Russian-American company: wiki: Facts about Russia. Russian-American company

Many people find it hard to believe now, but the territory of the largest US state, Alaska, once belonged to Russia. The history of the development and loss by Russia of the only overseas colony in its history in mass creation is still shrouded in a veil of legends, conjectures and rumors. Literally everything was mixed up here: and that it was allegedly sold to the reign of a German woman on the throne of Catherine II, alien to Russian interests, or not even sold at all, but leased to the Americans for 100 years. To dot all i's, let's first understand how and where it all began.

And the Russian history of the development of American possessions began just in the reign of Mother Catherine, who received the nickname Great in history. At the end of the 18th century, on July 19, 1799, in Siberian Irkutsk, by decree of her son Emperor Paul I, a colonial trading Russian-American company (RAC) was created. By this time, domestic merchants and industrialists had already founded a series of Russian trading posts-settlements on the Alaska coast and nearby islands, actively participated in the fishing of the sea beaver (sea otter), whose fur was the most valuable in the world at that time, and established mutually beneficial trade with local Indians and Eskimos. . With the help of the RAC, or rather, through it, the empire began to build the management of its overseas territories. The origins of the company were two prominent pioneers of the development of Alaska - the Russian industrialist Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov and the diplomat and traveler Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov. The first, together with other Russian merchants, organized the Northeast Company in the early 80s, which was engaged in a profitable fur trade in the Aleutian Islands and off the coast. North America. It was this trading company that was transformed by 1799 into the Russian- American company, which has become Russian history a unique case successful public-private partnership to develop the vast but sparsely populated Alaskan territories.

From the beginning of the 90s, the enterprising merchant Alexander Andreevich Baranov led Shelikhov's company, and with the formation of the RAC, he also became its manager for the next two decades. Baranov, who surprised many with his unselfishness, thanks to his tireless energy and outstanding managerial abilities, actively contributed to economic development new Russian northern region - Alaska. By the way, in the entire history of Russian America, he turned out to be the most effective manager in best sense this word, having served the cause of the development of the New World by Russia for almost three decades. During his reign, the profitability of the RAC reached a fantastic 700-1100% per year. Shelikhov himself did not live several years before the establishment of the Russian-American Company, but his son-in-law Rezanov played a significant role in its formation. Under the new ruler of Russia, Paul I, who did a lot in public administration in defiance of his unloved and unloving mother, Rezanov managed to transform the assets of Shelikhov's North-Eastern Company into the Russian-American. Moreover, he opened a branch in the capital of the empire and even involved members of the imperial Romanov dynasty, who became its shareholders, in the activities of the RAC.

The Russian-American Company, from the moment of its founding until the very sale of Alaska by Russia to the North American United States in 1867, was the monopoly "contractor" of the Russian Empire in the management of all North American possessions. The successful economic development of the only Russian overseas colony allowed the RAC to form a unique cultural, historical, spiritual and religious phenomenon of Russian America, some particles of which have been preserved on its territory to this day.

Name

Scholars and American historians insist that the correct company name is Russian American Company. This is confirmed by archival data and most importantly reflects the essence of the company. The company was completely Russian, it never had American capital, and the goals and objectives of the company met exclusively Russian interests.

Founding history

From the very beginning, the state took control of the New World, which became possible mainly due to the Petrine reforms and the creation of a modern fleet. The emperor himself stood at the origins of the 1st Kamchatka expedition led by V.Y. Bering, designed to explore the Pacific North and find the western shores of America. Russian military sailors completed the task of the government: during the 1st and 2nd Kamchatka expeditions (, -), as well as the navigation of the navigator I. Fedorov and the surveyor M. Gvozdev (), outstanding geographical discoveries in the area of ​​the Bering Strait, the coast of Alaska was discovered from 55 ° to 60 ° N. and the Aleutian Islands chain. True, the payment for these discoveries was high: during the largest - the 2nd Kamchatka expedition - a third of its participants (including V.Y. Bering) died, and government expenses amounted to an astronomical amount of 360,659 rubles. Therefore, the government remained dissatisfied with the results of the expedition and for a long time lost interest in new campaigns in the Pacific North, transferring the initiative in this matter to private individuals - Siberian merchants and industrialists, who actively began to develop the fur-rich Aleutian Islands.

Increasingly longer voyages to the shores of the eastern Aleutian Islands and Alaska required an increase in the crews and displacement of merchant ships. Only the wealthiest merchants could afford to raise funds for organizing long-distance expeditions. Therefore, already in the 1760s. there is a tendency towards the concentration and centralization of merchant capital, which was especially clearly manifested by the end of the 1780s. This trend was reinforced by intense competition for limited fur resources. By this time, only two large merchant companies were able to gain a foothold in Alaska: Shelikhov-Golikov and Lebedev-Lastochkin, between whose representatives there was almost unceasing rivalry. It ended in 1798, when the "Lebedevites" were forced to ingloriously leave America. Thus, already by 1799, when the formation of the RAC took place, in Russian America, the hegemony of a conglomerate of companies, which belonged to the heirs of G.I. Shelikhov (died in 1795) and his former companion I.L. Golikov, i.e. almost complete trade and fishing monopoly. The formation of the RAC only legally consolidated the real situation.

Well-known entrepreneur and organizer of the fur industry G.I. Shelikhov, who founded the first permanent settlement on the island of Kodiak in the city, returned to Russia with a proposal to grant significant privileges to his company. Shelikhov's project provided for protection from the arbitrariness of the local Okhotsk and Kamchatka administrations by transferring his company under the patronage of the Governor-General of the Irkutsk province, sending a military team, specialists, exiled settlers and missionaries to American settlements, sanctions for the purchase of slaves from native leaders in America and their settlement in Kamchatka and the Kuriles, as well as permission to trade with the countries of the Pacific Rim and India. To implement these large-scale plans, Shelikhov asked the treasury for financial assistance in the amount of 500 thousand rubles. and insisted on a ban on foreigners to engage in trade and fishing activities within the emerging Russian America.

In the central government, plans for the unification of merchant companies into a single organization had been developed at least since the year, when the secretary of the College of Commerce M.D. Chulkov submitted to the Prosecutor General Prince A.A. Vyazemsky corresponding carefully developed project, according to which the company being founded would receive a 30-year monopoly on fishing and trade in the entire Pacific North. Although Chulkov's project did not receive support due to Catherine II's staunch hostility to the monopolies, he apparently became known to G.I. Shelikhov and I.L. Golikov and influenced their future plans and activities. Unlike previous merchant associations, the Shelikhov-Golikov company was established in 1781 not for one “voyage”, but for ten years, and its goal was not just to extract furs in the New World, but to establish permanent settlements there. At the same time, the partners sought direct patronage of the Irkutsk governors both over their company and over the colonies founded in America.

