CHAPTER II.

A chronological history of the progress of exploration and trade in Alaska and the adjoining territories, from 1542 to 1868.

TH

HE history of Northwest America is, almost without exception, the history of exploration and trade. Controlled for eighty years by a despotism in the shape of a trading company, politics have until recently had no part in its affairs. The authorities from which this chronology has been compiled will be found in the Appendix.

1542. Voyages of Coronado and Juan Rodriguez de Cabrillo, northward from Mexico.

1579. Sir Francis Drake, in a schooner of about two hundred tons, refitted in a harbor - probably that of San Francisco -in the month of July.

1592. Apostolos Valerianos, commonly known as Juan de Fuca, sailed from Mexico, and is supposed to have entered the Straits of Fuca and the head of Puget Sound.

1602. An expedition under Sebastian Vizcaino, sailed from Acapulco and examined the coast as far north as Cape Mendocino.

1646. The Russians, who had pushed their explorations east

ward in Siberia as far as the Kolýma River, actuated by the spirit of trade rather than that of discovery, in this year attempted the first voyage east of the Kolýma. Several small vessels, under the direction of Isai Ignátief, found a shallow channel between the grounded ice and the shore, and reached a bay where they obtained walrus ivory by barter from the Chúkchees, after which they returned to the Kolyma:

1647. This success in trading induced others to follow Ignátief's example, and in June of the following year four small

1647. half-decked vessels sailed eastward from the Kolýma. An officer was needed to accompany them in order to look after the interests of the crown, and the Cossack Simeon Déshneff volunteered for this duty. One object of the voyage was to discover the Anádyr River, of which the Russians had received vague reports. The same year Michael Stadúkin was sent by land to explore an unknown river called the Pogítcha, and endeavor to persuade the natives to acknowledge themselves subjects of the Russian crown, and pay tribute. This undertaking was not successful. The expedition by sea was obstructed by the ice, and obliged to return. 1648. Not disheartened by the failure of the previous year, seven vessels left the Kolýma on the 20th of June. Four of them were disabled on an island off the mouth of the KolýThree, commanded by Simeon Déshneff, Gerasim Ankúdinoff, and Feodot Aléxieff, respectively, passed on without accident. The season was uncommonly open, and the shallops successfully rounded the northeast extremity of Asia and entered Bering Strait. Ankúdinoff's vessel was lost on East Cape, but his men were taken on board by the others. On the 20th of September they had a difficulty with the Chúkchees, in which Aléxieff was wounded; soon after, the two boats were separated by the wind and saw each other no more. Driven by storms until October, Déshneff was finally wrecked, some distance southwest of Anádyr Bay, on the coast of Kamchatka. After wandering about for ten weeks, he arrived on the banks of the Anádyr, and his party supported themselves during the winter by the chase.

1649. On the return of summer they ascended the river, and in the fall built the post of Anadýrsk. Stadúkin again unsuccessfully attempted to find the Pogítcha River. 1650. Information was received from the natives that showed the identity of the Anádyr and Pogítcha, and during the summer an expedition under Simeon Motóra, and another under Stadúkin, arrived at Anadýrsk by land, guided by natives.

1651. Boats were constructed at Anadýrsk, and Motóra was killed in a battle with the natives. Stadúkin went toward Pénjinsk Gulf, and was heard of no more.

1652. Déshneff descended the Anádyr in his boats, and discovered a sand-bar, called the Kórga, at the mouth.

1653. This year he built a vessel, in which he proposed to send his tribute from Anadýrsk to Yakútsk by sea.

1654. On making another trip to the Kórga, he found a Cossack named Selíverstoff, who had arrived from Yakútsk, by land, to collect tribute. It was afterwards ascertained by Déshneff, that his companions in the voyage of 1648 had landed on the coast of Kamchatka and died of scurvy, or been killed by the natives. About this time, according to a tradition (first recorded in 1710), a merchant named Taras Stadúkin sailed from the Kolýma, and made a portage across the neck of East Cape with his vessel, being unable to double it on account of ice; he then sailed, following the coast of Kamchatka, doubling the peninsula, making the first discovery of the Kurile Islands, and finally arrived in safety at Pénjinsk Gulf.

