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LYDIA T. BLACK
Box 756240
Fairbanks, AK 99775-6240
[email protected]
www.uaf.edu/uapress
came to love her, made her their home, and now rest in forgotten graves;
COLOR PLATES (following page xvi)
PLATE 1. The charter of nobility granted to Sven Waxell by Catherine the Great
PLATE 2. The Sv. Petr (St. Peter)
PLATE 3. The Sv. Pavel (St. Paul )
PLATE 4. Aleut watercraft
PLATE 5. An Aleut dwelling and a woman of Unalaska Island
PLATE 6. Dmitrii Shabalin’s Russian trading party on Hokkaido in 1779
PLATE 7. The crown vessel Sv. Ekaterina, out of Okhotsk
PLATE 8. Sv. Ekaterina at anchor
PLATE 9. Russian camp on Hokkaido
PLATE 10. Detail of the main buildings within the Russian camp
PLATE 11. Plan of the Russian quarters
PLATE 12. The party relaxes in quarters at the Russian camp on Hokkaido
PLATE 13. Flag of the Russian navy
PLATE 14. Flag of the Russian-American Company
PLATE 15. Modern icon of St. Iakov (priest Iakov Netsvetov)
PLATE 16. The late Father Ismail Gromoff blesses Christmas stars
PLATE 17. Ethnographic map of Siberia from Tobol’sk to Bering Strait
PLATE 18. Kiakhta, the trading center on the Russian-Chinese border
FIGURES
FIGURE 1. Trade network of the city of Ustiug the Great, seventeenth century 4
FIGURE 2. Alexis (Aleksei Mikhailovich, 1629–1676), tsar of Russia 1645–1676 14
FIGURE 3. Russian koch 18
FIGURE 4. Peter the Great (1672–1725) 20
FIGURE 5. Catherine I (1684–1727) 22
FIGURE 6. Sketch of the mouth of the Bol’shaia River and of Bol’sheretsk 25
FIGURE 7. Map of the Harbor of Sts. Peter and Paul (Petropavlovsk), Kamchatka 27
FIGURE 8. Okhotsk, by Luka Voronin 1786–1795 28
FIGURE 9. Anna Ioannovna (1693–1740) 38
FIGURE 10. Petropavlovsk on Kamchatka, Avacha Bay 41
FIGURE 11. Elizabeth I (1709–1761) 58
FIGURE 12. A shitik, a vessel of sewn-plank construction 61
List of Illustrations
FIGURE 13. Map of Mednoi Island (Copper Island) by Dmitrii Nakvasin, 1755 63
FIGURE 14. Detail from a chart dated 1774, showing present-day Russian Harbor 69
FIGURE 15. Catherine II (1729–1796) 78
FIGURE 16. Chart compiled by Governor-General F. I. Soimonov 81
FIGURE 17. Mikhail Vasil’ievich Lomonosov’s map of 1763 82
FIGURE 18. Mikhail Vasil’ievich Lomonosov (1711–1765) 83
FIGURE 19. Spitsbergen 85
FIGURE 20. The Kamchatka River estuary off Nizhne-Kamchatsk 88
FIGURE 21. Town of Nizhne-Kamchatsk or Nizhnekamchatskoi ostrog 88
FIGURE 22. Official portrait of Grigorii I. Shelikhov (1748–1795) 100
FIGURE 23. Three Saints Magazin on Afognak Island and plan for outpost at English Bay 109
FIGURE 24. Aleksandr A. Baranov 120
FIGURE 25. Ivan Kuskov, the founder of the Russian outpost in California 122
FIGURE 26. The King George at anchor in 1786, Kenai Peninsula 124
FIGURE 27. Russian possession plate 125
FIGURE 28. St. Paul Harbor (Kodiak), established by Baranov in 1792 140
FIGURE 29. Voskresenskaia Gavan’ (Seward) shipyard 143
FIGURE 30. Launching of the Feniks (Phoenix) at Voskresenskaia Gavan’ (Seward) 146
FIGURE 31. Mercator chart showing the voyages of Lt. Iakov Shil’ts (James Shields) 147
FIGURE 32. Paul I (1754–1801), emperor of Russia 1796–1801 154
FIGURE 33. Alexander I (1777–1825), emperor of Russia 1801–1825 154
FIGURE 34. Tlingit fort at Sitka, taken by the Russians in 1804 160
FIGURE 35. Iurii F. Lisianskii in full uniform 162
FIGURE 36. Grave of Captain Iurii F. Lisianskii, St. Petersburg 162
FIGURE 37. View of St. Paul Harbor (modern Kodiak) from the north 163
FIGURE 38. Sketch of Sitka (Novo-Arkhangel’sk) site, 1805 163
FIGURE 39. Lisianskii’s gift to the capital of Russian America, 1804 164
FIGURE 40. Portraits of Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov (1764–1807) 168
FIGURE 41. Georg Langsdorff 171
FIGURE 42. The vessel Mariia, off the island of St. George 172
FIGURE 43. Unalaska, briefly visited by Rezanov in 1805 173
FIGURE 44. Lieutenant junior grade Gavriil Davydov 175
FIGURE 45. Grave monument of Anna Shelikhov Rezanov and her sister 176
FIGURE 46. Kodiak, ca. 1808–1809 179
FIGURE 47. Kodiak, 1808–1809 179
FIGURE 48. V. M. Golovnin (1776–1831) 180
FIGURE 49. Ross, September 1817, after Fedorova 182
FIGURE 50. Map of part of Russian America by Wrangell, 1839 190
FIGURE 51. Novo-Aleksandrovskii (Nushagak) 194
FIGURE 52. View of Captains Harbor (Kapitanskaia Gavan’), Unalaska Island 195
FIGURE 53. View of Illiuliuk (present-day Unalaska) 195
ix
Russians in Alaska, 1732–1867
x
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book could not have been published without the assistance of Dr. Katherine L.