In March, the Commission on Commerce, Navigation and Trade in the Pacific Ocean petitioned the Empress to grant the Shelikhov-Golikov company the benefits it requested and state aid, including granting it a trade and fishing monopoly both in the areas already developed by the company and in the newly opened territories for up to 20 years. However, Catherine II sharply rejected the petition of zealous merchants and the petitions of the highest state authorities.

After the death of the empress and the accession to the throne of Paul I, the process of formalizing a monopoly on the fur trade and trade in the New World went by leaps and bounds. So, already in the city, a number of Irkutsk merchants proposed to unite merchant companies for trade in the Kuril Islands and Japan, and in the city, as a result of the merger of merchant capital, the foundation was laid for the creation of a single monopoly company in the Pacific North, where the dominant role soon began to play the heirs of G.I. Shelikhov and, first of all, his son-in-law Rezanov.

The formation of the RAC was a unique phenomenon in the history of Russia in the late 18th - early 19th centuries. The charter of the company was largely copied from foreign monopoly trade associations, primarily French ones. A number of explanations should be made here. If we talk about the uniqueness of the RAC, then it consisted primarily in the combination of trade and fishing functions with the functions of state administration: the state temporarily delegated a significant part of its powers to the company. On the other hand, there was nothing phenomenal in the appearance of RAC - already in the 1750s. the first monopolistic trade organizations- Temernikovskaya, Persian and Central Asian. All of them were joint-stock companies, and a number of provisions in the constituent documents of the first of them were very reminiscent of certain points of the rules and privileges of the RAC (including later additions and innovations). The RAC arose not only under the influence of foreign analogies such as the British East India Company, but largely due to the experience already available in Russia in creating such organizations. At the same time, the state, monopolizing the activities of the RAC, sought to keep merchant capital and initiative under its control, as well as to take part in the appropriation of monopoly superprofits through tax redistribution without excessive costs on its part.

Governing body

The Russian-American Company (RAC), which finally took shape in the summer, served as a tool for the development and colonization of the New World. It was the result of a peculiar symbiosis of the interests of domestic entrepreneurs and the tsarist bureaucracy. Initially, RAC emerged as a monopoly association of several companies, mainly Siberian merchants. The leading role in it was played by the Irkutsk merchant of the 1st guild Nikolai Prokofievich Mylnikov and his sons Dmitry and Yakov, as well as the heirs of the famous Kursk merchant Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov - his widow Natalya Alekseevna, companion Ivan Illarionovich (Larionovich) Golikov and sons-in-law - wealthy merchant Mikhail Matveevich Buldakov and chief secretary of the Governing Senate, real state councilor and chamberlain Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov. The latter, being close to the imperial court, soon became the unofficial head and intercessor of the company before the tsarist government. It was at his insistence that the Main Board of the RAC was transferred in 1801 from Irkutsk to St. Petersburg, and the company itself acquired the features of a semi-state monopoly, when the emperor himself, members of the reigning family and a number of large dignitaries joined its shareholders.

A house in St. Petersburg (72, Moika River Embankment), where in the first half of the 19th century. housed the Russian-American Company - a historical monument of federal significance

Initially, the RAC still retained the features of a merchant association, since representatives of large commercial capital were at the helm of its management. The top management elite of the company included directors who were in the Main Board of the company (GP RAK) in St. Petersburg, as well as the main rulers (managers) of the Russian colonies in America.

The eminent merchant Alexander Andreevich Baranov, a native of the city of Kargopol, became the first chief ruler of Russian America, who from the city led the most significant company of G. I. Shelikhov in America. Energetic and adamant, he managed to realize many of the projects of his patron, who died untimely in 1795. At the same time, Baranov was not only the first chief ruler, but also the only representative of the merchant class in this responsible position. At the same time with the title of the chief ruler of the Russian colonies, he received the rank of collegiate adviser, and in the city - the Order of St. Anne of the 2nd degree, that is, he was incorporated into the bureaucratic hierarchy of the empire and acquired the right to hereditary nobility.

Baranov's successors, sent to replace him by the Main Board of the RAC at his numerous requests, also belonged to the bureaucratic class.

On August 25, 1816, a special council at the Company's General Board decided to appoint Lieutenant Commander L. A. Gagemeister as head of the colonial administration. Since that time, the post of the chief ruler of Russian America began to be filled exclusively by officers of the Navy, usually with the rank of captain of the 1st or 2nd rank.

The natural dependence of the colonies on naval officers, who commanded the RAC ships, received its logical conclusion in the transfer of full executive power in Russian America to them almost 20 years after the formation of the Russian-American Company.

As a result of the coming to power in the colonies of naval officers, many abuses of the merchant freemen were eliminated, the position of both Russians and especially local residents, including the Aleuts and Creoles who were in the service of the company, improved. However, serious shortcomings were soon discovered. Naval officers were appointed by the rulers of the colonies for short periods, they looked at their stay in America as a temporary phenomenon. Although they were knowledgeable, honest and respectable people, as a rule they were not very well versed in commerce, and the economic affairs of the company after the change of Baranov left much to be desired.

The coming to power in the colonies of naval officers was only the beginning of a qualitative transformation of the highest leading elite of the RAC. The foundations for this were laid during the transfer of the Main Board from Irkutsk to St. Petersburg, which made it possible to concentrate a large number of RAC shares in the hands of the capital's officials, officers and tsarist dignitaries, who by the end of the 1810s. began to actively influence decisions made by the general meeting of shareholders - the highest body of the company. Despite the transfer of the Main Board from Irkutsk to St. Petersburg, large stakes in the RAC continued to be in the hands of the Siberian merchants.

The influence of the court nobility and the bureaucracy was more pronounced with the establishment in 1804 of a special temporary committee (in 1813 it was transformed into an officially acting council) of three RAC shareholders to resolve political issues that were not subject to publicity. Moreover, one of the members of this body was not elected, but was appointed without fail from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The first members of the "political" committee were prominent statesmen - the then Minister of the Navy, Admiral N. S. Mordvinov, Deputy Minister of the Interior, Count P. A. Stroganov, and representative of the Foreign Ministry, Privy Councilor I. A. Veydemeyer.

When the company was founded in the city, it was planned that its Main Board should consist of two directors, but already in the city their number increased to four. They were elected at a general meeting of shareholders of the RAC, who had the right to vote (that is, they owned at least 10 shares). Only persons who owned at least 25 shares were eligible to be elected to the post of director. Since initially each share cost more than 1000 rubles, it is natural that only very wealthy people could get into the company's management. The power of the directors was very significant, and ordinary shareholders could not interfere in their activities and challenge orders: for this it was necessary to organize a general meeting of shareholders, which was quite a difficult task.

