Subject: baidarka Recent Aleut history
From: Peter A. Chopelas (pac@premier1.net)
Date: Thu Mar 22 2001 - 12:00:29 EST
Ran across this and thought some of you may be interested, though some of
the descriptions sounds a bit "politically correct" and not entirely
consistent with my other sources, there are interviews with real Aleuts.
Peter
======================
Subject: ALEUT EVACUATION: The Untold War Story
ALEUT EVACUATION
The Untold War Story
http://www.akpics.com/avp_apae.htm
Told from the perspective of internment survivors, this video
recalls the nightmare imposed on Alaska's Aleuts. Suppressed by the
government at the time under wartime confidentiality provisions and for
decades after World War II, few Americans know this dark chapter in their
own history.
America's least known casualties of World War II were created after
the Japanese bombed Dutch Harbor in 1942. 881 Aleut men, women and
children were forcibly removed from nine villages by the U.S. military and
relocated to internment camps in southeast Alaska. They left on short
notice and had to abandon precious belongings and priceless religious
treasures within their historic Russian Orthodox churches. When they were
allowed to return in 1945, they found their belongings lost or spoiled, and
their churches and homes damaged or completely destroyed.
In their own words, using many previously unpublished photographs,
the Aleuts describe their reactions to the relocation, their experiences in
the camps, and their long struggle to recover their villages and dignity.
10,000 years ago, migrants from Asia settled along a thousand-mile
island chain known today as the Aleutians. Isolated, wind-swept and
treeless islands covered in tundra became home to the Aleut people. Proud
and resourceful, the original Aleuts called themselves unangan, which
translates to "we the people." Holding the earth and its bounty in great
respect, early Aleuts were masters of maritime hunting and harvesting
skills. Uninterrupted, they developed a flourishing culture in one of the
most forbidding climates on earth.
In 1741, Russian explorers provided Aleuts their first contact with
Western man. Vulnerable to the Russians' advanced weaponry, their lives
were disrupted by the domination of strangers. The Aleut people were
enslaved, and colonization brought catastrophe. By the mid 1800s massacre
and disease had reduced a nation of 8,000 people to nearly 2,000.
The interest of the Russians was primarily economic; fur-bearing
mammals in and around the islands yielded enormous profits. Greed was
rampant, and the demand for fur was insatiable. The fabled breeding grounds
of the Northern fur seal were discovered in 1786. Enslaved Aleuts were
forcibly relocated to the Pribilof Islands. There they became the labor
component for seal harvests of previously unimagined proportions.
In 1867, the Russian master was replaced by a new governing
authority, the United States. While the Alaska Purchase guaranteed Aleuts
full U.S. citizenship, their civil rights were granted on paper only. In
practice they, like many Native Americans, remained a subjugated people,
and remained wards of the government.
In March 1942, U.S. military intelligence informed the Alaska
Defense Command that a Japanese attack on the Aleutians was highly
probable. Meetings were held to discuss the possible evacuation of the
Aleuts by the Department of the Interior, the military and the Alaska
governor's office. A consensus was never reached.
On June 3, Dutch Harbor was attacked by the Japanese. The military
immediately instituted a mandatory evacuation of all people of at least 1/8
Aleut blood. With sometimes only hours' notice, 881 Aleut men, women and
children from nine villages (Atka, Akutan, Biorka, Kashega, Makushin,
Nikolski, St. George, St. Paul and Unalaska) were loaded onto Navy ships
and transported to Southeast Alaska.
Military and administrative agencies with overlapping authority were
poorly prepared for the relocation. They hurriedly identified and acquired
internment sites in Southeast Alaska, and the Aleuts were offloaded at five
abandoned and dilapidated fish canneries and gold mining camps. The camps
were in disrepair, lacking heat, water, and sanitation, and all required
repairs to the buildings to enclose them against the weather. Food
shipments and health care were sporadic, and over ten per cent of the
evacuees died from causes directly related to their internment.
Progress of the war in the Pacific by early 1944 determined that the
Aleutians could be repatriated. In May 1944 the Pribilovians were the
first to be allowed to return home. For administrative ease and to avoid
expense, the government refused to allow reestablishment of several smaller
villages, so their residents were permanently relocated to other
communities. All of the Aleuts were not repatriated until June of 1945.
Upon their return, the Aleuts found their villages, churches and
homes damaged or completely destroyed through wanton destruction and
neglect. Icons from their churches had been stolen or destroyed. They were
expected to rebuild their homes and communities with little compensation
for their losses, and no compensation for their labor.
In the late 1970s, Aleut leaders undertook an immense effort to
challenge the government for its treatment of their people during the
war. They asked for reparations payments to survivors of the internment,
the restoration of churches damaged and looted during the war, an apology
from the U.S. government for the treatment of the Aleut people, removal of
wartime debris from throughout the Aleutian Islands, a public awareness of
the evacuation and internment, and the creation of a trust fund for the
Aleut people.
Not until 1988 was the effort rewarded, and then only by combining
the Aleuts' efforts with those of Japanese Americans also interned during
the war, were monetary reparations and a formal apology granted by the
United States. Even today, the Aleut experience is not taught in most
schools, even those in Alaska, and the removal of wartime debris has barely
begun.
Overlooked by decades, the Aleuts' story should not be lost through
fading memory or the passing of elders. After nearly fifty years it was
difficult for the survivors to come forward and tell their story. They did
so in an unselfish attempt to prevent any repetition of such a tragedy in
the future. It is important to remember that the Aleuts were innocent
people, American citizens who posed no threat to the United States. Their
only mistake was to have been living in the wrong place, at the wrong
time..
60 minutes, VHS NTSC only. Not available in PAL or SECAM.
ALEUT EVACUATION
The Untold War Story
Order No. APAE101 $24.95 (US)
plus $4.50 for shipping and handling
Order toll-free 800-565-4949
Video package design and images from video ? 1992 Aleutian/Pribilof Islands
Association, Inc.
All pages and other images on this site are ? 1999 Alaska Video Pictures
unless otherwise credited,
and are protected by the copyright laws of the United States of America,
and the Internet Copyright Act.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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