By Aaron Leggett, CIRI history intern
(This is the first of a two-part series on an historical event in post-contact Dena’ina history.)

All too often history portrays indigenous people as victims. We are told of atrocities that have occurred in the last several hundred years and so often it is a story of people overcome by overwhelming odds. One has the feeling: they didn’t even stand a chance.

What if I told you about a group of Native people who were able to drive Europeans (Russians) out of an area? What if you learned these people were able to take control of their destiny and negotiate trade on their own terms for almost another century? What if I told you that a stunning event took place in the CIRI region and involved some of our ancestors? What I am talking about is the event that has come to be called the Battle of Kenai.

The two Russian companies that arrived in Cook Inlet were the Lebedev-Lashtokin Company and the Shelikov Company. The Lebedev Company set up its first trading post called St. George at Kasilof in 1787. Four years later, it established St. Nicolas in Kenai in 1791.

In the meantime, the Shelikov Company had set up a post at English Bay in 1784 and a ship building site at Resurrection Bay in 1791.

Because the two companies were competitors, the employees and managers of each tried to get exclusive trade with all the Natives in the area any way they could think of, including the use of verbal threats, physical threats, and by kidnapping people associated with the opposite post. The reason that these workers did this was that the more furs they brought in, the larger their commission would be. For instance, the Russians at Kenai might say, “We will kidnap your wife and children if we catch you trading any more at Kasilof,” and the people at Kasilof might say the same thing about Kenai. And since the distance between Kasilof and Kenai was only about 12 miles, word traveled quickly.

While there is no argument about how intensely the two companies competed with each other, what is generally less well known is that Shelikov and Lebedev would prosper either way. Lebedev was the second largest investor (15 percent) of the post at Kenai, and he and Shelikov had both invested in other ventures previously, according to Professor of Anthropology Alan Boraas of the Kenai Peninsula College.

Boraas has documented the violence that resulted from this situation. During the years of 1788 to 1798 there were approximately 178 violent acts perpetrated against the Dena’ina, including 25 deaths, 68 assaults, 17 acts of theft, and 68 kidnappings. During this period there were probably 200 Russians in the area and 4,000 to 6,000 Dena’ina throughout all of Cook Inlet. Since the Russians had cannons and muskets, they were able to terrorize the Dena’ina.