Russian Alaska
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| History of Alaska |
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The first written accounts indicate that the first Europeans to reach Alaska came from Russia. One legend holds that a Russian settlement was established as early as 1648. The Siberian explorer Semyon Dezhnev headed an expedition which was to sail for the Anadyr River, but one or more of his boats were carried off course and carried to Alaska. There is no evidence, however, of such a settlement or settlements. However, Dezhnyev and Fedot Alekseev, a Russian merchant, became the first people to sail into the Arctic from the Pacific through what is now the Bering Strait. His discovery was never forwarded to the central government, leaving the question of whether or not Siberia was connected to North America. In 1725, Peter I of Russia called for another expedition.
In June 1741, the St. Peter, captained by a Dane, Vitus Bering, and the St. Paul, captained by a Russian, Alexei Chirikov, set sail from Russia at the Siberian port of Petropavlovsk. Six days later they lost sight of each other in a thick fog, but continued to sail east. On July 15, Chirikov sighted land, probably the west side of Prince of Wales Island in Southeast Alaska. He sent a group of men ashore in a long boat. When the first group failed to return, he sent a second, which also vanished. Chirikov weighed anchor and moved on.
In the meantime Bering and the crew of St. Peter sighted a towering peak on the Alaska mainland, Mt. St. Elias. Turning westward, Bering anchored his vessel off Kayak Island while crew members went ashore to explore and find water. Georg Wilhelm Steller, the ship's naturalist, hiked along the island and took notes on the plants and wildlife. He also first recorded the Steller's Jay that bears his name. Bering was anxious to return to Russia and turned westward.
Chirikov and the St. Paul returned to Siberia in October with news of the land they had found. Bering's ship was battered by storms, and in November he was forced to land on one of Russia's uninhabited Commander Islands. Bering fell ill with scurvy and died, and soon after the St. Peter would be dashed to pieces by high winds. The stranded crew wintered on the island, and when weather improved the 46 survivors built a 40 ft. (12m) boat from the wreckage and set sail for Petropavlovsk in August 1742. Bering's crew returned to Russia with sea otter pelts, soon judged to be the finest fur in the world. Spurred by the riches represented, Russia threw itself into setting up hunting and trading posts.
Rather than hunting the marine life for themselves, the Russians forced the Aleuts to do the work for them. As word spread of the riches in furs to be had, competition among Russian companies increased and the Aleuts were forced into slavery. Catherine the Great, who became Empress in 1763, proclaimed good will toward the Aleuts and urged her subjects to treat them fairly, but the hunters' quest for furs made them disregard Aleut welfare. Hostages were taken, families were split up, and individuals were forced to leave their villages and settle elsewhere. The Aleuts revolted that year, and won some victories, but the Russians retaliated, killing many and destroying their boats and hunting gear, leaving them no means of survival. Eighty percent of the Aleut population was destroyed by violence and European diseases, against which they had no defenses, during the first two generations of Russian contact.
Though the colony was never very profitable, because of the costs of transportation, most Russian traders were determined to keep the land for themselves. In 1784, Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov, who would later set up the Russian-Alaska Company that colonized early Alaska, arrived in Three Saints Bay on Kodiak Island with two ships, the Three Saints and the St. Simon. The indigenous Koniag harassed the Russian party and Shelikhov responded by killing hundreds and taking hostages to enforce the obedience of the rest. Having established his authority on Kodiak Island, Shelikhov founded the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska on the island's Three Saints Bay, built a school to teach the natives to read and write Russian, and introduced the Russian Orthodox Church.
In 1790, Shelikhov, back in Russia, hired Alexandr Baranov to manage his Alaskan fur enterprise. Baranov moved the colony to the northeast end of Kodiak Island, where timber was available. The site later became what is now the city of Kodiak. Russian members of the colony took Koniag wives and started familes whose names continue today, such as Panamaroff, Petrikoff, and Kvasnikoff. In 1795, Baranov, concerned by the sight of non-Russian Europeans trading with the Natives in southeast Alaska, established Mikhailovsk six miles (10 km) north of present-day Sitka. He bought the land from the Tlingits, but in 1802, while Baranov was away, Tlingits from a neighboring settlement attacked and destroyed Mikhailovsk. Baranov returned with a Russian warship and razed the Tlingit village. He then built the settlement of New Archangel. It became the capital of Russian America and today is the city of Sitka, which covers what was previously the Mikhailovsk area.
