Of the Nadene linguistic stock, the 13 Tlingit tribes are a group of North American Indians who formerly occupied the Alaskan panhandle southward from Yakutat Bay. A population of about 10,000 in the 1750s dropped to about 4,500 circa 1900. The Tlingits built large wooden dugout canoes, multi-family plank houses, and wooden storage boxes and dishes. They also made masks and wove spruce-root baskets. They frequently had disputes with the Russians. In 1799 the Russians built a fort on an island in the southeast archipelago, but in 1802 the Tlingit drove them out.