Anna, Like Thunder

AFTERWORD

After Anna died in August 1809, the surviving Russians continued to live among the coastal First Nations. The record tells us that her husband, Nikolai Isaakovich, died in February 1810 from a combination of consumption and a broken heart. Kozma Ovchinnikov and two Aleuts also died of unknown causes at unknown dates.

On May 6, 1810, the US vessel Lydia, captained by Thomas Brown, approached the shore near Tsoo-yess. The man known in the novel as Makee immediately took Timofei Osipovich out to the ship where they were surprised to find another of the Russian crew, Afanasii Valgusov. He had been traded to an unidentified First Nation community on the Columbia River and subsequently traded to Captain Brown. Makee then brought to the vessel as many of the Russians as he could and traded for them. The negotiations were not easy. Makee asked a higher price for two men, one of whom was Ivan Kurmachev, fictionalized in this novel as a carpenter to explain the higher asking price. In the end, in return for each person, Makee’s people received five blankets, five sazhens (about 35 feet) of woolen cloth, a locksmith’s file, two steel knives, a mirror, five packets of gun powder, and the same quantity of small shot. In his account, Timofei Osipovich Tarakanov calls this an outrageous sum, but when measured against what would have normally passed hands when trading a slave at that time and the trouble to which the Makahs, Quileutes, and Hoh went to feed, clothe, and house the Russians, it is not so outrageous. Though it took a year and a half, Makee kept his promise. The Lydia took the surviving Russians back to Novo-Arkhangelsk.

Makee is identified in the Russian account as Yutramaki, a name whose pronunciation somehow eludes Anna and the Russians. Furthermore, this intriguing man appears in The Adventures of John Jewitt, Only Survivor of the Crew of the Ship Boston, During a Captivity of Nearly Three Years Among the Indians of Nootka Sound in Vancouver Island, where he is named Machee Ulatilla. In the Jewitt account, Makee plays a key role in Jewitt’s rescue, just as he explains to Anna when he shows her the metal cheetoolth.

Yakov and the apprentice Filip Kotelnikov were not among those rescued by the Lydia. The people with whom Yakov was living after Anna’s death traded him to Captain George Washington Eayres, commander of the American vessel Mercury. It is not known what happened to him after that time, but it is likely that he did not return to the Russian-American Company but instead worked for the Americans. Filip Kotelnikov was sold to “a distant people.” Despite his revulsion for the Hoh people when he was first captured, there is evidence to suggest he married an Indigenous woman and had children and may have lived at the Russian Fort Ross in California for many years. There are Kotelnikovs living still in California; the surname can also be found in the Seattle area.

Maria, to whom I assigned the fictional job of cook, was among those rescued. She also has an extraordinary postscript to the story. The oral tradition of this incident, recounted by Ben Hobucket of the Quileutes in the early 1900s and finally published in 1934, states that Maria lived with the Hobucket family until the rescue Makee arranged. But several years later, a Russian ship returned to the mouth of the river looking to capture Quileutes as slaves. The curious Quileutes who paddled out to the ship without this knowledge were startled to see Maria on deck. She shouted in the Quileute language to the people in the canoes, telling them of the ship’s intent. “Go away from this place!” she called. “If you come aboard, you will be carried away as slaves. You will never see your people again.” According to the Hobucket account, the people heeded her advice and returned to shore.