In less than 70 years of Russian America's management by the Russian-American Company, the composition of its leading elite has undergone very significant changes. If initially the leadership of the RAC in the colonies and in the metropolis consisted exclusively of merchants, albeit closely connected with state structures (and in Russia it could not be otherwise), then 20 years after the founding of the RAC, power in the colonies passed into the hands of naval officers. Almost 15 years later, only from them their deputies begin to be recruited. A little more than 10 years pass, and the merchants finally lose control over the Main Board, and a decade later they completely disappear from the RAC directors. This evolution was actually a reflection of the transformation of the company itself, which during this period made its way from a merchant organization under the auspices of the Ministry of Finance to the State Department for the Management of Overseas Territories in the form of a kind of offshoot of the Maritime Ministry.

Since the mid 1840s. the top management apparatus of the Russian-American Company is finally turning into a specific semi-state structure. It was the military-bureaucratic monopoly that best of all corresponded to the social system that had developed in the empire. This system reached its apogee by the middle of the 19th century. and, having largely exhausted the internal reserves of its development, began to quickly lose ground in post-reform Russia. Neither the RAC as a whole, nor its management elite wanted and could not take into account the trends of the new capitalist era, did not have time to adapt to the new realities, transferring the economy of Russian America to the "capitalist rails", which led to a deterioration in the financial position of the company in the 1860s . Thus, the process of nationalization and bureaucratization of the highest administrative elite of the RAC was one of the indirect reasons for the sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867 and the subsequent liquidation of the Russian-American Company itself, which has not yet been properly reflected in the pages of domestic and foreign historiography.

With the assistance of the Russian government, the company organized 25 expeditions, including 15 round-the-world expeditions (by I. F. Kruzenshtern, Yu. F. Lisyansky, and others).

Russians in Hawaii

Sale of Alaska

On December 16 (28) a secret "special meeting" was held, which was attended by Grand Duke. Konstantin, Gorchakov, Reitern, Stekl and Vice Admiral N.K. Krabbe (from the Naval Ministry), led by Emperor Alexander II. It was these people who decided the fate of Russian America. All of them unanimously supported its sale to the United States.

After the final decision on the "Alaska issue" was made by the supreme authorities of the empire, Stekl immediately, already in January 1867, left Petersburg, and on February 15 arrived in New York. In March, short negotiations began, and the agreement on the cession of Alaska by Russia for $7 million in gold was signed on March 18 (30), 1867 (a territory of 1 million 519 thousand square kilometers was sold for $7.2 million in gold, then is, at $0.0474 per hectare). And only on April 7 (19) the leadership of the RAC was notified of a fait accompli.

Managers of the Russian-American Company

Sources

see also

Links

• Collection of Gennady V. Yudin: Documents of the Russian-American Company. US Library of Congress Materials
• “Watch, friends, in honor of the fatherland!” B. Ryabukhin. Historical excerpt in literature

The site reviewer studied the history of the Russian-American company, which was engaged in fur trade in Alaska, founded a settlement in California and built several fortresses in the Hawaiian Islands.

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The Russian-American company is one of the most extraordinary enterprises in the history of the Russian Empire and the world in general. Founded at a time when other countries were seizing colonies, it placed an impressive part of North America in the hands of Russian merchants. However, where foreign entrepreneurs were successful, the Russians were forced to retreat. Historians are still debating the reasons why an undeniably successful undertaking ended the way it did.

Creation of the Russian-American company

The beginning of the Russian-American company was laid by the expedition of Mikhail Gvozdev, who in 1732 discovered Alaska, but mapped only part of it. His success was developed by the famous navigator Vitus Bering, who established that the open land is a peninsula, and also discovered the Commander and Kuril Islands.

Merchants became interested in the wealth of the region, and expeditions began. They came here for the fur of beavers, arctic foxes, foxes and other animals. Until the beginning of the 19th century, more than 100 voyages were made, and the total cost of the brought furs was about 8 million rubles.

Expeditions, though commercially successful, remained costly and dangerous. Usually, merchants pooled together to create a small company, and after receiving the goods, they divided it and dispersed. This is how it happened long time until the merchant Grigory Ivanovich Shelikhov became interested in this craft.

He sent several expeditions to the region and himself visited there more than once - in particular, on the island of Unalaska. Shelikhov thought about creating a semi-state company that would receive a monopoly on trade in the region and establish settlements here.

In 1784, Shelikhov created the first settlement on Kodiak Island, and after returning, he presented the project of the Commerce Collegium. He proposed to provide total privileges to Russian merchants and to prohibit foreigners from operating on the territory of the so-called Russian America. The idea was carefully considered, but Catherine II did not agree with it.

The merchants did not despair and began to conquer the region even without privileges. In 1791, Grigory Shelikhov and his partner Golikov founded the Northeast Company. Shelikhov died in 1795, but left behind a stable company, the capital of which was a colony on Kodiak Island. In 1796, Dudnikov, together with several other merchants, founded the Irkutsk Commercial Company.

These two firms merged in 1797 - this is how the "American Mylnikov, Shelikhov and Golikov Company" appeared. A year later, the name changed to the United American Company. It included about 20 merchants who divided among themselves 724 shares worth 1,000 rubles each.

Paul I, who recently ascended the throne, supported the initiative. In 1799, a royal decree was officially signed on the creation of the Russian-American Company, which received the right to monopoly trade in the Pacific North. Its charter was finally finalized - including the fact that only owners of 10 or more shares vote at large meetings. The board of directors consisted of those who had more than 25 shares. The position of the first director of the company was taken by the merchant Buldakov.

main role at first, Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov, one of the emperor's close associates, played in the development of the company - the initiative of the merchants was supported largely due to his influence. The Mylnikov brothers and Semyon Startsev also joined the board of directors.

There is information that Rezanov was dissatisfied with the remoteness of the central office, which was located in Irkutsk. A struggle began in the board of directors, in which Buldakov won, and the company's office moved to St. Petersburg.

First decade of the 19th century

At the time the company was founded, Russian America consisted of several scattered colonies centered on Kodiak Island, where the settlement of Pavlovskaya Gavan was located. There were not many Russian settlers. They had their own fleet of nine ships, the largest of which was the 22-gun Phoenix. The ships were not in the best condition, but the main problem was the insufficiently professional crew.

Merchants used the Indians to harvest skins and supplies, as well as for construction. They were driven to these works at gunpoint. Often there is information that the oppressed locals sometimes did not even have food, and they ate tree bark. They often tried to organize uprisings, but it ended sadly for the rebels. In the early 1820s, the situation would change: merchants would realize that such an approach would rather harm them.

The company was then engaged in the activities of the company in the Pacific northern region, appointed by Grigory Shelikhov. Baranov is especially known for using local tribes to fight against competitors, setting them against workers from other companies. When the Russian-American Company was founded, Alexander Andreevich became an indispensable person who understood not only the conduct of business, but also the relations between the tribes.

Through his efforts, several colonial possessions of Russian America were created, parts of Alaska and nearby islands were studied. It was he who in 1799 founded the Mikhailovsky fortress on the island of Sitka, knowing that England and France would also try to subjugate the fur trade.

