Andrei Grinyov: "Social Mobility of the Creoles in Russian America."
James R. Gibson: "Russian America in 1821."
A clearinghouse of Kodiak Alutiiq educational resources, designed for educators, families, and students of all ages to gain access to information and learning.
"The 1821 charter to the RAC provided the legal structure for the creole estate. It stated: “Creoles are Russian subjects. As such, they have a right to governmental protection on the same basis as all subjects belonging to the burgher estate."
Alle kreolere født i Alaska kunne søge gratis uddannelse. At være kreolsk blev et spørgsmål om uddannelse, ånd og selvidentitet.
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Alexander Andreyevich Baranov, forbød munkene at tage kontakt med de indfødte, men munkene prøvede fortsat at støtte aleuterne. I en hemmelig rapport fortalte Gedeon om, hvordan kompagniet beordrede de indfødte at tage på en lang jagtekspedition, der ville ødelægge dem fysisk. Men aleuterne nægtede og forberedte sig på at dø med det samme. Deres familier var allerede døde af sult, når de havde været væk på tidligere jagt-ekspeditioner.
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| Indfødt i en baidarka - en fangstkano af skind |
Munkene fik dem til at aflægge troskabsed mod zaren, hvilket skulle give dem en politisk beskyttelse.
Rezanov proposed, after his return here, to propose to the government that creoles (børn af russere og indfødte kvinder) be made use of for the good of the fatherland and the Company in such a way, so that all of them who are capable of being military men would make up a company garrison for the defense of the ports and fortresses there. And for this several of them would be called to Russia and be taught various forms of service at the front, the beating of drums and so on, while those with other abilities be used for navigation, for written work or for trade and whatever forms of artisanship are needed there, or for the cultivation of the land and in this way create a proper colonial citizenship (sobstvenno kolonial´noe grazhdanstvo), which might be paid by salaries from the Company for the fulfillment of duties in it or by workmanship or by the profits from their works in agriculture.
In practice, Rezanov’s idea of colonial citizenship meant that a class of people would be created whose duty and purpose was to serve the company, not to pay taxes to the government. Rezanov’s original proposal envisioned the promyshlenniki at the center of a new agricultural society in a Russian America in which they would legally have permanent residence and would be assisted by creoles, but this proposal was rejected by the State Council in 1808 due to fears, not only that tax revenue would be lost, but also that the permanent residents of Russian America would place excessive burdens on peasants in their original communes, as they would no longer perform rural duties (zemskie povinnosti), such as the upkeep of roads, nor would they provide recruits for the army. As a result, the Company turned to the creoles as an alternative tax-exempt group.
I starten havde der som beskrevet ovenfor været konflikter mellem ledelsen af RAC i russisk Amerika og den russisk-ortodokse kirke. To ting var de to parter dog enige om. Den ene var vigtigheden af at lære at læse.
Allerede i 1786 havde Shelikov oprettet en skole i Three Saints Bay på Kodiak Island.
Hans begrundelse for skolen var:
Education is useful and necessary. Only literate people can be good and accurate interpreters, so needed in this country...For this purpose I am taking with me about forty Americans (Kodiak Alutiiq), male and female, both children and adults, some of their own free will and some as war prisoners. After they see Russia, our buildings and customs, I will reward one third of them and send them back. The other third I will attempt to present to the Imperial Court and the remaining third, the children, we are going to educate in Okhotsk or Irkutsk, and after their education is completed, if they wish it, we will return them here. From them their relatives and countrymen will learn about the law, order, and prosperity in Russia and will want to improve conditions here. (Shelikhov, 1786/2006, p. 1)
Et spansk dokument fortæller også om Shelikovs skolingsaktiviteter:
“[The Russian American] Company has schools for Creoles and natives, has spent 37,000 rubles. In 1787 Shelikhov took 12 Creoles to Irkulsk. Half died in Siberia. Remaining returned good musicians. R. A. Co. recently brought eight to Kronstadt. Half died. Of other four 3 navigation, 1 ship building, and have returned to Alaska. Four girl creoles taken to Okhotsk. About seven years ago - one survived.”
Shelikov udvidede sine planer for assimilering af de indfødte ved at anmode om en mission af russisk-ortodokse munke, som ankom den 24. september 1794. 7 munke, to novicer og 10 indfødte, som tidligere var blevet sendt af Shelikov til Rusland for at gå i skole. Den gruppe, jeg omtalte ovenfor, og som ikke levede op til Shelikovs forventninger, da de opponerede mod russernes behandling af de indfødte.
Munkenes hovedformål var naturligvis at udbrede den kristne tro, men de fik stor betydning for de indfødte også på skoleområdet.
