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Formal education was established by the Russian Orthodox Church
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Unangan/Aleut made contact with Danish explorer Vitus Bering.
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Pacific Eskimo make contact with Non-Natives
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Russians made contact with the Koniag Alutiiq
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Tlingit encountered Spanish explorers
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Bering Sea Eskimo contact with Non-Natives
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Southeast Coastal Indians made contact with Non-Natives
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Russians discover the Pribilof Islands
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Interior Indians make contact with Non-Natives
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The Civilization Fund Act was enacted in which the Federal government gave funds to religious groups to operate schools. It impacted Alaska even though it was discontinued.
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John Veniaminov accepts an invitation to work in Alaska
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Veniaminov studies the Aleut language with the aid of bilingual helpers
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Veniaminov opened a bilingual school in which both Aleut and Russian were taught. With Ivan Pan’kov, an Aleut leader, he designed the Aleut alphabet.
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A church is constructed at Unalaska by Veniaminov
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A British Captain named Edward Belcher visited Veniaminov and wrote an inspirational entry about Veniaminov’s life and efforts.
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Veniaminov’s wife dies while he was in Russia
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Russians penetrate the Yukon and Kuskokwim river valleys
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Veniaminov returns to Alaska
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Yakov Netsvetov transferred to the Central Yupik area and designs a Yupik writing system and translated the first church books into Yupik.
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Petropavlovsk Seminary in Kamchatka Relocation
The Petropavlovsk Seminary in Kamchatka is relocated to Sitka and called the New Archangel Seminary. It opened with 54 students, 3 teachers, and a library. 23 of those students were Alaska Native and the curriculum included 6 years Native languages, Aleut, Tlingit, and Yupik. -
English overland traders establish a trading post at Fort Yukon
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Northern Eskimo make contact with Non-Natives
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Koyukon Athabaskans destroy a Russian American post at Nulato
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Tillie Kinnon Paul is born to a Tlingit woman from the Wrangell area and a Scotsman. She attended Mrs. McFarland’s Home for Girls.
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The United States purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million
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Alaska did not have a civil government. Few hundred soldiers and sailors policed the entire region. Missionary schools helped the public education gap.
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Archbishop Innocent is appointed Metropolitan of Moscow
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Presbyterian Board of Home Missions sends Mrs. Amanda R. McFarland to Wrangell to start a school. She taught reading, spelling, geography, and writing.
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Sheldon Jackson extends his Christian soldier’s vision to Alaska
Jackson founded a mission at Wrangell, Alaska. Soon after, his protege John Brady, created a boarding school for natives of Sitka. This school was the forerunner of today’s Sheldon Jackson College -
The first Alaska canneries are built
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S. Hall Young arrived and learned that Sarah Dickinson and George Dickinson had met in Wrangell and had two children. He made her his “official translator.”
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A new technique of canning salmon came to Alaska. However, Natives in Bristol Bay were excluded from the labor force. Imported Chinese were regarded as more tractable and reliable compared to the Natives
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1,500 St. Lawrence Island Eskimos die from starvation, reducing the population by 75 percent.
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Archbishop Innocent dies
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Tillie is the oldest girl at Homes for Girls and was a leader among the other students.
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English warship “came to the rescue” of the town of Sitka. This was the time when tensions between Tlingits and white settlers became so bad that there were street fights.
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John Muir travels to Alaska
Muir sets out from Wrangell to Lynn Canal by canoe with four Tlingit paddlers and S. Hall Young. -
L. Beardslee establishes a Native police force in Sitka
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The Presbyterian Board of Home Missions commissioned Sarah Dickinson to start a school for Chilkat Tlingits.
She was employed as a teacher. She helped may a foundation for the Presbyterian missionaries the Reverend and Mrs. E. S. Willlard, who arrived a year later to open Haines Mission. -
The Willards became sick and made an emergency trip to Sitka
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Tillie Kinnon Paul and her husband, Louis Francis Paul, were commissioned by the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions to open a school in Klukwan. Like Sarah Dickinson, they tried to decrease the practice of shamanism.
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The Willards return and find out that Sarah sheltered a Tlingit woman who killed a boy through witchcraft.
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Tillie and Louis Paul return to Wrangell
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Senator Benjamin Harrison championed a federal law, “First Organic Act,” which brought civil government to the last frontier. Alaska received $25,000 for education.
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The Organic Act provides public education
The Organic Act provides public education. Sheldon Jackson was named federal education agent for Alaska. Although Congress increased the appropriation for education in Alaska to $40,000 in 1885, the funds were not adequate to accomplish the task assigned in so vast a territory. -
Sarah Dickinson was still teaching in the school at Haines
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Louis Paul and Samuel Saxman both drown and die
Louis Paul and Samuel Saxman both drown and die. Shortly after, Tillie gives birth to her third child which she names him Louis. She moves to Sitka and started teaching at the town’s Native school and at the Sitka Industrial Training School, a Presbyterian residential school for Native students. -
Sarah Dickinson resigns from teaching
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The Bureau of Education was delegated to providing education. Later, the Bureau of Indian Affairs operated schools in Alaska until 1986.
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Caroline Willard writes an article titled, “Native Sabbath School Teachers.”
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Tillie Paul was titled as “General Worker and Interpreter.”
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Tillie Paul and two other Tlingit women sang a hymn in Tlingit. She showed a strong interest in helping preserve her culture.
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Frances Willard graduated from a young ladies’ seminary in Elizabeth, New Jersey and took an appointment as an assistant teacher at the Sitka Industrial Training School.
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Congress allowed whites to begin applying for title to business sites and many Native properties were taken.