The Russian artel was on Sitka even before the arrival of Baranov, but did not achieve much success. Alexander Andreevich began to build a fort and a trading post, as well as negotiate with local tribes - the Tlingit. He tried to win over the Indian leaders with gifts, but this did not always work out.

Baranov's departure. Company in the 1820s–1830s

In 1818 Baranov was removed from his post. For 28 years in Alaska, he practically built Russian America and earned more than 16 million rubles, but not all of his actions were successful. For example, it was Baranov, at the direction of the board of directors, who introduced the local currency - marks. This was supposed to provide the company with control over economic relations in the region, but the effect turned out to be the opposite. Few people needed stamps, and vodka became the new currency, which led to drunkenness among both Russians and Indians.

The fight against alcoholism will important part work of each new ruler. With the penetration of the Americans and the Hudson's Bay Company into the region, they and the Russians will prohibit the exchange of goods for vodka.

The new chief ruler was Leonty Gagemeister, a naval officer with the rank of lieutenant commander. After him, choosing the head of the company from regular naval officers will become a tradition.

On the Eastern Ocean, the Russian-American Company continued to expand its commercial and industrial activities in the same direction. Its main board, which was in Irkutsk, was transferred to St. Petersburg; and in Irkutsk only the office was left.

The active ruler of the colonies Baranov found it useful and profitable to arrange a new companionable settlement on the island of Sitkh, but the fortifications and buildings erected with great difficulty here during the absence of Baranov in 1802 were ruined by the neighboring natives of the Koloshi; the inhabitants of the village, 20 Russians and 130 Aleuts, were killed, the company ship that was there was burned, and all property was plundered. According to rumors, the main culprits and instigators of this attack were English merchants who delivered firearms and gunpowder. Only in the summer of 1804, Baranov, having assembled a detachment of 4 ships, with the assistance of Captain Lisyansky, who arrived on the Neva ship, managed to recapture Sitkha and strengthen it so that the natives could no longer even think about a new attack. The fortress built on a nearby mountain was named Novo-Arkhangelsk, and from it the village itself was named Novo-Arkhangelsk, where in 1808 the main colonial government was transferred from Kodiak. Of the four ships brought by Baranov to return the Sith, two were built in the local colonies in Yakutat Bay. One vessel is 41 feet long with 80 tons and the other is 51 feet long with 100 tons. The iron for them was taken from an old ship dismantled due to dilapidation, and for the rigging they went into action " rotten tackle from the same ship, mixed with hemp for greater strength, tree roots and whalebone". With such terrible shortcomings in everything, not excluding the food of the inhabitants, the ruler of the colonies had to fight.

The climatic situation of the colonies, with an abundance of rain, did not make it possible for cereal plants to ripen, so the ruler of the colonies, who took care of organizing the right food for the inhabitants, had long tried to find a place convenient for farming. Such a place, rumored to be distinguished by fertility, turned out to be on the coast of California, where Baranov decided to build a settlement that could deliver bread, livestock and other food items for the colonies. Since this area belonged to Spain, after fruitless relations with the Madrid cabinet, a command was issued: allow the company to establish such a settlement on its own behalf and reassure it with the highest intercession in any case».

The place for the new settlement was chosen on the coast of California, at a latitude of 38°, 25 versts from Rumyantsev Bay. After the construction of fortifications, living quarters and services, on August 30, 1812, the new settlement was consecrated with the utmost solemnity and named "Ross".

The Aleuts were settled in the economy established here, and several Russian people were there to supervise them; but Baranov's hopes were not justified: the fur-bearing animal trades were of little success, and the fertility of the soil turned out to be far lower than expected. In addition, the Aleuts, not accustomed to agricultural work, tried to evade them, and the sowing of grain seeds, with a better harvest, gave no more than a sam-quarter, and only a sam-pole for one year, and sometimes it was not collected even sown. Only potatoes were born well, but they were terribly destroyed by moles. Thus, the proposal to make Ross the granary of the colonial population did not materialize, and due to local circumstances, the hopes for the possibility of expanding the land ownership of the settlement did not come true. The Spaniards looked at the appearance of Russians in their possessions with suspicion and apprehension; and the occupation of California by the insurgents in 1818 and the declaration of independence of the Spanish possessions in America subsequently affected the village of Ross.

When Baranov was replaced in 1817, an experienced sailor, captain-lieutenant Gegemeister, was appointed ruler of the colony, and then all his successors were elected naval officers. They, as people specially unfamiliar with trade, could sometimes make some mistakes that are unprofitable for the company; but on the other hand, under their control, many abuses that existed before that time were eliminated, and in general, a more correct order was introduced in all parts of the company's activities.

On the occasion of disputes on the part of England and the North American States regarding the boundaries of Russian possessions in America, conventions were concluded with the governments of both states, according to which the Russian border was determined: starting from the southern tip of Prince Wali Island, in a latitude of 50 ° 40 ", it was drawn in the direction the so-called Portland Canal, and then along the ridge of the mountains not more than 10 nautical miles from the sea coast to Mount St. Elias, and from it, along the meridian of 141 ° west longitude from Greenwich, to the Arctic Ocean. The company's activities included the islands in the Bering Sea, the Aleutian and Kuril Islands up to the Urupa Island.In 1806, a special flag was approved for company ships, and in 1821, the privileges granted to the company by Pavel were continued for another 20 years.

During the reign of Baranov, one event remarkable in its originality took place. Suvorov, who served on the ship, under the command of M.P. Lazarev, the doctor Sheffer, due to his restless character and troubles with officers, was left in Sitkha in 1815. In the absence of another person who knows foreign languages, Baranov sent Schaeffer to the Sandwich Islands in order to extort a reward from King Tomeo for the company ship captured by the islanders and the cargo on it. During the negotiations, Schaeffer quarreled with Tomeo, but on the other hand he gained the full favor of King Tamari, the owner of the island of Atuai, made various promises to him in the form of conquering Tomeo’s possessions and charmed Tamari to the point that, in addition to various trade benefits for the company, he ceded possession of her half of the island Oagu and asked to accept him and the people subject to him under the protection of Russia, as a sign of which he raised the Russian flag. Alexander I found it inconvenient to comply with Tamari's request, and the company was instructed, as friendly as possible, to reject the king's desire and limit themselves to maintaining trade relations with the islands. Schaeffer's actions aroused strong intrigues of foreigners who were on the islands, who managed to restore Tamari against him, and Schaeffer fled to Canton; the Russians who were with him barely made it to Novo-Arkhangelsk, and the company had to pay about 230 thousand rubles for the expenses incurred by Schaeffer.

History of Alaska

The first inhabitants of Alaska came to the territory of the modern US state about 15 or 20,000 years ago - they moved from Eurasia to North America through the isthmus that then connected the two continents in the place where the Bering Strait is today.

