“Caroline” spoke the ship “Hancock,” the ship “Despatch,” the ship “Ulysses,” and the ship “Eliza,” all of Boston; and the English ship “Cheerful,” all trading for furs among the Sitkan Islands.

The Russians, in their colony on Kodiak Island, were jealous of the intruders on what they considered as their domain. Gregory Shelikof, a Siberian merchant, one of the wealthiest and most far seeing of the leaders among the Aleutian Islands, conceived the plan of combining the whole of the fur trade in one great monopoly. In pursuance of this policy he secured a charter from Emperor Paul in 1799, under the name of the Russian American Company, which gave the exclusive right to all profits to be derived from every form of resource in the Russian possessions in America for a period of twenty years. To the management of his business in the Colony he established on Kodiak Island he appointed Alexander Andreevich Baranof, a Siberian trader of great ability and experience. Baranof, the wise and far-seeing Russian ruler of the Russian American Company, at his factory in St. Paul’s Harbor on Kodiak Island, had long planned the extension of his settlements to the southeast. The sea-otter catch of the Russians was made by brigades of Aleuts from the western islands, who went along the shores and to sea as far as 20 miles, in their wonderful skin boats called bidarkas, to hunt. When a sea-otter lifted its head from the water to breathe, within sight of a detachment of Aleut hunters, its fate was sealed, for it seldom escaped.

The passages between the islands about Sitka were called the “Straits” by the Russians, and in them the sea-otter skins were taken by the thousands. It was not unusual for a Russian hunting party consisting of a hundred bidarkas to take on one expedition 2,000 skins of the Morski bobrov, as they called the sea-otter.

The animals were becoming scarce in the seas about the western islands and Baranof was compelled to replenish his trade by the catch of the southeastern waters. In 1795 he sent one of his ships as far south as the Queen Charlotte Islands and it visited Sitka on the way. Two thousand skins were secured by the hunters while on this voyage. In the same year Baranof himself paid Sitka a visit, coming through the strait from the north in his little schooner “Olga,” a 40-foot boat, and he named the passage for his craft as Olga Strait. On the shore near his anchorage he erected a cross; the bay he named Krestof Bay, and he then selected the locality of his future settlement.

In the spring of 1799, Baranof sent orders to the toyons, or chiefs, of the tribes on the islands around Kodiak to assemble the hunters. Five hundred and fifty bidarkas, each manned by from two to three Aleut paddlers, came in answer to his call, and with two convoying ships he set sail for Sitka Sound. On July 7th he landed at a bay six miles north of the present town of Sitka, purchased a tract of land from Skayeutlelt, a local chief, and began the construction of a post which he named redoubt St. Michael. The building was done under great difficulties. Rain fell incessantly. There were but thirty Russian workmen as most of the Aleuts returned to Kodiak, hunting as they went. Of the men who remained ten had to stand guard constantly, for the Thlingits were not to be trusted. Barracks, storehouses, quarters for the commanding officer, were constructed; a bath house also, for the Russian must have his bath, and the whole was surrounded by a stockade and strengthened by blockhouses. Their troubles were not all with the elements, for during the winter the scarcity of provision and other causes brought scurvy to add to their discomfort. Their food was mostly yuhali (dried salmon), but during the winter the hunters took 40 sea-lions, and in the spring many seals were killed in the bay by the Aleuts.

The natives, called Thlingits at the present, were known as the Kolosh by the Russians. They were divided among themselves in their feelings toward the new settlers in their midst. Some looked with extreme disfavor upon the establishment, while others were friendly. The young and turbulent warriors were hostile. A messenger was sent to invite them to a prasdnik (holiday) at the fort. He was taken prisoner by them and detained until Baranof landed in their midst with an armed force and demanded his release, when they set him free and ridiculed the incident. At a dance at the fort many of the Kolosh came with long knives concealed under their cloaks. Their treachery was detected and their design frustrated. The courage and caution of Baranof held them in check until spring when he departed for Kodiak, leaving strict instructions as to the precautions to be observed during his absence. After his departure the discipline grew more lax and the Kolosh became more bold. The watchful savages at last saw an opportunity to rid themselves of their new neighbors.

On a June day of 1802, the exact date is not recorded, a horde of painted savages burst from the forest, clad in all the paraphernalia of war masks and barbaric armour. A fleet of war canoes landed warriors on the beach in front of the redoubt. In the attack that followed the stockade and buildings were reduced to smoking ruins, the magazines were robbed of rich stores of furs, most of the defenders died on the spears of the Kolosh or were tortured till death relieved their sufferings, and the women and children were made slaves. Skayeutlelt, the false friend of Baranof, directed the battle from a nearby knoll and his nephew, Katlean, was one of the principal actors in the bloody tragedy. A few survivors who were hunting in their bidarkas or were in the forest, escaped to the ships of the English and American traders which were in the bay.

Captain Ebbetts on an American ship and Captain Barber of the British ship “Myrtle” were in the harbor. Some of the survivors on reaching these ships asked them to rescue their countrymen. Captain Ebbetts ransomed several prisoners, but Captain Barber adopted a more effective course. Chief Katlean and Chief Skayeutlelt came on board his ship to trade. He at once put them in irons and threatened to hang them to the yardarm of the ship if the captives remaining in the hands of the natives, and also the plundered sea-otter skins, were not immediately surrendered to him. The threat was effective, the greater part of the sea-otter furs and several captives were brought on the ship and delivered to him. He then took the ransomed captives from the other ship and sailed for Kodiak, where he demanded a ransom of 50,000 rubles from Baranof for the captives. The ransom was later reduced to 10,000 rubles which was paid by Mr. Baranof.

Two years passed before much is again known of Sitka. English and American captains sailed their ships into the harbor and gathered the furs which Baranof had endeavored to garner in the storehouses of the Russian American Company. In the summer of 1804 Baranof gathered a force at Kodiak with which to cross the Gulf of Alaska to re-establish his post. There were one hundred and fifty bearded promyshileniks, or fur hunters, and over 500 Aleuts in their skin bidarkas. With him were the ships “Alexander,” “Ekaterina,” “Yermak,” and “Rostislaf.” When they reached Sitka they found there Captain Lisianski of the Imperial Russian Navy, with the ship “Neva,” one of the first Russians to circle the globe, and who came to help to recapture the post.

The Indian village of Sitka was almost in the same place as the present town, grouped around the Baranof hill which was called by the Russians a kekoor. On the top of the kekoor was a redoubt, and a stronger fort was near the mouth of the Indian River,