Alaska: the truth and myths about the sale of "Russian America"

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

There are thousands of myths about the sale of Alaska. Many believe that it was sold by Catherine II, some believe that it was not sold, but leased for 99 years, and allegedly Brezhnev refused to take it back. We will tell you how things really were.

In 1725, just before his death, Peter the Great sent the Dane Vitus Bering to reconnoiter and map this semi-fabulous land. While Bering traveled through all of Siberia to Kamchatka, built ships there, and reconnoitred routes across the sea (later named Bering in his honor), a long sixteen years passed.

Only in 1741 the coast of Alaska discovered the ship of Alexei Chirikov - Bering's faithful companion. On October 17, 1741, the "official" envoys of the Russian state first set foot on the land of Alaska and declared it a Russian possession …

The first Russian settlements in Alaska were founded by the Siberian merchant Grigory Shelikhov, who in 1794 invited the first Russian spiritual mission here (to the Aleutian island of Kodiak). During the first two years of its activity, 12 thousand Aleuts were converted to the Orthodox faith. After Shelikhov's death (1795) his work was continued by his associate Alexander Baranov - "an honest, capable and ruthless man", as American historians describe him.

He suppressed the resistance of the southern neighbors of the Aleuts - the Tlingit Indians - and founded on their lands the Russian settlement of Novo-Arkhangelsk (since 1867 - the city of Sitka), which became the main center of Russian possessions in America.

In 1799, the "Russian-American Company" was created, which until 1867 managed its possessions, which received the official name "Russian America". A white-blue-red Russian flag flew over the northwestern part of the American continent, on the widened upper strip of which Emperor Paul I gave the right to place the Russian national symbol - the two-headed eagle.

Baranov and Nikolai Rezanov (the hero of the future Moscow musical Juno and Avos), who came to "help" him, established good ties between Russian America and the young United States (John Astor and other New York businessmen). With the help of American intermediaries, the sale of Alaskan furs to the Chinese port of Canton (Guangzhou), which was closed for Russians at that time, was arranged.

To supply cold Alaska with food, Rezanov tried to establish agricultural colonies in California and even Hawaii. But nothing came of this venture. Russian Cossack industrialists, restless people traveled to Alaska in order to get rich on the fur trade, and then, at best, invest money in the business, and at worst - boldly screw up, but both - in their native Siberia.

At that time very few people wanted to settle in America, even "Russkaya", at that time - it seemed too far away for the Russians, beyond the "Far East" itself. The first who brought his wife from Russia to Alaska was Baron Ferdinand Wrangel, ruler of "Russian America" in 1829-1835.

The main adherents and guides of Russian culture in Alaska were Orthodox Aleuts and children from marriages of Cossacks with Aleuts (and much less often - baptized Eskimos and Indian women), who were called Creoles here. The "Baptist of Alaska" priest Ivan Veniaminov (after accepting the schema and posthumous canonization, now known as Saint Innocent) was not only a theologian, but also an excellent linguist and ethnographer. He studied the Aleutian language and translated the texts of Orthodox worship into it.

He and his associates developed alphabets for several native (Eskimo and Indian) languages, published serious works on the ethnography of Alaska, and trained clergymen from among the local residents.

In 1845, a Creole (half-Aleut) priest, Father Jacob, built an Orthodox church and a religious mission on the Yukon River to convert the Eskimo Inuit and Yuits. Russian Orthodoxy was so associated with the Aleuts that many Yuits after baptism began to call themselves "Aleuts".

There are still over 80 Aleutian and Indian Orthodox communities in Alaska. By 1860, all over "Russian America" (and its borders, which exactly coincide with the borders of present-day Alaska, were determined by the treaties of 1824 with the USA and 1825 with Great Britain), there were no more than 500 Russians; almost all are men.

In Novo-Arkhangelsk (Sitka), which turned into an important cultural center with churches, a museum and, most importantly, schools for "natives", only 2500 people lived. More than two-thirds of its inhabitants were Aleuts and Creoles, who were considered subjects of the Russian Empire.

