history of Alaska dates back to the Upper Paleolithic period (around 14,000 BC),

when foraging groups crossed the Bering land bridge into what is now western Alaska. At the

time of European contact by the Russian explorers, the area was populated by Alaska
Native groups. The name "Alaska" derives from the Aleut word Alaxsxaq (also spelled Alyeska),
meaning "mainland" (literally, "the object toward which the action of the sea is directed").[1]
The U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867. In the 1890s, gold rushes in Alaska and the
nearby Yukon Territory brought thousands of miners and settlers to Alaska. Alaska was granted
territorial status in 1912 by the United States of America.
In 1942, two of the outer Aleutian Islands—Attu and Kiska—were occupied by the Japanese
during World War II and their recovery for the U.S. became a matter of national pride. The
construction of military bases contributed to the population growth of some Alaskan cities.
Alaska was granted U.S. statehood on January 3, 1959.
In 1964, the massive "Good Friday earthquake" killed 131 people and leveled several villages.
The 1968 discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay and the 1977 completion of the Trans-Alaska
Pipeline led to an oil boom. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez hit a reef in Prince William Sound, spilling
between 11 and 34 million U.S. gallons (42,000 and 130,000 m3) of crude oil over 1,100 miles
(1,600 km) of coastline. Today, the battle between philosophies of development and
conservation is seen in the contentious debate over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge.

Contents

 1Prehistory of Alaska
 218th century
o 2.1Early Russian settlement
 2.1.1Missionary activity
o 2.2Spanish claims
o 2.3Britain's presence
 319th century
o 3.1Later Russian settlement and the Russian-American Company (1799–1867)
o 3.2Alaska purchase
o 3.3The Department of Alaska (1867–1884)
o 3.4District of Alaska (1884–1912)
 420th century
o 4.1Alaska Territory (1912–1959)
 4.1.1World War II
o 4.2Statehood
o 4.3North to the Future
o 4.41968 – present: oil and land politics
 4.4.1Oil discovery, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act(ANCSA), and
the Trans-Alaska Pipeline
 4.4.2Environmentalism, the Exxon Valdez, and ANWR
 5Notable historical figures
 6See also
 7References and further reading
o 7.1Environment
o 7.2Videos
o 7.3Russian era
o 7.4Primary sources
 o 7.5Foreign language books
 8Notes
 9External links

Prehistory of Alaska[edit]

An Inupiaq woman, Nome, Alaska, c. 1907.

Main article: Prehistory of Alaska

Paleolithic families moved into northwestern North America before 10,000 BC across the Bering
land bridge in Alaska (see Settlement of the Americas). Alaska became populated by
the Inuit and a variety of Native American groups. Today, early Alaskans are divided into several
main groups: the Southeastern Coastal Indians (the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian),
the Athabascans, the Aleut, and the two groups of Eskimos, the Inupiat and the Yup'ik.[2]
The coastal migrants from Asia were probably the first wave of humans to cross the Bering land
bridge in western Alaska, and many of them initially settled in the interior of what is now Canada.
The Tlingit were the most numerous of this group, claiming most of the coastal Panhandle by the
time of European contact and are the northernmost of the group of advanced cultures of
the Pacific Northwest Coast renowned for its complex art and political systems and the
ceremonial and legal system known as the potlatch. The southern portion of Prince of Wales
Island was settled by the Haidas fleeing persecution by other Haidas from the Queen Charlotte
Islands (which are now named Haida Gwaii and part of British Columbia). The Aleuts settled the
islands of the Aleutian chain approximately 10,000 years ago.
Cultural and subsistence practices varied widely among native groups, who were spread across
vast geographical distances.

18th century[edit]
Early Russian settlement[edit]

Alexandr Baranov, "Lord of Alaska."

Main article: Russian America

On some islands and parts of the Alaskan peninsula, groups of traders had been capable of
relatively peaceful coexistence with the local inhabitants. Other groups could not manage the
tensions and perpetrated exactions. Hostages were taken, individuals were enslaved, families
were split up, and other individuals were forced to leave their villages and settle elsewhere. In
addition, eighty percent of the Aleut population was destroyed by Old World diseases, against
which they had no immunity, during the first two generations of Russian contact.[3]
In 1784, Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov arrived in Three Saints Bay on Kodiak Island, operating
the Shelikhov-Golikov Company.[4] Shelikhov and his men killed hundreds of indigenous Koniag,
then founded the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska on the island's Three Saints Bay.
By 1788 a number of Russian settlements had been established by Shelikhov and others over a
large region, including the mainland areas around Cook Inlet.
The Russians had gained control of the habitats of the most valuable sea otters, the Kurilian-
Kamchatkan and Aleutian sea otters. Their fur was thicker, glossier, and blacker than those of
sea otters on the Pacific Northwest Coast and California. The Russians, therefore, advanced to
the Northwest Coast only after the superior varieties of sea otters were depleted, around 1788.
The Russian entry to the Northwest Coast was slow, however, due to a shortage of ships and
sailors. Yakutat Bay was reached in 1794 and the settlement of Slavorossiya was built there in
1795. Reconnaissance of the coast as far as the Queen Charlotte Islands was carried out by
James Shields, a British employee of the Golikov-Shelikhov Company. In 1795 Alexander
Baranov, who had been hired in 1790 to manage Shelikhov's fur enterprise, sailed into Sitka
Sound, claiming it for Russia. Hunting parties arrived in the following years and by 1800 three-
quarters of Russian America's sea otter skins were coming from the Sitka Sound area. In July
1799 Baranov returned on the brig Oryol and established the settlement of Arkhangelsk. It was
destroyed by Tlingits in 1802 but rebuilt nearby in 1804 and given the name Novo-
Arkhangelsk (New Archangel). It soon become the primary settlement and colonial capital of
Russian America. After the Alaska Purchase, it was renamed Sitka, the first capital of Alaska
Territory.[5]
Missionary activity[edit]

