Alaska (48 page)

But even as a child she had sensed that this was not going to be possible, for she was fiercely devoted to the Tlingit way of life, and she saw that the spiritual distance between the Tlingit village and the Russian fort was so great that it could not be honorably bridged unless the Tlingit woman surrendered her identity, and this she knew she would refuse to do. In recent months her parents had begun to wonder: 'What will become of our daughter?' as if they were responsible for her salvation and not she. They were pleased when several young Tlingit and Russian men displayed their lively interest in her, and during the latest visit of the Evening Star

they had been aware that First Mate Kane had tried several times to get her into his bed, but she had rebuffed both him and the local lads for the good reason that she had, when she was only fourteen, identified the slave Ravenheart as the finest young man in the region. In subsequent years she had witnessed his sturdy courage, his loyalty to Kot-le-an, his ability in trading with the Americans and, above all, his comely manner, for she saw in his face the same kind of stately calm she had seen in her own when allowed to borrow one of the magical mirrors provided by Captain Corey.

So in this quiet summer of 1801, Ravenheart had three tasks, to the completion of which he could apply his entire energy: win Kakeena as his wife, build them a house on the

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banks of the salmon stream beneath the big spruce trees, and carve himself a totem pole like the ones that had graced his home village to the south in the days before his capture and servitude.

The various tribes of Tlingits were so different in nature that they scarcely seemed like members of the same family. The Tlingits at Yakutat to the north were almost savage, so intent were they on warfare, raiding and the killing of prisoners. Those like Kot-le-an on the hill above Sitka Sound were warlike enough to defend their terrain but also gentle enough to appreciate the rewards of peace, if it could be obtained on their principles. Those to the south, where Ravenheart had lived, existed along the borders of the Haida people, a distinct branch of Athapascans with their own language, and from them had acquired the gracious habit of carving for each village and prominent home a totem pole of red cedar, tall, stately, colorful and a record of events important to that village or that home. Kot-le-an's people rarely carved totems, and the Yakutats burned them when overrunning a village, but Ravenheart, living as he must in alien land, would not feel easy in any house which was not protected by its totem.

So with the vigor which characterized him, he launched all three of his assignments simultaneously. Asking Kot-le-an to accompany him, he marched to the fisherman's hut where Kakeena lived and solemnly asked her father: 'May I have the honor of taking your daughter to wife?' and before the father could respond, Kot-le-an assured him: 'This one can be trusted.'

'But he's a slave,' the fisherman protested, to which Kot-lean replied: 'No more.

Honor erases that,' and the marriage was arranged.

That afternoon, on the banks of the salmon stream a mile east of the hill in the heart of a noble stand of spruce trees, Ravenheart and Kakeena began felling the logs which would form their home, and in the early evening, when the outlines of their house had been staked out, they hauled ashore the cedar log from which he would carve his totem. Next day, with the help of Kot-le-an himself and three of his assistants, the log was lifted onto the supports which would hold it free of the ground while Ravenheart carved, a task which would occupy his spare time for nearly a year.

As he worked on the log, carving only the side that would be exposed in front, he incorporated a personal selection of those precious images which summarized the spiritual history of his people: the birds, the fish, the great bears, the boats that plied the waters, the spirits that directed life. But he did not do so haphazardly; in obedience to the same principles 297

that had guided Praxiteles and Michelangelo in fashioning their sculptures, he followed highly traditional patterns for relating forms and color so masterfully that the totem, as it gradually emerged, would be no mere illustrated pole standing before a house, but a forceful, sophisticated work of art, magnificent in its final appearance.

He and Kakeena were pleased with it when it was finally ready for erecting into place, and they were honored when the toion, Kot-le-an and the shaman came south to honor and bless it as it rose in the air, a signal that in the house below lived a Tlingit family that took life seriously.

