Alaska Book Reviews

Alaska by Ella Higginson Book Summary

Inspired by the important discoveries of this expedition and by the hope of a profitable fur trade with China, various Russian traders and adventurers, known as " promyshleniki," made voyages into the newly discovered regions, pressing eastward island by island, and year by year ; beginning that long tale of cruelty and bloodshed in the Aleutian Islands which has not yet reached an end. Men as harmless as the pleading, soft-eyed seals were butchered as heartlessly and as shamelessly, that their stocks of furs might be appropriated and their women ravished. In 1745 Alexei Beliaief and ten men inveigled fifteen Aleutians into a quarrel with the sole object of killing them and carrying off their women. In 1762, the crew of the Gravril persuaded twenty-five young Aleutian girls to accompany them " to pick berries and gather roots for the ship's company." On the Kamchatkan coast several of the crew and sixteen of these girls were landed to pick berries. Two of the girls made their escape into the hills; one was killed by a sailor; and the others cast themselves into the sea and were drowned. Gavril Pushkaref, who was in command of the vessel, ordered that all the remaining natives, with the exception of one boy and an interpreter, should be thrown overboard and drowned.

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Alaska (Ella Higginson) Book Reviews 2024

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