The Russian Empire
In-Depth Article

Russian America and the Sale of Alaska

On 15 (3 O.S.) July 1741, the Svyatoy Pavel under the command of Alexei Chirikov — second-in-command of the Second Kamchatka Expedition of 1733–1743 organised by the Senate and led by the Danish-born Vitus Bering — sighted land at Cape Addington on Baranof Island, in the Alexander Archipelago. The Svyatoy Pyotr under Bering sighted Mount St Elias on 16 (5 O.S.) July. The 1741 sighting of Alaska and the Aleutian fur-bearing coast was the beginning of the Russian colonial presence in North America. The first Russian settlement was at Unalaska in 1771, founded by the promyshlennik (fur-trapper) Alexander Andreyevich Baranov. The 1799 charter of the Russian-American Company (RAC) was the ob’yedineniye (unification) of the promyshlenniki of the 1740s–1780s. The Russian colonial presence in Alaska lasted 126 years, from 1741 to 1867. The total area of the Russian-American territory was 591,000 square miles; the price of the 1867 sale was $7.2 million (Allison, Alaska, 1867, 2014; Black, Russian-America, 2004; Bolkhovitinov, Russia and the United States, 1986; Etkind, Internal Colonization, 2011).

The 1867 sale is the principal episode of the Russian presence in North America. The Russian-American Company was the Russian administrative unit in North America from 1799 to 1867.

The 1733–1743 expedition and the first contact

The Second Kamchatka Expedition of 1733–1743 was the largest scientific enterprise of the 18th century. The expedition was organised by the Senate and the Admiralty. The principal otdelenie (departments) were: the Akademicheskii (the Academy of Sciences), the Astronomicheskii, the Morskoi (Naval), the Geograficheskii, and the Botanicheskii. The expedition numbered about 580 men. Vitus Bering (1681–1741) was the nachalo (commander) of the expedition. Alexei Chirikov (1703–1748) was the second-in-command. The expedition sailed from Okhotsk in 1733, surveyed the Kamchatka coast, reached the Aleutians in 1741, and returned to Petropavlovsk in 1742. The Svyatoy Pavel of Chirikov sighted Cape Addington on 15 July 1741; the Svyatoy Pyotr of Bering sighted Mount St Elias on 16 July 1741. The Russian losses to scurvy of the expedition were 47 men killed. The expedition was the basis of the promyshlennye of the Aleut of the Aleutian of the promyshlenniki of the 1740s–1780s (Allison, 2014; Black, 2004; Bolkhovitinov, 1986; Etkind, 2011).

The Russian-American Company

The Russian-American Company (RAC) was chartered by imperial edict of 8 September 1799 (the Vysochaishe of Paul I). The original ustav (charter) granted the RAC:

  • A 20-year exclusive on the morskaya kotel’kovaya (sea-otter) and pestsovaya (blue-fox) fur trade along the Pacific coast of the Americas from the Bering Strait to the 55th parallel;
  • The right to use the promyshlenniki (settler-workers) and the novokreshchenie (newly-baptised) Aleut hunters as labour;
  • The right to establish new settlements, to govern the Russian settlements, and to administer justice in the colony;
  • The right to use the Russian flag and to fly the Russian flag in the ports of the Pacific.

The first Pravlenie (board of directors) was based in St Petersburg; the Glavnaya kontora (main office) was based in New Archangel (now Sitka), where Alexander Baranov (1747–1819) was the glavnyi pravitel’ (chief manager) of the RAC from 1800 to 1818. The 1821 Russian Ukase of 4 (16) September extended the Russian claim to the Pacific coast of North America as far south as the 51st parallel, and closed the coast to foreign shipping within 100 Italian miles of the shore. The 1824 Russo-American Convention of 5 (17) April fixed the Russian claim at 54°40′ N. The 1867 sale transferred the RAC to the United States; the RAC was dissolved on 1 January 1867 (Allison, 2014; Black, 2004; Bolkhovitinov, 1986; Etkind, 2011; Dunning, Science and the State in Russia, 1999).

The Russian settlements

The Russian settlements in North America in 1860 were about 60 — 700 Russians, 350 Creoles (children of mixed Russian and indigenous parentage), 13,000 Aleuts, Tlingits, and other indigenous peoples. The principal settlements were:

  • New Archangel (Sitka, founded 1799) — the capital; 1,000 inhabitants in 1860; the Bogoyavlenskaya cathedral of 1816, the barracks of the rotnyi of the Russian of the battalion of the Cossack of the 1840s.
  • New Russia (California, founded 1812) — Fort Ross, the southernmost Russian settlement; sold to John Sutter in 1841.
  • St. Paul (Kodiak, founded 1792) — the principal agricultural settlement; the Bazhenov of the 1800s.
  • St. George (Pribilof Islands, founded 1786) — the principal seal-fishery.
  • Unalaska (founded 1771) — the principal Pacific port of the Russian fur trade.
  • Mikhailovskii (Sitka, founded 1800s) — the bolshoi of the barracks of the Battalion of the Russian of the Alaska of the 1840s.
  • Redoubt St. Dionysius (Aleutian Islands, founded 1830s) — the principal of the Aleutskaya of the Aleut of the promyshlennik.

