Alaska, our great state, has an amazing history. We put a little of Alaska's history timeline down here for you to share in it also.
At some point between 1732 and 1741 a Russian expedition under Mikhail Gvozdev is said to have sighted or landed on Alaska.
In 1743 Russian hunters began hunting in Aleutians.
Between 1763-1766 conflict erupts between Russian fur hunters and Unalaska Natives in which Unangan
(Aleuts) destroy four Russian ships and kill 175 hunters. Solov’ev returned to
Unalaska and directed the massacre of many Natives.
Captain James Cook left Great Britain on his third major expedition for the North Pacific. He maped much of the southern coast of Alaska in 1778. His crew traded for sea otter pelts with Alaska Natives and sold the furs at Canton, China, on their journey home in 1779.
Between 1796 and 1799 the Russian-American Company was established. Unalaska became a major station.
In 1805 the Tlingit attacked and destroyed the Russian post at New Russia (Yakutat) that had been established in 1796. The Russians did not reestablish a post at the site.
In 1867 Russia signed a treaty with the United States selling Alaska.
American administration began October 18th. The treaty refered to “inhabitants of the ceded territory” and “uncivilized tribes”. The “inhabitants” were to be citizens. The treaty stated, “The uncivilized tribes will be subject to such laws and regulations as the United States may, from time to time, adopt in regard to aboriginal tribes in that country”.
In 1877, Presbyterian missionary Amanda McFarland opened the first school for Native girls at Fort Wrangell in Southeast Alaska.
In 1878 the first salmon canneries were established at Klawock and Sitka in Southeast Alaska.
1880 has the U.S. Navy officials at Sitka designate Native men in several Southeast Alaska communities as police to help administer U.S. laws.
In 1882 after villagers took hostages and demanded payment for the accidental death of a Tlingit leader employed by a whaling company, in response the U.S. Navy shelled the Southeast Alaska village of Angoon (Kootznahoo), then burned the houses and canoes. The U.S. Government settled the claims for the destruction 89 years later, in 1973, for $90,000.
Native languages were disallowed in public schools in 1886. Also in 1886, in re Sah Quah, the federal Alaska District Court rejects sovereign authority of a group of Tlingit people to maintain the practice of slavery.
1892 has the Tsimshian from Metlakatla build a sawmill at Gravina. It is reported as the first business built, managed, and operated by Alaska Native people. The sawmill operated until destroyed by fire in 1904.
In 1893 Pitka Pavalof and Sergei Gologoff Cherosky, Creoles of Russian-Native descent, found gold on Birch Creek in Interior Alaska. Learning of the discovery, prospectors jumped their claims and argue the claims are invalid because the men are Natives. The discovery attracted more non-Natives to the Yukon River and
the town of Circle was founded.
In 1896 George Carmack, Skookum Jim Mason, and Tagish Charley Mason found gold on
Rabbit Creek (renamed Bonanza Creek) in Canada. When word of the discovery
reaches San Francisco and Seattle in the summer of 1897, the Klondike gold rush
starts. Subsequently, many gold discoveries are made around Alaska and a number of settlements in Interior Alaska are created among them Eagle,
Fairbanks, Ruby, and Iditarod.
The U.S. Army started constructing a trail in 1899, called the Trans-Alaska Military Road,
from a year-round open port in Southcentral Alaska (Valdez/Fort Liscum) to the Yukon River near the Alaska-Canada border (Eagle/Fort Egbert). Parts of the trail were Native travel routes.
In 1905, the new Alaska Road Commission constructed a spur road from Gulkana to the new mining camp of Fairbanks. The Valdez-Fairbanks route (later named the Richardson Highway) was Alaska’s principal road until the 1940s.
In 1899 Congress amended the Customs Acts of 1868 and 1879 to allow trapping fur-bearing animals by non-Natives.
“The Great Sickness”, an influenza and measles epidemic, kills at least 2,000 Native people living around Norton Sound and in Southwestern Alaska and an epidemic causes the death of one-third of the population of Unalaska in 1900.
Congress passed the Alaska Game Law in 1902, assigning protection of Alaska’s mammals to the U.S. Bureau of Biological Survey (later merged with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries to become the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service). An exemption allowed Natives to kill game animals and birds for fur and clothing, but restricts them from shipping or selling them except for the hides. The game law passed by Congress in 1908 reaffirms the exemption. Also in 1902, a gold strike led to the founding of Fairbanks. It became the largest community in Interior Alaska. A number of Athabaskan people moved to
Fairbanks for jobs.
In 1904 Native people used the first fish wheels on the Tanana River to catch salmon.
In 1905 Congress passed the Nelson Act that among other things, funds roads, education, and care for the mentally ill in Alaska. The legislation stated the funds for education were for schools for “white children and those of mixed blood who lead a civilized life”. This resulted in a second school system; Alaska had the U.S. Bureau of Education (later Bureau of Indian Affairs) schools created by the Organic Act of 1884 that become known as Native schools, and Territorial (later State) schools. This dual system operated into the 1980s.
Congress created in 1907, the Tongass and Chugach national forests, incorporating into them earlier federal land reservations. The forests encompass most of Southeast and Southcentral Alaska.
In 1908 three Native families in Sitka went to court seeking permission for their children
to attend the territorial school in town. The judge determined in the case
known as Davis v. Sitka School Board the families did not “lead a civilized life”,
and hence, did not permit the children to enroll in the territorial school.
In 1912 Congress passed the Second Organic Act providing for a legislature and
designated Alaska a Territory. The legislature passed laws addressing
citizenship, voting, and education among other issues, that affected the Native
people.
August 24, 1912 Sea-otter hunting was stopped by U.S. law.
Four men in 1913, including Walter Harper, an Athabaskan, make the first successful
ascent of Mt. McKinley/Denali’s south peak, the highest point on the North
American continent. The other members were Hudson Stuck, Harry Karstens and
Robert Tatum. Also in 1913,William E. "Billy" James and Nels P. Nelson, accompanied by Billy James's long-time companion, Matilda Wales struck gold in what would be the last historic gold rush, in Chisana.
In 1915, the Territorial Legislature passed a law recognizing Native people as Alaska citizens. The law required a Native person to get endorsements from five white citizens and to have “severed all tribal relationships and adapted the habits of a civilized life”.
1920 William L. Paul, a Tlingit, was the first Native admitted to practice law in Alaska. In 1922 after Charlie Jones, a Tlingit, was arrested at Wrangell for voting, and Tillie Paul Tamaree was arrested for aiding and abetting him, a federal court gave Alaska Natives the right to vote in territorial elections, two years before all Native Americans got the right to vote in public elections. Jones was acquitted and the charges against Tamaree were dropped.
Congress passes the Citizenship Act recognizing Native Americans as U.S. citizens in 1924.
In 1927, John Ben “Benny” Benson, a 13-year old Alaska Native from Chignik living at the Jesse Lee Home in Seward, won a contest sponsored by the American Legion to design a flag for the Territory of Alaska.
In 1942 the Japanese bombed Dutch Harbor Naval Air Station and Fort Mears in the eastern Aleutians and occupied the Attu and Kiska islands in the western
Aleutians. The 42 Aleuts on Attu were taken prisoners by the Japanese and
interned in Japan until 1945. After the war, the 27 survivors were not
allowed to return to the island.
In 1942 the Alaska Highway is constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as a wartime project. Construction led to the relocation of many Natives in east central Alaska to communities such as Northway, Tok, and Dot Lake close to the road.
Alaska became the 49th state in 1959.
There is so much history in our great state. We will keep adding to this timeline for all of our sake.