Histories of Alaska: From Peril Strait and Murder Cove to Refuge Rock and Massacre Bay, place names that are representative of dark times in Alaska's history.
Part of a continuingon local history by local historian David Reamer. Have a question about Anchorage history or an idea for a future article? Go to the form at the bottom of this story.
From 'Dictionary of Alaska Place Names" by Donald J. Orth, published by the U.S. Department of the Interior. Over the years, the Russians systematically depopulated the island. In one incident during the 1760s, they destroyed four villages. Veniaminov wrote that the Russians spared “only the young girls and a few young men to be their servants.” He added that in 1800, there were still around 12 villages on the island. By the time of his writing, there was only one village with 71 residents.
As so often happens, and understandably so in this case, accounts vary on the number of Alutiiq refugees huddled atop the rock. Contemporary estimates varied from 2,000-4,000 though more recent archeological work suggests the lower end of that range. After eating some of the mussels common to the area, half of the party became violently ill. Some of the hunters forced themselves to vomit by ingesting a mixture of gunpowder, tobacco, and alcohol. However, around a hundred of the Alaska Native hunters died, killed by paralytic shellfish poison, or PSP, produced by the algae consumed by shellfish. The Russians subsequently renamed the strait.
This conflict is known to history as the Kake War. As historian Zachary R. Jones notes, “The title given to these events is a misnomer, as this conflict was not a war but rather a one-sided military attack on Tlingit civilian communities that mounted no resistance to the Army’s aggressive actions.”
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