Russian-American Company - History

History

The 20-year renewable charter and accompanying ukase (edict) granted the company monopoly over trade in Russian America, which included the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, and the territory down to 55° N latitude. Under the charter, one-third of all profits were to go to the emperor. A further ukase (edict or proclamation) by the Tsar in 1821, asserted its domain to 51° N latitude but this was challenged by the British and the United States, which ultimately resulted in the Russo-American Treaty of 1824 and the Russo-British Treaty of 1825 which established 54°40′ as the ostensible southward limit of Russian interests. The only attempt at enforcement of the ukase of 1821 was the seizure of the U.S. brig Pearl in 1822, by the Russian sloop Apollon. The Pearl, a vessel of the maritime fur trade, was sailing from Boston to Sitka. On a protest from the US government the vessel was released and compensation paid. A later lease to the Hudson's Bay Company of the southeastern sector of what is now the Alaska Panhandle, as far north as 56° 30' N, followed in 1838 as part of a damages settlement due to treaty violations by the Company's governor, Baron Ferdinand von Wrangel, in 1833.

Under Alexandr Baranov, who governed the region between 1790 and 1818, a permanent settlement was established in 1804 at Novo-Arkhangelsk (today's Sitka, Alaska), and a thriving maritime trade was organized.

The company constructed settlements in what is today Alaska, Hawaii, and California. Fort Ross, on the California coast in Sonoma County just north of San Francisco, was the southernmost outpost of the Russian-American Company. Though on supposed Spanish and then subsequently Mexican territory, the legitimacy of these claims was contested by both the Company and the Russian Government until the sale of the settlement in 1841, basing the legitimacy of their claims on prior English (New Albion) claims of territorial discovery. It is now partially reconstructed and an open-air museum. The Rotchev House is the last remaining original building. Fort Elizabeth was built in Hawaii by an agent of the company.

But from the 1820s onwards the profits from the fur trade began to decline. Already in 1818 the Russian government had taken control of the Russian-American Company from the merchants who held the charter. The explorer and Naval Officer, Baron Wrangel, who had been administrator of Russian government interests in Russian America a decade before, was the first president of the company during the government period. The company ceased its commercial activities in 1881. In 1867, the Alaska Purchase transferred control of Alaska to the United States and the commercial interests of the Russian American Company were sold to Hutchinson, Kohl & Company of San Francisco, California, who then renamed their company to the Alaska Commercial Company.