Hieromunken Gideon, som jeg også omtalte ovenfor, var også aktiv på skoleområdet.
As other churches were built around the island, so too were schools started and run by the clergy. The influence of the church and schools was pervasive, as Lydia Black (1977) describes.
Lydia Black var en amerikansk antropolog, professor og oversætter. Hun voksede op i Kyiv. Hendes far blev henrettet i 1933, hendes mor døde af tuberkulose i 1941. Under 2. verdenskrig blev hun sendt i tysk arbejdslejr. Efter krigen blev hun hvervet af amerikanerne som oversætter i FN's nødhjælps- og rehabiliteringscenters administration for fordrevne børns lejr, da hun kunne tale 6 sprog. Hun giftede sig med Igor Black og immigrerede i 1950 til USA.
Hun har skrevet bøgerne Russians in Alaska, 1732-1867 og Russians in Tlingit America og har oversat The journals of Iakov Netsvetov: The Yukon years 1845-1863 og oversat og katalogiseret de russiske arkiver om Saint Herman's Orthodox Theological Seminary. Saint Herman var den sidste overlevede af den første mission af munke i Alaska i 1794. Også han bedrev undervisning af de indfødte. På nettet ligger en spændende beskrivelse af hans liv og virke.
Lydia Black skrev videre:
Gideon established the first ‘Russian-American’ school at Kodiak in 1805 and by the time of his departure in 1807 at least two creoles and possibly one native were teaching in the school. Gideon presided over end-of-school-year exercises, and he could command attendance not only of various important Russians (including Rezanov) but also of all the skippers of foreign vessels in the port. (p. 81)
In Kodiak, Hieromonk Gideon had nearly a hundred students in his school (Dauenhauer, 1997). Dauenhauer describes that “...bilingual schools were paralleling the bilingualism that was the norm for the homes on Kodiak” (p. 28). However, Davydov (1997 reprint) describes the stability of the school as fluctuating during its early years when he writes,
Only those Koniagas who are brought up by the priests from childhood have learnt to read and write and receive the necessary understanding of Christian morality from daily example. A school has been re-established to take one hundred boys and could of course help to spread the Faith were the means available for the upkeep of this establishment. But in 1805 many children there died of hunger and scurvy and this will almost certainly happen again. (Davydov, 1977 reprint, p. 181)
En vigtig del af den moderne indfødte identitet blev alfabetet og grundlaget for skriftlig litteratur i næsten alle de etnisk-sproglige grupper i den sydlige halvdel af Alaska. Mange kreoler blev tosprogede.
Det var missionærerne, der bragte skriftsproget til Alaska og hjalp unangax-folket med at skabe et alfabet til deres sprog.
En af de præster, der fremhæves er Fader Ivan Veniaminov, som senere blev kanoniseret.
RAC forstod tidligt vigtigheden af at skole og uddanne kreolerne. I en rapport i 1818 skriver de:
“RAC are providing schools for study by creoles of the male sex of the Russian language, God’s law, arithmetic and navigation. This last is usually taught by one of the navigators in the service of the company, for which they are given a special salary, and other subjects are taught by the promyshlenniki, whoever has the abilities for this, and also receive a special reward for these activities. Girls are taught various handicrafts and works necessary for domestic life, under the surveillance of Russian female overseers. This position was first occupied by titular councilor Banner but after her death the post was to have been occupied by the request of the administration of the Company by the wife of the priest resident there, to be helped by the creole woman sent there in the past year who married the creole Burtsev, who was sent there with the title of senior ship’s carpenter.”
Artiklen fortsætter:
"The educational status of the creoles was also emphasized in a decree sent to the chief manager of the colonies, M.I. Murav´ëv, by the Board of Directors, dated February 28, 1822. “The administration of the Company directs you to take note of the fact,” the decree stated, “at all times and in all places, that creoles born of legal marriages who are left without a father, as well as those born of a non-legalized union, are without exception to be educated at the Company’s expense, wherever and however possible."
In contrast, the company had no responsibility to provide for the education of their promyshlenniki. No wonder then that the creoles were resented by Russians of lower estates, and their just pride in their status and achievements provoked resentment directed at ‘upstarts’ on the part of visiting Russians of higher ranks.”
"Khlebnikov also felt that the creoles should remain separate from native society, partly in order to provide a model of monogamous domesticity he found sadly lacking in native customs."
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| De indfødtes livsstil i storfamilier bekom ikke de kristne velt |
Kirill Khlebnikov kom til New Achangel (Sitka) i russisk Amerika i 1817 sammen med L.A. Hagemeister. Hagemesister kom i 1818 til at efterfølge Baranov som guvernør, og han ansatte Khlenikov som assistent.
