History of Alaska
The history of Alaska dates back to the Upper Paleolithic period, when foraging groups crossed the Bering land bridge into what is now western Alaska. At the time of European contact by the Russian explorers, the area was populated by Alaska Native groups. The name "Alaska" derives from the Aleut word Alaxsxaq, meaning "mainland" or "continent". While initially used to refer solely to the Alaska Peninsula, the name eventually broadened to represent the entirety of Alaska.
The U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867. In the 1890s, gold rushes in Alaska and the nearby Yukon Territory brought thousands of miners and settlers to Alaska. Alaska was granted territorial status in 1912 by the United States of America.
In 1942, two of the outer Aleutian Islands—Attu and Kiska—were occupied by the Japanese during World War II and their recovery for the U.S. became a matter of national pride. The construction of military bases contributed to the population growth of some Alaskan cities.
Alaska was granted U.S. statehood on January 3, 1959.
In 1964, the massive "Good Friday earthquake" killed 131 people and leveled several villages.
The 1968 discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay and the 1977 completion of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline led to an oil boom. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez hit a reef in Prince William Sound, spilling between of crude oil over of coastline. Today, the battle between philosophies of development and conservation is seen in the contentious debate over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Prehistory of Alaska
Paleolithic families moved into northwestern North America before 10,000 BC across the Bering land bridge in Alaska. Alaska became populated by the Inuit and a variety of Native American groups. Today, early Alaskans are divided into several main groups: the Southeastern Coastal Indians, the Athabascans, the Aleut, and the two groups of Eskimos, the Inupiat and the Yup'ik.The coastal migrants from Asia were probably the first wave of humans to cross the Bering land bridge in western Alaska, and many of them initially settled in the interior of what is now Canada. The Tlingit were the most numerous of this group, claiming most of the coastal Panhandle by the time of European contact and are the northernmost of the group of advanced cultures of the Pacific Northwest Coast renowned for its complex art and political systems and the ceremonial and legal system known as the potlatch. The southern portion of Prince of Wales Island was settled by the Haidas fleeing persecution by other Haidas from the Queen Charlotte Islands. The Aleuts settled the islands of the Aleutian chain approximately 10,000 years ago.
Cultural and subsistence practices varied widely among native groups, who were spread across vast geographical distances.
18th century
Early Russian settlement
expeditions of exploration reached Alaska by the early 18th century, and colonial traders followed. On some islands and parts of the Alaskan peninsula, groups of Russian traders proved capable of relatively peaceful coexistence with the local inhabitants. Other groups could not manage the tensions and perpetrated exactions. Hostages were taken, individuals were enslaved, families were split up, and other individuals were forced to leave their villages and settle elsewhere. In addition, during the first two generations of Russian contact, eighty percent of the Aleut population died of Old World diseases, against which they had no immunity.In 1784 Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov arrived in Three Saints Bay on Kodiak Island, operating the fur-trading Shelikhov-Golikov Company. Shelikhov and his group killed hundreds of indigenous Koniag, then founded the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska – on the island's Three Saints Bay. By 1788 Shelikhov and others had established a number of Russian settlements over a large region, including the mainland areas around Cook Inlet.
The Russians had gained control of the habitats of the most valuable sea-otters, the Kurilian-Kamchatkan and Aleutian sea-otters. Their fur was thicker, glossier, and blacker than that of sea-otters on the Pacific Northwest coast and in California. The Russians, therefore, advanced southwards along the Pacific coast only after the superior varieties of sea-otters had become depleted, around 1788. The Russian entry to the Northwest Coast was slow, however, due to a shortage of ships and sailors. Russians reached Yakutat Bay in 1794 and built the settlement of Slavorossiya there in 1795. James Shields, a British employee of the Golikov-Shelikhov Company, reconnoitred the coast as far as the Queen Charlotte Islands. In 1795 Alexander Baranov, hired in 1790 to manage Shelikhov's fur enterprise, sailed into Sitka Sound and claimed it for Russia. Hunting-parties arrived in the following years, and by 1800 three-quarters of Russian America's sea-otter skins were coming from the Sitka Sound area. In July 1799 Baranov returned on the brig Oryol and established the settlement of Arkhangelsk. Destroyed by Tlingits in 1802 but rebuilt nearby in 1804, it became Novo-Arkhangelsk. It soon become the primary settlement and colonial capital of Russian America.
