The Battle of Sitka () in 1804 was the last major armed conflict between the Russians and Alaska Natives, and was initiated in response to the destruction of a Russian trading post two years before. The primary combatant groups were the Kiks.ádi ("Ones of Kíks", Frog/Raven) clan of Sheetʼká Xʼáatʼi (Baranof Island) of the Tlingit nation and agents of the Russian-American Company assisted by the Imperial Russian Navy.
Background
Members of the Kiks.ádi of the indigenous Tlingit people had occupied portions of the Alaska Panhandle, including Sheetʼká Xʼáat'i (present-day Baranof Island), for some 11,000 years. Alexandr Baranov (Chief Manager of the Russian-American Company) first visited the island aboard the Ekaterina in 1795 while searching for new sea otter hunting grounds. Baranov paid the Tlingit a sum for the rights to the land in order to prevent "interlopers" from conducting trade on the island.
On 7 July 1799, Baranov, with 100 fellow Russians, sailed into Sitka Sound aboard the galley Olga, the brig Ekaterina, the packet boat Orel; and a fleet of some 550 baidarkas, carrying 700 Aleuts and 300 other natives.
Wishing to avoid a confrontation with the Kiks.ádi, the group passed by the strategic hilltop encampment where the Tlingit had established Noow Tlein ("Big Fort") and made landfall at their second-choice building site, some 7 miles (11 kilometers) north of the colony. The location of the Russian settlement at Katlianski Bay, "Redoubt Saint Michael", is known today as Starrigavan Bay, or "Old Harbor" (from Russian старая гавань stáraya gavanʼ) The outpost consisted of a large warehouse, blacksmith shop, cattle sheds, barracks, stockade, block house, a bath house, quarters for the hunters, and a residence for Baranov.
thumb|225px|right|The Tlingit Ḵʼalyaan Pole, erected at the site of Fort Shís'gi Noow in [[Sitka National Historical Park to commemorate the lives of those lost in the Battle of Sitka.]]
Though the Koloshi (the Russian name for the Tlingit, based on the Alutiiq name for the Tlingit) initially welcomed the newcomers, their animosity toward the Russians grew in relatively short order. The Kiks.ádi objected to the Russian traders' custom of taking native women as their wives, and were constantly taunted by other Tlingit clans who looked upon the "Sitkas" as the outsiders' kalga, or slaves. The Kiks.ádi came to realize that the Russians' continued presence demanded their allegiance to the Tsar, and that they therefore were expected to provide free labor to the Company. Competition between the two groups for the island's resources would escalate as well.
1802 battle
Despite a number of unsuccessful Tlingit attacks against the post during the winter of 1799, business soon prospered. Urgent matters required that Baranov return to Kodiak (then capital of Russian America) in 1800. 25 Russians and 55 Aleuts, under the direction of Vasilii G. Medvednikov, were left to staff the post. In spring 1802, the population of Redoubt Saint Michael had grown to include 29 Russians, 3 British deserters, 200 Aleuts, and a few Kodiak women.
In June 1802, a group of Tlingit warriors attacked the Russian fort at mid-day. Led by Skautlelt (Shḵ'awulyéil) and Kotleian, the raiding party massacred many, looted the sea otter pelts, and burned the settlement, including a ship under construction. A few Russians and Aleuts who had been away from the post hunting, or who had fled into the forest, subsequently reached safety and relayed news of the attack. The captain of the British merchantman Unicorn seized the ringleaders, rescued 3 Russians, 20 other native allies, and many of the pelts. The Unicorn then set sail for Kodiak, where it delivered the survivors and the news of the attack to Baranov on June 24. Barber extracted a ransom of 10,000 rubles for the return of the colonists — a mere 20% of his initial demand.
In this engagement, fortune favored the Russians from the outset. On September 29, the Russians went ashore at the winter village. Lisyansky dubbed the site "Novo-Arkhangel'skaya Mikhailovskaya" (or "New Archangel Saint Michael"), a reference to the largest city in the region where Governor Baranov was born. Baranov immediately sent forth envoys to the Tlingit settlement with offers of negotiation for the Noow Tlein site, all of which were rebuffed. The Tlingit merely hoped to stall the Russians long enough to allow the natives to abandon their winter village and occupy the "sapling fort" without the enemy fleet taking notice.
