Awa'uq Massacre
| Awa'uq Massacre | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Russian colonization of the Americas | |||
Grigory Shelikhov's settlement is depicted in this 1802 lithograph. Three Saints was founded in 1784 just across the strait from Sitkalidak Island.
|
|||
| Date | 14 August 1784 | ||
| Location |
Sitkalidak Island, Alaska, Russian America 57°06′22″N 153°05′00″W / 57.10604°N 153.0832814°WCoordinates: 57°06′22″N 153°05′00″W / 57.10604°N 153.0832814°W |
||
| Parties to the civil conflict | |||
|
|||
| Lead figures | |||
|
|||
| Number | |||
|
|||
| Casualties | |||
|
|||
The Awa'uq Massacre or Refuge Rock Massacre, or the Wounded Knee of Alaska, was an attack and massacre by Russian fur trader Grigory Shelikhov and 130 Russian armed men and cannoneers of Shelikhov-Golikov Company against the Qik’rtarmiut Sugpiat tribe of Koniag Alutiiq (Sugpiaq) people of Kodiak Island in 1784 in Russian-controlled Alaska.
It occurred on the secluded stack island Refuge Rock (Awa'uq in Alutiiq language, approximate meaning 'where one becomes numb') of Partition Cove on Sitkalidak Island, near and across Old Harbor, in the Kodiak Archipelago, Alaska. The Russian promyshlennikis slaughtered 500 men, women and children on Refuge Rock, though some sources state the number was 2,000, or between 2,500–3,000. Following the attack of Awa'uq, Shelikhov claims to have captured over 1,000 people, detaining 400 as hostages. There were no Russian casualties. This massacre was an isolated incident, and the Alutiiq were completely subjugated by Russian traders thereafter. One interpreter, Qaspeq (literally: "kuspuk"), was an Alutiiq (Sugpiaq) who had been taken as a war captive from Kodiak as a child and raised in servitude in the Aleutians. Qaspeq had once betrayed the location of a refuge island just offshore of Unalaska Island.
The years 1784–1818, called the "darkest period of Sugpiaq history," ended with a change in the management of the Russian-American Company.
...
Wikipedia