Naval actions in 19th century Southeast Alaska

Alaska history is in the news in the past couple days, opening some of the deep wounds of Alaska Natives.  On Thursday in Kake, a Tlingit village of around 500 on Kupreanof Island in Southeast Alaska, Air Force bomb demolition experts arrived to dispose of a shell.  It had been fired by the US naval ship Saginaw in 1869.  The village was shelled and the crew of the Saginaw burned and pillaged much.  The shell had been discovered in a tree trunk around 1940, and had been an open secret in Kake and served as a history lesson about the 1869 attack.  Word got out this week, and a demolitions team went to the village.  Many in Kake feared the government was trying to take away what is considered a part of their heritage.  Calls to State and US Senators allowed that the shell will remain in private care and be returned once diffused.  Villagers hope it opens up discussions with the US government about compensation for the shelling.

The news recalls a difficult time in Alaska's history that led to the end of direct US military rule.  Following the purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867, Alaska was organized as the Department of Alaska, run directly by the US Army.  Incidents broke out almost immediately between the US military and the Alaska Native inhabitants.  This incident in Kake occurred when the navy killed an Alaska Native from Kake in a scuffle.  The Natives in return killed two miners on Admiralty Island.  In reply, the Saginaw sailed from Sitka and bombarded Kake and small camps nearby.  No one was killed, but the village was not largely inhabited again for many years.  The Saginaw sailed to Hawaii, where in 1870 it struck a reef and sank.  The wreckage was found by divers in 2003.  

USS Saginaw

 

This incident was followed up a little over a decade later with a more infamous incident.  In 1882, an Alaska Native crewmember from Angoon was killed in an accident aboard a whaling ship.  Angoon demanded reparations in the form of blankets.  The navy responded by shelling the village, as well as setting fires.  Angoon effectively was destroyed, it's residents homeless and without supplies for the long winter.  Many people in the rest of America felt the navy had acted too rash in the bombardment.  Two years later, Congress passed the Alaska Organic Act of 1884, ending 17 years of direct military rule.  Angoon would wait until 1973 for a $90,000 settlement from the US government.

Reactions to the prospect of the shell being confiscated shows how sore the issues regarding the bombardment still are among the Alaska Natives in Southeast.  It proved to many at the time that the US military was not there to protect them, but to suppress them.  The mistrust has lingered to this day among many Alaska Native peoples who view the United States as an occupier rather than a homeland.

Racism and Jim Crow in Alaska

If you have been following the news up here in Alaska, you may have read about the recent redistricting cycle.  The board in charge of drawing the lines has released their proclamation plan, and it will now likely go to court.  One of the interesting aspects of redistricting in Alaska has to do with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  Alaska is one of the few states, along with Arizona and the Deep South, that have been determined to have discriminatory voting procedures in the past and are forced to have their statewide plan approved by the US Department of Justice.  Many people don't think of Alaska when they think of Jim Crow, so what is the history.

Restaurant in 1908 Juneau advertising that there is no Native staff

Unlike the South, there has never been much of a African-American population within the state, and therefore no real discrimination against them at the governmental level.  Alaska Natives have been the victims, despite being a majority of the population for much of the pre-statehood period.  Often they were not served by restaurants and movie theaters, or were forced to sit in segregated sections.  Following the grant of US citizenship to native peoples by Congress in 1924, Alaska passed a literacy test law to limit Native voting.  Native rights organizations caused general concern among some whites that natives would take over the state politically.  Schools also remained segregated, with whites attending different schools from natives.

Students at the all-native school in Stevens Village 1912

During the Great Depression, the tables started to turn.  Groups such as the Alaska Native Brotherhood became more aggressive in demanding equal rights for Alaska Natives.  In 1939, Ernest Gruening was appointed the territorial governor of Alaska.  Sympathetic on civil rights issues, he helped push through a civil rights bill in 1945.  One of the more memorable moments was during the session, after many legislators had made statements to the effect of that Natives would take thousands of years to catch up to white civilization, Elizabeth Peratrovich rose to give testimony.  An Alaska native from the village of Klawock on Prince of Wales Island, she systematically demolished all the arguments for segregation.  The gallery rose in applause, and the bill eventually passed by an large margin.  It was 1945, the first civil rights bill to pass in the United States since Reconstruction and 20 years before the national bill.

Signing of the bill.  From left to right, Nome Senator O.D. Cochran, Elizabeth Peratrovich, Ernest Gruening, Nome Representative Edward Anderson, Ketchikan Senator N.R. Walker, and Roy Peratrovich (future Klawock Senator)

So if Alaska Natives were equal under the law in 1945, why is Alaska a covered jurisdiction under the Voting Rights Act.  It had to do with the extension to language minorities in 1975.  Alaska was not a covered jurisdiction during the first 10 years of the Act.  Over the objections of both Alaska senators and the governor, the Act was extended to include language minorities.  Alaska was determined to have not effectively made voting provisions for Alaska Natives who do not speak English as a first language or at all.  Ever since, two things have happened.  Alaska has need preclearance from the Justice department for all voting laws and election districts, and the debate has continued over whether the state does enough to provide for Alaska Native voters.  Recently, the case of Nick et al. v. Bethel et al. tested the notion that Alaska is violating the law by not providing Yupik election materials.  The ruling came down that Yupik is not a historically written language, so only oral help in Yupik is required.  This fight, like the fight over redistricting, will no doubt continue into the future.

 Voting in Point Hope during the 1950s