Editing Peter the Aleut (section)

==Historicity==
The only contemporary account of Peter the Aleut is contained in a lengthy letter written on November 22, 1865, by [[Semyon Ivanovich Yanovsky|Semyon Yanovsky]] to Damascene, abbot of the [[Valaam Monastery]] in [[Finland]], 50 years after his death.<ref>[http://ocafs.oca.org/FeastSaintsViewer.asp?SID=4&ID=1&FSID=102713 Text of Yanofsky's account of the martyrdom of Peter the Aleut, contained in his letter to Abbot Damascene (at Orthodox Church in America website)]</ref><ref>For a translation of the letter, see ''The Russian Orthodox Religious Mission in America, 1794-1837'', pp. 80-89.</ref> Yanovsky (1789–1876), who is also one of the chief sources of information about [[Herman of Alaska|St. Herman of Alaska]], was chief manager of the Russian colonies from 1818 to 1820. In the letter he was reporting on an incident that he had heard from a supposed eyewitness, and that had taken place fifty years earlier in 1815.  The letter contains the description of Peter being tortured by "Jesuits" but this would have been virtually impossible, as the [[Jesuit order]] had been expelled from all Spanish territories in 1767,<ref>[http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?action=read&artid=244 Moses, Bernard. "Charles III: Expulsion of the Jesuits (1767)", ''Spain's Declining Power in South America, 1730-1806'' (Berkeley, Calif., 1919), pp. 104-106]</ref> suppressed generally in 1773,<ref>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14096a.htm Pollen, John Hungerford. "The Suppression of the Jesuits (1750-1773)." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 25 Aug. 2014]</ref> and had only been reconstituted in 1814 (one year before Peter's alleged death). In 1815 there were no Jesuits within several thousand miles of California, as the reconstitution of the Jesuits in New Spain (that is, Mexico) would not take place until 1816.<ref>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14100a.htm Pollen, John Hungerford. "The Jesuits After the Restoration (1814-1912)." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 14. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 25 Aug. 2014]</ref> There were only [[Franciscans]] in California at the time, and it would be highly unlikely that anyone could confuse members of the two well-known and very dissimilar orders. Yanovsky adds, "At the time I reported all this to the Head Office in [[St. Petersburg]]." And indeed, this earlier communication, his official dispatch to the company's main office—dated Feb. 15, 1820, five years after the event—also relates the story of St. Peter's martyrdom, albeit with different details.<ref>See ''The Russian Orthodox Religious Mission in America, 1794-1837'', cited below, p. 177.</ref>

Other historical sources describe an indecent between Russians and Spaniards, but do not mention Peter or the Jesuits explicitly. [[Hubert Howe Bancroft]], in his multi-volume ''History of California'', only notes that one Russian source accused "the Spaniards of cruelty to the captives" in connection with an incident wherein a [[Russian fur-hunting]] expedition was taken into custody after declining to leave San Pedro.<ref>Ivan Kuskof was a sailor and official associated with the [[Russian-American Company]]</ref><ref>Bancroft, p. 308, see footnote referencing "Barânof, Shizneopissanie, 135-6; Khébnikof, Zapiski, 11; Tikhmenef, Istor. Obosranie, i. 213, 216."</ref>