Kashaya

Kashaya country on the northern California coast included Metini, a village occupied for centuries before Russian colonization. Families moved seasonally between ridges, foothills and shore camps. Abalone, mussels, fish and sea plants complemented inland acorns and game; sea salt was gathered for use and exchange with neighbouring peoples.

In 1812 the Russian-American Company founded Fort Ross at Metini, bringing Russian and Alaskan settlers into Kashaya territory. In 1817 Kashaya leaders met Leontii Hagemeister in an agreement through which the company claimed permission to maintain its colony. Kashaya labour contributed to the settlement's agriculture, while work and intermarriage linked local people with the newcomers. The fort's farms were intended to provision Russian Alaska, and its hunting supplied the fur trade. Within a generation, an established Indigenous coastal landscape had become part of a commercial network stretching across the North Pacific.