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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
In accordance with the terms of the 1867 convention which effected the transfer of Russian America to the United States, the archives of the Russian American Company at Novoarkhangelsk (Sitka) were transmitted to Washington, D. C. Inventoried and bound in 67 volumes and labeled Archives of the Russian American Company, they are now in the National Archives. Although microfilmed for the University of California at Berkeley, these archives have not been translated or published, and apparently, scant use has been made of them, although Bancroft had extracts made of many documents and used some of the material in his histories of Alaska, California, and of the Northwest Coast.
1 Bancroft, Hubert Howe, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft (San Francisco: History Company Publishers, 1886), vols. XIX, XXVII, 33.Google Scholar
2 Chapman, Charles Edward, A History of California: the Spanish Period (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1921), p. 272.Google Scholar
3 Archives of the Russian American Company, National Archives, Washington, D. C, I, 139–146. This and succeeding references to these Archives translated from the original by the author.
4 Okun’, Semen Bentsionovich, The Russian American Company, trans. Gensburg, Carl (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951), pp. 7–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5 Bancroft, op. cit., XXXIII, 79.
6 Ibid., p. 88.
7 Juan de Fuca’s claim to have made a voyage in 1592 on which he discovered a passage to the Atlantic between 47 and 48 degrees north, is not included here, because Bancroft, following Humboldt, offers what is considered convincing proof that the voyage was apocryphal. Bancroft, op. cit., XXVII, 70–81.
8 Bancroft, op.cit., XXVII, 166.
9 Bancroft, op. cit., XXXIII, 379. A translation of the ukaz is given by Bancroft. It is of interest to note that each official communication from the Governing Board began “ From the Russian American Company Under the Supreme Protection of his Imperial Majesty.”
10 In the spring of 1812 the Governing Board of the Company despatched a proclamation addressed to the people of California, urging trade with the Russians, although they knew that the Spanish government forbade trade with foreigners.
11 Archives of the Russian American Company, op. cit., I, 139–146.
12 Bancroft, op. cit., XIX, 82.
13 Okun’, op. cit., pp. 14–15. This apparent reference to predating the markers is made clear in the Company’s “ explanation,” which states: “ For record, in the future, of those newly discovered lands not occupied by any Europeans, and also for the purpose of resolving disputes with any other nation, the authorities ordered that in the lands that were discovered, they were to bury secret markers, consisting of copper plates with the inscription: Land of Russian Possession, and bearing a representation of a time of previous, past years.” (Archives of the Russian American Company, op. cit., I, 139–146.)
11 Archives of the Russian American Company, op. cit., I, 139–146.
15 Okun’, op. cit., p. 118.
16 Archives of the Russian American Company, op. cit., I, 139–146. Okun’, using different sources, reports that markers were placed as follows: “ 1808, by the Peasant Slobodchikov, in Trinidad Bay; 1809 by Kuskov in Little Bodega Bay; 1811 by Kuskov on a promontory at Little Bodega Bay in the northern arm of San Francisco Bay, where the fortress and Spanish mission were located.” (Okun’, op. cit., p. 121).
17 Langsdorff, G.H. von, Voyages and Travels in Various parts of the World during the years 1803–1807 (Philadelphia: M. Carey and Son, 1817).Google Scholar
18 Ibid., p. 427.
19 Ibid., pp. 455–456.
20 Bancroft, op. cit., XIX, 73.
21 From Sitka Rezanov went to Kamchatka, thence to Okhotsk, on the sea by that name, and set out overland for the capital. He fell ill at Yakutsk, but pressed on to Krasnoyarsk, where he died March 1, 1807. For her part, Doña Concepción remained true to her Russian lover and never married.
22 Okun’, op. cit., p. 121.
23 Ibid., p. 120. Contrary to Rezanov’s statement, San Francisco was founded in 1776.
24 Langsdorff, op. cit., p. 458.
25 Archives of the Russian American Company, op. cit., I, 139–146.
26 Okun’, op. cit., p. 128.
27 Bancroft, op. cit., XIX, 297.
28 Small Aleut hunting boat made of skin stretched over a wooden frame.
29 Bancroft, op. cit., XIX, 299. In their “Explanation” the Governing Board calls the settlement “ Slavyansk or Ross.” (Archives of the Russian American Company, op. cit., I, 139–146.)
