Alaska

Until the mid-18th century only local Aleut and Inuit Indians knew of Alaska. In 1741 Russian explorers VlTUs Jonassen Bering and Aleksei Chirikov sailed from Kamchatka aboard two ships as part of Russia’s Great Northern Expeditions of 1733 to 1743. Bering had concluded during earlier expeditions that Siberia and Alaska were not connected by land, and together the two explorers sought to map the Alaskan coast and investigate fur trading possibilities. Although a storm separated the two ships, each reached the Alaskan coast. On the return voyage Bering was shipwrecked and died on the island that was later named after him, but Chirikov reached Russia in late 1741, bringing news of excellent trading possibilities.

By the late 1740s Russian maritime routes to the Alaskan peninsula had been expanded, and fur traders competed for sea otter pelts for trade in Asia. The Russians established their first outpost in 1784 at Three Saints Bay on Kodiak Island. They used considerable violence toward indigenous populations, at times enslaving entire villages. By 1799 control of the lucrative FUR trade fell under the control of a single monopoly, the Russian American Company, which had strong connections to the Russian royal family. Later that year the company established the larger outpost of Novoarkhangelsk, or Sitka. A Russian

Orthodox mission was also established. With a large port secured, American sea captains and the Russian American Company entered into an exclusive pact under which Aleut Indians were forced to hunt sea otters and the Americans transported the pelts to Asia for trade.

Although trade flourished, the sea otter population slowly declined, forcing the Russians to colonize farther south. The harsh climate and difficult agricultural conditions made supplying the Russian outposts difficult. By the 1830s sea otters along the West Coast of North America were virtually wiped out, which led to the Russian sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867.

Further reading: Hubert H. Bancroft, History of Alaska 1730-1885 (San Francisco: University of California Press, 1986); James R. Gibson, Imperial Russia in Frontier America: The Changing Geography of Supply of Russian America, 1784 to 1867 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976).

—James Jenks