This was the beginning of an era of brutal outrage, murder and robbery of the at first peaceably inclined natives, which continued for more than half a century, and until they were completely subdued and made the helpless slaves of their Russian taskmaster, the Russian American Company.

In 1777 Grigor Shelikoff, a Siberian merchant and the founder of the first Russian colony in Alaska, sent out his first expedition. This and subsequent ventures were so profitable that in 1778 a company of Siberian merchants was organized, with Shelikoff and Golikoff as principal shareholders, with a view to enlarged operations in the Alaska fur trade. Three ships were built at Okhotsk, and, sailing late in the fall of that year, wintered at Bering Island, whence they sailed the following June for Unalaska, stopping at some of the intervening islands. At Unalaska, the ships having been beached and repaired, they took on board interpreters and a number of Aleutian hunters, and, again directing their course to the eastward, on the 3rd of August, 1784, cast anchor in what has ever since been known as Three Saints Bay, Kadiak Island. Here the natives, remembering the brutal treatment to which they had been subjected by members of former expeditions, refused all peaceful overtures, and several bloody bat

tles ensued, in which the Russians, though far inferior in numbers, were the victors. The natives were unaccustomed to the guns with which the Russians were armed, and against which they had nothing to oppose except spears, which were wholly ineffective against the longer range of the Russian muskets. Shelikoff claimed to have killed several hundred natives and captured more than a thousand prisoners before being able to effect a permanent landing, but this claim was no doubt a great exaggeration. It is not disputed, however, that he captured some two hundred young native women, whom he held as hostages for the continued peaceable behavior of their kindred.

Here, as speedily as possible after effecting a landing, Shelikoff erected fortifications, built store houses, magazines and dwellings, and thus established the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska. Gardens were planted, and a school opened, in which Shelikoff himself and his wife, who had accompanied him, were the teachChildren and adults were taught the Russian language, given the lessons of a primary education, and more especially instructed in the first principles of the orthodox faith.

ers.

From here parties were sent out to explore the coast of the island, Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound, all of whom on their return were

sent to Karluk for the winter on account of the scarcity of provisions in the settlement and the plentiful supply of salmon to be had at that place. Trading posts were established on Afognak Island, in Cook Inlet and at Cape St. Elias, and then Shelikoff returned to Siberia, taking with him a number of adult natives and children, the latter to be educated.

A Spanish expedition sailing from San Blas, under command of Juan Cuadra, planted the cross at some point near Salisbury Sound-either on Kruzoff or Chichagoff Island-in July, 1775, thus assuming to take possession of the country in the name of the Spanish monarch.

In the summer of 1778 the gallant and intrepid Captain James Cook, with the ships Resolution and Discovery, sailed along the Alaskan coast and gave to many of the prominent bays, capes, mountains, inlets and islands the names they still bear-Mount Edgcumbe, Cross Sound, Cape Suckling, Mount Fairweather, Comptroller Bay, Cape Hinchinbrook, Prince William Sound, being of the number. He sought shelter with his ships, and to repair a leak, in what is now known as Port Etches, and next anchored in Snug Corner Cove, Prince William Sound, where he held his first intercourse with the natives, whom he found rather bold and unacquainted with firearms, which fact he accepted as conclusive proof

that no white men had previously visited that part of Alaska. He next rounded and named Cape Elizabeth, sailed up the inlet which bears his name under the impression that he had either entered the mouth of a great river or had found the then long-sought-for "northwest passage" from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and from the East Foreland sent boats to examine Turnagain Arm and Kaknu River, and formally took possession of the country in the name of his sovereign, though he must have known from the evidence afforded by articles of European make found in the possession of the natives that others had preceded him. This formal ceremony he repeated at the mouth of the Kuskoquim River, after having sailed from Cook Inlet south through Shelikoff Strait, past Afognak, Kadiak, and the Shumagin Islands and making his way through Unalga Pass into Bering Sea. From the mouth of the Kuskoquim he sailed northwest past Nunivak, Sledge and King Islands through Bering Strait to Icy Cape, so named by himself. From there he returned to Norton Sound, thence to Ounalaska, where he made repairs and interchange of courtesies with the Russians who were then at Captain's Harbor, thence sailing to the Sandwich Islands, where he was killed by the natives.

In 1779 a second Spanish expedition, fitted

out in Mexico, entered Bucarelli Sound, Prince of Wales Island, and took formal possession in the name of the King of Spain by the planting of a cross, waving of flags and firing of cannon. This expedition surveyed and charted the Sound, but made no new discoveries of value.

Subsequent to the founding of the settlement of Three Saints by Shelikoff and the establishment of the auxiliary trading posts, of which mention has been made, several expeditions sailed along the coast and among the islands, trading wherever possible with the natives, much to the annoyance and discomfiture of Shelikoff and his partners, who feared that the invasion might not only seriously impair their own trade, but finally ruin it entirely. They finally invoked the protection of the imperial government and in 1788 were granted a charter giving to their company exclusive control of the islands and mainland of Alaska actually occupied by them, and in 1790 Alexander Baranoff was sent to Kadiak as their chief manager.

May 2, 1788, one of Shelikoff's vessels landed at Nuchek, where the commander erected a wooden cross, at the foot of which he buried a copper plate engraved with an inscription claiming the country as Russian territory. He then proceeded along the coast, erecting other crosses and burying other copper plates, the latter each