or Kolosh Ryeku.

On the morning of September 28th the Russian ships moved to a point opposite the village, the “Neva” being towed by a hundred bidarkas. The Sitkans abandoned their village and the fort on the hill and withdrew to the stronger fortification near the river. Baranof landed a force and occupied the kekoor, planted cannon on the top, then opened negotiations for the surrender of the other fort, but his overtures were rejected by the Indians.

The ships were brought near the river fort and the cannon were trained on it. The fort was built of thick logs in the shape of an irregular square, with portholes on the side next the sea, and inside the breast works were 14 barabaras, or native houses.

The walls were of such thickness that the cannon shot from the “Neva” made but little impression on the structure. Baranof was impatient and urged an attack. Reinforcements were landed from the ships under command of Lieutenants Arbusof and Polavishin. The hunters, sailors, and Aleuts flung themselves against the fortifications, but meeting a murderous fire were driven back in disorder and only saved from disaster by the protection of the fire of the ships. Ten men were killed and 26 wounded, and among the wounded was Baranof.

Captain Lisianski then took command and moved his ships nearer the shore. A canoe with reinforcements and a supply of powder for the Indians approached among the islands but a shot from the “Neva” struck it, the powder exploded, and the Indians who were saved from the wreck were taken on board the Russian ship. The bombardment was steadily continued until the 6th of October, when the Kolosh proposed to surrender, and a parley was held, but during the night they evacuated the fort and went over the mountains to the north. In the fort were left the bodies of 30 warriors and also the bodies of five children who had been killed to prevent their cries making the retreat known to the Russians. The only remaining survivors were two old women and a little boy. A few straggling warriors remained lurking about, seeking revenge, and a few days later they killed eight Aleuts who were fishing on Jamestown Bay.

How the Kolosh went over the mountains was long a mystery to the Russians. They reached the shore of Peril Strait and crossing to the north shore placed a fort near the entrance to Sitkoh Bay which was stronger than their old fort at Indian River and where over 1,000 people gathered. A tradition among the old Indians says that the fugitives first went to Old Sitka, then over the mountains to the northeastern side of the island. On the way they suffered extremely from fatigue and hunger, and one Sitka Indian who lives on Peril Strait relates that his father was a child at the time of the exodus. His father carried him till exhausted, when he abandoned him, and his mother then took him up and carried him the remainder of the way.

The property left in the fort by the Kolosh was taken out, the fortification was burned and the canoes on the beach were broken to pieces. There was enough remaining of the structure that some of the remains of the foundation may yet be seen in the forest which has sprung up around it in the Indian River Park, although more than a century has since elapsed.

Sitka in 1805–From Lisianski’s Voyage.

Then began the restoration of the post, on the present site of Sitka, and with energy and despatch the building of a new Russian settlement proceeded. Around the kekoor the native houses were removed, and along with them more than a hundred burial houses with the ashes of the bodies which had been burned. The great tribal houses, or barabaras, as they are called in the Russian accounts, were spacious, some measuring 50 feet in width and 80 feet in length.^[2] In their place rose the town of New Archangel (Novo Arkangelsk,) and on the kekoor was built a redoubt. This was the official name and generally recognized by the Russians, but the name Sitka was early used by them. Baranof frequently used the term Sitka in his letters, and in the letter of the Minister of Finance to the Minister of Marine, from St. Petersburg, April 9, 1820, Sitka is used in several places. The name Sitka, or Sheetkah, in the Thlingit language, means, in this place, that this is the place, or the best place, implying superiority over all other places.

All winter there was cutting of logs in the forest and by the spring of 1805 there were eight substantial buildings, the space for 15 kitchen gardens had been cleared, the livestock brought on the ships were thriving, and an air of prosperity pervaded the place.^[3] Surveys of the harbor were made by Captain Lisianski who also made the first ascent of Mt. Edgecumbe, and who then sailed for Kronstadt, Russia, by the way of Canton, with a cargo of furs for the China trade valued at 450,000 rubles.^[4]

CHAPTER III
PROGRESS OF THE COLONY

The courtly Chamberlain of the Tsar, Nicholas P. Resanof, son-in-law of Shelikof who was the founder of the first Russian colony in America, came to Sitka in 1805, via Petropavlovsk, Siberia, on the “Nadeshda,” one of the first Russian ships to circumnavigate the world, and was a special representative of the Russian American Company, of which organization he was one of the founders.

In his report to the Company he tells us: “The fort is on the high hill, or kekoor, on a peninsula in the gulf. On the left side of the kekoor close on the peninsula is built an immense barracks with two projecting blockhouses or towers. All the building is made from mast timber from the top to the foundation, under which is a cellar. Besides this building are two warehouses, a material magazine and two cellars, also two large sheds for storing food, and under the sheds are the quarters for the workmen. On the side opposite the fort is a shed for storing cargo, at the right side is the kitchen, bath, and quarters for the servants of the Company, clerks, etc., and on the shore are the blacksmith shops and other workshops. On the top of the kekoor is a building five sazhens^[5] long and three sazhens wide, with two rooms. In one I live, and in the other there are two shipmasters. There are still some old Kolosh yourts, in which live the kayours and the Kodiak Americans (Aleuts, they are generally called).^[6]

“Our guns are always loaded, everywhere are sentinels with loaded arms, and in the rooms of each of us arms constitute the greater part of the furniture. All the night the signals from