I en rapport november 1818 skrev Khlebnikov at:
" ... Promyshlenniki should be hired “with good qualities and who know arts or crafts, so that at such a distance they might be an example for the islanders [natives] and useful for them and the Company, but one meets such people extremely rarely, not even enough to fill the places of those who have left […] and this happens because good people and artisans find work and sustenance at home and do not seek them in a distant country and do not expose themselves to the dangers of the sea and other events. This lack of Russian people in the colonies can be made up by the above-mentioned creoles, raised and educated at the expense and effort of the Company […] The council considers it useful to leave them as free citizens of those places where they were born, allowing them to work in company posts or in their own households.”
Oprindelig var kreolere børn af blandede forhold, men på et tidspunkt blev det muligt for alle indfødte at blive optaget i kreolerklassen, blot de sværgede troskab mod den russiske zar.
Alle kreolere fik tilbud om en gratis grunduddannelse, der kunne gøre dem til faglærte arbejdere som f.eks. smede, låsesmede, skibsbyggere, tømrere.
Andre, som var særligt begavede og flittige blev sendt til Sankt Petersborg for yderligere uddannelse - helt op på universitetsuddannelse.
Om en sådan kvik kreoler, Kondratii Ivanovich Burtsov, fortæller artiklen Creating a Creole Estate in early nineteenth-century Russian America, som jeg her bringer uddrag af.
On February 4, 1816, the Main Board of the Russian-American Company (RAC) ordered the return to Russian America of the creole Kondratii Ivanovich Burtsov and the creole woman Matrëna Semënovna Kuznetsova, who had both been sent to St. Petersburg for schooling. Due to the length of the journey, they stated that Burtsov, 26, and Kuznetsova, 17, should marry: “And so that the maiden will not return here alone, with their mutual agreement they are being united in matrimony and from its side the Company is providing them, as is decent, with all that is necessary in terms of clothes, shoes and so on.” This seems like less of a concession to the feelings of the young pair than an order motivated by the needs of the company. This was typical of the RAC’s attitude toward creoles, who were the offspring of Russian men and native women living in Russian America and were given the status of a separate estate in 1821. The Company saw them as a group that would be trained to serve the RAC both in their work and in their family life by having children who would be future employees, thus increasing the population in Russian America and spreading the Russian way of life.
2Burtsov studied shipbuilding at the Okhta Admiralty wharf on funds provided by the government and the RAC, while Kuznetsova learned how to run a Russian home in the family of the manager of the RAC’s main office in St. Petersburg, Ivan Osipovich Zelenskii. According to the comments of the Main Office of the RAC in the January 1818 proposal to create the creole estate, Kuznetsova, while in St. Petersburg, “learned all that is necessary for domestic life: she is able to bake bread, make kvass [a mildly alcoholic drink made of bread], cook cabbage soup (shchi), wash clothes, clean and iron, embroider in a hoop and by hand, also to sew clothes and in addition knows how to read and write.” Upon their return to Novo-Arkhangel´sk (now Sitka, Alaska), Burtsov was to become a senior ship’s carpenter, for which he would receive the not inconsequential salary of 1000 rubles a year, with the promise of 200 more for good work. In contrast, in 1818, the promyshlenniki, or Russian subjects working for the Company, agreed to a salary of 300 rubles a year, while artisans were to receive a minimum of 400; both were to receive a monthly ration of flour as well. Thus, Burtsov would receive more than three times as much as a common worker, suggesting the high value the RAC put on the newly trained creoles.
A set of instructions from the Main Office to chief manager of the colonies Aleksandr Andreevich Baranov dated March 22, 1817, stated that “you will have in [Burtsov] a new, and hopefully an educated, citizen who may become an example to others.” The 1816 document noted that Kuznetsova was to “supervise and teach young and orphaned creole girls like her and, if she is successful in this, then in measure with [her successes] do not omit to give her a special reward if possible.” In 1817, the Main Office asked Baranov, “If the wife of the priest who has been sent to you is able to provide education in household management even to only a few orphaned creole girls, and if perhaps Matrëna Burtsova can also do this, please build a schoolhouse for these women and help them as much as you can. It would be desirable to assign several young females from among the kaiurs [native slaves for the Russians] to assist them.” Burtsov and his wife were to serve as models of a new Russian civilization in Russian America, one that was orderly, monogamous and productive. Rather than relying upon promyshlenniki, the RAC saw creoles as the potential bearers of Russian culture and values.
