Russian America: An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire, 1804–1867 (review)

Vinkovetsky’s sweeping and meticulous analysis seeks to explain why Russia sold Alaska, the last of its American colonies, to the United States in 1867. Yet, considering the difficulties that this outpost presented to Russia, the reader might well ask why the Empire did not part with it sooner. To be sure, Russian America (chiefly present-day Alaska) was initially a lucrative possession, especially after Russia began circumnavigating the globe during the early nineteenth century. In particular, the Russian American Company (rac), an innovative joint-stock venture founded in 1799 between merchants and their imperial government, profited handsomely from the sale of sea furs, especially otter, as the supply of Siberian land furs dwindled.

A host of challenges eventually compelled Russia to give up, first, its tenuous perch on Fort Ross, ninety miles north of San Francisco (sold to a private individual in 1841), and then Alaska, its most prized possession. For one, Russia faced great difficulty attracting and maintaining a viable colonial population, given the colony’s remoteness, harsh climate, and periodic epidemics. Furthermore, competition (from Britain, America, and Spain), mounting Tlinkit resistance, and the vulnerability of the rac headquarters in the port of Novo-Arkhangel’sk (Sitka) all prompted the sale of Alaska in an era of good feelings toward the United States. In addition, the Great Reforms, following upon the disaster of the Crimean War, aimed to end serfdom at home and native servitude abroad.

Although Russia’s only overseas colony was relatively short-lived, this colonial venture offers a fascinating prism through which to examine the lives of colonists and of indigenous peoples. With the aid of a table, maps, and illustrations, and drawing on rac, Church, and governmental archives, as well as extensive travel accounts and a broad array of secondary literature, the author brings to light various intriguing facets of Russia’s failed experiment.

Readers will learn about the ethnically diverse natives (including Creoles, the children of Russian men and Native women), as well as the (oftentimes oppressive) tactics that the rac employed to subjugate them. The rac constantly tried to co-opt native elites through gifts, feasts, trade, and the bestowal of titles and honorifics, but the rac never succeeded in pacifying the native population completely. Although the rac made some attempt to “Russify” the natives (largely through Christianization), it also took care to preserve local customs, since the value of the Alaskan colony depended greatly on native skills in obtaining sea furs.

Although Orthodox missionaries contributed to the colonizing project, some of these missionaries were more interested in shielding natives from exploitation than in generating profits for the rac. In fact, one of most lasting effects of their ephemeral enterprise might well be the cultural identity that many natives paradoxically continued to exhibit as Russian Orthodox Christians even after the sale of Alaska to the United States. Vinkovetsky’s depiction of the Russian encounter with native Alaskans and Californians through economic, political, social, ethnic, religious, and historical lenses provides a panoramic view of a dramatic slice of Russian history.