The Aleut territory covers the Alaska Peninsula, the Aleutian Islands extending out beyond it and a small coastal strip to the east. This is a particularly harsh region with no trees or agriculture and a growing season that barely last a 135 days.
The Aleuts lived by hunting and fishing the seas in their Kayaks. Their homes consisted of underground shelters and their women were skilled in basketry. Their population was estimated to be 25,000 when the Russians arrived in 1741 and discovered the Sea otter and its highly prized pelt (A single cargo fetched over two million dollars in 1751).
The Russian hunters engaged in the systematic rape, pillage and plunder of both the Aleutians human and natural resources, stripping first one island and then another. Rape and murder were common place. Often Aleut women and children were kidnapped, taken hostage and abused while their men hunted otters for the pelts to ransom their families' freedom. When the Russian hunters moved on to Northern California they forced many of the expert Aleut hunters to travel with them.
By 1885 fewer than 4,000 Aleuts survived. Many of these were converted to the Greek Orthodox church believing that any religion that could save the Russians must be very strong. The Aleuts population has never fully recovered from the Russian hunters depredations (the 1960 census only recorded 5,000 living in Alaska, although today the figure is nearer 8,000).
Some Alleut links...
Aleut: People of the Aleutian Chain
Aleut Corporation
The Aleutians of the Pribilof Islands