Russian-American Company

The Russian-American Company Under the High Patronage of His Imperial Majesty was a state-sponsored chartered company formed largely on the basis of the United American Company. Emperor Paul I of Russia chartered the company in the Ukase of 1799. It had the mission of establishing new settlements in Russian America, conducting trade with natives, and carrying out an expanded colonization program.

Russia's first joint-stock company, it came under the direct authority of the Ministry of Commerce of Imperial Russia. Count Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev (Minister of Commerce from 1802 to 1811; Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1808 to 1814) exercised a pivotal influence upon the early activities of the company. In 1801 the company's headquarters moved from Irkutsk to Saint Petersburg, and the merchants who were initially the major stockholders were soon replaced with Russia's nobility and aristocracy.

Count Rumyantsev funded Russia's first naval circumnavigation of the globe under the joint command of Adam Johann von Krusenstern and Nikolai Rezanov in 1803–1806. Later he funded and directed the Ryuriks circumnavigation of 1814–1816, which provided substantial scientific information on Alaska's and California's flora and fauna, and important ethnographic information on Alaskan and Californian (among others) natives. During the Russian-California period (1812–1842) when they operated Fort Ross, the Russians named present-day Bodega Bay, California as "Rumyantsev Bay" () in his honor.

Early history

In 1799 the Russian government appointed an official, with the title 'Correspondent', to maintain oversight of company affairs, the first being Nikolai Rezanov. This border was challenged by both Great Britain and the United States, which ultimately resulted in the Russo-American Treaty of 1824 and the Russo-British Treaty of 1825. These established 54°40′ as the ostensible southward limit of Russian interests.

The only attempt by the Russians to enforce 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, Massachusetts to New Archangel/Sitka. When the U.S. government protested, the Russians released the vessel and paid compensation. Due to treaty violations in 1833 with the British by the company's governor, Baron Ferdinand von Wrangel, the Russians later leased the southeastern sector of what is now the Alaska Panhandle, to the Hudson's Bay Company in 1838 as part of a damages settlement. The lease gave the HBC authority as far north as 56° 30' N.

thumb|right|320px| The Russian-American Company's capital at New Archangel (present-day [[Sitka, Alaska) in 1837]]

Under Baranov, who governed the region between 1790 and 1818, a permanent settlement was established in 1804 at "Novo-Arkhangelsk" (New Archangel, today's Sitka, Alaska), and a thriving maritime trade was organized. Alutiiq and Aleut men from the Kodiak and the Aleutian Islands were forcibly conscripted to work for the company for three-year periods because they were "among the most sophisticated and effective sea otter hunters in the world." During its initial years, the company had problems in maintaining a pool of skilled crewmen for its ships. The limited number of Russian men proficient in naval craft in the Empire usually sought employment in the Imperial Russian Navy. The RAC (Russian-American Company) had difficulty recruiting men for naval training, in part due to the continued practice of serfdom in the Empire, which kept most peasants tied to the land. While the expedition did sell its wares at the Chinese port, "no noticeable progress" towards securing Russian trading rights was made during the next half century. The majority of the pelts were traded in Kyakhta, where Chinese trade goods, principally cotton, porcelain and tea, were traded. The pronouncement stalled attempts at settling a southern border of Russian America for over a decade.

American fur trader John Jacob Astor sent a ship in 1810 to present-day Alaska with the intention of supplying New Archangel. The supplies were welcomed by Baranov, and he hired the ship to transport furs to Guangzhou. Upon learning of the pressing issue of American sales of firearms, Astor conceived of plan beneficial to both his American Fur Company and the RAC. In return for a monopoly to supply Russian stations through his subsidiary Pacific Fur Company and the right to transport RAC furs to the Qing Empire, Astor promised to refrain from selling firearms to Alaskan natives. The Russian Minister to the United States, Count Fyodor Palen, was informed of the proposal. He contacted the Imperial government, noting that the deal would likely be more effective at ending the firearm sales than through diplomatic channels with the United States. Previously, Rezanov had advised company directors to establish a settlement on the river, gradually expanding south "to include the coast of California in the Russian possession." Juno intended to enter the Columbia, but a wind shift, squalls and rain clouds brought a change of plan.

