During the annexation of Siberia, one of the most important tools for subjugating the aborigines to the Russian authorities was the practice of hostage-amanatstvo. It was actively used both to prevent and stop the resistance of the recalcitrant and was considered by the Russian authorities as a guarantee of proper payment of yasak. Therefore, the Russians sought to take the "best people" - heads of families and clans - or their closest relatives as hostages. The system of amanacy as a whole justified itself, facilitating the establishment of a yasach regime in Siberia. But in the Extreme North-East - in Chukotka - it failed. In the middle of the seventeenth century, when the Russians came into contact with the Chukchi and Eskimos, they intended to use the previously tested method of forcing them to pay yasak by seizing the Amanats. However, the Chukchi did not "stick" to the amanats and refused to pay yasak. Already in 1648, the Apa "orphan chukhachy detina", who was sitting in the amanats in the Nizhnekolymsky prison, complained to the Russians: "... at the mouth of the Kolyma River, the son of the boyar Vasily Vlasyev caught me, Any, Yakutskovo prison. And since that time, my lord, and my father, and my magicians, and the clan, the tribe have retreated and yours, the sovereign yasak is not paid for me" [Otkritie russkikh zemleprokhodtsev..., 1951, p. 254-255]. Later, in 1675, the Yakut voivode A. A. Barneshlev reported to the Siberian order: "... from then on, the chukoch and Koryak send their fathers and brothers and children to the amanats, and those Koryaks and Chukhchi leave those amanats, and yasak is not paid for them " [Additions..., 1857, p. 407]. Despite this, in the second half of the XVII - first half of the XVIII century, the authorities ordered the stewards of north-eastern forts and fortresses to take amanats from the Chukchi, as well as from the Koryaks. But if the last ones are by the middle of the XVIII century. if they began to hand over hostages ... Read more