Following are links to original materials and primary documents related to the Transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States at Sitka, Alaska, October 18, 1867.
Sitka’s Lost Decade, 1867-1877 by Rebecca Poulson, at Sitkaartblog.wordpress.com.
Sitka’s First Decade Under the American Flag, 1867-1877, by Rebecca Poulson
Photo Pairs Archival photographs by Eadweard Muybridge and Re-takes by James Poulson
Traditional Tlingit Country map by Tlingit Readers, Inc.
1867 Transfer Map of Sitka from Alaska State Archives
Official Transfer Report and Sitka Transfer Map Inventory, 1337 House Executive Documents 125 January 1868
Superimposed Transfer Map over a Google Earth photo of Sitka
1870 Report by Jeff Davis from House Executive Documents 3rd Session 41st Congress, 1870-71, Volume 2 Number 1
“Lo, The Poor Indian” by Horace Greeley, from An Overland Journey, New York to San Francisco, the Summer of 1859
“The Canoe Rocks: We Do Not Know What Will Become of Us” The Complete Transcript of a Meeting Between Governor John Green Brady of Alaska and a Group of Tlingit Chiefs Juneau, December 14 1898” Article by Ted Hinckley, from the Western Historical Quarterly, July 1970
Images of file in Alaska State Archives “The Complete Transcript of a Meeting Between Governor John Green Brady of Alaska and a Group of Tlingit Chiefs Juneau, December 14 1898”
Full text of “The Meeting Between Governor John Green Brady of Alaska and a Group of Tlingit Chiefs Juneau, December 14 1898
The following materials are also on the Alaska Historical Society site: https://alaskahistoricalsociety.org/about-ahs/special-projects/150treaty/150th-resource-library/
Kostrometinoff account recollection of the Transfer ceremony in a letter to Father A. P. Kashevaroff
Transcript of Kostrometinoff letter
Official Transfer Report and Sitka Transfer Map Inventory 1337 House Executive Documents 125 January 1868
Alta California newspaper story about the transfer by Del Norte, J. H. Goodale, November 19th 1867
Transcription of Alta California Nov 19 1867 article
Memoirs of a Finnish Workman by T. Ahllund, from Suomen Kuvalehti (The Finnish Pictoriall) 1873, translated by Panu Hallamaa in the Alaska Historical Society Journal, Fall 2006
Delavan Bloodgood “Eight Months at Sitka” from Overland Monthly 2 February 1869 175-186
Seward’s Speech at Sitka in 1869 August 12, 1869
Andrew Alexander Blair Account of Transfer
Transcription of Andrew Alexander Blair Account
There are also other resources on the AHS site, like articles and the podcast.
Books:
R. N. DeArmond, editor, Lady Franklin Visits Sitka, Alaska 1870, the Journal of Sophia Cracroft, Sir John Franklin’s Niece (Anchorage: Alaska Historical Society, 1981) which has a key to the Transfer map (the complete key or inventory is part of the official report, above), as well as her niece’s observations, and an 1870 census by the Army
Robert N. DeArmond and Richard A. Pierce, The USS Saginaw in Alaska Waters, 1867-68 (Kingston, Ontario and Fairbanks, Alaska: Limestone Press, 1997- especially the parts about the shelling of Kake. This book has the chilling account by a young midshipman of the destruction.
An Army Doctor’s Wife on the Frontier: The Letters of Emily McCorkle FitzGerald from Alaska and the Far West, 1874-78 (University of Nebraska Press 1986), Includes her account of the Nez Perce War, which is where many of the Army personnel went after Sitka, to Fort Lapwai.
Kahtahah, by Frances Lackey Paul (Alaska Northwest Books, 1976) which is out of print but not hard to get. It is by Frances Lackey Paul, but the book is the stories of Tillie Paul Tamaree (her mother in law). Tillie Paul was a remarkable woman with a remarkable life story, and it’s all here. Her adopted father was an important clan leader, and she grew up traditionally, but then lived with missionaries and became one herself. Her son was William Paul, a Tlingit lawyer who fought for land claims.
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