Sitka Sound
In
this despatch,
Douglas makes reference to
the Russian Settlements in Norfolk Sound,
which is likely Sitka Sound.
Sitka City, and Sound, is located in southeastern Alaska, on the eastern shores of
the Gulf of Alaska, on Baranof Island, which is part of the
Alexander Archipelago. The Sitka region is the traditional and current home to the Tlingit, some of whom
would have met a Russian expedition to that region in 1741.
The Russians had trade interests there, and built a fort near present-day Sitka City
in 1799, which a group of Tlingit destroyed during a skirmish with the Russians in
1802. Despite such hostilities, the Russian-American Company relocated its trade headquarters
to Sitka in 1804, from Kodiak.
Sitka, Tlingit for on the outside of Shee [Baranof Island],
served as territorial capital for nine years, after the 1867 transfer of Alaska to the United States.
- 1. Sitka, Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
- 2. Ibid.
- 3. Ibid.
- 4. Ibid.