Peter the Aleut

Who was Peter the Aleut?

Cungagnaq is venerated as a martyr and saint by some jurisdictions of the Eastern Orthodox Church. He was allegedly a native of Kodiak Island, and is said to have received the Christian name of Peter when he was baptized into the Orthodox faith by the monks of St. Herman's missionaries operating in the north. He is purported to have been captured by Spanish soldiers near San Pedro and tortured and killed at the instigation of Roman Catholic priests either there or at Mission Dolores, in San Francisco. At the time identified for his death, California was Spanish territory, and Spain was worried about Russian advances southwards from Alaska. Hubert Howe Bancroft, in his multi-volume History of California, only notes that, in connection with an incident wherein a Russian fur-hunting expedition was taken into custody after declining to leave San Pedro; one Russian source accused "the Spaniards of cruelty to the captives, stating that according to Kuskof’s report one Aleut who refused to become a Catholic died from ill-treatment received from the padre at San Francisco."