As Baranov secured the Russians' physical presence in Alaska, the Shelikhov family continued to work back in Russia to win a monopoly on Alaska's fur trade. In 1799, Shelikhov's son-in-law, Nikolay Petrovich Rezanov, had acquired a monopoly on the American fur trade from Czar Paul I. Rezanov then formed the Russian-American Company. As part of the deal, the Tsar expected the company to establish new settlements in Alaska and carry out an expanded colonization program.
By 1804, Alexandr Baranov, now manager of the Russian–American Company, had consolidated the company's hold on fur trade activities in the Americas following his victory over the local Tlingit clan at the Battle of Sitka. Despite these efforts, the Russians never fully colonized Alaska. For the most part they clung to the coast and shunned the inland. By the 1830s, the Russian monopoly on trade was weakening. The Hudson's Bay Company, formed by the British in 1821, set up a post on the southern edge of Russian America in 1833. The British firm began siphoning off trade.
The Americans were also becoming a force. Baranov began to depend heavily on American supply ships, since they came more frequently than Russian ones. In addition, Americans could sell furs to the Canton market, which was closed to the Russians. The downside was that American hunters and trappers encroached on territory Russians considered theirs. In 1812 a settlement was reached giving the Russians exclusive rights to fur trade above Latitude 55° North, the Americans to that below. The agreement soon went by the wayside, however, and with Baranov's retirement in 1818, the Russian hold on Alaska was further weakened.
When the Russian-American Company's charter was renewed in 1821, it stipulated that the chief managers from then on be naval officers. Most naval officers did not have any experience in the fur trade, so the company suffered. The second charter also tried to cut off all contact with foreigners, especially the competitive Americans, but this strategy backfired since the Russian colony had become used to relying on American supply ships, and America had become a valued customer for furs. Eventually the Russian–American Company entered into an agreement with the Hudson's Bay Company, which gave the British rights to sail through Russian territory.
Although the mid–1800s were not a good time for Russians in Alaska, conditions improved for the coastal Alaska Natives who had survived contact, primarily the Aleuts, Koniags, and Tlingits. The Tlingits were never conquered and continued to wage war on the Russians into the 1850s. The Aleuts, many of whom had been removed from their home islands and sent as far south as California to hunt sea otter for Russians, continued to decline in population during the 1840s. The naval officers of the Russian–American Company established schools and hospitals for the Aleuts and gave them jobs. Russian Orthodox clergy moved into the Aleutian Islands. Father Ivan Veniaminov, famous throughout Russian America, developed an Aleut dictionary and grammar. The Aleut population began to increase.
By the 1860s, Russians were considering ridding themselves of Russian America. Zealous overhunting had severely reduced the fur-bearing animal population, and competition from the British and Americans exacerbated the situation. This, combined with the difficulties of supplying and protecting such a distant colony, brought about a waning interest. After Russian America was sold to the U.S., all the holdings of the Russian–American Company were liquidated.
Following the transfer, many elders of the local Tlingit tribe maintained that "Castle Hill" comprised the only land that Russia was entitled to sell. Native land claims were not addressed until the latter half of the 20th Century, with the signing of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
At the height of Russian America, the Russian population had reached 700. They and the Creoles, who had been guaranteed the privileges of citizens in the United States, were given the opportunity of becoming citizens within a 3–year period, but few decided to exercise that option. General Jefferson C. Davis ordered the Russians out of their homes in Sitka, maintaining that they were needed for the Americans, and the Russians complained of rowdiness of the troops and assaults. Many Russians returned to Russia, while others travelled to California and the Pacific Northwest to seek their fortunes.
