I read an article that stated, "Russian fur-seekers decimated Aleut populations through warfare, disease, and slavery." So my guess is the short answer to my question is, "Not great". But what were the details? What was the extent of Russian settlement? How quickly were the Aleuts decimated? What were the Aleuts like prior to Russian contact? Had they avoided the massive population decline that other tribes faced after the 1600s?
I know next to nothing about this period, and I'd love to hear about what Russian expansion into the Aleutians was like and how it impacted the native Aleut tribespeople.
To oversimplify, when the first Russian explorers/traders/hunters went to the Aleutians, the relationships were poor, and they only improved somewhat under the Russian America Company and Baranov. They essentially enslaved the native Aleuts, often sending all the males out to hunt sea otter for their pelts, while the Russians settled into the Aleut villages, making themselves at home. If the men refused to hunt for the Russians, food supplies, structures, and villages were destroyed. As an example of the depths to which the relationships fell, there are is a report that one of the Russians lined up front to back a whole group of Aleuts and fired a musket at them, simply to see how many could be penetrated by a single ball. Small Russian settlements were eventually created, such as that at Three Saints on Kodiak Island, and at Unalaska. Both of these locations were the site of significant Russian/Native warfare, with heavy casualties on both sides. Essentially, though, the Russians at first were not interested in settling, so there were never very many Russians throughout the Aleutians and Alaska as a whole. Some references note that there were never more than about 1000 Russians in all of Russian America. Much of the work, fighting, etc. done on behalf of the Russian American Company was done by Aleuts, who were either paid or coerced into carrying out these roles. The relationships were variable, and at one time or another, nearly all the Russian settlements were attacked, and most were destroyed at one time or another. However, many of the Russians took native wives, and their offspring (or Creoles) began to take a significant role in the colony, as at Sitka. From the founding of Sitka (1804) until the end of the RAC, relationships were never totally peaceful, and alarms and small battles were nearly the norm, though major warfare seems to have ended with the battle of Sitka in 1804. There is a lot of information available about the Aleuts before major contact, but I don't have those references at hand. Some references you might find useful include: Hector Chevigny, "Russian America", Binford & Mott, Portland, 1979; Lydia T. Black, "Russians in Alaska 1732-1867", University of Alaska Press 2004; O.W. Frost, "Bering and Chirikov- The American Voyages and their impact", Alaska Historical Society 1992.