The forests of Sheet'ká: Failed timber colonialism in Lingít Aaní

Between 1820 and 1875, Russian and American colonizers attempted to create an export market for timber in Sheet’ká (the modern-day town of Sitka in southeast Alaska). Throughout the Russian and American colonial periods though, Tlingits (an Alaska Native people) kept control over their lands and harnessed the timber resources of Sheet’ká to begin a trade relationship with Euro-American colonizers. By providing firewood, bark for roofs, and yellow cedar for ships, the Sheet’ká Tlingit dominated the timber trade with these colonizers and obtained valuable material goods to increase their power. In this manuscript, I argue that while Russian and American colonizers had lofty ambitions for making Sheet’ká the center of timber production in the Pacific, they lacked the labor and investment to realize this dream. A combination of market forces, geography, lack of labor and settlers, and Tlingit power and trade acumen allowed the Sheet’ká Tlingit to fully control their timber resources throughout the 1800s and maintain their sovereignty from Euro-American rule. Instead of the aasgutú (forests) of Lingít Aaní (the lands of the Tlingit) serving as a profit center for colonizers, they were used to maintain and expand Tlingit wealth in the nineteenth century. I argue that this example of Indigenous power over Euro-American colonizers informs other histories of attempted timber extraction in the Pacific Northwest, as Indigenous Nations in this region grappled with the influx of European empires, companies, and settlers in the nineteenth century.