1696. The country of Kamchatka had long been known by report to the Russians, who had visited Anadýrsk; but in 1696, Lukas Simeónoff Moróscovich, with a party of fifteen men, penetrated as far as a day's journey from the Kamchatka River, bringing back with him certain Japanese papers, which he found in the village on the Kamchatka River. 1697. Vladimir Atlassoff followed his example, and built a winter house (semówi) on the Upper Kamchatka River. The Kamshadales for several years revolted against the tyranny of the Cossacks, who easily subdued them by their superior arms. The Cossacks lost no opportunity of inciting to hostilities, and then butchering, the unfortunate natives, so that in forty years the Kamshadales were reduced to a twelfth of their original numbers. They were loaded with taxes, and the yássak, or imperial tribute, was often raised tenfold by the avarice of the conquerors, who retained the surplus for themselves. 1701. The Yukágirs, a nomadic tribe, demanded assistance from the Russians against the hostilities of the Chúkchees. An expedition was fitted out and hostilities commenced, but the Russians were unable to force this brave people to pay tribute, deliver hostages, or acknowledge allegiance to the Russian crown.

1711. In January a Cossack named Peter Iliúnsen Popoff was sent to East Cape to endeavor to induce the Chúkchees to pay tribute. He failed in his object, but brought back an account of islands (the Diomedes) which lay beyond East Cape, and of a continent (America) which the Chúkchees reported beyond these islands. In the same year the Russians first invaded the Kurile Islands, and visited about the same time the uninhabited Shántar Islands in the Ochótsk Sea. 1715. The first sea-going vessel was built at Ochótsk, and the following year she made a voyage to the west coast of Kamchatka.

1720. Other vessels were built, and voyages were made, including one under Jévrinoff and Lúshin, to the Shántar Islands in 1720-21.

1725. Scientific men, desirous of further information in regard to the extension of Asia and America, turned the attention of Peter the Great to the matter. He took great interest in it, drew up the instructions for an expedition with his own hand, and delivered them to Admiral Apráxin, with orders to see them executed. A few days afterward, in January, 1725, he died; but the Empress, desiring to carry out all the plans of her deceased husband as closely as possible, ordered their execution. Captain Vitus Bering was nominated commander of the expedition, and Lieutenants Martin Spanberg and Alexie Chírikoff for his assistants. They were confirmed by the Empress and Senate, and left St. Petersburg on the 5th of February, but the men and equipment did not reach Ochótsk until the 30th of July, 1727.

1728. Two vessels, the Fortuna and the Gabriel, were built, and on the 20th of July, 1728, Bering sailed from the mouth of the Kamchatka River. He coasted along the shores of the peninsula, and on the 10th of August passed an island. which they named St. Lawrence. Sailing through Bering Strait on the 15th of August, he arrived at Cape Serdze Kámen, where the coast trends to the westward. Here he considered that he had fulfilled his instructions and proved the separation of Asia and America. Being naturally timid, hesitating, and indolent, he determined to go no farther for

1728. fear of being frozen in, and returned through the Straitstrange to say without seeing the Diomedes or the American coast, reaching the Kamchatka River on the 20th of September.

1729. He wintered at Nizni Kamchatka, and set sail eastward from the mouth of the river, June 5, 1729. His object was to discover the coast of America east of Kamchatka. Meeting with contrary winds, he turned back after sailing some sixty miles, and reached Ochótsk on the 23d of July, without having definitely fulfilled a single article of his instructions. 1730. He arrived at St. Petersburg, via Ochótsk and Yakútsk, March 1, 1730.

Meanwhile the chief of the Yakútsk Cossacks, Athanasius Shéstakoff, had volunteered to subdue the Chúkchees and Koriáks, His offer was accepted, and Captain Demetrius Pávlutski, with a squad of four hundred Cossacks, was ordered to join him. A quarrel took place between them, and each departed on the enterprise separately. In 1729 Shéstakoff took possession of the vessels which had been used by Bering, and sailed, in September, in the Fortuna, but was driven ashore by the winds. He continued on his way with only one hundred and fifty men, and on the 11th of March, 1730, he sent orders to a Cossack, Trýphon Krúpisheff, at Táviskoi Fort, to equip a vessel, double the peninsula of Kamchatka, and sail for the Chúkchee country, taking with him the navigator and civil engineer of the expedition, Michael Gwósdeff. After sending these orders he had a battle with the Chúkchees near Pénjinsk Gulf, March 14, 1730, in which his forces were routed and he was killed.

A boat was constructed out of the wreck of the Fortuna, and in September, 1730, Gwósdeff reached Anadýrsk. Here orders were received from Pávlutski to go to the mouth of the Kamchatka River and obtain provisions, which they were to take to the Chúkchee coast, where he expected to meet them.

1731. In the spring Pávlutski fought his way through the Chúkchee country to Cape Serdze Kámen, and thence returned to the Anádyr, without, however, inducing the indomitable Chukchees to pay tribute. Meanwhile, Gwósdeff