Early History
The human history of Amchitka dates back at least 2,500 years, with the Aleut people. Human remains, thought to be of an Aleut dating from about 1000 AD, were discovered in 1980.
Amchitka is said to have been seen and named St. Makarius by Bering in 1741, was sighted by Billings in 1790, and visited by Shishmaref in 1820.
In 1783, Daikokuya Kōdayū and 15 Japanese castaways landed on Amchitka after drifting for seven months. The castaways were taken care of by Russian employees of Zhigarev and hunted with indigenous people. Six of the castaways died in three years.
According to Kōdayū, islanders received necessities and supplies such as tobacco, ironware, horse- and ox-skins, and cotton in return for hunting otters or seals. The furs brought by indigenous people were divided into thirds between the Russian Empire, Moscow furrier Vassily Yakovlevich Zhigarev (mayor of Moscow in 1795-1798), and Zhigarev's Russian employees. Russian trappers and traders established settlements on the islands, exploiting the indigenous people, whose population on the island quickly fell. In 1784, a major Aleut revolt occurred as Russians killed Oniishin, indigenous chieftain's daughter and the Russian chief's mistress (See: Aleut people#Recorded revolt), and hundreds of Aleuts escaped from Amchitka after being defeated by five Russians. From 1832, the island was never permanently inhabited. The islands were surveyed by the North Pacific Exploring Expedition in 1855, and were included in the Alaska Purchase of 1867. In 1913, President William Howard Taft set aside the Aleutian chain, including Amchitka, as a wildlife preserve. The Native residents of Atka leased the island for fox hunting in 1920, and continued to use the island until the Japanese invasion of the western Aleutians in 1942. By the time of World War II, an abandoned Russian fishing village was all that remained.
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