30 Ibid., p. 298.
31 Archives of the Russian American Company, op. cit., I, 139–146.
32 Mahr, August C., The Visit of the “ Rurik “ to San Francisco in 1816 (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1932), pp. 114–116, gives the text.Google Scholar
33 Variable unit of length, about 2.8 feet.
34 Aleuts and Kodiakers, many of whom were living with local Indian women.
35 Archives of the Russian American Company, op. cit., I, 42.
36 Mahr, op. cit., pp. 116–118.
37 Ibid., p. 49.
38 Ibid., p. 65.
39 Ibid., pp. 35–37.
40 Archives of the Russian American Company, op. cit., I, 135–136.
41 Ibid., pp. 133–134.
42 Ibid., pp. 139–146.
43 Ibid., pp. 92–94.
44 In this letter the Board brought up a matter of singular interest which is worthy of mention. The Governing Board had, it said, a project of extreme importance which it wished Baranov and Lieutenant Leontij Andreyanovich Hagemeister to undertake. (Hagemeister was then enroute to Sitka with secret orders, as it later turned out, to relieve Baranov as governor.) The two were to fit out an expedition to find a lost colony of Russians. The circumstances were these: in 1741 when Chirikov made his voyage to the northwest coast of America, he sent one of his officers, Dement’ev with eleven men to explore the coast at a point between 57 and 58 degrees north latitude. Dement’ev and his companions did not return to the ship, and a second party of two was sent in search of them, and it too failed to return. Chirikov never knew what had befallen the men, but supposed they had all been murdered by Indians.
On March 9, 1789, the Russian Ambassador at Madrid, Zinov’ev sent to St. Petersburg an extract from a report of a Spanish captain, Haro, who had made a voyage of exploration in the packet boat San Carlos (in 1788), and who had located Russian settlements between 48 and 49 degrees north latitude with a total population of “ about 462 “ people. These people, the Board believed, were the descendents of Chirikov’s men, and the importance of finding them was stressed, since their occupancy of territory in that area would provide a substantial claim to it.
The letter states further that at the time (1789?), there was correspondence between Catherine the Great and the Spanish King, Charles IV, father of Ferdinand VII, concerning these people, and that the king had agreed to cede to Catherine the territory occupied by the Russian settlements.
Details of these lost settlements are also included in a personal letter to Hagemeister from the Governing Board, dated April 26 (old style), 1817, and also in the Board’s “ explanation,” in which the number of settlements becomes “ about eight “ and the number of inhabitants increases to 500. (Archives of the Russian American Company, op. cit., I, pp. 87 and 139–146, respectively.)
Hagemeister, who relieved Baranov in 1818, failed, for a number of reasons, to carry out the search, and in a letter dated January 29 (old style), 1820, to his successor in office, Murav'ev, the Governing Board again strongly urged that an attempt be made to find the lost settlements. With this letter was included a copy of the previous letter to Hagemeister containing the details already mentioned. (Archives of the Russian American Company, II, 40.)
The following circumstances may have given rise to the stories of the lost settlements: Gonzalo López de Haro in the San Carlos, a Spanish naval vessel, and Alférez Esteban José Martínez in the frigate Princesa were sent north in March, 1788, to verify reports La Perouse had made of Russian settlements along the coast. The San Carlos called at the Russian settlement of Three Saints on Kodiak Island and while there, Haro was told by the chief of the colony, Delarev, that the Russians had six settlements on the coast as far south as 52°, comprising over 400 men, and that the government intended to found a colony at Nootka the next year. Haro returned to Mexico without exploring the coast, apparently, and probably saw no Russians except at Kodiak and Unalashka.
Although Bancroft recounts Haro’s voyages, he does not mention the report referred to by the Russians, and no further information concerning the subject was found.
45 Archives of the Russian American Company, op. cit., II, 79.
46 Alaskan Boundary Tribunal. The Case of the United States before the Tribunal Convened at London under the Provisions of the Treaty between the United States of America and Great Britain Concluded January 24, 1903 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1903), pp. 10–11. The new charter renewed the monopoly of the fur trade and fisheries to “the exclusion of all other Russians and of the subjects of foreign States” in the regions named in the incorporating ukaz of 1799, except that the southern limit on the American coast was extended from the 55th parallel southward to the northern point of Vancouver Island, or 51° north latitude.
47 Bancroft, op. cit., XXXIII, 489.