Arndt, who acted as editor, proofreader, and nursemaid to this poor manuscript, a child
neglected for almost ten years. My old friend and colleague Professor Richard A. Pierce
read several early drafts, gave moral support for years, and provided many rare photo-
graphs. James A. Ketz provided the index. Jennifer Robin Collier, of the University of
Alaska Press, obtained funds that permitted publication of several important charts and
illustrations in color. Dr. Erica Hill, of the University of Alaska Press, supervised the last
stages of the publishing process. Matthew L. Ganley helped to computer-enhance several
rare color maps and drawings. I gratefully acknowledge their help, as well as the financial
support of the Rasmuson Foundation, which assisted with the costs of publication.
INTRODUCTION
IN 1959, ALASKA (“THE GREAT LAND,” AS ALASKANS OFTEN CALL THEIR
homeland) became the forty-ninth state of the United States of America.
Before 1867, Alaska was part of the Russian Empire and was called Russian
America or, in official documents, the Russian-American Colonies. Russian sovereignty
in Alaska was based on the “right of discovery” established by the naval squadrons com-
manded by Mikhail S. Gvozdev in 1732 and Vitus Bering in 1741 and the “right of
occupation” established in the eighteenth century by Russian entrepreneurs.
In literature and political speeches, the period when Alaska was under the Russian scepter
is stereotypically represented as a time of unbridled exploitation—indeed, enslavement—of
Native peoples, and wanton rape and robbery of Alaska’s natural resources. In reality, the
Russians (who seldom exceeded 500 persons at any one time) were vastly outnumbered
by the Natives. By the 1830s the Russian Crown forbade permanent settlement in Alaska,
and only those Russians who legally married Native persons (either men or women) were
entitled to petition for permission to remain in Alaska lifelong. The Russian military did
not put in an appearance in Alaska until the Crimean War in the 1850s, when a troop of
soldiers was stationed at Sitka for defense in case of an attack by British forces.
Russian relationships with the majority of the Native groups were determined by the
desirability of continuous, uninterrupted trade. Consequently, the dynamics of intergroup
(Russian-Native) and personal relationships and attitudes were qualitatively dif ferent from
those established later between the people of the United States and Alaska’s indigenous
peoples. The United States acquired Alaska at a time when major conflicts with Indians
were being played out in the western territories. Military occupation and control were
the order of business. The attitudes and expectations of military personnel were dictated
by the Indian experience. These attitudes were projected, retroactively, onto the Russian
scene. Civilians who flocked to Alaska operated under the laissez-faire policies of the time.
These policies were in stark contrast to the government-controlled Russian-American
Company, where, in return for a monopoly grant to Alaska’s resources, the Imperial Rus-
sian government demanded that the company provide social ser vices: public health and
education, as well as old age, survivors’, and disability pensions for their employees. In
Alaska, during the Russian period, experimental social legislation was tried out.
xiii
Russians in Alaska, 1732–1867
What happened in Alaska under Russian sovereignty was very dif ferent, not only in
the sense that colonization had a different character from the British, American, French,
or Spanish pattern, but also in that there were dif ferences over time. Changes in Russia’s
internal political, social, and economic situation affected events in Alaska. The geopo-
litical context of the eighteenth century was dif ferent from that of the early nineteenth
century, and changed dramatically in the second half of that century. The United States
of America, which did not exist when Russia first claimed Alaska, emerged as a conti-
nental power. The Russian emperor, Alexander II, expected the United States to absorb
Canada one day—or wished that this would happen. He would have preferred to share
a border with the United States and not with a British colony. Much happened in the
course of this century and a half.
The origin of the stereotypic view of the Russian period may be safely laid at the doors
of Hubert H. Bancroft and William H. Dall, who desired Alaska’s rapid Americanization.