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In about 1825, Khlebnikov restated his belief that Russian men should not marry creole women. He stated, “At a suitable age [creoles] must be married to creoles or Aleuts. Although this should be done at their choice, it should be seen to that persons of great difference in age should not be united, that healthy people should not be mixed with those infected with an illness or who are subjects to fits, beauty with ugliness, stupidity with cleverness, or depravity with mildness and modesty.” Making it even clearer that promyshlenniki were seen as unfit to marry creoles, Khlebnikov stated that they should be denied permission to marry creole women, who, upon returning to Russia, “suffer poverty due to impoverished conditions and dissipation of their husbands. In addition the colonies are deprived of inhabitants.” Khlebnikov suggested that, “If this prohibition cannot be made on the basis of general government laws, then the local authorities can refuse to sanction such ties for various reasons (pretexts), such as the obligations of employees, their behavior, health, etc.”
Forbidding Russian men to marry creoles would also help to increase the permanent population of Russian America, as we see here that Khlebnikov is especially concerned at the position of creole women in Russia. Not only would their position there be shaky, but they would no longer be capable of increasing the population in the colonies, which was a key interest of the RAC. There was also a strong economic motivation for the company to prevent Russian men from marrying creole women, as such marriages would make the men more likely to remain in Russian America in their old age and to become a burden on the company, as we see in an official decree, approved by Emperor Nicholas I on April 2, 1835, which “sanctioned the establishment in the colonies of permanent settlers from the Russian lower class and peasants who were married to Creoles or Natives and because of advanced years, bad health, and lack of close relatives in Russia decided to remain in America.”
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42På den anden side ville det også være godt at få nogle kreolske landmænd i gang:
"Khlebnikov noted in 1825 that the company should get creoles interested in husbandry by giving “them cattle on the condition that they are able to get hay for them with their own effort, but they cannot keep more than two milk cows and one bull. The surplus calves are to be given to the company at set prices, and they should give a written promise that they will not sell animals on the side or kill any for their own use until the number of animals is increased to local requirements.” Such measures would of course benefit the company more than the creoles by providing the RAC with extra meat, which was often hard to come by and expensive. Similarly, he notes, “With assistance from the company give them the opportunity to breed pigs, goats and chickens.” Khlebnikov saw animal husbandry as part of a civilizing process, writing, “These measures are necessary because people who do not care about husbandry, or the dissolute, are capable of squandering all of their own and that of others to satisfy their inclinations.”
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Den løn på 1000 rubler, som blev nævnt, som Burtsov skulle modtage som skibsbygger, var en helt ekstraordinær høj løn, men den var stadig lavere end den, som russere i samme stillingskategori modtog. Lønnen for faglærte kreolere var meget lavere end promyshlennikiernes.
I artiklen "Social Mobility of the Creoles in Russian America" opstiller artiklens forfatter, Andrei Val’terovich Grinyov, professor ved Department of Social Sciences ved St.Petersburg State Polytechnical University, en oversigt over de jobs, som blev besat af kreolere. Bemærk at kategorien common workers, unskilled labourers med 230 kreolere er den absolut største. Herefter kommer sømænd med 101.
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| New Archangels |
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Til sidst førte det til salget af Alaska.
Russian Alaska initially prospered from the fur trade, but by the mid 19th century, overhunting and logistical challenges led to its gradual decline. With most settlements abandoned by the 1860s, Russia sold its last remaining possessions to the United States in 1867 for $7.2 million - 2 cent pr. acre!
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The signing of the Alaska Treaty of Cessation on March 30, 1867. Left to right: Robert S. Chew, William H. Seward, William Hunter, Mr. Bodisco, Eduard de Stoeckl, Charles Sumner, and Frederick W. Seward.
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At det var et økonomisk selvmål at sælge Alaska, blev senere evident. I dag er Alaska en af de rigeste US stater takket være dens rige mængde af kobber, zink, platinium, tømmer, fisk, hvalolie, skind og ikke mindst guld og olie. Så rige mængder, at indbyggerne i Alaska i flere år ikke har betalt statslig indkomstskat eller skat af vareomsætning. Derimod modtager hver indbygger et årligt stipendium, blot de forbliver i staten.
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I starten blev købet kritiseret af en del amerikanere, der kaldte købet for Seward's Folly. William H Seward var udenrigsministeren, der forhandlede aftalen om købet.
Some Americans mocked the purchase as “Seward’s Folly”, “Seward’s Icebox”, “Walrussia” and a “polar bear garden”. However, as early as 1852, Seward, who was from New York, had the foresight to declare: “The Pacific Ocean, its shores, its islands, and the vast regions beyond, will become the chief theatre of events in the World's great Hereafter.” Most Americans supported the purchase. |
| Portrait of William H. Seward 24th Secretary of State for the United States under Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. |
When gold was first discovered in Alaska, in Juneau in 1880, the Far North quickly became the new Wild West. Little could Seward have known.
