Anthropologists have stated that their journey from Asia to Alaska was made possible through the Bering land bridge or by traveling across the sea.

[2] Throughout the Arctic and the circumpolar north, the ancestors of Alaska Natives established varying indigenous, complex cultures that have succeeded each other over time.

[6] The modern history of Alaska Natives begins with the first contact between Alaskan First Nations and Russians sailing from Siberia in the eighteenth century.

British and American traders, coming mostly from eastern settlements in North America, generally did not reach the area until the nineteenth century.

[8] Arriving from Siberia by ship in the mid-eighteenth century, Russians began to trade with Alaska Natives in what became known as the Aleutian Islands.

The growing competition between the trading companies, which merged into fewer, larger and more powerful corporations, created conflicts that aggravated the relations with the indigenous populations.

[citation needed] As the animal populations declined, the Aleuts, already dependent on the new barter economy created by their fur trade with the Russians, were increasingly coerced into taking greater risks in the dangerous waters of the North Pacific to hunt for more otter.

[12] The Russian-American Company not only used Indigenous populations for labor during the fur trade, but also held some as hostages to acquire iasak.

[12] It was a taxation method the Russians had previously found useful in their early encounter with Indigenous communities of Siberia during the Siberian fur trade.

[13] The Russian-American Company used military force on Indigenous families, taking them hostage until male community members produced furs for them.

[12] Robbery and maltreatment in the form of corporal punishment and the withholding of food was also present upon the arrival of fur traders.

[14] Catherine the Great dissolved the giving of tribute in 1799, but her government initiated mandatory conscription of Indigenous men between the ages of 18 and 50 to become seal hunters strictly for the Russian American Company.

[15] To reduce hostilities with Aleutian communities, it became policy for fur traders to enter into marriage with Indigenous women.

[17] Ioann Veniaminov, who later became Saint Innocent of Alaska, was an important missionary who carried out the Orthodox Church's agenda to Christianize Indigenous populations.

An 1880 court case describes a child not allowed to attend a school with Americans because his stepfather was native.

[24] The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative,[25] for example, was directly responsible for intergenerational trauma by disrupting family ties in Alaskan native villages.

[30] Also in 1915, the Alaska Territorial legislature passed a law allowing Alaskan Natives the right to vote – but on the condition that they give up their cultural customs and traditions.

[35] In 1942, during World War II, the United States forced evacuation of around nine hundred Aleuts from the Aleutian Islands.

[36] The idea was to remove the Aleuts from a potential combat zone during World War II for their own protection, but European Americans living in the same area were not forced to leave.

[36] The removal was handled so poorly that many Aleuts died after they were evacuated; the elderly and children had the highest mortality rates.

[36] Civil rights activists such as Alberta Schenck Adams and Elizabeth Peratrovich protested discriminatory laws against Native Alaskans with what were effectively sit-ins and lobbying.

[39][40] It entitled all Alaskans to "full and equal enjoyment" of public areas and businesses,[41] a ban on segregating signs,[41] with discriminatory actions punishable by a $250 fine and up to 30 days in jail.

Europeans and Americans did not have sustained encounters with the Alaska Natives until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when many were attracted to the region in gold rushes.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the loss of sea ice will increase erosion area and further displace more native communities.

[citation needed] The Shishmaref, Kivalina, Shaktoolik and Newtok tribes are located on the west coast of Alaska and due to sea-level rise the villages are experiencing more severe storm surges that are eroding their coastlines (Bronen).

[44] Gathering of subsistence food continues to be an important economic and cultural activity for many Alaska Natives.