This view was challenged by the end of the nineteenth century by a pioneer historian
of Alaska, Clarence L. Andrews (1862–1948). Andrews came to Alaska when Russian
culture was still very much alive. He became fascinated with the Russian period, “one of
the most colorful and least known periods of North American history.”1 Andrews taught
himself Russian and began to amass archival and primary sources on various aspects of
the Russian period. Eventually he published two pioneering works: The Story of Sitka
(1922) and The Story of Alaska (1931). In 1942, Andrews completed a biography of one
of the great movers and shakers in Alaska—Aleksandr Andreevich Baranov (in Alaska
1790–1818)—but the work was never published. Andrews came in contact with radio
commentator and writer (newspaper, script, and fiction) Hector Chevigny (1904–1965)
in 1938. Until Andrews’ death, these two men maintained a lively correspondence on the
subject of Russian America. Chevigny, too, became fascinated with Alaska, specifically with
the Russian period, after his contact with the eminent historian Edmund Meany. In 1937
Chevigny’s first book dealing with Russian America, Lost Empire (a highly romanticized
account of the life and times of N. P. Rezanov), was published. There followed in 1942
the somewhat unreliable and also romanticized account of Baranov, Lord of Alaska. A
believer in the “great men” theory of history, which illuminated his approach in general,
Chevigny planned to write his next biography on Grigorii Shelikhov, Baranov’s employer.
Writing, by his own admission, without direct access to Russian sources, like Andrews he
was never theless able to amass a wealth of materials. Even after he lost his eyesight (and
for this reason abandoned the projected biography of Shelikhov), his interest continued.
After visiting Alaska twice (in 1959 and 1960) and encountering local enthusiasm for
his work, Chevigny wrote the first popular synthesis dealing with the whole of the Rus-
sian period, Russian America (published in 1965, shortly before his death). This little
publication, which largely follows the outline laid down by the historian of the Russian-
American Company, Tikhmenev (d. 1888), has established the view among modern read-
ers of a disorderly and violent period when private entrepreneurs competed for Alaska’s
wealth, followed by the establishment of order, first by Grigorii Shelikhov, then by his
heirs, and eventually by the monopolistic Russian-American Company.2 In the 1940s a
Canadian historian, Stuart Tompkins, who had a long-standing interest in the Russian
Far East and Siberia, became interested in the Russian adventure in Alaska. This interest
is reflected in his work Alaska: Promyshlennik and Sourdough (1945).
xiv
Introduction
These three pioneers in the study of Russian America opened the field for scholarly
exploration by American and Canadian scholars, who produced a body of literature on
specialized topics that began to grow in the late 1950s, continued through the 1960s,
and has come into its own in the subsequent decades. The study became enriched when
Richard A. Pierce, a specialist in Russian history, through his association with Chevigny,
joined the field in the early 1960s. Realizing that a wealth of material was not acces-
sible to anglophone scholars, he initiated a translation series of Russian primary sources
on Alaska. However, no comprehensive study has been attempted since the pioneering
work of Chevigny.
This book presents to the public a new synthesis, based primarily on archival materials
in Russia and the United States. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations of Russian
sources are my own. In this volume, I attempt to present the Russian advance to the
American continent in historic perspective, including the changing geopolitical context,
while focusing on the social and cultural data on the Russians who were active in Alaska.
This focus includes the northern skippers of the fur-procuring vessels; the great merchants
of the Russian north and, later, of Irkutsk in Siberia; the churchmen who brought to
Alaska the lasting heritage of the Or thodox faith; the rank-and-file laborers of various
ethnic origins, such as the Yakut, the Kamchadal, the Koriak, and the Tungus (Evenk
and Even); the imperial naval officers who had their own point of view on how Alaska
should be governed (and in the end came to govern her); and the creoles, the social class
deliberately created in order to have a bicultural stratum, members of which would be
loyal to their native land, Alaska, and to the Russian cultural heritage brought to Alaska
by an ancestor or ancestress.
In the process, I came to re-evaluate the role of the “great men” who fascinated
Chevigny so much. A great deal of what I have to say, based on the perusal of docu-
ments not readily accessible, is contrary to the received wisdom. In a sense, this book is
not simply a new synthesis, it is also a reinterpretation. It is focused on the Russians in
Alaska—their motivations, views of life, and attitudes. I truly hope that this book will
contribute to a better understanding of the history of the forty-ninth state—our beloved
Great Land, Alaska—and perhaps to a better knowledge of a fascinating shared chapter
in the history of Russia and the United States.
NOTES
1. Richard A. Pierce, “Hector Chevigny: Historian of Russian America,” Alaska Journal 15, no. 4
(1985): 33.
2. Ibid., 33–37.
xv
Plate 17. An ethnographic map of Siberia from Tobol’sk to Bering Strait, compiled no later than 1729 by a member of Bering’s 1728 voyage. Possibly original; hand colored, 59.5 by 137 cm.
Courtesy University of Göttingen Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts, von Asch Collection, no. 246.
Plate 18. Kiakhta, the trading center on the Russian-Chinese border and entry and checkpoint for caravans traveling to Beijing from the late seventeenth through the eighteenth centuries. Note the gate linking the Russian and Chinese
settlements. Ink and watercolor by an unnamed Chinese artist.
Courtesy University of Göttingen Library, Rare Books and Manuscripts, von Asch Collection, no. 269.
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