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Alaska

The history of Alaska dates back to around 14,000 BC

It is believed that Alaska was first inhabited by Siberian groups of Paleolithic families who crossed from Russia and moved into northwestern North America during the Upper Paleolithic period, across the Bering land bridge, an extension of land that at one time connected Asia with North America in Alaska. Alaska became populated by the Inuit and a variety of other Native American groups. Today, early Alaskans are divided into several main groups: the Southeastern Coastal Indians (the Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian), the Aleut, the Athabascans, 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 their 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 (which are now named Haida Gwaii and part of British Columbia). The Aleuts settled the islands of the Aleutian chain approximately 10,000 years ago. Cultural and other practices varied widely among the diverse native groups, who were spread across vast geographical distances. At the time of European contact by the Russian explorers, this area was populated by these Alaskan Native groups. The name "Alaska" derives from the Aleut word Alaxsxaq (also spelled Alyeska), meaning "mainland."

The first European settlers arrived in 1741; a group of Russian explorers led by one Vitus Bering, a Danish adventurer who had discovered the Bering Strait in 1728.

On some islands and parts of the Alaskan peninsula, groups of traders had been 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, eighty percent of the Aleut population was destroyed by Old World diseases against which they had no immunity, during the first two generations of Russian contact. (Not much different that the fairing of Native Americans on the American east coast after their initial introduction to, and interaction with, other European immigrants.)

Spanish claims to Alaska dated to the papal bull of 1493, but never involved colonization, forts, or settlements. Instead there were various naval expeditions to explore the region and 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 northern-most point obtained by Spain. In 1788, Esteban José Martínez and Gonzalo López de Haro visited Russian settlements at Unalaska.

The Russian Orthodox church had been informally introduced, in the 1740's – 1780's, by the fur traders. During his settlement of Three Saints Bay in 1784, Shelikov introduced the first resident missionaries and clergymen. This missionary activity would continue into the 19^th century, ultimately becoming the most visible trace of the Russian colonial period in contemporary Alaska.

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 came to be known as Cook Inlet in Alaska. The Bering Strait proved to be impassable, although the Resolution and its companion ship HMS Discovery made several attempts to sail through it. The 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. Alaska-based posts owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, operated at Fort Yukon, on the Yukon River, Fort Durham (aka Fort Taku) at the mouth of the Taku River, and Fort Stikine, near the mouth of the Stikine River (associated with Wrangell throughout the early 19^th century).

In 1784, Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov arrived at Three Saints Bay on Kodiak Island, operating the Shelikhov-Golikov Company. Shelikhov and his men killed hundreds of indigenous Koniag, then founded the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska at the island's Three Saints Bay. By 1788, a number of Russian settlements had been established by Shelikhov and others 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 those of sea otters on the Pacific Northwest Coast and California. The Russians advanced to the Northwest Coast only after the superior varieties of sea otters were depleted, around 1788. The Russian entry to the Northwest Coast was slow, however, due to a shortage of ships and sailors. Yakutat Bay was reached in 1794 and the settlement Slavorossiya was built there in 1795. Reconnaissance of the coast as far as the Queen Charlotte Islands was carried out by James Shields, a British employee of the Golikov-Shelikhov Company. In 1795 Alexander Baranov, who had been hired in 1790 to manage Shelikhov's fur enterprise, sailed into Sitka Sound, claiming 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.

The Nootka Crisis of 1789 almost led to a war between Britain and Spain, when Britain rejected Spanish claims to lands in British Columbia and Spain seized some British ships. The crisis was resolved by the Nootka Convention, which provided that the northwest coast would be open to traders from both Britain and Spain, that the captured British ships would be returned and an indemnity paid. It was 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.

In 1799, Shelikhov's son-in-law, Nikolay Petrovich Rezanov, acquired a monopoly on the American fur trade from Czar Paul I and formed the Russian-American Company. As part of the deal, the Tsar expected the company to establish new settlements in Alaska and carry out an expanded colonization program. In July 1799 Baranov returned on the brig Oryol and established the settlement of Arkhangelsk. It was destroyed by Tlingits in 1802 but rebuilt nearby in 1804 and given the name Novo-Arkhangelsk (New Archangel). It soon become the primary settlement and colonial capital of Russian America. After the Alaska Purchase, it was renamed Sitka, the first capital of the Alaska Territory. 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. At the height of Russian America, the Russian population reached 700. 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 (In Imperial Russia, a ukase was a proclamation of the tsar that had the force of law, such as an edict or decree in Roman law). The Russo-American Treaty of 1824, which banned American merchants above 54° 40' north latitude, was widely ignored and the Russian hold on Alaska weakened further. 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 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.

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 1850's. The Aleuts, though faced with a decreasing population in the 1840's, ultimately rebounded. Financial difficulties in Russia, the desire to keep Alaska out of British hands, and the low profits of trade with Alaskan settlements all contributed to Russia's willingness to sell its possessions in North America. At the instigation of U.S. Secretary of State William Seward, the United States Senate approved the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million, or about two cents an acre. This purchase was popularly known in the U.S. as "Seward's Folly." At the time, Alaska was thught to be a useless, barren land, but when oil and gold were discovered in the late 19^th century, Alaska flourished and a genuine "colonial economy" developed.

When Alaska was first purchased, most of its land remained unexplored. In 1865, Western Union laid a telegraph line across Alaska to the Bering Strait where it would connect, under water, with an Asian line. It also conducted the first scientific studies of the region and produced the first map of the entire Yukon River. The first commercial salmon cannery was built at Klawock in 1878. The Alaska Commercial Company and the military also contributed to the growing exploration of Alaska in the last decades of the 19^th century, building trading posts along the interior's many rivers.

The United States flag was raised on October 18, 1867, now called Alaska Day, and the region changed from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.

