, from the
Remezov Chronicle. In order to subjugate the natives and collect
yasak (fur tribute), a series of winter outposts (
zimovie) and forts (
ostrogs) were built at the confluences of major rivers and streams and important portages. The first among these were
Tyumen and
Tobolsk—the former built in 1586 by Vasilii Sukin and Ivan Miasnoi, and the latter the following year by Danilo Chulkov. Tobolsk would become the nerve center of the conquest. To the north
Beryozovo (1593) and
Mangazeya (1600–1601) were built to bring the
Nenets under tribute, while to the east
Surgut (1594) and
Tara (1594) were established to protect Tobolsk and subdue the ruler of the
Narym Ostiaks. Of these, Mangazeya was the most prominent, becoming a base for further exploration eastward. Advancing up the Ob and its tributaries, the ostrogs of
Ketsk (1602) and
Tomsk (1604) were built. Ketsk ("servicemen") reached the
Yenisei in 1605, descending it to the
Sym; two years later Mangazeyan
promyshlenniks and
traders descended the
Turukhan to its confluence with the Yenisei, where they established the
Turukhansk. By 1610, men from Turukhansk had reached the mouth of the Yenisei and ascended it as far as the Sym, where they met rival tribute collectors from Ketsk. To ensure subjugation of the natives, the ostrogs of
Yeniseysk (1619) and
Krasnoyarsk (1628) were established. After the conquest of the
Siberian Khanate (1598), the whole of
North Asia – an area much larger than the old khanate – became known as Siberia and, by 1640, the eastern borders of Russia had expanded more than several million square kilometres. In a sense, the khanate lived on in the subsidiary title "
Tsar of Siberia" which became part of the full imperial style of the Russian
autocrats. In essence, imperial expansion involved traveling further up or down rivers in search of indigenous peoples to add to the "lists" of tribute (yasak) payers. As this entry and much scholarship show, that process entailed a good deal of violence and coercion, contrary to the "gentle" methods tsarist decrees espoused. In several cases throughout the early modern period, however, a significant gap existed between the rhetorical sovereign claims of the Russian state and its ability to actually control indigenous populations. While fur procurement played a significant role in Siberian expansion, it was not the sole driver. Russian leaders were also keen to find and establish trade routes to the East. They were similarly motivated to establish trade in Siberia, both to supply the territory with needed goods as well as to benefit from indirect tax revenue on traded goods. Tax revenue was collected through the network of customs posts that the state established throughout Siberia, even recruiting emigre merchants from Central Asia--typically called Bukharans--to assist in customs administration and diplomatic tasks, as Erika Monahan shows in
The Merchants of Siberia: Trade in Early Modern Eurasia. The conquest of Siberia also resulted in the spread of diseases. Historian
John F. Richards wrote: "... it is doubtful that the total early modern Siberian population exceeded 300,000 persons. ... New
diseases weakened and demoralized the
indigenous peoples of Siberia. The worst of these was
smallpox "because of its swift spread, the high death rates, and the permanent disfigurement of survivors." ... In the 1650s, it moved east of the Yenisey, where it carried away up to 80 percent of the Tungus and Yakut populations. In the 1690s, smallpox epidemics reduced Yukagir numbers by an estimated 44 percent. The disease moved rapidly from group to group across Siberia."
Effects on the indigenous peoples of Siberia from hardened leather reinforced by wood and bones such as this was worn by
native Siberians traditionally worn by the
Koryak people (circa 1900) When the Cossacks' entreaties were rejected, they chose to respond with force. Under the leadership of
Vasilii Poyarkov in 1645 and
Yerofei Khabarov in 1650 many people, including members of the
Daur tribe, were killed by the Cossacks. Out of a previous population of 20,000 in
Kamchatka, 8,000 remained after the first half-century of the Russian conquest. The Daurs initially deserted their villages fearing the reported cruelty of the Russians the first time Khabarov came. The second time he came, the Daurs fought back against the Russians, but were slaughtered. In the 17th century, indigenous peoples of the
Amur region were attacked by Russians who came to be known as "red-beards". In the 1640s, the
Yakuts were subjected to violent expeditions during the Russian advance into the land near the
Lena River, and on Kamchatka in the 1690s the
Koryaks,
Kamchadals, and
Chukchi were also subjected to this by the Russians according to Western historian Stephen Shenfield. When the Russians did not obtain the demanded amount of
yasak from the natives, the governor of
Yakutsk, Piotr Golovin, who was a Cossack, used meat hooks to hang the native men. In the Lena basin, 70% of the Yakut population declined within 40 years, native women were raped and, along with children, were often enslaved in order to force the natives to pay the yasak. After the Russian defeat in 1729 at Chukchi hands, the Russian commander Major
Pavlutskiy was responsible for the Russian war against the Chukchi and the mass slaughters and enslavement of Chukchi women and children in 1730–1731, but his cruelty only made the Chukchis fight more fiercely. Cleansing of the Chukchis and Koryaks was ordered by
Empress Elizabeth in 1742 to totally expel them from their native lands and erase their culture through war. The command was that the natives be "totally extirpated" with Pavlutskiy leading again in this war from 1744 to 1747 in which he led the Cossacks "with the help of Almighty God and to the good fortune of Her Imperial Highness", to slaughter the Chukchi men and enslave their women and children as booty. However the Chukchi ended this campaign and forced them to give up by decapitating and killing Pavlutskiy. The Russians were also launching wars and slaughters against the Koryaks in 1744 and 1753–1754. After the Russians tried to force the natives
to convert to Christianity, the different native peoples like the Koryaks, Chukchis, Itelmens, and
Yukaghirs all united to drive the Russians out of their land in the 1740s, culminating in the assault on Nizhnekamchatsk fort in 1746. Kamchatka today is European in demographics and culture with only 5% of it being native, around 10,000 from a previous number of 150,000, due to
infectious diseases such as
smallpox and mass slaughters by the Cossacks after its annexation in 1697 of the Itelmens and Koryaks throughout the first decades of Russian rule. The killings by the Russian Cossacks devastated the native peoples of Kamchatka. In addition to committing massacres the Cossacks also devastated the wildlife by slaughtering massive numbers of animals for fur. 90% of the
Kamchadals and half of the
Vogules were killed from the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries and the rapid slaughter of the indigenous population led to entire ethnic groups being entirely wiped out, with around 12 exterminated groups which could be named by
Nikolai Yadrintsev as of 1882. Much of the slaughter was brought on by the
Siberian fur trade. The oblastniki in the 19th century among the Russians in Siberia acknowledged that the natives were subjected to immense violent exploitation, and claimed that they would rectify the situation with their proposed regionalist policies. The
Aleuts in the
Aleutians were subjected to genocide and slavery by the Russian fur traders for the first 20 years of Russian rule, with the Aleut women and children captured by the Russians and Aleut men slaughtered. The Slavic Russians outnumber all of the native peoples in Siberia and its cities except in the Republics of
Tuva and
Sakha, with the Slavic Russians making up the majority in the
Buryat and
Altai Republics, outnumbering the
Buriat, and
Altai natives. The Buryats make up only 33.5% of their own Republic, the Altai 37% and the Chukchi only 28%; the
Evenk,
Khanty,
Mansi, and
Nenets are outnumbered by non-natives by 90% of the population. The natives were targeted by the tsars and Soviet policies to change their way of life, and ethnic Russians were given the natives'
reindeer herds and wild game which were confiscated by the tsars and Soviets. The reindeer herds have been mismanaged to the point of extinction. The
Ainu have emphasized that they were the natives of the
Kuril Islands and that the Japanese and Russians were both invaders. == Timeline of conquest ==