Their professions varied widely: they were teachers, clergy, navigators, cartographers, ship commanders, missionaries, hunters, interpreters, administrators and artists.

[5] The government of colonial Alaska frequently collected geographical data through expeditions led by Creole scientists and ship commanders.

Creole explorers also made expeditions into the interior of Alaska to connect and trade with uncontacted native tribes and to introduce them to Christianity.

Alaskan Russian explorations made great advancements in the 1820s and 1840s, such as the expeditions of Vasilev (1829), Glazunov (1833), Ivan Malakhov (1832–1839) and Zagokin (1842–1844).

[7] Having lost their social status under American rule, Alaskan Creoles began to look back on Alaska's colonial period as the golden age of their civilization.

The Americans ignored the guarantee for the majority of Creoles; only the property of the Russian Orthodox Church and its legal rights were fully protected.

This speedy relinquishment of the best dwellings caused considerable inconvenience to the chief administrator and to those people who had to get out of their houses under the local rainy weather, the majority of them moving to ships.

[6][8] We, the undersigned, citizens of the United States, do hereby memorialize to appropriate from the revenue of Alaska in the Treasury the sum of $50,000, for the establishment of schools for the instruction of the native population and creoles of Alaska in the English language, the common branches of an English education, the principles of a republican government, and such industrial pursuits as may seem best adapted to their circumstances.

[6] Disenfranchised Creoles were forced to work under U.S. military supervisors appointed by the federal government, and their situation became increasingly desperate.

An American observer recorded this desperation: "As often happens under such harsh systems, the people lose any sense of responsibility for themselves that they used to have, their intellectual powers atrophy more and more and they sink into a state of animal apathy, knowing all too well that they will have their piece of daily bread and will gain nothing more in the future, no matter how hard they try to work".

My most reliable information is to the effect that the Aleuts are a keen, bright, and naturally intelligent people, industrious and provident, the larger portions being educated to a greater or less extent in the Russian language, and that they are well advanced in civilization is evidenced by the fact that they live in comfortable houses, are given to finery in their dress, and are, with scarcely an exception, devout members of the Russian Orthodox Church.