By the time the Europeans arrived in Alaska, several peoples inhabited it, including the Tsimshians, Haida and Tlingit, Aleuts and Athabaskans, as well as the Eskimos, Inupiat and Yupik. But all modern natives of Alaska and Siberia have common ancestors - their genetic relationship has already been proven.

Discovery of Alaska by Russian explorers

History has not preserved the name of the first European who set foot on the land of Alaska. But at the same time, it is very likely that it was a member of the Russian expedition. Perhaps it was the expedition of Semyon Dezhnev in 1648. It is possible that in 1732 members of the crew of the small ship "Saint Gabriel", who explored Chukotka, landed on the coast of the North American continent.

However, the official discovery of Alaska is July 15, 1741 - on this day, from one of the ships of the Second Kamchatka Expedition, the famous explorer Vitus Bering saw the land. It was Prince of Wales Island, which is located in the southeast of Alaska.

Subsequently, the island, the sea and the strait between Chukotka and Alaska were named after Vitus Bering. Assessing the scientific and political results of the second expedition of V. Bering, the Soviet historian A.V. Efimov recognized them as huge, because during the Second Kamchatka expedition american coast for the first time in history was reliably mapped as "part of North America". However Russian empress Elizabeth did not show any noticeable interest in the lands of North America. She issued a decree obliging the local population to pay a fee for trade, but did not take any further steps towards developing relations with Alaska.

However, the attention of Russian industrialists came to the sea otters living in coastal waters - sea otters. Their fur was considered one of the most valuable in the world, so sea otters were extremely profitable. So by 1743, Russian traders and fur hunters had established close contact with the Aleuts.

Development of Russian Alaska: North-Eastern Company

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subsequent years, Russian travelers repeatedly landed on the islands of Alaska, fished for sea otters and traded with local residents, and even entered into skirmishes with them.

In 1762 on Russian throne Empress Catherine the Great ascended. Her government turned its attention back to Alaska. In 1769, the duty on trade with the Aleuts was abolished. The development of Alaska went by leaps and bounds. In 1772, the first Russian trading settlement was founded on the large island of Unalaska. Another 12 years later, in 1784, an expedition under the command of Grigory Shelikhov landed on the Aleutian Islands, which founded the Russian settlement of Kodiak in the Bay of Three Saints.

The Irkutsk merchant Grigory Shelikhov, a Russian explorer, navigator and industrialist, glorified his name in history by the fact that since 1775 he was engaged in the arrangement of commercial merchant shipping between the Kuril and Aleutian island ridges as the founder of the North-Eastern Company.

His associates arrived in Alaska on three galliots, "Three Saints", "St. Simeon" and "St. Michael". "Shelikhovtsy" begin to intensively develop the island. They subdue the local Eskimos (Konyags), try to develop agriculture by planting turnips and potatoes, and also conduct spiritual activities, converting the indigenous people to their faith. Orthodox missionaries made a tangible contribution to the development of Russian America.

The colony on Kodiak functioned relatively successfully until the early 90s of the XVIII century. In 1792, the city, which was named Pavlovsk Harbor, was moved to a new location - this was the result of a powerful tsunami that damaged the Russian settlement.

Russian-American company

With the merger of the companies of merchants G.I. Shelikhova, I.I. and M.S. Golikovs and N.P. Mylnikov in 1798-99, a single "Russian-American Company" was created. From Paul I, who ruled Russia at that time, she received monopoly rights to fur trade, trade and the discovery of new lands in the northeastern part Pacific Ocean. The company was called upon to represent and defend with its own means the interests of Russia in the Pacific Ocean, and was under the "highest patronage." Since 1801, Alexander I and the Grand Dukes, major statesmen have become shareholders of the company. The main board of the company was located in St. Petersburg, but in fact the management of all affairs was carried out from Irkutsk, where Shelikhov lived.

Alexander Baranov became the first governor of Alaska under the control of the RAC. During the years of his reign, the boundaries of Russian possessions in Alaska expanded significantly, new Russian settlements arose. Redoubts appeared in the Kenai and Chugatsky bays. The construction of Novorossiysk in Yakutat Bay began. In 1796, moving south along the coast of America, the Russians reached the island of Sitka.

The basis of the economy of Russian America was still the fishing of sea animals: sea otters, sea lions, which was carried out with the support of the Aleuts.

Russian Indian War

However, the indigenous people did not always meet the Russian settlers with open arms. Having reached the island of Sitka, the Russians ran into fierce resistance from the Tlingit Indians, and in 1802 the Russo-Indian War broke out. Control of the island and fishing for sea otters in coastal waters became the cornerstone of the conflict.

The first skirmish on the mainland took place on May 23, 1802. In June, a detachment of 600 Indians, led by the leader Katlian, attacked the Mikhailovsky fortress on the island of Sitka. By June, during the ensuing series of attacks, the 165-member Sitka Party had been completely crushed. The English brig Unicorn, which sailed into the area a little later, helped the miraculously surviving Russians to escape. The loss of Sitka was a severe blow to the Russian colonies and personally to Governor Baranov. The total losses of the Russian-American Company amounted to 24 Russians and 200 Aleuts.

In 1804, Baranov moved from Yakutat to conquer Sitka. After a long siege and shelling of the fortress occupied by the Tlingits, on October 8, 1804, the Russian flag was raised over the native settlement. The construction of a fort and a new settlement began. Soon the city of Novo-Arkhangelsk grew up here.

However, on August 20, 1805, the Eyak warriors of the Tlahaik-Tekuedi clan and their Tlingit allies burned Yakutat and killed the Russians and Aleuts who remained there. In addition, at the same time, in a distant sea crossing, they got into a storm and about 250 more people died. The fall of Yakutat and the death of Demyanenkov's party became another heavy blow for the Russian colonies. An important economic and strategic base on the coast of America was lost.

Further confrontation continued until 1805, when a truce was concluded with the Indians and the RAC tried to fish in the waters of the Tlingit in large numbers under the cover of Russian warships. However, the Tlingits even then opened fire from guns, already at the beast, which made fishing almost impossible.

As a result of Indian attacks, 2 Russian fortresses and a village in Southeast Alaska were destroyed, about 45 Russians and more than 230 natives died. All this stopped the advance of the Russians in a southerly direction along the northwestern coast of America for several years. The Indian threat further fettered the RAC forces in the region of the Alexander Archipelago and did not allow the systematic colonization of Southeast Alaska to begin. However, after the cessation of fishing in the lands of the Indians, relations improved somewhat, and the RAC resumed trade with the Tlingit and even allowed them to restore their ancestral village near Novoarkhangelsk.

It should be noted that the full settlement of relations with the Tlingit took place two hundred years later - in October 2004, an official peace ceremony was held between the Kiksadi clan and Russia.

The Russo-Indian War secured Alaska for Russia, but limited the further advance of the Russians deep into America.

