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The Russian-American Company (Under His Imperial Majesty's Protection Russian-American Company) was a state-sponsored trading company begun by Grigory and Natalia Shelikhov and Nikolai Rezanov. Chartered by Tsar Paul I in 1799.1 it was Russia's first joint-stock commercial enterprise, and came under the direct authority of the Ministry of Commerce of Imperial Russia.
The 20-year revolving charter granted the company monopoly over trade in Russian America, which included the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, and the territory down to 55° N latitude. A proclamation, or ukase, by the Tsar in 1821, asserted its domain to 51° N latitude but this was quickly challenged by the British and resulted in the Russo-British Treaty of 1825 which established 55°40′ as the ostensible southward limit of Russian interests and a lease of the mainland coast of what is now the Alaska Panhandle to the Hudson's Bay Company. Under the charter, one-third of all profits were to go to the emperor.
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 forts in what is today Alaska, Hawaii, and California. Fort Ross, on the California coast in Sonoma County just north of San Francisco, was the southern most colony of Russian America, and is now partially reconstructed and an open air museum. One original building remains (Rotchev House). Russian 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 Ferdinand Petrovich von 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.
Governors of the Russian American Company
Below is a list of the governors/general managers of the Russian-American Company. Many of their names occur as place names in Southeast Alaska. Note that the English spelling of the names varies between sources.
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- This page was last modified on 24 November 2008, at 20:52.
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