After the unsuccessful Crimean War of 1853-1856 for Russia, when British troops tried to land even on Kamchatka, the young reformer emperor Alexander II, the Liberator, who ascended the Russian throne, realized that Russian America, sparsely populated and deprived of sufficient food sources of its own, could not be held by Russia. It was too distant and too "expensive" for Russia: huge money was spent on its supply and maintenance.

Diplomatic calculations showed that it was better to offer it not to a hostile (at that time) Great Britain, but to a friendly United States.

On a gloomy cloudy day on December 16, 1866, a special meeting was held in St. Petersburg, which was attended by Alexander II, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, the finance and naval ministers, as well as the Russian envoy to Washington, Baron Eduard Andreevich Stekl.

All participants approved the sale idea. At the suggestion of the Ministry of Finance, a threshold was set for the amount - at least $ 5 million in gold. On December 22, 1866, Alexander II approved the border of the territory. In March 1867, Steckle arrived in Washington and formally addressed Secretary of State William Seward.

The signing of the treaty took place on March 30, 1867 in Washington. Territory with an area of 1 million 519 thousand square meters. km was sold for 7, 2 million dollars in gold, that is, 0, 0474 dollars per hectare. Is it a lot or a little? If the current dollar is worth 0, 0292056 grams of gold, then the then - sample of 1861 - contained 1, 50463 grams. This means that the then dollar was 370 million 933 thousand 425 dollars, that is, 2.43 current dollars per hectare. This money can now be 4, 6 hectares in the Sochi area.

If we now had to sell Siberia at such prices, we would be given only 3 billion 183 million 300 thousand dollars for it. Agree, not a lot.

How much should Russian America be sold for? One tithe (2, 1 hectare) cost 50-100 rubles in European provinces, depending on the quality of the land. Waste lands in Siberia were sold at 3 kopecks per square fathom (4,5369 sq. M).

So, if you divide all these 1 million 519 thousand square meters. km by the number of square fathoms and multiplying all this by three kopecks, you get an amount of 10 billion and another 44 million rubles - 1395 times more than the amount for which Alaska was sold. True, America would hardly have been able to pay such an amount then - its annual budget was equal to $ 2.1 billion or 2.72 billion of the then rubles.

By the way, it would not have been possible to pay off the debt to the Rothschilds with the money received for Alaska. The then British pound was worth $ 4, 87. That is, the borrowed amount was $ 73 million. Alaska was sold for less than a tenth of that amount.

However, Russia did not get this money either. The Russian ambassador to the USA (North American United States) Eduard Stekl received a check for 7 million 035 thousand dollars - from the original 7, 2 million he kept 21 thousand for himself, and gave 144 thousand as bribes to senators who voted for the ratification of the treaty. And he transferred these 7 million to London by bank transfer, and from London to St. Petersburg by sea, the gold bars bought for this amount were transported.

When converting first into pounds, and then into gold, another 1.5 million was lost, but this was not the last loss.

Barque "Orkney", on board which was a precious cargo, on July 16, 1868 sank on the way to St. Petersburg. It is not known whether it contained gold at that time, or whether it did not leave the borders of Foggy Albion at all. The insurance company, which insured the ship and cargo, declared itself bankrupt, and the damage was only partially compensated.

The mystery of Orkney's death was revealed seven years later: on December 11, 1875, a powerful explosion occurred while loading luggage on the Moselle steamer, leaving Bremen for New York. 80 people were killed and another 120 were injured. The documents accompanying the cargo survived, and by five o'clock in the evening the investigators learned the name of the owner of the exploded baggage. It turned out to be an American citizen William Thomson.

According to the documents, he sailed to Southampton, and his luggage was supposed to go to the United States. When they tried to arrest Thomson, he tried to shoot himself, but he died only on the 17th from blood poisoning. During this time, he managed to give confessionary statements. However, he admitted not only in an attempt to send the steamer Moselle to the bottom in order to receive insurance payments for the lost luggage. In this way, he has already sent to the bottom almost a dozen ships.

