Timeline / Defining Rights and Responsibilities / 1880s: Traders settle Arctic shore; disrupt Alaska Native lifeways
1880s: Traders settle Arctic shore; disrupt Alaska Native lifeways
Traders settle along the Arctic shore and hire Native whalers, transforming traditional trading and introducing wage labor. Traders also introduce alcohol and, later, guns. Drinking distracts people from hunting, while hunting with firearms depletes populations of food animals, leading to starvation among Alaska Natives.
- Theme
- Land and Water
- Region
- Arctic
View of four three-masted whaling ships offshore from Barrow, Alaska, ca. 1896–1913. Locals sold seal skins to trading ships they called tradaraq.
Courtesy Alaska State Library, Rev. Samuel Spriggs Photograph Collection