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Frances Willard temporarily left Alaska to continue her schooling
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Alaska introduced a liquor licensing system around the time when the gold rush began
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Congress passed legislation to provide for the incorporation of towns in Alaska. The legislation allowed local control of the schools and financing of operations through local funds.
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Tillie moved to Wrangell and married William Tamaree. She served as an organist in the church, acted as interpreters for ministers, and translated Christian hymns into Tlingit.
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Native population declined to its lowest point. It recorded 25,331 people.
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Sheldon Jackson died in Asheville, North Carolina.
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A group of missionary-educated Tlingit men founded the Alaska Native Brotherhood as a vehicle for achieving citizenship for Natives.
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A second reform of the act made Alaska a United States territory with its own legislature.
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Missionary instructor Livingston Jones states, “The Tlingit language is doomed to speedy extinction, the sooner the better for the Natives.”
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The United States government closed the Orthodox Church school on St. Paul Island by force.
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Halibut fishing restrictions were imposed that led to increases in numbers of halibut.
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The Meriam Report is issued
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The Presbyterian General Assembly declared women eligible to be elected church elders. The Native Presbyterian Church of Wrangell made Tillie Paul Tamaree an elder. She became one of the first women in the United States to hold such a position.
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Indian Reorganization Act and the Johnson-'O'malley Act were enacted. Both had a direct impact on Alaska Native people that continues today.
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Congress passed the Alaska Reorganization Act which granted special permission to establish “village” governments and constitutions.
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The Alaska Statehood Act was passed, giving the state the right to select 108 million of Alaska’s 375 million acres. This brought dilemmas to the Native people.
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Fish traps are outlawed after decades of unlawful use by canneries
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The Office of Economic Opportunity was created that provided Headstart and Community Action Programs.
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The Elementary and Secondary Education Act is enacted
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The state began to pay attention to the unique educational needs and interests of Alaska Native people in rural areas.
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The state established the Division of State-Operated Schools with special responsibility for rural and on-base military schools, and it created a governor's committee to again explore the merger of BIA and state schools
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The lowest pack in salmon canneries since the 1880s
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Oil is discovered at North Slope
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The “Kennedy Report” was completed after an investigation was done by the special Senate subcommittee.
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The Alaska State legislature attempted to attend to the chaos in Alaska's rural schools by making the Alaska State-Operated School System an independent agency with responsibility for rural schools.
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Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was signed into law by President Nixon. ANCSA provided a cash settlement of 962.5 million dollars and 44 million acres to be distributed to 12 regional and 200 village corporations.
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Alaska restricted commercial salmon fishing to 12,500 permit holders.
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Congress passed the Indian Education Act where it provided grants to Indian tribes, institutions, organizations, and state and local agencies to develop and implement projects to improve educational opportunities for Indian children.
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Roughly 22 million salmon are commercially harvested
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The Hootch family filed a lawsuit against the State of Alaska
The Hootch family filed a lawsuit against the State of Alaska, charging discriminatory practice on the part of the state, was filed by Alaska Legal Services, on behalf of rural secondary-aged students, for not providing local high school facilities for predominantly Native communities when it did for same-size, predominantly non-Native, communities. -
Twenty-one separate rural school districts or Regional Educational Attendance Areas (REAAs) were established.
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The Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act became law that had the intent to provide increased opportunities for local control.
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Congress adopted the Magnuson Act which created a 200-mile off-shore zone under strict U.S. control.
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The lawsuit that became the Tobeluk v. Lind case was settled
The lawsuit that became the Tobeluk v. Lind case was settled. In the settlement, the state of Alaska agreed that it would establish a high school program in every community in Alaska where there was an elementary school which required a minimum enrollment of eight students and one or more secondary students. -
The Education Amendments Act is established
The Education Amendments Act is established. In Alaska, the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act and Education Amendments Act further increased federal incentives favoring community control of BIA schools, including the hiring and firing of teachers as well as the design of curriculum. -
The United States government extended its oceanic jurisdiction to 200 miles offshore
The United States government extended its oceanic jurisdiction to 200 miles offshore. In the late 1980s, a group of Native fisherman from the Bering Sea coastal villages approached Senator Ted Stevens and proposed that a small portion of the annual catch from key stocks be designated as a Community Development Quota. In 1994, six nonprofit organizations were created to receive the annual quotas. One of the uses is for providing post secondary scholarships to students. -
Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act
The act required that the State of Alaska establish a similar priority or lose its authority to regulate fish and wildlife resources on federal lands. However, since 1992, State of Alaska has not been in compliance with ANILCA. In 1996, United States government began managing fish and wildlife on federal lands. -
Roughly 132 million salmon are commercially harvested
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The Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound has created many environmental problems and continue to plague Gulf of Alaska villages.
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Congress created The Alaska Natives Commission
Congress created The Alaska Natives Commission. When Congress created the Commission, it was directed to conduct a comprehensive study of the social and economic status of Alaska Natives and the effectiveness of the policies and programs of the United States and of the State of Alaska that affect Alaska Natives. -
The first meeting of the Commission was held. Within months, staff had been hired and five task forces had been named to gather information on economics, education, governance, health, social and cultural issues.
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The Commission produces a four volume Final Report
The Commission produces a four volume Final Report. It provided the stimulus and the rationale for most subsequent policy initiatives that continue to be implemented at both state and federal levels. In addition, the Alaska Federation of Natives has sponsored numerous policy and program initiatives of its own to follow through on the Alaska Natives Commission recommendations. -
EPA restricts Pebble Mine to mine the headwaters of Bristol Bay