The history of the early dealings of the Russian expeditions with the natives is one of continued outrages and retaliations. Almost every record of voyages for discovery or trading from 1648-1800 tells of atrocities committed by the sailors, and of wholesale massacres by the natives. The sole purpose of these expeditions was gain, and no attempt was made even to conciliate, much less to evangelize, the Indians. It was not until 1793 that a ukase was issued by the Empress of Russia, authorizing the introduction of missionaries into the American colonies, but unfortunately the same ukase ordered the shipment thither of convicts from Russia, and was obeyed in the proportion of a hundred convicts to one missionary. In 1794 (May) Shílikoff brought over 190 emigrant convicts, two overseers and eleven monks, and Ióasaph, elder of the Augustine Friars, was invited to settle in the colony. All the monks were obliged to support themselves by constant work, as no provision was made for them by the government, and Ióasaph complained bitterly of the treatment they received from the Shílikoff Trading Company’s officials. At the same time, in 1795, one year after his landing, he reported the conversion of 1,200 natives, thus quite justifying the hard criticisms quoted above. The census of this colony of Kadiák in the same year gave a population of 3,600 natives. In 1796 Father Ióasaph was made bishop by imperial ukase, and returned to Irkútsk to receive his consecration. Father Iuvenáti was murdered by the natives for attempting to put down polygamy. The first Russo-Greek Church was built at Kadiák during this year. In 1799 Bishop Ióasaph, with a company of clergy, set sail for his new diocese in the ship “Fenie,” which was lost at sea with all on board, and from this time to 1810 only one monk was left in the colonies. On the 10th of June, 1810, Captain Golófnin brought one priest to Sitka in his sloop of war “Diana,” and in 1816 Father Sòlokoff arrived from Moscow, and took charge of all the mission work in the colonies. There were at the death of Governor Baránoff in 1819 five colonies of the company in the Aleutian Isles, four on Cook’s Inlet, two on Chujách Gulf, and one on Baránoff Island, in Sitka Bay, with three priests in charge, three chapels and several schools, where, however, nothing was taught except reading and writing in the ecclesiastical characters. Father Mordóffski reached Kadiák in 1823, and in 1824 the real history of the mission begins with the arrival of the noble and devoted Innocentius Veniamínoff, the Russian Selwyn, at Unaláshka, and the commencement of his life-long labors among the Aleuts. He was made bishop and transferred to Sitka in 1834, and the record of his life gives all that there is to be said about the progress of religious work among the natives, so far as the Russian Church is concerned, up to the time of the transfer of the territory to the United States. Mr. Dall’s estimate of his labors is well worth quoting here to counterbalance some other quotations that have been made from his book. He says, “Whatever of good is ingrained in their (the natives’) characters may be in great part traced to the persevering efforts of one man. This person was the Rev. Father Innocentius Veniamínoff, of the Irkútsk Seminary, since Bishop of Kamchatka. He alone of the Greek missionaries to Alaska has left behind him an undying record of devotion, self-sacrifice and love, both to God and man, combined with the true missionary fire.”