Nikolai Rezanov - Mission in California

Mission in California

After spending a winter at the company headquarters in New Archangel (during which he and the others nearly starved), Rezanov bought a ship from a Yankee skipper (John DeWolf) and sailed for the Spanish settlements in California, proposing to trade his tempting cargo of American and Russian wares for food-stuffs, and to arrange a treaty by whose terms his colonies should be provisioned twice a year with the bountiful products of New Spain. He cast anchor in the harbor of San Francisco early in April 1806, after a stormy voyage which had defeated his intention to take possession of the Columbia River in the name of Russia.

Although he was received with great courtesy and entertained night and day by the Californians, no time was lost in informing him that the laws of Spain forbade her colonies to trade with foreign powers, and that the governor of all the Californias was incorruptible. Had it not been for a love affair with Concepción Argüello, the daughter of the comandante of San Francisco, Don José Darío Argüello, and for his diplomatic skill, with which he won over the clergy, Rezanov would have failed again.

As it was, when he sailed for New Archangel six weeks after his arrival, the Juno's hold was full of bread-stuffs and dried meats, he had the promise of the perplexed governor to forward a copy of the treaty to Spain at once, and he was engaged to the most beautiful girl in California. Shortly after his arrival in New Archangel, he proceeded by water to Kamchatka, where he dispatched his ships to wrest the island Sakhalin of the lower Kuril group from Japan, then started overland for Saint Petersburg to obtain the tsar's signature to the treaty, and also personal letters to the pope and king of Spain that he might ask for the dispensation and the royal consent necessary for his marriage.

He died of fever and exhaustion in Krasny Yar (now Krasnoyarsk), Siberia, on March 8, 1807. His grave was destroyed by bolsheviks, but his remains were reburied. On October 28, 2000, at Rezanov’s grave in the Trinity churchyard of Krasnoyarsk (where according to one account his remains were moved in the late 1950s) there was a service for the dead and the dedication of a memorial to Rezanov. It is a white cross, bearing on one side the inscription “Nickolai Petrovich Rezanov 1764 — 1807. I will never forget you”, and on the other side — “Maria Concepcion de Arguelio 1791 — 1857. I will see you never more”.

The High Mass for the two lovers was attended by Gary E. Brown, Police Chief of the city of Monterey, California. He was in Siberia as part of a Pointman Leadership Institute team to instruct the National Police in Ethical Based Leadership. Chief Brown scattered on Rezanov’s tomb some earth from Conchita’s grave, and at the suggestion of Monterey resident John Middleton, a rose from her burial site, and took some earth from Rezanov’s grave to scatter on the resting place of Concepcion de Arguelio in Benicia, CA. “It will connect them forever in a symbolic way” said the chief. He went on to share that the love story which took place 200 years ago forever united the cities of Krasnoyarsk and Monterey.