Alexander Baranov ruled Alaska as a virtual dictator for 27 years (1791-1818) and is one of my least favorite characters. He exploited, abused and deported thousands of Kodiak Island Alutiiq men to company outposts as far east as Japan and as far south as California. The original Sitka trading post that the Kiks.adi Tlingit burnt down in 1802 was manned primarily by Kodiak men, and the battle to re-occupy the site included even more enslaved Alutiiqs. If there was slavery and criminal abuse of Native Alaskans, it happened during his regime, although the company claimed that this all happened earlier, in the time of the original frontiersmen, who in fact were mostly Native Siberians who intermarried rather than killed or enslaved the Unangan Aleuts of the Aleutian Chain. Baranov, as I say in my Alaska Pacific University Alaska History class, was the “Joseph Stalin of Alaska history.”
However, modern research on this history of the Sitka conflict reveals that Baranov actually was paying rent to the Kaagwaantaan clan and was somewhat justified in his anger when the rival clans burnt “Old Sitka” down and killed his Alutiiq hunters. It turns out that the British from Canada supplied the guns and ammunition for the attack and again armed the Tlingits for the 1804 battle as well. They were trying to drive the Russians out and seize the area for themselves.
If Baranov had not returned to reclaim the site with the naval vessel Neva and hundreds of willing Alutiiq allies, Southeast Alaska would have been eventually absorbed by the Canadians and become part of British Columbia. The whole story is much more complicated than a simple "cowboys-and-Indians" melodrama. But because of his illegal and brutal treatment of the Unangan and Alutiiq people, he certainly does remembered as a criminal and not deserve to honored by any monuments. It is regrettable how many places and businesses are named for him, and the early scoundrels of that era — Shelikov and Rezanov— all of whom got positive press from the books the Russian America Company funded and published to cover their own dirty deeds.
This all proves that whoever gets good press coverage makes a favorable, though undeserved, impression to later generations. If Alaskans want to honor our Russian heritage, I suggest we consider those who are much less known but worthy: Ioan Veniaminov, Sofia Vlasov, Alexander Kashevarov, Jacob Netsvetov — ignored and almost unknown Alaska Native heroes of that earlier historical period, as well as Father Herman (for whom Kodiak has named their boat harbor).
History, like human beings, is always more complicated than we expect, but deciding whom to honor with a monument should not be so difficult. Baranov certainly does not deserve one.
Rev. Michael J. Oleksa
Anchorage
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