Under the control of Irkutsk

Grigory Shelikhov had already died by this time: he died in 1795. His place in the management of the RAC and Alaska was taken by the son-in-law and legal heir of the Russian-American Company, Count Nikolai Petrovich Ryazanov. In 1799, he received from the ruler of Russia, Emperor Paul I, the right to monopoly the American fur trade.

Nikolai Rezanov was born in 1764 in St. Petersburg, but after some time his father was appointed chairman of the civil chamber of the provincial court in Irkutsk. Rezanov himself serves in the Life Guards of the Izmailovsky Regiment, and is even personally responsible for the protection of Catherine II, but in 1791 he was also assigned to Irkutsk. Here he was supposed to inspect the activities of Shelikhov's company.

In Irkutsk, Rezanov met "Columbus Rossky": that was how contemporaries called Shelikhov, the founder of the first Russian settlements in America. In an effort to strengthen his position, Shelikhov wooed Rezanov his eldest daughter, Anna. Thanks to this marriage, Nikolai Rezanov received the right to participate in the affairs of the family company and became a co-owner of huge capital, and the bride from a merchant family - the family coat of arms and all the privileges of the titled Russian nobility. From that moment on, the fate of Rezanov is closely connected with Russian America. And his young wife (Anna was 15 years old at the time of marriage) died a few years later.

The activity of the RAC was a unique phenomenon in the history of Russia at that time. It was the first such a large monopoly organization with fundamentally new forms of doing business that took into account the specifics of the Pacific fur trade. Today, this would be called a public-private partnership: merchants, resellers and fishermen closely interacted with the state authorities. Such a need was dictated by the moment: firstly, the distances between the areas of fishing and marketing were huge. Secondly, the practice of using equity capital was approved: financial flows were involved in the fur trade from people who had no direct relation to it. The government partly regulated these relations and supported them. The fortunes of merchants and the fate of people who went to the ocean for "soft gold" often depended on his position.

And in the interests of the state was the speedy development of economic relations with China and the establishment of further way to the East. The new Minister of Commerce N.P. Rumyantsev presented two notes to Alexander I, where he described the advantages of this direction: “The British and Americans, delivering their junk from Notki-Sund and Charlotte Islands directly to Canton, will always prevail in this trade, and this until the Russians themselves pave the way to Canton.” Rumyantsev foresaw the benefits of opening trade with Japan "not only for American villages, but for the entire northern region of Siberia" and proposed using a round-the-world expedition to send "an embassy to the Japanese court" led by a person "with abilities and knowledge of political and commercial affairs" . Historians believe that even then he meant Nikolai Rezanov as such a person, since it was assumed that upon completion of the Japanese mission, he would go to survey Russian possessions in America.

Around the world Rezanov

Rezanov knew about the planned expedition already in the spring of 1803. “Now I am preparing for a campaign,” she wrote in a private letter. - Two merchant ships, bought in London, are given to my superiors. They are equipped with a decent crew, guard officers are assigned to the mission with me, and in general an expedition has been set up for the journey. My journey from Kronstadt to Portsmouth, from there to Tenerife, then to Brazil and, bypassing Cape Horn, to Valpareso, from there to the Sandwich Islands, finally to Japan, and in 1805 wintering in Kamchatka. From there I will go to Unalaska, to Kodiak, to Prince William Sound and go down to Nootka, from which I will return to Kodiak and, loaded with goods, I will go to Canton, to the Philippine Islands ... I will return around the Cape of Good Hope.

In the meantime, the RAC took on the service of Ivan Fedorovich Kruzenshtern and entrusted two ships, called Nadezhda and Neva, to his "bosses". In a special supplement, the board announced the appointment of N.P. Rezanov as the head of the embassy to Japan and authorized "his full master's face not only during the voyage, but also in America."

“The Russian-American company,” reported the Hamburg Vedomosti (No. 137, 1802), “is zealous about the expansion of its trade, which in time will be very useful for Russia, and is now engaged in a great enterprise, important not only for commerce, but also for the honor of the Russian people, namely, she equips two ships that will be loaded in Petersburg with food, anchors, ropes, sails, etc., and should sail to the northwestern shores of America in order to supply the Russian colonies on the Aleutian Islands with these needs, load there with furs, exchange them in China for its goods, establish a colony on Urup, one of the Kuril Islands, for the most convenient trade with Japan, go from there to the Cape of Good Hope, and return to Europe. Only Russians will be on these ships. The emperor approved the plan, ordered to select the best naval officers and sailors for the success of this expedition, which will be the first Russian trip around the world.

The historian Karamzin wrote the following about the expedition and the attitude of various circles of Russian society towards it: “Anglomans and Gallomaniacs, who wish to be called cosmopolitans, think that the Russians should trade locally. Peter thought differently - he was Russian at heart and a patriot. We stand on the ground and on Russian land, we look at the world not through the glasses of taxonomists, but with our natural eyes, we also need the development of the fleet and industry, enterprise and daring. In Vestnik Evropy, Karamzin printed letters from officers who had gone on a voyage, and all of Russia awaited this news with trepidation.

On August 7, 1803, exactly 100 years after the founding of St. Petersburg and Kronstadt by Peter, the Nadezhda and the Neva weighed anchor. The circumnavigation has begun. Through Copenhagen, Falmouth, Tenerife to the coast of Brazil, and then around Cape Horn, the expedition reached the Marquesas and by June 1804 - the Hawaiian Islands. Here the ships separated: "Nadezhda" went to Petropavlovsk-on-Kamchatka, and "Neva" went to Kodiak Island. When Nadezhda arrived in Kamchatka, preparations began for an embassy to Japan.

Reza new in Japan

Leaving Petropavlovsk on August 27, 1804, Nadezhda headed southwest. A month later, the shores of northern Japan appeared in the distance. A great celebration took place on the ship, the participants of the expedition were awarded silver medals. However, the joy turned out to be premature: due to the abundance of errors in the charts, the ship embarked on the wrong course. In addition, a severe storm began, in which the Nadezhda was badly damaged, but, fortunately, she managed to stay afloat, despite serious damage. And on September 28, the ship entered the port of Nagasaki.

However, here again difficulties arose: a Japanese official who met the expedition stated that the entrance to the Nagasaki harbor was open only to Dutch ships, and for others it was impossible without a special order from the Japanese emperor. Fortunately, Rezanov had such permission. And despite the fact that Alexander I secured the consent of the Japanese "colleague" 12 years ago, access to the harbor for the Russian ship, albeit with some bewilderment, was open. True, "Nadezhda" was obliged to issue gunpowder, cannons and all firearms, sabers and swords, of which only one can be provided to the ambassador. Rezanov knew about such Japanese laws for foreign ships and agreed to hand over all weapons, except for the swords of officers and the guns of his personal guard.