However, when the Kiks.ádi sent a small, armed party to retrieve their gunpowder reserves from an island in nearby Shaaseiyi Aan (Jamestown Bay), the group (electing not to wait for the cover of darkness, instead returning in broad daylight) was spotted and engaged in brief a firefight with the Russians. An errant round struck the canoe in which the Tlingit were transporting the gunpowder, igniting the cargo and causing it to explode. When the smoke cleared, it was evident that none of the expedition, comprising upper-caste young men from each house (all future Clan leaders) and a highly respected elder, survived the encounter. Baranov's emissaries notified the Tlingit that the Russian ships would soon begin firing on the new fort.
Day one
thumb|Chief Katlian
On or around October 1, Neva was towed by the Aleut from Krestof Sound into the shoals near the mouth of the Indian River. A Russian landing party, led by Baranov and accompanied by about 150 men, assaulted the Tlingit compound, only to be met by continuous volleys of gunfire. The Aleuts panicked and broke ranks, retreating to the shore where their baidarkas waited.
The Kiks.ádi warriors, led by their new War Chief Ḵʼalyaan (Katlian) — wearing a Raven mask and armed with a blacksmith's hammer, surged out of Shis'kí Noow and engaged the attacking force in hand-to-hand combat; a second wave of Tlingit emerged from the adjacent woods in a "pincer" maneuver. Baranov was seriously injured and the Russians fell back to the water's edge, just as Neva opened fire to cover the retreat. Twelve of the attackers were killed and many others injured during the melee, and the Russians were forced to abandon several small artillery pieces on the beach.
"Sitka Kiks.ádi Survival March"
The first leg of the Tlingit's sojourn entailed a hike west from <u>G</u>ajaa Héen to Daxéit (the Clan's fishing camp at Nakwasina Sound, where each May the Kiks.ádi harvested herring eggs, a traditional native food). From there, the group's exact path across the mountains north to Cháatl Ḵáa Noow (the Kiks.ádi "Halibut Man Fort" at Point Craven in the Peril Strait) is a matter of some conjecture. However, a coastal route around the bays of northwest Baranof Island appears to be the most likely course as it would have allowed the travelers to circumvent the Island's dense forests, based on significant firsthand research into the event conducted by Herb and Frank Hope of the Sheetʼká Ḵwáan — Sitka Tribe of Alaska. Canoes fashioned out of red cedar trunks facilitated the ocean crossing to Chichagof Island.
Several warriors remained in the vicinity of Noow Tlein after the Battle as a sort of rear guard, in order to both harass the Russian settlers and to prevent them from pursuing the Kiks.ádi during their flight north. Shortly thereafter, eight Aleut trappers were killed in Jamestown Bay and another was shot in the woods adjacent to New Archangel. From that point forward, Russian hunting parties went out in force, ever alert to the possibility of attack. The Kiks.ádi encouraged other Tlingit clans to avoid contact with the Russians by any means possible.
In November, 1805, Cháatl Ḵáa Noow was visited by John DeWolf and Georg von Langsdorff from Sitka, with several Alutiiq men and the daughter of a Tlingit clan head to serve as translator, provided by Baranov. The visit lasted two days. DeWolf and Langsdorff's writings provide some useful information on the state of affairs at the time.
Fall of Yakutat
On August 20, 1805, warriors of the Eyak clan led by Tanukh and Lushwak, and their allies from the Tlingit clan, burned Yakutat and killed the Russians who remained there. The attack was carefully planned and organized by Tanukh, who entered the fortress and killed the commander of the fortress, after which, according to Indian legends, at his signal, "every warrior killed his Russian." Of the entire population of the Russian colony in Yakutat in 1805, according to official data, 14 Russians died "and with them many more islanders," that is, Kodiak and Chugach. The fall of Yakutat was another heavy blow to the Russian colonies. An important economic and strategic base on the coast of America was lost.
Russian Alaska
thumb|250px|left|The Russian palisade atop "Castle Hill" (Noow Tlein) in <u>G</u>ájaa Héen (Old Sitka), c. 1827.
Atop the kekoor (hill) at Noow Tlein, the Russians constructed a fortress (krepostʼ) of their own, consisting of a high wooden palisade with three watchtowers (armed with 32 cannons) for defense against Tlingit attacks.
By the summer of 1805, a total of 8 buildings had been erected