The Russian colonization of the Americas covers the period, from 1732 to 1867, when the Tsarist Imperial Russian Empire laid claim to northern Pacific Coast territories in the Americas. The Russians sponsored expeditions and maintained colonial enterprises in North America to export natural resources from the sea and land for Russia and trading purposes, with supporting settlements and defensive outposts. The colonies were primarily established in present day Alaska, with some reaching to Hawaii and Northern California. In 1867, accepting the Tsar's offer to sell, the United States purchased Russian America for $7,200,000, which is known as the Alaska Purchase. This ended the Imperial Russian colonial presence in North America.
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Europeans first sighted the Alaskan coast line in 1732. It was made by the Russian maritime explorer and navigator Ivan Fedorov from sea near present day Cape Prince of Wales on the eastern boundary of the Bering Strait opposite Russian Cape Dezhnev. He did not land. The first European landfall took place in southern Alaska in 1741 during the Russian exploration by Vitus Bering and Aleksei Chirikov. Between 1774 and 1800 Spain also led several expeditions to Alaska in order to assert its claim over the Pacific Northwest. These claims were later abandoned at the turn of the 19th century. Count Nikolay Rumyantsev funded Russia's first naval circumnavigation under the joint command of Adam Johann von Krusenstern and Nikolai Rezanov in 1803-1806, and was instrumental in the outfitting of the voyage of the Riurik's circumnavigation of 1814-1816, which provided substantial scientific information on Alaska's and California's flora and fauna, and important ethnographic information on Alaskan and Californian (among others) natives.
Imperial Russia was the rare European Empire that had no State sponsorship of foreign expeditions or territorial (conquest) settlement. The first State protected trading company for sponsoring such activities in the Americas was the Shelikhov-Golikov Company of Grigory Shelikhov and Ivan Larionovich Golikov. A number of other companies were operating in Russian America during the 1780s. Shelikhov petitioned the government for exclusive control, but in 1788 Catherine II decided to grant his company a monopoly only over the area it had already occupied. Other traders were free to compete elsewhere. Catherine's decision was issued as the imperial ukase (proclamation) of September 28, 1788.[1]
The Shelikhov-Golikov Company formed the basis for the Russian-American Company (RAC). Its charter was laid out in a 1799 ukase, by the new Tsar Paul I, which granted the company monopolistic control over trade in the Aleutian Islands and the North America mainland, south to 55° north latitude. The RAC was Russia's first joint stock company, and came under the direct authority of the Ministry of Commerce of Imperial Russia. Siberian merchants based in Irkutsk were initial major stockholders, but soon replaced by Russia's nobility and aristocracy based in St.Petersburg. The company constructed settlements in what is today Alaska, Hawaii, and California.
The first Russian colony in Alaska was founded in 1784 by Grigory Shelikhov. Subsequently, Russian explorers and settlers continued to establish trading posts in mainland Alaska, on the Aleutian Islands, Hawaii, and Northern California.
The Russian-American Company was formed in 1799 with the influence of Nikolay Rezanov for the purpose of hunting sea otters for their fur. The peak population of the Russian colonies was about 4,000,000, although almost all of these were Aleuts, Tlingits and other Native Alaskans.
In 1815 the German physician and agent of the Russian-American Company, Georg Anton Schäffer, came to Hawaii to retrieve goods seized by Kaumualii, chief of Kauaʻi island. On arrival they became involved with internal royal Hawaiian politics, with King Kamuelaʻi planning and manipulating to reclaim his own kingdom of Kauaʻi with the help of Russia. Kaumualii signed a "treaty" granting Tsar Alexander I protectorate over Kauaʻi. From 1817 to 1853 Fort Elizabeth, near the Waimea River, was one of three Russian forts on the island of Kauaʻi, in present day Waimea, Kauai County, Hawaii.
Near Bodega Bay in Northern California the outpost of Fort Ross was established in 1812. The Russians maintained it until 1841, leaving the region.[2] Fort Ross is now a Federal National Historical Landmark on the National Register of Historic Places. It is preserved—restored in California's Fort Ross State Historic Park 50 miles north of San Francisco.[3]
The Spanish concern about Russian colonial intrusion prompted initiating the upper Las Californias Province settlement, with presidios (forts), pueblos (towns), and the California missions. The Mission San Francisco de Solano (Sonoma Mission-1823) specifically responded to the Fort Ross presence by the Spanish. After independence the Mexicans also responded, with the El Presidio Real de Sonoma or Sonoma Barracks, in 1836 with General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, the 'Commandant of the Northern Frontier' of the Alta California Province. The fort was the northernmost Mexican outpost to halt any further Russian settlement southward. The restored Presidio and mission are in the present day city of Sonoma, California.
In 1920 a one-hundred pound bronze church bell was unearthed in an orange grove near Mission San Fernando Rey de España in the San Fernando Valley of Southern California. It has an inscription in the Russian language (translated here): "In the Year 1796, in the month of January, this bell was cast on the Island of Kodiak by the blessing of Juvenaly of Alaska, during the sojourn of Alexander Andreyevich Baranov." How this Russian Orthodox Kodiak church artifact, from Kodiak Island in Alaska journeyed to a Roman Catholic Mission Church in Southern California is unknown.
The Russian colonies were rarely profitable, primarily due to transportation costs for supplies. In addition, Russia was in a difficult financial position and feared losing Russian Alaska without compensation in some future conflict, especially to the British. The Russians believed that in a dispute with Britain, their hard-to-defend region might become a prime target for British aggression from British Columbia, and would be easily captured. So following the Union victory in the American Civil War, Tsar Alexander II instructed the Russian minister to the United States, Eduard de Stoeckl, to enter into negotiations with the United States Secretary of State William H. Seward in the beginning of March 1867. At the instigation of Seward the United States Senate approved the purchase, known as the Alaska Purchase, from the Russian Empire. The cost was set at 2 cents an acre, which came to a total of $7,200,000 on April 9, 1867. The canceled check is in the present day United States National Archives.
Saint Herman of Alaska, Saint Innocent of Alaska and Saint Peter the Aleut have contributed historically to the strong Russian Orthodox church community in Alaska. The Orthodox Church in America as part of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia can trace activities back to the early Russian missionaries in 'Russian America'.
In the present day Russian Federation and its predecessor the Soviet Union (USSR) there are periodic mass media stories that Alaska was not sold to the United States in the 1867 Alaska Purchase, but only leased for 99 years ( = to 1966 ), or 150 years ( = to 2017 ) — and will be returned to Russia. However, the Alaska Purchase Treaty is absolutely clear that the agreement was for a complete Russian cession of the territory.
The Soviet Union (USSR) released a series of commemorative coins in 1990 and 1991 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the first sighting of and claiming domain over Alaska—Russian America. The commemoration consisted of a silver coin, a platinum coin and two palladium coins in both years.
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