Sitka's location was originally settled by the Tlingit people over 10,000 years ago. The Russians settled Old Sitka in 1799 under the name Redoubt Saint Michael (Russian: форт Архангела Михаила, t Fort Arkhangela Mikhaila). The governor of Russian America, Alexandr Baranov, arrived under the auspices of the Russian-American Company, a colonial trading company chartered by Tsar Paul I. In 1802, Tlingit warriors "clad in animal-headed helmets and armour" destroyed the original establishment, killing four hundred Russians and enslaving the rest, with only a few managing to escape.[5] Baranov was forced to levy 10,000 rubles in ransom for the safe return of the surviving settlers.
Baranov returned to Sitka in 1804 with a large contingent of Russians and Aleuts with the Russian warship Neva. The ship bombarded the Tlingit fort but was not able to cause significant damage. The Russians then launched an attack on the fort and were repelled by Tlingit fighters and marksmen. However, the Tlingit gunpowder reserves had been lost before the Russian assault and the Tlingit were forced to leave the fort.[citation needed]
Following their victory at the Battle of Sitka, the Russians established New Archangel as a permanent settlement named after Arkhangelsk, the largest city in the region where Baranov was born. The Tlingit re-established a fort on the Chatham Strait side of Peril Strait to enforce a trade embargo with the Russian establishment. In 1808, with Baranov still governor, Sitka was designated the capital of Russian America.
The Cathedral of St. Michael was built in Sitka in 1848 and became the seat of the Russian Orthodox Bishop of Kamchatka, the Kurile and Aleutian Islands, and Alaska. The original church burnt to the ground in 1966, but was restored to its original appearance, with the deliberate exception of its clockface, which is black in photographs taken prior to 1966, but white in subsequent photos.
Bishop Innocent lived in Sitka after 1840. He was known for his interest in education, and his house, parts of which served as a schoolhouse, the
Russian Bishop's House has since been restored by the
National Park Service. Swedes, Finns and other Lutherans worked for the Russian-American Company,
[7] and the
Sitka Lutheran Church, built in 1840, was the first
Protestant church on the
Pacific Coast. After the transition to American control, following the purchase of Alaska from Russia by the United States in 1867, the influence of other Protestant religions increased, and
St. Peter's-By-The-Sea Episcopal Church was consecrated as "The Cathedral of Alaska" in 1900.
Sitka was the site of the ceremony in which the Russian flag was lowered and the United States flag raised after Alaska was purchased by the United States. Russia sold Alaska to the United States for only $7.2 million, at 2 cents per acre, as a result of the
sea otter fur trade, which had almost completely exterminated the sea otter population. The flag lowering and raising ceremony is re-enacted in Sitka every October 18, known locally as
Alaska Day. Alaska's first newspaper following the
Alaska Purchase, the
Sitka Times, was published by Barney O. Ragan on September 19, 1868. Only four issues were published that year, as Ragan cited a lack of resources available at the time. The paper resumed publishing the following year as the
Alaska Times. In 1870, it moved to
Seattle, where the year following it was renamed the
Seattle Times (not to be confused with
the modern-day newspaper of the same name).
Sitka served as the capital of the Alaska Territory until 1906, when the seat of government was relocated north to Juneau.
The Alaska Native Brotherhood was founded in Sitka in 1912 to address racism against Alaska Native people in Alaska.[10] By 1914 the organization had constructed the Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall on Katlian Street.[11]
Sitka's Filipino community established itself in Sitka before 1929. It later became institutionalized as The Filipino Community of Sitka in 1981.