On Baranoff Island, upon the southeastern shore of Alaska, is a reservation known as the Sitka National Monument which commemorates an important episode in the early history of Alaska. On this tract, which lies within a mile of the steamboat-landing at Sitka, formerly stood the village of the Kik-Siti Indians who, in 1802, attacked the settlement of Sitka and massacred the Russians who had established it. Two years later the Russians under Baranoff recovered the settlement from the Indians, contrary to the active opposition of Great Britain, and established the title which they afterward transferred to the United States. Graves of some of those who fell in the later battle may be seen.
The reservation is also a fine exhibit of the forest and flora of the Alexander Archipelago. Sixteen totem-poles remain from the old native days.