Awa'uq Massacre

Lore & Background

Since 1775, Shelekhov had been trading with Alaska Natives in the Kuril and Aleutian islands. In April 1784, he returned to found a settlement on Kodiak Island and the coast of the mainland. According to Shelekhov, the Koniag Alutiiq had driven off previous Russian landing attempts in 1761 and 1774, but this time he had 130 armed Russians at his disposal. The people occupying the area attempted to drive off the Russian landing and fled to the secluded stack island Refuge Rock (Awa'uq) in Partition Cove on Sitkalidak Island, across Old Harbor in the Kodiak Archipelago.

Reader's Guide

The Awa'uq Massacre marked a turning point in Russian-Alutiiq relations. The violence and taking of hostages resulted in the Alutiiq becoming completely subjugated by Russian traders thereafter. The years 1784–1818 were called the 'darkest period of Sugpiaq history,' as the Russians treated the people badly and they suffered high mortality from infectious diseases unwittingly introduced by the Russians. More than five decades after the massacre, survivor Arsenti Aminak reported his account to Finnish naturalist Henrik Johan Holmberg, describing a 'terrible blood bath' in which 300 Koniags were shot and the island became uninhabited due to the stench of corpses. The event is sometimes called the Wounded Knee of Alaska, though the article notes it was an isolated incident.

Did You Know?

• The massacre occurred at Refuge Rock, known in Alutiiq as Awa'uq, meaning 'where one becomes numb.'
• The Russians suffered no casualties in the attack.
• A survivor named Arsenti Aminak reported the event to Finnish naturalist Henrik Johan Holmberg more than five decades later.
• After the massacre, every chief had to surrender his children as hostages; one hostage, Qaspeq, later became a Russian interpreter.