Missionary activity
Russian fur-traders informally introduced the Russian Orthodox church in the 1740s–1780s. During his settlement of Three Saints Bay in 1784, Shelikov introduced the first resident missionaries and clergymen. This missionary activity would continue into the 19th century, ultimately becoming the most visible trace of the Russian colonial period in present-day Alaska.Spanish claims
Spanish claims to the Alaska region dated to the papal bull of 1493, but never involved colonization, forts, or settlements. Instead, Madrid sent out various naval expeditions to explore the area and to claim it for Spain. In 1775 Bruno de Hezeta led an expedition; the Sonora, under Bodega y Quadra, ultimately reached latitude 58° north, entered Sitka Sound and formally claimed the region for Spain. The 1779 expedition of Ignacio de Arteaga and Bodega y Quadra reached Port Etches on Hinchinbrook Island, and entered Prince William Sound. They reached a latitude of 61° north, the most northern point attained by Spain.In 1788 Esteban José Martínez and Gonzalo López de Haro visited Russian settlements at Unalaska.
The Nootka Crisis of 1789 almost led to a war between Britain and Spain: Britain rejected Spanish claims to lands in British Columbia and Spain seized some British ships. The crisis was resolved in Madrid by the Nootka Conventions of 1790–1794, which provided that traders of both Britain and Spain could operate on the northwest coast, that the captured British ships would be returned and an indemnity paid. This marked a victory for Britain, and Spain effectively withdrew from the North Pacific. It transferred its claims in the region to the United States in the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819. Today, Spain's Alaskan legacy endures as little more than a few place names, among these the Malaspina Glacier and the towns of Valdez and Cordova.
Britain's presence
British settlements at the time in Alaska consisted of a few scattered trading outposts, with most settlers arriving by sea. Captain James Cook, midway through his third and final voyage of exploration in 1778, sailed along the west coast of North America aboard HMS Resolution, from then-Spanish California all the way to the Bering Strait. During the trip he discovered what became known as Cook Inlet in Alaskan waters. The Bering Strait proved to be impassable, although the Resolution and its companion ship HMS Discovery made several attempts to sail through it. The British ships left the straits to return to Hawaii in 1779.Cook's expedition spurred the British to increase their sailings along the northwest coast, following in the wake of the Spanish. From 1791 to 1795, Vancouver would lead his own expedition to map the Pacific coastline from the Cook Inlet down to Spanish California. Alaska-based posts owned by the Hudson's Bay Company operated at Fort Yukon, on the Yukon River, Fort Durham at the mouth of the Taku River, and Fort Stikine, near the mouth of the Stikine River.
19th century
Later Russian settlement and the Russian-American Company (1799–1867)
In 1799, Shelikhov's son-in-law, Nikolay Petrovich Rezanov, acquired a monopoly on the American fur trade from emperor Paul I and formed the Russian-American Company. As part of the deal, the emperor expected the company to establish new settlements in Alaska and carry out an expanded colonization program.By 1804, Alexander Baranov, now manager of the Russian–American Company, had consolidated the company's hold on the American fur trade following his victory over the local Tlingit clan at the Battle of Sitka. Despite these efforts the Russians never fully colonized Alaska. The Russian monopoly on trade was also being weakened by the Hudson's Bay Company, which set up a post on the southern edge of Russian America in 1833.
In 1818 management of the Russian-American Company was turned over to the Imperial Russian Navy and the Ukase of 1821 banned foreigners from participating in the Alaskan economy. It soon entered into the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1825 which allowed British merchants to trade in Alaska. The convention also settled most of the border between Alaska and British North America.
The Russo-American Treaty of 1824, which banned American merchants above 54° 40' north latitude, was widely ignored and the Russians' hold on Alaska weakened further.
At the height of Russian America, the Russian population reached 700.
Although the mid–19th century was not a good time for Russians in Alaska, conditions improved for the coastal Alaska Natives who had survived contact. The Tlingits were never conquered and continued to wage war on the Russians into the 1850s. The Aleuts, though faced with a decreasing population in the 1840s, ultimately rebounded.