Nikolai Rezanov - Russian-American Company

Russian-American Company

Born in Saint Petersburg on March 28, 1764, Rezanov mastered five languages by the age of 14. In 1791, he joined the staff of Gavrila Derzhavin in his capacity as the private secretary to the Empress Catherine. Several years earlier, meeting Grigory Shelikhov, of the Shelikhov-Golikov Fur Company, Rezanov became interested in the merchant's project to obtain a monopoly of the fur trade in those distant dependencies. Conscious of latent energies, and already tired of the pleasures of a dissolute court, he married Shelikhov's daughter and became a partner in the company, and rapidly developed into a keen and tireless man of business. At the death of Shelikhov in 1795, he became the leading spirit of the wealthy and amalgamated but harassed companies, and resolved to obtain for himself and his partners privileges analogous to those granted by Great Britain to the East India Company.

He had just succeeded in persuading Catherine II to sign his charter when she died (1796), and had to begin again with the ill-balanced and intractable Emperor Paul. For a time the outlook appeared hopeless, but Rezanov's skill, subtlety and address prevailed, and shortly before the assassination of Paul (1801) he obtained his signature to the momentous instrument which granted to the Russian-American Company, for a term of twenty years, dominion over the Pacific Northwest coast of North America, from latitude 55 degrees northward; and over the chain of islands extending from Kamchatka northward to Alaska and southward to Japan.

This famous "Trust", which crowded out all the small companies and independent traders, provided large revenue to Rezanov and to the other shareholders (including members of the Imperial family) until the first years of the 19th century, when mismanagement and scarcity of nourishing food threatened it with serious losses if not ultimate ruin. Rezanov, his humiliating embassy to Japan concluded, reached Kamchatka in 1805, and found commands awaiting him to remain in the Russian colonies as Imperial inspector and plenipotentiary of the company, and to correct the abuses that were ruining the great enterprise. He traveled slowly to New Archangel (Sitka) by way of the islands, establishing measures to protect the fur-bearing animals from reckless slaughter, punishing or banishing the worst offenders against the company's laws, and introducing the civilizing influence of schools and libraries - most of the books being his personal gifts. He even established cooking schools, which flourished briefly.