It turned out that Thomson had learned the technology of making time bombs during the American Civil War, in which he fought on the side of the southerners with the rank of captain.

But as a captain, Thomson did not command a company, squadron, or battery. He served in the SSC - Secret Service Corps. The SSC was the world's first sabotage unit. His agents blew up warehouses, trains and ships of the northerners, disrupting the supply of the enemy army.

However, the war ended, and the captain of the defeated army was out of work. In search of happiness, he sailed to England, where he was quickly noticed by the then British special services - his skills were not a secret for them. Once Thomson was arrested for a drunken brawl, and in his cell a man was put in his cell, who promised him a thousand pounds for carrying out one delicate assignment.

These thousand pounds were then worth 4866 dollars or 6293 rubles. With this money in Russia it was possible to buy an estate of one hundred acres of land, and in America - a huge ranch for a thousand heads of cattle. In current money, as of December 8, 2010 it is 326 thousand 338 dollars.

Coming free a few days later, Thomson got a job as a dockman and, under the guise of a sack of coal, dragged a clockwork mine aboard the Orkney. When several hours remained before the entrance to the Petersburg harbor, an explosion thundered in the coal hold, and the Orkney went to the bottom.

When the task was completed, Thomson received from the same person a thousand pounds sterling and an order to leave England immediately, signed by Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli himself.

Thomson moved to Dresden, the capital of the then independent Saxony. There he bought a house, got married, had children and lived peacefully under the name of William Thomas until the remnants of those thousand feet began to come to an end. It was then that Thomson decided to send his insured luggage overseas and launch steamers to the bottom.

On average, he sent to the bottom one steamer a year, and they all disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle area, and although the Associated Press correspondent Jones first mentioned the "mysterious disappearances" in the Bermuda Triangle in the press, it was only on September 16, 1950 that sailors' tales of the bewitched section of the sea began to walk from that time.

Now the place where the Orkney was flooded is in the territorial waters of Finland. In 1975, a joint Soviet-Finnish expedition surveyed the flooded area and found the wreckage of the ship. The study of these confirmed that there was a powerful explosion and a strong fire on the ship. However, no gold was found - most likely, it remained in England.

But the Russian flag did not want to go down

The formal transfer of Alaska to the United States took place on November 11, 1867, at Sitha. An eyewitness letter to this event was published in the St. Petersburg Gazette for 1868.

American and Russian troops are lined up at the flagpole, says an unnamed correspondent. At the signal given by the Russian commissar, two non-commissioned officers began to lower the flag. The audience and officers took off their caps, the soldiers stood on guard. The Russian drum pierced the campaign, 42 shots were fired from the ships.

“But the Russian flag did not want to go down; he got entangled by the ropes at the very top of the flagpole, and the halyard by which he was being pulled down, broke off. By order of the Russian commissar, several Russian sailors rushed upstairs to unravel the flag that hung on the mast in rags.

No sooner had they shouted from below to the sailor, who was the first to climb up to him, so that he would not throw the flag down, but dismount with him, when he threw it from above: the flag fell right on the Russian bayonets. A few days later the Russians felt that they were no longer at home.

In 1867, St. Petersburg Vedomosti, expressing the official point of view on the sale of Russian America, wrote: “It usually happens that states are strengthening by all means to expand their possessions. This general rule does not apply, of course, only to Russia.

Its possessions are so vast and stretched that it does not have to annex lands, but, on the contrary, cede these lands to others."

P. S. There was, however, one benefit from the sale of Alaska - as a bonus, the Americans transferred to Russia the blueprints and production technology for the Berdan rifle. This brought Russia out of the state of permanent rearmament and allowed, during the Russian-Turkish war, to take partial revenge for the defeat in the Crimean campaign.