The primary Russian colony in North America was in present-day Alaska, but their interests extended southward along the west coast of North America. At the height of their North American colonization, the Russians made efforts to explore the Columbia River and established a fort 50 miles north of San Francisco. The movement to Alaska was part of the Russian eastward expansion. The period of Russian settlements is generally dated from 1741, beginning with explorations by Aleksei Chirikov and Vitus Jonassen Bering. Russian fur traders found the region a good source for business, although the first permanent settlement was not established until 1784 as a private venture of Grigorii Shelikhov and Ivan Golikov on Kodiak Island. This enterprise evolved into the Russian American Company in 1799, with the czar as one of the stock owners. The leading characters of the early company were Nikolai Rezanov, the company head, and Alexander Baranov, who was eventually appointed governor. The colony expanded when New Archangel (Sitka) was founded in 1799.
Russian success in the control of the Native populations varied, with their treatment of Native peoples often being brutal. They sometimes held women and children hostage to compel Aleut men to hunt sea otters. As the animals were decimated, the Russians forced Aleut to exploit new hunting grounds as far south as California. The Tlingit’s resistance to the Russian advances was more successful. In 1802 they destroyed New Archangel before the Russians were able to gain a permanent foothold in the area. The Russians gained control of territory, but not Tlingit.
In 1867 Russia envisioned its future primarily in Asia and, believing the expansion of the United States to be
Almost unstoppable, it sold Alaska to the United States for $7.2 million.
Further reading: Raymond Henry Fisher, Bering’s Voyages: Whither and Why (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977).
—Donald E. Heidenreich, Jr.
World History
