UC Davis

The histories of the Native North Pacific, particularly those of Sugpiat and Dena’ina along Alaska’s southern coast, flow together like the region’s waterways. These Peoples’ navigations through their historical memories all center relations to places, seasonal activities, and knowledges often discounted or minimized in settler histories of ‘Alaska’ and ‘Alaska Natives.’ This dissertation examines Sugpiat and Dena’ina historical relations with and remembrances of Russian, British, and other European expeditions, not just relaying exact recollections but recounting conditions and experiences before and since these events. Examining interactions and experiences from the 1760s to the 1850s, the following five chapters examine Native North Pacific knowledges, commentary, and remembrance. Chapter 1 juxtaposes the testimony of Sugpiaq Elder Arsenti Aminak with Russian accounts of eighteenth-century invasions of Qik’rtaq [Kodiak] by centering Qik’rtarmiut storytelling and seasonal relations. Chapter 2 examines Captain James Cook’s journal from his Third Voyage along with crewmates’ accounts concerning their relationships with Dena’ina alongside Dena’ina perspectives of these interactions. Chapter 3 investigates Russian colonialism and British expeditions in the 1780s to articulate Sugpiat and Dena’ina navigations of these changing circumstances through their own relations and knowledges. Chapter 4 turns to another British voyage, George Vancouver’s in the 1790s, to investigate British modified perspectives concerning Russians and Alaska Natives as the former expanded into the Native North Pacific. Chapter 5 returns to Aminak’s testimony, proposing his recollections also articulated perspectives of subsequent Qik’rtarmiut experiences under Russian colonialism surrounding whaling, missionization, and movements. By recentering Sugpiat and Dena’ina relations, knowledges, and perspectives of this period, this dissertation unsettles historical presumptions of Alaska Natives before the 1867 US Purchase Treaty.