During the Department era, from 1867 to 1884, Alaska was variously under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army (until 1877), the United States Department of the Treasury from 1877 to 1879, and the U.S. Navy from 1879 to 1884. Civil administration of Alaska began in 1877 under the United States Treasury Department. A Collector of Customs was appointed by the President of the United States. The Collector was the highest-ranking official of the United States government in Alaska and de facto Governor. Henry C, DeAhna, a former Union Army Officer and Mottrom D. Ball, a former Confederate Army officer, were the first individuals to serve as Collector of Customs.

In 1884, the region was organized and the name was changed from the Department of Alaska to the District of Alaska. At the time, legislators in Washington, D.C., were pre-occupied with post-Civil War reconstruction issues, and had little time to devote to Alaska. John H. Kinkead was named as Governor, Sitka remaining the capital city. In 1896, the discovery of gold in the Klondike Basin of the Canadian Yukon, brought many thousands of miners and new settlers to Alaska, and very quickly ended the nation's four year economic depression. Although it was uncertain at the time whether gold would also be found in Alaska, Alaska greatly profited because it was situated along the easiest transportation route to the Yukon goldfields. Numerous new cities, such as Skagway, Alaska, owe their existence to a gold rush in Canada. Gold was discovered at Nome in 1899 and at Fairbanks in 1902.

No history of Alaska would be complete without mention of Soapy Smith, known today as "Alaska's Outlaw," the crime boss con man who operated the largest criminal empire in gold rush era Alaska, until he was shot down by vigilantes in the famed Shootout on Juneau Wharf on July 8, 1898.

By the turn of the 20^th century, a movement pushing for Alaska statehood began, but in the contiguous 48 states, legislators were worried that Alaska's population was too sparse, distant, and isolated, and its economy was too unstable for it to be a worthwhile addition to the United States.

When Congress passed the Second Organic Act in 1912, Alaska was reorganized as a territory, and renamed the Territory of Alaska. By 1916, its population was about 58,000. James Wickersham, a Delegate to Congress, introduced Alaska's first statehood bill, but it failed due to the small population and lack of interest from Alaskans. Under the conditions of the Second Organic Act, Alaska had been split into four divisions. The most populous of the divisions, whose capital was Juneau, wondered if it could become a separate state from the other three. Government control was a primary concern, with the territory having 52 federal agencies governing it.

Then, in 1920, the Jones Act required U.S.-flagged vessels to be built in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens, and documented under the laws of the United States. All goods entering or leaving Alaska had to be transported by American carriers and shipped to Seattle prior to further shipment, making Alaska dependent on Washington state. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the provision of the Constitution saying one state should not hold sway over another's commerce did not apply because Alaska was only a territory. The prices Seattle shipping businesses charged began to rise to take advantage of the situation. This situation created an atmosphere of enmity among Alaskans who watched the wealth being generated by their labors flowing into the hands of Seattle businesses.

The Depression caused prices of fish and copper, vital to Alaska's economy at the time, to decline. Wages dropped and the workforce decreased by more than half. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt thought Americans from agricultural areas could be transferred to Alaska's Matanuska-Susitna Valley for a fresh chance at agricultural self-sustainment. Colonists were largely from northern states, such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota under the belief that only those who grew up with climates similar to that of Alaska's could handle settler's life there.

In 1942, two of the outer Aleutian Islands, Attu and Kiska, were occupied by the Japanese for 15 months during World War II. They were the only parts of the continental United States to be invaded and occupied by an enemy nation during the war. Their recovery for the U.S. became a matter of national pride. World War II and the Japanese invasion highlighted Alaska's strategic importance, and the issue of statehood was taken more seriously, but it was the discovery of oil at Swanson River on the Kenai Peninsula that dispelled the image of Alaska as a weak, dependent region. In 1942, the Alaska–Canada Military Highway was completed, in part to form an overland supply route to the Soviet Union on the other side of the Bering Strait. Running from Great Falls, Montana, to Fairbanks, the road was the first stable link between Alaska and the rest of America. The construction of military bases, such as the Adak base, contributed to the population growth of some Alaskan cities. Anchorage almost doubled in size

Alaska was granted U.S. statehood on January 3, 1959. Juneau, the territorial capital, continued as state capital, and William A. Egan was sworn in as the first governor.

The 1968 discovery of oil at the North Slope's Prudhoe Bay led to an oil boom. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline was completed in 1977 at a total cost of $8 billion. The pipeline allowed an oil bonanza to take shape. Per capita incomes rose throughout the state, with virtually every community benefiting. State leaders were determined that this boom would not end like the fur and gold booms, in an economic bust as soon as the resource had disappeared. In 1976, the state's constitution was amended to establish the Alaska Permanent Fund, in which a quarter of all mineral lease proceeds is invested. Income from the fund is used to pay annual dividends to all residents who qualify, to increase the fund's principal as a hedge against inflation, and to provide funds for the state legislature

Oil production was not the only economic value of Alaska's land, however. In the second half of the 20^th century, Alaska discovered tourism as an important source of revenue. Tourism became popular after World War II, when military personnel stationed in the region returned home praising its natural splendor. The Alcan Highway, built during the war, and the Alaska Marine Highway System, completed in 1963, made the state more accessible than before. Tourism became increasingly important in Alaska, and today over 1.4 million people visit Alaska each year.

With tourism's importance to the economy, environmentalism also became more vital. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) of 1980 added 53.7 million acres to the National Wildlife Refuge system, parts of 25 rivers to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers system, 3.3 million acres to National Forest lands, and 43.6 million acres to National Park land. Because of the Act, Alaska now contains two-thirds of all American national parklands. Today, more than half of Alaskan land is owned by the federal government and the battle between philosophies of development and conservation is seen in the contentious debate over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.