Sitka is a small town with a big history. There has been human activity for the last 10,000 years when it was settled by the Tlingit people, but is best known to American history students as the capital of Russian America. The Russians arrived in 1799, naming their fur trading outpost Fort Saint Michael. The Tlingit managed to throw them out in 1802, but not for long. Alexander Baranof, the Russian governor, won the Battle of Sitka in 1804 and renamed his nascent town New Archangel.