However, several more months of sophisticated diplomatic treaties passed before the ship was allowed to come close to the Japanese coast, and the envoy Rezanov himself was allowed to move to land. The team, all this time, until the end of December, continued to live on board. An exception was provided only for astronomers who made their observations - they were allowed to land on the ground. At the same time, the Japanese vigilantly watched the sailors and the embassy. They were even forbidden to send letters to their homeland with a Dutch ship leaving for Batavia. Only the envoy was allowed to write a brief report to Alexander I about a safe voyage.

The envoy and the persons of his retinue had to live in honorable imprisonment for four months, until the very departure from Japan. Only occasionally Rezanov could see our sailors and the director of the Dutch trading post. Rezanov, however, did not waste time: he diligently continued his studies Japanese, along the way compiling two manuscripts (“A Brief Russian-Japanese Manual” and a dictionary containing more than five thousand words), which Rezanov later wanted to transfer to the Navigation School in Irkutsk. Subsequently, they were published by the Academy of Sciences.

Only on April 4, Rezanov's first audience with one of the high-ranking local dignitaries took place, who brought the Japanese Emperor's response to the message of Alexander I. The answer read: “The ruler of Japan is extremely surprised by the arrival of the Russian embassy; the emperor cannot accept the embassy, ​​and does not want correspondence and trade with the Russians and asks the ambassador to leave Japan.

Rezanov, in turn, noted that, although it is not for him to judge which of the emperors is more powerful, he considers the response of the Japanese ruler to be bold and emphasized that the offer of trade relations between countries from Russia was, rather, a favor "out of common philanthropy." The dignitaries, embarrassed by such pressure, proposed to postpone the audience until another day, when the envoy would not be so excited.

The second audience was quieter. The dignitaries denied in general any possibility of cooperation with other countries, including trade, as forbidden by the fundamental law, and, moreover, explained it by their inability to undertake a reciprocal embassy. Then a third audience took place, during which the parties undertook to provide each other with written answers. But this time, too, the position of the Japanese government remained unchanged: referring to formal reasons and tradition, Japan firmly decided to maintain its former isolation. Rezanov drew up a memorandum to the Japanese government in connection with the refusal to establish trade relations and returned to Nadezhda.

Some historians see the reasons for the failure of the diplomatic mission in the ardor of the count himself, others suspect that the intrigues of the Dutch side, who wanted to maintain their priority in relations with Japan, were to blame for everything, but after almost seven months in Nagasaki on April 18, 1805, the Nadezhda weighed anchor and went out to the open sea.

The Russian ship was forbidden to continue to approach the Japanese shores. However, Kruzenshtern nevertheless devoted another three months to the study of those places that La Perouse had not previously studied enough. He was going to clarify geographical position all Japanese islands, most of the coasts of Korea, the western coast of the island of Iessoy and the coast of Sakhalin, describe the coast of the Aniva and Patience bays and conduct a study of the Kuril Islands. A significant part of this huge plan was carried out.

Having completed the description of Aniva Bay, Kruzenshtern continued his work on marine surveys of the eastern coast of Sakhalin to Cape Patience, but would soon have to turn them off, as the ship encountered large accumulations of ice. Nadezhda with great difficulty entered the Sea of ​​Okhotsk and a few days later, overcoming bad weather, returned to the Peter and Paul harbor.

The envoy Rezanov transferred to the vessel of the Russian-American company "Maria", on which he went to the main base of the company on the island of Kodiak, near Alaska, where he had to streamline the organization of local management of colonies and fisheries.

Rezanov in Alaska

As the "owner" of the Russian-American company, Nikolai Rezanov delved into all the subtleties of management. He was struck by the fighting spirit of the Baranovites, the tirelessness, efficiency of Baranov himself. But there were more than enough difficulties: there was not enough food - famine was approaching, the land was infertile, there were not enough bricks for construction, there was no mica for windows, copper, without which it was impossible to equip the ship, was considered a terrible rarity.

Rezanov himself wrote in a letter from Sitka: “We all live very closely; but our purchaser of these places lives the worst of all, in some kind of plank yurt, filled with dampness to the point that every day the mold is wiped off and in the local heavy rains it flows like a sieve from all sides. Wonderful person! He cares only about the quiet room of others, but about himself he is careless to the point that one day I found his bed floating and asked if the wind had torn off the side board of the temple somewhere? No, he answered calmly, apparently it had flowed towards me from the square, and continued his orders.

The population of Russian America, as Alaska was called, grew very slowly. In 1805, the number of Russian colonists was about 470 people, in addition, a significant number of Indians depended on the company (according to Rezanov's census, there were 5,200 of them on Kodiak Island). The people who served in the company's institutions were mostly violent people, for which Nikolai Petrovich aptly called the Russian settlements a "drunken republic."

He did a lot to improve the life of the population: he resumed the work of the school for boys, and sent some of them to study in Irkutsk, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. A school for girls for one hundred pupils was also established. He founded a hospital, which could be used by both Russian employees and natives, and a court was established. Rezanov insisted that all Russians living in the colonies should learn the language of the natives, and he himself compiled dictionaries of the Russian-Kodiak and Russian-Unalash languages.

Having familiarized himself with the state of affairs in Russian America, Rezanov quite correctly decided that the way out and salvation from hunger was in organizing trade with California, in the foundation of a Russian settlement there, which would supply Russian America with bread and dairy products. By that time, the population of Russian America, according to the Rezanov census, carried out in the Unalashkinsky and Kodiaksky departments, was 5234 people.

"Juno and Avos"

It was decided to sail to California immediately. For this, one of the two ships that arrived in Sitka was purchased from the Englishman Wolfe for 68 thousand piastres. The ship "Juno" was purchased along with a cargo of provisions on board, the products were transferred to the settlers. And the ship itself under the Russian flag sailed for California on February 26, 1806.

Upon arrival in California, Rezanov subdued the commandant of the fortress Jose Dario Arguello with court manners and charmed his daughter, fifteen-year-old Concepción. It is not known whether the mysterious and beautiful 42-year-old foreigner confessed to her that he had already been married once and would become a widow, but the girl was smitten.

Of course, Conchita, like many young girls of all times and peoples, dreamed of meeting a handsome prince. It is not surprising that Commander Rezanov, a chamberlain of His Imperial Majesty, a stately, powerful, handsome man easily won her heart. In addition, he was the only one from the Russian delegation who owned Spanish and talked a lot with the girl, fogging her mind with stories about the brilliant St. Petersburg, Europe, the court of Catherine the Great ...

Was there a tender feeling on the part of Nikolai Rezanov himself? Despite the fact that the story of his love for Conchita became one of the most beautiful romantic legends, contemporaries doubted it. Rezanov himself, in a letter to his patron and friend Count Nikolai Rumyantsev, admitted that the reason that prompted him to propose a hand and heart to a young Spaniard was more good for the Fatherland than a warm feeling. The same opinion was shared by the ship's doctor, who wrote in his reports: “One would think that he fell in love with this beauty. However, in view of the prudence inherent in this cold man, it would be more cautious to admit that he simply had some diplomatic views on her.