St. Michael's Cathedral in Sitka. The original structure, built in 1848, burned in a fire on January 2, 1966.
The cathedral was rebuilt from plans of the original structure and contains artifacts rescued from the fire.

The Russian Orthodox church (with its rituals and sacred texts, translated into Aleut at a very
early stage) had been informally introduced, in the 1740s–1780s, by the fur traders. During his
settlement of Three Saints Bay in 1784, Shelikov introduced the first resident missionaries and
clergymen. This missionary activity would continue into the 19th century, ultimately becoming the
most visible trace of the Russian colonial period in contemporary Alaska.

Spanish claims[edit]
Main article: Spanish expeditions to Alaska
Spanish contact in British Columbia and Alaska.

Spanish claims to Alaska dated to the papal bull of 1493, but never involved colonization, forts,
or settlements. Instead there were various naval expeditions to explore the region and claim it for
Spain. In 1775, Bruno de Hezeta led an expedition; The Sonora, under Bodega y Quadra,
ultimately reached latitude 58° north, entered Sitka Sound and formally claimed the region for
Spain. The 1779 expedition of Ignacio de Arteaga and Bodega y Quadra reached Port
Etches on Hinchinbrook Island, and entered Prince William Sound. They reached a latitude
of 61° north, the most northern point obtained by Spain.
In 1788, Esteban José Martínez and Gonzalo López de Haro visited Russian settlements at
Unalaska.[6]
The Nootka Crisis of 1789 almost led to a war between Britain and Spain, when Britain rejected
Spanish claims to lands in British Columbia and Spain seized some British ships. The crisis was
resolved by the Nootka Convention, which provided that the northwest coast would be open to
traders of both Britain and Spain, that the captured British ships would be returned and an
indemnity paid. It was a victory for Britain and Spain effectively withdrew from the North Pacific.
[7]
 It transferred its claims in the region to the United States in the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819.
Today, Spain's Alaskan legacy endures as little more than a few place names, among these
the Malaspina Glacier and the towns of Valdez and Cordova.

Britain's presence[edit]
British settlements at the time in Alaska consisted of a few scattered trading outposts, with most
settlers arriving by sea. Captain James Cook, midway through his third and final voyage of
exploration in 1778, sailed along the west coast of North America aboard HMS  Resolution, from
then-Spanish California all the way to the Bering Strait. During the trip, he discovered what came
to be known as Cook Inlet (named in honor of Cook in 1794 by George Vancouver, who had
served under his command) in Alaska. The Bering Strait proved to be impassable, although
the Resolution and its companion ship HMS  Discovery made several attempts to sail through it.
The ships left the straits to return to Hawaii in 1779.
Cook's expedition spurred the British to increase their sailings along the northwest coast,
following in the wake of the Spanish. Alaska-based posts owned by the Hudson's Bay Company,
operated at Fort Yukon, on the Yukon River, Fort Durham (aka Fort Taku) at the mouth of
the Taku River, and Fort Stikine, near the mouth of the Stikine River (associated
with Wrangell throughout the early 19th century).

19th century[edit]
Later Russian settlement and the Russian-American Company
(1799–1867)[edit]
1860 map of Russian America.

Main article: Russian America

The Russian-American Company's capital at New Archangel (present-day Sitka, Alaska) in 1837

In 1799, Shelikhov's son-in-law, Nikolay Petrovich Rezanov, acquired a monopoly on the

American fur trade from Czar Paul I and formed the Russian-American Company. As part of the
deal, the Tsar expected the company to establish new settlements in Alaska and carry out an
expanded colonization program.
By 1804, Alexander Baranov, now manager of the Russian–American Company, had
consolidated the company's hold on the American fur trade following his victory over the local
Tlingit clan at the Battle of Sitka. Despite these efforts the Russians never fully colonized Alaska.
The Russian monopoly on trade was also being weakened by the Hudson's Bay Company,
which set up a post on the southern edge of Russian America in 1833.
In 1818 management of the Russian-American Company was turned over to the Imperial
Russian Navy and the Ukase of 1821 banned foreigners from participating in the Alaskan
economy. It soon entered into the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1825 which allowed British
merchants to trade in Alaska. The Convention also settled most of the border between Alaska
and British North America.
The Russo-American Treaty of 1824, which banned American merchants above 54° 40' north
latitude, was widely ignored and the Russians' hold on Alaska weakened further.
At the height of Russian America, the Russian population reached 700.
Although the mid–19th century were not a good time for Russians in Alaska, conditions improved
for the coastal Alaska Natives who had survived contact. The Tlingits were never conquered and
continued to wage war on the Russians into the 1850s. The Aleuts, though faced with a
decreasing population in the 1840s, ultimately rebounded.

Alaska purchase