The 1860 population of Russian America was 700 Russians, 350 Creoles, and 13,000 indigenous peoples (Black, 2004; Bolkhovitinov, 1986; Etkind, 2011; Allison, 2014; Dunning, 1999).

The Russian Orthodox Church

The Russian Orthodox presence in Alaska was the Kad’yakskaya mission of 1794, founded by the Archimandrite Ioann Veniaminov (later Metropolitan Innocent of Moscow, 1797–1879). The first Russian Orthodox parish in Alaska was the Bogoyavlenskaya (the Epiphany) cathedral of 1796 at Unalaska. The 1820s–1840s were the I-II-III-IV of the Aleut missionary of the Russkaya Pravoslavnaya of the Aleut. The principal missions were:

  • The Aleut Bishop of 1840 — the first eparhiya (episcopal see) in Russian America, with its cathedral at Sitka;
  • The Aleut Eparchiya of 1868 — the first eparchiya under the American flag, with its cathedral at San Francisco;
  • The Aleut Eparchiya of 1870 — the eparchiya of the Aleut Catholic of the Aleut of the Aleut of the Aleut;
  • The Aleut Eparchiya of 1904 — the eparchiya of the Aleut Aleut of the Aleut of the Aleut of the Aleut of the Aleut.

The 1867 transfer preserved the Russkaya Pravoslavnaya eparchies in Alaska; the Aleut Eparchiya of 1868 was the first eparchiya of the Aleut of the Aleut of the Aleut of the Aleut of the Aleut of the Aleut (Black, 2004; Bolkhovitinov, 1986; Pospielovsky, The Orthodox Church in the History of Russia, 1998; Etkind, 2011).

The sale of 1867

The Treaty of Cession was signed on 30 March 1867 in the United States Senate chamber in Washington. The price was $7.2 million, payable in gold coin at the U.S. Treasury and at the U.S. legation in Paris. The transfer took place at Castle Hill in Sitka on 18 October 1867. The principal negotiators were:

  • Eduard Andreyevich de Stoeckl (1822–1892), the Russian minister in Washington.
  • William Henry Seward (1801–1872), the U.S. Secretary of State.

The Russian Cabinet Committee on Alaska of 9 February 1867, chaired by the Finance Minister Mikhail Reytern, recorded four grounds for the sale:

  • The colony was indefensible against British attack, given the loss of the Russian Pacific Fleet in 1854–1855 and the limitations of the post-Crimean navy.
  • The colony produced 3,200 metric tons of ice, some peltries, and 2.4 million silver roubles’ worth of furs in its best year (1859); in 1865 the value of exports was 1.4 million silver roubles.
  • The territory was a colony, not an incorporated province; a sale would not displace Russian subjects.
  • The American purchase would create a Pacific counterweight to the British presence in British Columbia (Allison, 2014; Bolkhovitinov, 1986; Black, 2004; Etkind, 2011; Grinev, Tales of Alaska, 2005).

The aftermath and the legacy

The Russian-American Company was dissolved on 1 January 1867. The Russian Orthodox diocese of Alaska was transferred to the U.S. under the terms of the treaty. The first pravoslavnaya (Orthodox) cerkov’ (church) in the United States was the Bogoyavlenskaya (the Epiphany) cathedral of 1868 at San Francisco. The Russian heritage in Alaska is preserved in:

  • The Sitka National Historical Park (the barabash of the 1867 transfer);
  • The Russian Bishop’s House (the arkhiepiskopa of 1842);
  • The Holy Resurrection Cathedral in Kodiak (rebuilt 1945);
  • The Baranof Museum in Sitka (the barracks of the 1840s);
  • The catalogues of the St Herman Seminary on Kodiak (the seminary of 1840).

The 1897 Klondike gold rush and the 1880s–1890s Anvil Creek gold discovery transformed the early criticisms of the 1867 sale. The 1912 Alaska Territory and the 1959 Alaska Statehood Act are the modern territorial expressions of the 1867 purchase (Bolkhovitinov, 1986; Grinev, 2005; Etkind, 2011; Black, 2004; Pospielovsky, 1998).