Married, with a house three-quarters built and a bright totem in place, Ravenheart was at work in June of 1802 when Kot-le-an and two of his men ran east to the salmon stream with exhilarating news: 'The Russians were never weaker. Now's the time to destroy them.' So Ravenheart was dispatched to complete his spying, and from a thicket east of Redoubt St. Michael he determined various significant facts: the dangerous adversary Baranov was not in residence; his trusted assistant Kyril Zhdanko was gone, too; with so many of the Aleuts returned to Kodiak, the total complement at the fort seemed to be about fifty Russians and only two hundred Aleuts, a number which could be defeated; and whereas the number of small, unprotected buildings along the shore had increased, the big fort itself and its attendant palisaded square had not been strengthened.

Reporting to Kot-le-an and his aides, Ravenheart said: 'Same as the plans we drew up before. Strike by boat from the bay, by land from the forest. Take the small buildings in the first blow, dig in, and then overwhelm the redoubt.'

'The first part easy?' Kot-le-an asked, and Ravenheart nodded. 'But the second part?'

Kot-le-an asked, and his spy gave an honest answer: 'Very difficult.'

When the force of Tlingit boats left the southern part of the sound at eleven o'clock at night in late June, the sun had barely set, and as the quiet flotilla moved north, coordinating its movement with that of the warriors infiltrating through the forest, the fort was outlined in the silver glow of a midsummer Alaskan night in which darkness would never come. Silently the two forces converged, and at four in the morning, coincident with the return of the sun, they fell upon the Russian encampment, occupied immediately all the unprotected buildings, and swept into the palisaded yard, and then, following tactics which the spy Ravenheart had developed two years before, attacked the spots he had seen to be weakest, broke through, set the Russian buildings afire, and cut the throats of the defenders as they fled to escape the 298

flames. Russians and Aleuts alike perished, and only those fortunate enough to be absent on fishing or fur-hunting parties escaped.

When the carnage was completed, Kot-le-an, its instigator, stood among the dead bodies and cried: 'Let this be a warning to the Russians! They cannot come and steal Tlingit land!' After burning the Russian ships and boats, the victorious Tlingits marched in triumph back to their hilltop home, conquerors of Sitka Sound, protectors of Tlingit rights.

ALTHOUGH ASTONISHED BY THE EASE WITH WHICH HE had eliminated the Russians, Kot-le-an did not even briefly suppose that a determined man like Baranov would allow such a humiliation to go unchallenged. What response the Russians would make and when, he could not anticipate, but certain that it must come, he initiated unusual precautions.

Striding out to where Ravenheart and his wife were still at work on their new home, he announced bluntly: 'This is the best site on the island. Our fort must be here.'

Ravenheart, who had spent considerable energy in building as much of the house as was finished and in carving his totem, started to protest this invasion, but was stopped by Kakeena, who stepped forward with a boldness that surprised him: 'Kot-lean, we shall have no rest till we drive the Russians from our land. Take our house.'

And when Tlingits arrived to convert their home into a military headquarters, she worked with them. Later, it was she who suggested that the whole area be enclosed in a high, thick, spear-studded palisade, and on the construction of this she also helped.

The completed fort a collection of strong small buildings protected by a palisade stood close to the salmon stream on the east and not far from the sound on the south.

To the east it was guarded by a dense forest whose older trees fell in crisscross positions when they died, forming an impenetrable thicket. When all was done, Kot-le-an told his people: 'We cannot defend this hill. Russian ships could lie in the sound and bombard us with their cannon, but down on the point where we have our new fort, they'll not be able to get close enough to harm us.'

'When do we move there?' some women asked, but the toion replied: 'Not before the Russians come ... if they ever do,' and Ravenheart, hearing this almost boastful statement, thought: Kot-le-an's right. A man like Baranov will return. He'll have to.

So the dream of Raven>-heart and Kakeena was lost in the plans of war. The house was built, but it served as a military 299

headquarters, and the totem was in place, but it stood before a Tlingit version of the Russian redoubt and not before a home.

'Can we hold it against the Russians?' Kakeena asked, and her husband equivocated: 'We built it strong. You can see that.'

'But can the Russians fight their way in? The way you did against them?'

