Social Inequality at Fort Ross

1
Social Inequality at Fort Ross
Section 113 Researcher Amy Wang Assistant Ti Chu
2
4 Major Classes in Fort Ross work force

• Russians
• Creoles
• Native Alaskans
• Native Californians

3
Russians

• The honorable ones
• Company administrators, military officers
• Semi-honorable ones
• Clerks, soldiers, navigators, laborers
• Colonial citizens
• Retired Russian laborers

4
Creoles

• Officers, middle-level managers, clerks, skilled
  craftsmen
• Often not accepted by either the Russian or
  Native American communities
• Made modest wage, but tended to be paid less than
  ethnic Russians

5
Native Alaskans

• General laborers, commercial sea mammal hunters,
  porters, fishermen, skilled craftsmen
• Different wages depending upon the job
• Paid on commission for their labor or received
  daily or yearly salaries in scrip
• Old men, boys, and women laborers were not
  compensated for their efforts.
• Many of the Native Alaskan workers remained in
  debt to the Company until they died.

6
Native Californians

• General laborers and seasonal agricultural
  workers
• Lowest rank in both compensation and status
• Were paid through barter or in-kind for their
  services
• Compensation for native women were minimal.
• Men were probably never promoted into better
  paying occupations.

7
The Spatial Organization

• Ross Colony was organized into 4 ethnic
  residential areas
• Native Californian Neighborhood
• Stockade Compound
• Russian Village
• Native Alaskan Neighborhood

8
Stockade Compound

• The nucleus of the community
• Where the honorable Russian administrators and
  military officers lived and worked, along with
  some unmarried Russian men
• The structures reflected the elite status of the
  residents

9
The Russian Village

• lower class ethnic Russians, ethnic Siberians,
  and Creoles, who served in the capacity as
  sentries, artisans, cooks
• consisted of numerous residential structures,
  gardens, and orchards
• The pretty little houses of sixty Russian
  colonists (Duhaut-Cilly, 1828).
• Reflects writers assumption that Russian Village
  is nice and pretty

10
Native Alaskan Neighborhood

• Included households such as Aleut and Koniag
  hunters, single native Alaskan males, native
  Alaskan couples, and inter-ethnic couples
  comprised of native Alaskan men and native
  Californian women.
• Many native Californians lived under the same
  roof with native Alaskans in very crowded
  conditions.
• A barrack was built near the Aleuts huts that
  could accommodate fifty native Californians
  during the winter months.
• Contained The flattened cabins of eighty
  Kodiaks (Duhaut-Cilly, 1828).
• Reflects the assumption that Native Alaskan
  Neighborhood isnt as pretty and high class as
  the Russian Village

11
The Native Californian Neighborhood

• The Cone-shaped huts
• Native Californian women who cohabited with
  Russian, Creole, Native Alaskan men, and some
  Native Californian male prisoners
• miserable huts formed of branches through
  which the rain and wind passed without
  difficulty (LaPlace, 1839).
• Reflects the assumption that Native Californian
  Neighborhood was the lowest class

12
Archaeological Remains

• Stockade
• highly complete or reconstructible vessels
  suggest that the Russians had access to complete
  vessels
• NAVS
• fragmented window, vessel, ceramics, glass
  artifacts suggest that the Natives had no access
  to complete vessels
• bent metal nails also suggest the Natives were
  the secondary users
• beads reflect the color preference of the Natives
  and suggest that they were the primary users

13
How Russian affected social hierarchy and
lifestyle of the natives

• The formation of interethnic households provided
  a convenient social context for some Native
  Californian women to alter their identities and
  to distance themselves from other Native
  Californian peoples
• Women could have adopted the material trappings
  of Native Alaskan wives
• Native Californian women married Native Alaskans
  and formed close bonds with Alaskans and Creoles
• Persistence of native cultural beliefs and
  practices
• Cultural traits were modified
• New marriage patterns, social networks, material
  culture, foodways, and cultural practices

14
How we understand social inequality at Fort Ross
?

• travel accounts and historical documents reflect
  assumption of the writers
• archaeological remains in different ethnic areas
  of the site

?
?
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Bibliography

• Duhaut-Cilly, Auguste Bernard
• 1929 Duhaut-Cillys Account of California in
  the Years 1827-1828. California Historical
  Society Quarterly 8(4)306-336.
• Farris, Glenn
• 1997 Historical Archaeology of the Native
  Alaskan Village Site . In The Native Alaskan
  Neighborhood A Multiethnic Community at Colony
  Ross, edited by K. G. Lightfoot, A. M. Schiff and
  T. A. Wake, pp. 130-31. vol. 2. 2 vols.
  Archaeological Research Facility, Berkeley.
• Farris, Glenn
• 1997 Life at fort Ross as the Indians saw
  it Stories from the Kashaya . In The Native
  Alaskan Neighborhood A Multiethnic Community at
  Colony Ross, edited by K. G. Lightfoot, A. M.
  Schiff and T. A. Wake, pp. 17. vol. 2. 2 vols.
  Archaeological Research Facility, Berkeley.
• Lightfoot, Kent
• 2003 Russian Colonialization The
  Implications of Mercantile Colonial Practices in
  the North Pacific. Historical Archaeology 37 (4)
  14-28.
• Lightfoot, Kent, and Martinez, Antoinette
• 1991 Interethnic Relationships in the Native
  Alaskan Neighborhood Consumption Practices,
  Cultural Innovations, and the Construction of
  Houshold Identites. In The Archaeology and
  Ethnohistory of Fort Ross, edited by K. G.
  Lightfoot, A. M. Schiff and T. A. Wake, pp. 3-17.
  vol. 1. 2 vols. Archaeological Research Facility,
  Berkeley.
• Lightfoot, Kent, Martinez, Antoinette
• 1991 Native Laborers in a Multi-Ethnic
  Community. In The Archaeology and Ethnohistory of
  Fort Ross, edited by K. G. Lightfoot, A. M.
  Schiff and T. A. Wake, pp. 2-3. vol. 1. 2 vols.
  Archaeological Research Facility, Berkeley.
• Images courtesy of Kent G. Lightfoot and
  google.com image banks.