russian America when the fort was founded. The site today is now part of the city of Wrangell.
Russian American Company
By a decree of Emperor Paul I known as the Ukase of 1799, the Russian Empire asserted ownership of the Pacific coast and adjoining lands of North America as far south as the 55th degree of latitude, with Novo-Arkhangelsk founded shortly thereafter. In 1821, Emperor Alexander issued another ukase which extended the Russian claim south to 51 degrees north, also forbidding foreign vessels from approaching within 100 Italian miles of any Russian settlement. Other powers protested and the line was withdrawn to "the line of the Emperor Paul", 55 degrees north, with parallel treaties with the United States and Great Britain adjusting that southwards slightly to 54 degrees 40 minutes north so as to include all of Prince of Wales Island within Russian territory.Under the Russo-British Treaty of 1825 establishing that boundary, and also establishing a land boundary northwards following the summit of the mountains, ten marine leagues from the coast, British rights to the Interior were guaranteed by Russia, along with the right of navigation of the Taku and Stikine Rivers, which were the only access to those regions of what is now northern British Columbia. The HBC governing committee, led by Sir John Pelly and Sir George Simpson, on 28 October 1829 sent instructions to the Columbia Department for a company detachment to occupy the Nass River with a new trade post. Chief Factor John McLoughlin was to send the force of approximately 50 employees under Peter Skene Ogden. However the outbreak of an illness at Fort Vancouver, likely malaria, delayed the plan to establish a station until 1833. Visiting the mouth of the Nass in the summer 1831, Lieutenant Aemilius Simpson mistakenly that it was the entrance to the Babine River. HBC began to consider the location critical to establish a coastal supply chain to send provisions to Fort Babine.
Redoubt Saint Dionysius
and a party of employees of the Russian American Company were sent to the Nass on the Chichagof on 3 April 1833 by Chief Manager Baron Wrangel. Arriving back at New Archangel on 28, Etholén reported the alarming news that Stikine people, while receptive to a Russian outpost, were also supportive a British station being established in the area. The second article of the Russo-British Treaty of 1825 specified that employees of either company couldn't land at their respective stations without prior consent. To prevent the HBC traders from accessing the Stikine river, Wrangel conceived of creating a trade post at the river's mouth. In the autumn of 1833, a party of promyshlenniki under the commander of the Chichagof, Lieutenant Dionysius Zarembo, was dispatched south. RAC employees began constructing on the Stikine Strait a fort named the Redoubt Saint Dionysius or the Redoubt San Dionisio, usually thought to have been located on Zarembo Island, to ensure control of the local fur trade, critical to the economic basis of New Archangel.Ogden went up the Stikine on reconnaissance in 1833, finding the river too shallow for the HBC's sailing vessels. An additional exploration was ordered by in 1834 McLoughlin, with Ogden and several HBC staff, including William Fraser Tolmie, returning to the area on the brig Dryad. The employees were to begin attempts at establishing trade and a fort in the Stikine hinterland. On 20 June 1834 the HBC employees under Ogden reached Redoubt Saint Dionysius. Tolmie described the trading post as having a barricade 6 feet tall, a half completed house for the RAC officer and "a few cedarbark huts..." Discussions between the Russians and British was hampered as none of British could speak the Russian language and none of the Russians were fluent in Latin, English, or French. Zarembo gave Odgen a note in Russian that stated:
In the Year of 1834, the 18th of June. On the brig of the Columbia Company of Mr. Ogan at Stakeen—I prohibit to trade with the inhabitants of the Stakeen which have their settlements here and accordingly refer to the Convention.—To the Colonies of the Russian American Company, no permission is given to trade. I neither allow to enter the river Stakeen in consequence of the instructions received from Chief Director Baron Wrangel.
During the ensuing confrontation and what would become a naval standoff, with the ships Chichagof and Orel dispatched from New Archangel, Ogden and his men were driven off and Hudson's Bay Company stores, intended for trade and the establishment of the upriver post, were seized.
Hudson's Bay Company
When news of the confrontation reached Fort Vancouver, McLoughlin was outraged and quickly sent word to the company headquarters in London. The HBC spent several years pressuring the British government to secure indemnities from the RAC on Russia for damages relating to the seizure and actions contrary to the treaty of 1825, Baron von Wrangel was forced out of office in disgrace because of the great cost in both money and prestige to the Empire. A treaty signed in 1839, known as the RAC-HBC Agreement, established the privilege for the HBC to build and maintain posts at the mouths of the Taku and Stikine as well as established a lease of the mainland and adjoining islands - the lisière from Cross Sound south to 54 degrees 40 minutes north. In return for this lease, the HBC would supply so many furs per annum to the RAC and supply the Russian American settlements with equipment, agricultural and pastoral products. Creating the subsidiary Puget Sound Agricultural Company to meet these provisions, HBC stations such as Forts Vancouver, Langley, Nisqually and Cowlitz were critical for manufacturing the produce required by the Russians.Establishment of Fort Stikine
The following year, in 1839, James Douglas, later to be Chief Factor himself and also Governor of both Vancouver Island and British Columbia colonies, was sent north by McLoughlin to establish "Fort Stickeen" and what was formally called Fort Durham, but usually known as Fort Taku, or just Taku, under various spellings. Confrontations with the local group of Tlingit, the Shtakeen Kwaan under Chief Shakes, near whose ceremonial clan house the fort had been erected, concerning control of the fur trade of the Stikine Country, led to the relocation of the principal village of that tribe to the location of the fort, and agreements with Shakes regarding control of trade in relation to other Tlingit groups and the inland Athapaskan peoples with whom the Stikines had long-standing agreements. Still, other tribes including the Haida, Nisga'a and Tsimshian traded at the post, with complicated consequences.Much to the chagrin and horror of the company staff in charge of the post, the logistics of the fur trade resulted in an unexpected effect - an escalation of the slave trade by the Haida and Tlingits. This had an accompanying rise among the Haida and Tlingits for further warfare and raiding against each other and tribes to the south. These were done to provide goods for the purchase of furs to re-sell to the HBC post.
Death of John McLoughlin, Jr.
The second Chief Trader appointed to Fort Stikine was the son of Chief Factor McLoughlin, John McLoughlin, Jr. Unsuited to the appointment, the younger McLoughlin was unpopular with some of the Metis among the staff. Several staff members killed him on 21 April 1842 in what was alleged by them to have been in self-defense at his drunken rage. Hawaiian Kanaka employees who witnessed the killing were to testify otherwise. They alleged that the rebel staff, led by one Urbain Heroux, had conspired with the local Tlingits to seize the post.The usual laws governing the Company and its staff were those of the Colony of Canada. However, because the murder had happened on ostensibly Russian soil, these laws did not apply in this case. George Simpson arrived five days after the murder and held a short investigation. He found the murder "justifiable homicide", and took Heroux and the others to the Russian American capital of Novo-Arkhangelsk for trial. While still at Novo-Arkhangelsk Simpson was surprised to encounter Heroux at liberty on the streets. Unlike British colonial law, the accused were free until convicted under Russian law. They were ultimately not prosecuted by Governor of Russian Colonies in America Ferdinand von Wrangel and released by the spring of 1844 for lack of evidence. John Jr.'s death was said to be one of the factors embittering his father against Simpson and the HBC.
Author Debra Komar wrote an investigative history into the death of McLoughlin Jr. named The Bastard of Fort Stikine. In it, Komar uses both forensic science and historical research to create a narrative of both Fort Stikine and the Canadian North.