Introduction In 1804, Russian colonising forces, with the support of their Aleut subjects, fought a major battle against native Tlingit clans in what is now Sitka, Alaska (Figure 1). The story of the battle was recorded in Russian sources (e.g. Lisyansky Reference Lisyansky1814) and passed down in Tlingit oral history (e.g. Dauenhauer
et al. Reference Dauenhauer, Dauenhauer and Black2008). Although accounts vary in some details and perspectives, a general description of the battle and associated fort emerged (Nordlander Reference Nordlander1998; Black Reference Black2004; Vinkovetsky Reference Vinkovetsky2011). The Tlingit defended
Shís gi Noow, or ‘the sapling fort’, on a peninsula at the mouth of the