British colonists worried the Alaska Purchase would lead to an American annexation of British Columbia. “For years — even before the war — [U.S. Secretary of State] Mr. Seward had fixed his attention on the British Dominions as a worthy object of ambition for American statesmen,” wrote the Montreal Gazette a few years later. “In purchasing Alaska, Mr. Seward did not for the first time turn his thoughts northward, and that his interest in our as yet unopened Northwest was neither casual nor superficial.”
DATE:1890
SOURCE:Montreal Gazette, September 13, 1890, p4
I dag fejres underskrivelse af Alaska Purchase Treaty, 30. marts 1867, hvert år den sidste mandag i marts, som kaldes Seward's Day. Dagen er fridag i Alaska.
Alaska Day, som er en fridag for hele USA, fejres 18. oktober - dagen for den formelle overgivelse af russisk Amerika til USA.
Navnet Alaska blev valgt af amerikanerne, fra et Aleut-ord, alashka eller alaesksu, der betyder "stort land" eller "fastland". I den russiske æra var navnet blevet brugt om Alaskahalvøen, som russerne havde kaldt Alyaska (Аляска) eller Alyeska, men hele territoriet kaldte de russisk Amerika.
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| St. Paul |
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| Sitka vist i en avis i anledning af købet af Alaska 1867 |
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| The Purchase of Alaska. The formal change-over of ownership was conducted with due ceremony at Sitka on 18 October 1867. |
Pomp and Ceremony
On October 18, 1867 at 11:00 a.m., representatives for the U.S., Russia, and the RAC arrived in Sitka on the USS Ossipee. At 3:00 p.m., 150 Russian troops in flat glazed caps and dark uniforms trimmed with red assembled on the parapet in front of the governor's house. Two hundred American troops marched up the hill to the beat of their own boots.
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| Flag of the Russian-American Trading Company. |
De nu rettighedssløse og arbejdsløse kreolere blev underlagt amerikansk militærs tilsynsførende.
Russisk og indfødte sprog blev bekæmpet. Børnene kom i engelsksprogede skoler, og der blev iværksat et omfattende amerikaniserings-projekt.
Som et kuriosum kan fortælles, at samtidig med ejerskiftet blev den internationale datolinje flyttet mod vest, og Alaska skiftede fra den julianske kalender til den gregorianske kalender. Derfor blev fredag den 6. oktober 1867 for beboerne efterfulgt af fredag den 18. oktober 1867 - et kunstigt spring på 12 dage pga. kalenderskiftet og to fredage i træk på grund af datolinjen.
Professor ved University of Alaska og tidligere senatsmedlem og grundlægger af Alaska Federation of Natives, Willie Hensley, skriver i en artikel "What Rights to Land Have the Alaska Natives?" (harmdirrende) om, hvordan de indfødte blev undtaget fra de garantier, som russere og kreolere fik i Alaska Treaty of Cession.
The inhabitants of the ceded territory, ***if they should prefer to remain in the ceded territory, they, with the exception of uncivilized native tribes shall be admitted to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States and shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and religion. The uncivilized tribes will be subject to such laws and regulations as the United States may, from time to time, adopt in regard to aboriginal tribes of that country.
Thus, from the beginning of American occupancy of Alaska, the status of the Natives in regard to land was left in limbo. Their citizenship, the opposite side of the coin in private land ownership, was also left in a highly confused state in that “uncivilized native tribes” were excepted from the enjoyment of privileges, rights, and protections granted the white citizens, Russians, and Creoles who chose to remain in Alaska and become citizens.
Det viste sig jo, næsten før blækket i dokumentet var tørt, at de flotte formuleringer og garantier overhovedet ikke var det papir værd, de var skrevet på.
Alaskan Creoles did eventually gain enfranchisement. The following is a passage from Alaska's Governor in 1885 considering enfranchisement of Creoles in the Aleutian Islands:
Jeg kan faktisk ikke helt finde ud af, hvornår kreolerne genvandt deres borgerlige rettigheder. Mon ikke det skete ret kort tid efter denne tale, og efter at Alaska havde fået en civil regering i 1884?
De indfødte - dem der ikke var blevet kreolere - fik dem først i 1924.
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| Kathryn med sine 3 døtre. 2 sønner døde tidligt. |
Og så er der Loren Leman, som voksede op i Ninilchic, Alaska i en russisktalende familie. Hans aner går tilbage til et ægteskab mellem en russisk skibsbygger og en aleut-kvinde.
