Editing Alaska (section)

===Pre-colonization===
{{Main|Alaska Natives}}Numerous indigenous peoples occupied Alaska for thousands of years before the arrival of European peoples to the area. Linguistic and DNA studies done here have provided evidence for the settlement of North America by way of the [[Bering land bridge]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=UCL |date=2012-07-12 |title=Native American populations descend from three key migrations |url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2012/jul/native-american-populations-descend-three-key-migrations |access-date=2023-12-22 |website=UCL News |language=en |archive-date=December 9, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231209214252/https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2012/jul/native-american-populations-descend-three-key-migrations |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Handwerk |first=Brian |date=June 5, 2019 |title=Ancient DNA Reveals Complex Story of Human Migration Between Siberia and North America |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ancient-dna-reveals-complex-story-human-migration-between-siberia-and-north-america-180972356/ |access-date=2023-12-22 |website=Smithsonian Magazine |language=en |archive-date=December 22, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231222035011/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ancient-dna-reveals-complex-story-human-migration-between-siberia-and-north-america-180972356/ |url-status=live }}</ref> At the [[Upward Sun River site]] in the [[Tanana Valley]] in Alaska, remains of a six-week-old infant were found. The baby's DNA showed that she belonged to a population that was genetically separate from other native groups present elsewhere in the [[New World]] at the end of the [[Pleistocene]]. Ben Potter, the [[University of Alaska Fairbanks]] archaeologist who unearthed the remains at the Upward Sun River site in 2013, named this new group [[Ancient Beringian]].<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/alaska-dna-ancient-beringia-genome/|title=Lost Native American Ancestor Revealed in Ancient Child's DNA|magazine=National Geographic|date=January 3, 2018|access-date=January 3, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180103235253/https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/alaska-dna-ancient-beringia-genome/|archive-date=January 3, 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The [[Tlingit people]] developed a society with a [[matrilineal]] kinship system of property inheritance and descent in what is today Southeast Alaska, along with parts of [[British Columbia]] and the [[Yukon]]. Also in Southeast were the [[Haida people|Haida]], now well known for their unique arts. The [[Tsimshian]] people came to Alaska from British Columbia in 1887, when President [[Grover Cleveland]], and later the U.S. Congress, granted them permission to settle on [[Annette Island]] and found the town of [[Metlakatla, Alaska]]. All three of these peoples, as well as other [[indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast]], experienced [[smallpox]] outbreaks from the late 18th through the mid-19th century, with the most devastating [[epidemics]] occurring in the 1830s and 1860s, resulting in high fatalities and social disruption.<ref>Brian C. Hosmer, ''American Indians in the Marketplace: Persistence and Innovation among the Menominees and Metlakatlans, 1870–1920'' (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1999), pp. 129–131, 200.</ref>