Saint Nikolai expedition

A company vessel, the Nikolai, was dispatched to the Oregon Country by Chief Manager Baranov in November 1808 with instructions to "if possible discover a site for a permanent Russian post in the Oregon Country." On 1 November, a weather system of strong gales and large waves stranded the ship on a beach north of the Quillayute River and James Island. Eventually most of the crew became willing slaves to the Makah on the understanding they would be released when the next European vessel would arrive. American Captain Brown of the Lydia purchased the Nikolai crew and they sailed for New Archangel, arriving there on 9 June. During their time marooned on the Olympic Peninsula, seven of the crew died, including expedition commander Nikolai Bulygin and his 18-year-old wife, Anna Bulyagina. On board the ship besides its American crew were 2 RAC staff and 40 natives, principally Aleuts, Upon entering the Californias, Rezanov negotiated with Spanish authorities in the name of the Tsar, presenting himself as a minister plenipotentiary. Despite his claims, he was never given such a commission by the Imperial Government. Efforts were made at cultivating relations with prominent official José Darío Argüello in order to secure a contract for provisions, Rezanov even having a romance with his daughter, Concepción Argüello. However, the officials were only willing to forward the request of the Russians to Mexico City, none wanting to disobey a decree by the Spanish Empire that outlawed trade with foreigners. After several months the Russians departed for New Archangel without an agreement for provisions.

Valuable reconnaissance however was gained, with Rezanov seeing firsthand the lack of Spanish presidios or settlements north of San Francisco Bay. Several ships owned by Americans were contracted to begin operations in Alta California almost immediately after the Juno's return to New Archangel. One ship was based in Bodega Bay, with its indigenous Alaskan workforce operating from the coast of modern Mendocino County to the Farallon Islands. It is now partially reconstructed and an open-air museum, with the Rotchev House being the only remaining original building.

Proposed colonization

An expansive colonization program of California was presented to the Imperial Court by the "garrulous and unreliable" 20-year-old junior officer and former Decembrist Dmitry I. Zavalishin in late 1824. He had been a crew member of an expedition that during 1823 and 1824 to examine the Russian possessions in North America. Zavalishin wanted the Russian-American Company to receive a grant of land extending north to the border of the Oregon Country, south to the San Francisco Bay and east to either the Sierra Nevada mountains or the Sacramento River.

In 1828, Emperor Nicholas I of Russia ordered the RAC to begin to supply the Russian settlements on the Kamchatka Peninsula, such as Petropavlovsk, with salt. The company was expected to ship between 3,000 and 5,000 poods of salt annually. Continual difficulties in securing large amounts of cheap salt in the Kingdom of Hawaii and Alta California led officials to consider Baja California instead. Arvid Etholén was dispatched in the winter of 1827, and soon secured permission from Mexican authorities to gather salt around San Quintín. was the fifth governor (in office: 1830 to 1835) during the government period. Eventually during the 1840s the governing board of the company was replaced with a five-member administration of imperial naval officers. The United Kingdom and the Russian Empire accepted the deal by the companies, but both governments specified that naval blockades and seizure of vessels were acceptable actions.

The company built a whaling station at Mamga in Tugur Bay in the Sea of Okhotsk in 1862. It operated from 1863 to 1865 before being sold to Otto Wilhelm Lindholm. Two schooners used the station as a base, sending out whaleboats to catch bowhead whales, which were towed ashore and processed at a nearby tryworks.

The Russian-American Company has been appraised as being run with "poorly chosen and inadequately skilled staff", floundering in part from "the lack of experience of the executives handling an organization which overreached itself through its expansion across the Pacific and along the American coast into California..."

Russian-American Company flag

thumb|right|Flag of the Russian-American Company 1835

The Russian commercial flag (civil ensign) was used between 1799 and 1806 by the company on its ships and establishments. Tsar Alexander I approved a design for a separate flag for the RAC on 10 October 1806 O.S., writing "So be it" upon the report. After being sent to the State Council, it was forwarded to the Finance and Naval ministries, along with the Saint Petersburg office of the RAC on 19 October 1806 O.S. The memorandum described the flag as having "three stripes, the lower red, the middle blue, and the upper and wider stripe white, with the facsimile on it of the All-Russia state coat-of-arms below which is a ribbon hanging from the talons of the eagle with the inscription thereon 'Russo-American Company'".

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| 80px || Captain Ludwig von Hagemeister<br/> || January 11, 1818 – October 24, 1818

References:<br>

Pierce, Richard, ed. Documents on the history of the Russian-American Company. Kingston, Ont. : Limestone Press, c1976. pp. 23–26. OCLC: 2945773.<br>

Tikhmenev, P. A. A history of the Russian-American Company. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1978. pp. 146–151. OCLC: 3089256.

References

External links

Russian-American Company walrus skin banknotes
The Russian-American Company and the Northwest Fur Trade: North American Scholarship, 1990–2000