Archaeology and the Capitalist World System: A Study from Russian AmericaHistory has many voices. In the words of Russian fur merchant Grigorii Shelikhov, who led the conquest of Kodiak Island, Alaska, in 1784 and sought to subjugate its indigenous Qikertarmiut population, "the arrival of the Russians in their land had brought them innumerable advantages, security, and prosperity" (Shelikhov 1981:121). Arsenti Aminak, a Qiker- tarmiut elder in 1851, held a different view. He recalled a Russian ship that visited the island several years before Shelikhov as a "strange monster, never seen before, which we feared and whose stench made us sick. " In 1784, the dead of his people lay on the beach at a place called A'wauq- meaning "to become numb" -where hundreds had been killed by Skeli- khov's cannon and muskets (Holmberg 1985:57-59). The Russian hunters who built the Shelikhov-Golikov Company's first outpost on Kodiak Is- land, at a small cove they called Gavan Trekh Svetitelei (as commonly translated, "Three Saints Harbor"), recalled their own miseries and de- spair: "We . . . spent the winter in ceaseless labors and . . . suffered great shortages and real famine . . . . Many contracted fever, scurvy, and other ills, and died" (Pierce 1976:75). Eyewitness statements about what happened on Kodiak Island dur- ing the Russian conquest and early years of colonial rule are important, but rare. They represent the experiences and views of a few individuals who lived through a time of turbulent change and traumatic contact between disparate cultures. |
Contents
History and Archaeology 235 | 2 |
Ethnicity and Culture Change in New World Colonial Societies | 16 |
Three Saints Harbor through the Lens of History | 31 |
Copyright | |
8 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Archaeology and the Capitalist World System: A Study from Russian America Aron L. Crowell Limited preview - 2013 |
Archaeology and the Capitalist World System: A Study from Russian America Aron L. Crowell No preview available - 2013 |
Archaeology and the Capitalist World System: A Study from Russian America Aron L. Crowell No preview available - 2013 |
Common terms and phrases
Alaska Native Aleutian Alutiiq archaeological Artel artifacts assemblages beach blue bone brick brown building century ceramics charcoal Chinese Clark cobbles Cook copper Cornaline d'Aleppo Crowell Delarov Dena'ina deposits diameter drawn beads dwellings earthenware ethnic European excavation expedition faunal Figure fish floor Fort Ross fragments fur trade glass beads gravel ground slate hearth Historical Archaeology hostages Illiuliuk imported indigenous Irkutsk iron Kachemak Knecht Kodiak archipelago Kodiak Island Kolmakovskiy layer López de Haro manufacture mica midden musketball nails North Okhotsk Pavlovsk Gavan peat porcelain prehistoric Prince William Sound production promyshlenniki Qikertarmiut rock Ross Russian America Russian colonial Russian-American Company sand Sarychev Sauer sea otter semisubterranean settlement Shelikhov sherds Siberia Sitkalidak stone Stratigraphic Structure supply surface Three Saints Bay Three Saints Harbor tion trench types Unangam VanStone Variety village Voronin wall whale workers world system wound beads