Grigory Shelikhov

Grigory Shelekhov was a founder of the predecessor of the Russian-American Company.

Grigory Ivanovich Shelekhov (Григорий Иванович Шелехов in Russian) (1747, Rylsk, Belgorod Governorate – July 20, 1795 (July 31, 1795 New Style)) was a Russian seafarer and merchant.

Shelekhov organized voyages of merchant ships to the Kuril Islands and the Aleutian Islands starting from 1775. In 1783–1786, he led an expedition to the shores of what is now known as Alaska, during which they founded the first permanent Russian settlements in North America. Shelekhov's voyage was done under the auspices of the Shelikhov-Golikov Company, the other owner of which was Ivan Larionovich Golikov. This company was the basis for the Russian-American Company, which was founded 1799.[1]

In 1784, Shelekhov arrived in Three Saints Bay on Kodiak Island with two ships, the Three Hierarchs, Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom and the St. Simon.[2] The indigenous Koniaga, an Alutiiq nation of Alaska Natives, defended themselves from the Russian party. In what became known as the Awa'uq Massacre, Shelekhov and his forces killed hundreds, including women and children, and took hostages to threaten the safety of the other Alaska Natives. Having established his authority on Kodiak Island, Shelekhov founded the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska on the island's Three Saints Bay. (Unalaska had been established long before, but it was never considered the permanent base for Russians until Shelekhov’s time).

In 1790, Shelekhov, having returned to Russia, hired Alexandr Baranov to manage his fur enterprise in Russian America, see Maritime fur trade.

The settlement of Grigory Shelekhov in Kodiak Island.

A gulf in the Sea of Okhotsk, a strait between Alaska and Kodiak Island, and a town in Irkutsk Oblast in Russia bear Shelekhov's name. Shelekhov travelled via Shelekhov Bay in the Sea of Okhotsk in December 1786-January 1787, after he had been left behind at Bol’shereck in Kamchatka as the winds tore the Three Hierarcs from her anchors and carried her out to sea.[3] There is a statue of Shelekhov in his native Rylsk.

A monument to G. I. Shelekhov in Irkutsk

Family

In 1775 Shelekhov married Natalia Alexeyevna Kozhevina, the daughter of a prominent clan of Okhotsk navigators and mapmakers and their wives. At his death he had five surviving daughters and one son.[4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Piotr A. Tikhmenev: A History of the Russian-American Company (1978: 48–59) (the original Russian work is from 1861).
  2. ↑ "Alaska History Timeline". Retrieved on August 31, 2005.
  3. ↑ Richard Pierce in his introduction to Shelekhov’s A Voyage to America 1783–1786.
  4. ↑ Matthews, Owen (2013). Glorious misadventures : Nikolai Rezanov and the Dream of a Russian America (First U.S. edition. ed.). London [u.a.]: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-62040-239-9.
Government offices
Preceded by
new post		 Governor of Shelikhov-Golikov Company
1784–22 May 1786 		Succeeded by
Konstantin Alekseevich Samoilov
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