One way or another, a marriage proposal was made and accepted. Here is how Rezanov himself writes about this:

“My proposal struck down her (Conchita’s) parents, raised in fanaticism. The difference of religions and ahead of separation from their daughter were a thunderous blow for them. They resorted to the missionaries, they did not know what to decide on. They took poor Concepsia to church, confessed her, persuaded her to refuse, but her determination finally calmed everyone.

The holy fathers left the permission of the See of Rome, and if I could not finish my marriage, I made a conditional act and forced us to be engaged ... how my favors also demanded it, and the governor was extremely surprised, amazed, seeing that he assured me at the wrong time of the sincere dispositions of this house and that he himself, so to speak, found himself visiting me ... "

In addition, Rezanov got a cargo of “2156 pounds” very cheaply. wheat, 351 pounds. barley, 560 pounds. legumes. Fat and oils for 470 pounds. and all sorts of things for 100 pounds, so much so that the ship could not set off at first.

Conchita promised to wait for her fiancé, who was supposed to deliver a cargo of supplies to Alaska, and then was going to St. Petersburg. He intended to secure the Emperor's petition to the Pope in order to obtain official permission catholic church for their marriage. This could take about two years.

A month later, full provisions and other cargo "Juno" and "Avos" arrived in Novo-Arkhangelsk. Despite diplomatic calculations, Count Rezanov had no intention of deceiving the young Spaniard. He immediately went to Petersburg in order to ask permission for imprisonment. family union, despite the slush and the weather not suitable for such a trip.

Crossing the rivers on horseback, on thin ice, he fell into the water several times, caught a cold and lay unconscious for 12 days. He was taken to Krasnoyarsk, where he died on March 1, 1807.

Concepson never married. She did charity work, taught the Indians. In the early 1840s, Donna Concepción entered the third Order of the White Clergy, and after founding in 1851 in the city of Benicia the monastery of St. Dominica became its first nun under the name Maria Dominga. She died at the age of 67 on December 23, 1857.

Alaska after le Rezanov

Since 1808, Novo-Arkhangelsk has become the center of Russian America. All this time management American territories this is being conducted from Irkutsk, where the main headquarters of the Russian-American Company is still located. Officially, Russian America is included first in the Siberian General Government, and after its division in 1822 into Western and Eastern, - in the East Siberian General Government.

In 1812, Baranov, the director of the Russian-American Company, established a southern representative office of the company on the shores of California's Bodidge Bay. This representative office was named Russian Village, now known as Fort Ross.

Baranov retired from the post of director of the Russian-American Company in 1818. He dreamed of returning home - to Russia, but died on the way.

Naval officers came to the management of the company, who contributed to the development of the company, however, unlike Baranov, the naval leadership was very little interested in the trading business itself, and was extremely nervous about the settlement of Alaska by the British and Americans. The management of the company, in the name of the Russian Emperor, banned the invasion of all foreign ships for 160 km into the water area near the Russian colonies in Alaska. Of course, such an order was immediately protested by Great Britain and the United States government.

The dispute with the United States was settled by an 1824 convention that determined the exact northern and southern boundaries of Russian territory in Alaska. In 1825, Russia also came to an agreement with Britain, also defining the exact eastern and western borders. The Russian Empire gave both sides (Britain and the USA) the right to trade in Alaska for 10 years, after which Alaska completely passed into the possession of Russia.

Sale of Alaska

However, if in early XIX century, Alaska generated income through the fur trade, by the middle of it it began to appear that the costs of maintaining and protecting this remote and vulnerable, from a geopolitical point of view, territory outweighed the potential profit. The area of ​​the territory subsequently sold was 1,518,800 km² and was practically uninhabited - according to the RAC itself, at the time of the sale, the population of all Russian Alaska and the Aleutian Islands numbered about 2,500 Russians and up to about 60,000 Indians and Eskimos.

Historians assess the sale of Alaska ambiguously. Some are of the opinion that this measure was forced because of Russia's conduct of the Crimean campaign (1853-1856) and the difficult situation on the fronts. Others insist that the deal was purely commercial. One way or another, the first question about the sale of Alaska to the United States before the Russian government was raised by the Governor General Eastern Siberia Count N. N. Muravyov-Amursky in 1853. In his opinion, this was inevitable, and at the same time would allow Russia to strengthen its position on the Asian coast of the Pacific in the face of the growing penetration of the British Empire. At that time, her Canadian possessions extended directly to the east of Alaska.

Relations between Russia and Britain were sometimes openly hostile. During Crimean War when the British fleet tried to land troops in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the possibility of a direct confrontation in America became real.

In turn, the American government also wanted to prevent the occupation of Alaska. british empire. In the spring of 1854, he received a proposal for a fictitious (temporarily, for a period of three years) sale by the Russian-American Company of all its possessions and property for 7,600 thousand dollars. The RAC entered into such an agreement with the American-Russian Trading Company in San Francisco, controlled by the US government, but it did not enter into force, since the RAC managed to negotiate with the British Hudson's Bay Company.

Subsequent negotiations on this issue took another ten years. Finally, in March 1867, in general terms A draft agreement was agreed upon for the purchase of Russian possessions in America for $7.2 million. It is curious that this is how much the building cost, in which the contract for the sale of such a vast territory was signed.

The signing of the treaty took place on March 30, 1867 in Washington. And already on October 18, Alaska was officially transferred to the United States. Since 1917, this day has been celebrated in the United States as Alaska Day.

The entire Alaska Peninsula (along the line running along meridian 141° west of Greenwich), a coastal strip 10 miles south of Alaska along the western coast of British Columbia passed to the USA; Alexandra archipelago; Aleutian Islands with Attu Island; the islands of the Middle, Krys'i, Lis'i, Andreyanovsk, Shumagin, Trinity, Umnak, Unimak, Kodiak, Chirikov, Afognak and other smaller islands; islands in the Bering Sea: St. Lawrence, St. Matthew, Nunivak and the Pribylov Islands - St. George and St. Paul. Together with the territory, all real estate, all colonial archives, official and historical documents related to the transferred territories were transferred to the United States.

Alaska today

Despite the fact that Russia sold these lands as unpromising, the United States did not lose out on the deal. Already 30 years later, the famous gold rush began in Alaska - the word Klondike became a household word. According to some reports, more than 1,000 tons of gold have been exported from Alaska over the past century and a half. At the beginning of the 20th century, oil was also discovered there (today, the region's reserves are estimated at 4.5 billion barrels). Coal and non-ferrous metal ores are mined in Alaska. Thanks to a huge number rivers and lakes thrive there as a major private sector fishing and seafood industry. Tourism is also developed.

Today Alaska is the largest and one of the richest states in the United States.

Sources

• Commander Rezanov. Website dedicated to Russian explorers of new lands
• Abstract "History of Russian Alaska: from discovery to sale", St. Petersburg State University, 2007, the author is not specified