'One of these days we'll see,' he replied, and a kind of nervous, passive waiting began. Then in September 1804, Russian ships crowded with fighting men began appearing in Sitka Sound, first the

Neva, come all the way from St. Petersburg, then the Jermak, the Katharina and the Alexander.

Three hundred and fifty two-man kayaks also reported at the end of a fearful crossing of the gulf that separated Sitka from Kodiak. Toward the end of the month the sound was dominated by a hundred and fifty Russians and more than eight hundred Aleuts, all well-armed and eager to avenge the destruction of Redoubt St. Michael two years before. Since it was assumed by the Russians that they would have to storm the hill the Tlingits had occupied in the past, on the night of 28 September, Baranov brought his ships close to the foot of the hill, with every intention of investing it under gunfire in the morning.

But when dawn broke next morning and the Russians began marching up the hill behind Baranov, a brave man prepared for battle, they found to their surprise an unoccupied fort; all the Tlingits had fled to their big new fortress a mile to the east, where the totem stood protecting the main gate, whose supporting walls were twenty inches thick. Announcing that he had won a victory, Baranov assigned troops to man the abandoned fort and hauled up seven cannon, which were emplaced so as to command all approaches.

'I don't know where the Tlingits are,' he told his men, 'but they will never again occupy this hill,' and he would enforce that decision for the remainder of his life.

The Tlingits, safe in their new fortress and satisfied that they could hold it against any Russian pressure, laughed when they heard how Baranov had attacked an empty fort, but their attitude became more grave when spies reported: 'They're beginning to load extra men on the four warships anchored at the foot of the hill.' This news did not frighten Kot-le-an, but it did make him wonder how much damage the guns on those four warships could do, so he dispatched Ravenheart to parley with Baranov and settle the terms under which the two groups could share this handsome bay and the riches it commanded.

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With one young warrior at his side, and with a white flag atop a tall pole, Ravenheart strode down the path leading through the forest, expecting to spread before the Russians the terms which Kot-le-an would be proposing, and he was shocked when he reached the fort to be dismissed abruptly with the scornful words: 'Our commander does not deal with underlings. If your chief wishes to converse with us, let him appear in person.'

Humiliated and enraged, Ravenheart stormed back to Kot-le-an, informing him that there was no purpose in further negotiation, but during Ravenheart's absence, the young chief had become more convinced that peaceful sharing was better than open warfare, so in the morning Ravenheart, accompanied by a special emissary, returned to the hill, this time by water and in a ceremonial canoe. As Ravenheart brought the canoe to a landing place, the emissary began to chant a flowery message of peace: 'Mighty Russians, we of the Mighty Tlingit seek your friendship. You took our land for your redoubt, we took back your redoubt for our land. We stand even, toe to toe, hand to hand, so let us abide in peace.'

With that, the emissary threw himself from the canoe, lay in water up to his nostrils, and looked pleadingly at the Russian sentries, who whistled for officers to come.

Down the steps leading from the hill marched two young men who when they saw the floating emissary began laughing. When they saw that Ravenheart was back again, they spat out the same contemptuous message: 'If your chief has a message, let him come in person,' and they were about to withdraw when Ravenheart unfolded before them one of the largest, silkiest seaotter skins this area had ever produced. In English he cried: 'This is our present to the Great Baranov!' and the gift was so compelling that the officers led him up the stone steps to the fort, where Baranov accepted the pelt graciously, giving him in return a complete suit of woolen clothing.

In Tlingit the former slave, now a man of considerable dignity, said: 'Great Baranov, we seek peace,' at which the Russian spelled out his demands: 'You must leave two hostages with me. You must confirm our ownership of this hill and such surrounding territory as I shall designate for our headquarters. And you must remain peacefully in this area and trade with us.'

After asking for two repetitions of the demands, Ravenheart asked: 'You want all this land?' Baranov nodded. 'And you want us to live obedient to your commands?'

Again the

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Russian nodded, whereupon Ravenheart drew himself up to his considerable height and said: 'I speak for our chieftain Kot-le-an and for our toion. We shall never accept such terms.'