Aleutian Islands

The Aleutian Islands are a Archipel located between the America and the Asia.

Geography

These islands extend on 1.900 km according to a roughly East-West semicircular axis since the Péninsule from Alaska until the broad one from the peninsula from Kamchatka. They close the access to the south connecting the Pacific Ocean to the Bering Strait and the icy ocean Arctique.

The Aleutian Islands belong to the belt of fire of the Pacific. They are thus constantly affected by earthquakes. In all, the archipelago includes/understands 57 volcanos.

History

With 18th and 18th centuries, the Russia was strongly implied in the trade of the fur of Zibeline. The tsar Pierre Large the wished to develop this activity, and to find new populations to be driven out. The Russian hunters settled more and more far in Siberia, until the Kamtchatka, peninsula rich in Sable, but where one found also Sea otters. In 1741 and 1742, Vitus Bering and Alexei Tchirikov were charged by the Russian government exploring the northern Pacific and with tracing a sea route towards the America starting from the new Russian possessions of the Far East. During their wintering 1741-1742, the crews collected skins of otter. In 1742, the survivors of forwarding (Bering had died) returned to Russia with 900 skins of otters, which interested the merchants of fur highly. With until: 170000 hairs per cm2, the fur of sea otter is particularly dense and silky. It was the beginning of the great hunting.

The islands were charted in a precise way at the time of the third voyage around the world of the British James Cook, in 1778.

The Russians sent many boats to drive out the fur of otter. After the exhaustion of the north-Asian populations of otters, the catch of the Aleutian Islands then of the Alaska by Russia was largely justified by the will to extend the territories of hunting to the otter, become a particularly profitable activity. The fur of otter was sold indeed not only in Europe, but also at ransom price on the Chinese markets.

In 1784, the Russians established counters of draft on the Aleutian Islands and the coast of America, in Alaska. Coastal stations were built with Attu, Agattu and Unalaska, in the Aleutian Islands, like the island of Kodiak, with broad of the mouth of the Anse Cook (Alaska). Eighteen months later, a colony was established on the continent, opposite the Cook handle.

Before the arrival of Europeans, the islands were populated by the Aléoutes. The indigenous populations were often savagely treated. Of Aléoutes were reduced in slavery, and others would have been taken as hostages to force the indigenous population to drive out the otter on behalf of the Russian merchants. One did not count approximately 25000 Aléoutes before the arrival of the Russians, they were not any more but 3892 in 1885 (Angie Debo, Histoire of the Indians of the United States, page 93). Hunting for the otter was thus not only fatal for these animals.

The inhabitants of the administrative zone of Aleutian Islands (which includes part of the peninsula del' Alaska) were 8162 with the census of 2000, including 4283 on the principal island of Unalaska. The people declaring native americans were in all 2150. In the categories of the American censuses, the native Americans are the descendants of the original populations, in this case, Aléoutes. The number of the people having an origin at least partially aléoute is undoubtedly more important.

After the exhaustion of the populations of Sea otters, the Alaska and Aleutian Islands lost their interest for the Russian Empire, which resold them with the the United States in 1867.

Certain islands were occupied by the Japan during the Second world war.

Today, the Aleutian Islands all belong almost to the State of Alaska.

List islands of is in west

islands Andreanof

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