Alaska Purchase

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The US$ 7.2 million check used to pay for Alaska ($116 million in 2012 dollars)


Russia wanted to sell its Alaskan territory, fearing that it might be seized if war broke out with Britain. Russia's primary activity in the territory had been fur trade and missionary work among the Native Alaskans. With the purchase of Alaska, the United States added 586,412 square miles (1,518,800 km2) of new territory. Reactions to the purchase in the United States were mixed, with opponents calling it "Seward's Folly", feeling that U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward, the primary American negotiator, got the worst of the bargain.



The first page of Tsar Alexander II's ratification of the Treaty. This page just contains the Tsar's full style

Russia was in a difficult financial position and feared losing Russian America without compensation in some future conflict, especially to the British, whom they had fought in the Crimean War (1853–1856). While Alaska attracted little interest at the time, the population of nearby British Columbia started to increase rapidly a few years after hostilities ended, with a large gold rush there prompting the creation of a British crown colony on the mainland in addition to the already-extant one on Vancouver Island, where the French and British fleets had retreated to after the Battle of Petropavlovsk in the Russian Far East. The Russians decided that in any future war with Britain, their hard-to-defend region might become a prime target, and would be easily captured. Therefore the Russian Emperor Alexander II decided to sell the territory. Perhaps in hopes of starting a bidding war, both the British and the Americans were approached. However, the British expressed little interest in buying Alaska. The Russians in 1859 offered to sell the territory to the United States, hoping that its presence in the region would offset the plans of Russia’s greatest regional rival, Great Britain. However, no deal was brokered due to the American Civil War.[1][2]

Additionally, the Russian Crown sought to repay money to its landowners after its emancipation reform of 1861 and borrowed 15 million pounds sterling from Rothschilds at 5% annually.[3] When the time came to repay the loan, the Russian Government was short on funds. The Emperor's brother, Grand Prince Konstantin Nikolaevich offered to sell something useless.

Russia continued to see an opportunity to weaken British power by causing British Columbia, including the Royal Navy base at Esquimalt, to be surrounded or annexed by American territory.[4] Following the Union victory in the Civil War, the Tsar instructed the Russian minister to the United States, Eduard de Stoeckl, to re-enter into negotiations with William Seward in the beginning of March 1867. The negotiations concluded after an all-night session with the signing of the treaty at 4 a.m. on March 30, 1867,[5] with the purchase price set at $7.2 million, or about 2 cents per acre ($4.74/km2).[6]

American public opinion was not universally positive; to some the purchase was known as Seward's Folly. Nonetheless, most editors argued that the U.S. would probably derive great economic benefits from the purchase; friendship of Russia was important; and it would facilitate the acquisition of British Columbia.[7] Forty-five percent of newspapers endorsing the purchase cited the increased potential for annexing British Columbia in their support.[4] Historian Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer summarized the minority opinion of some American newspaper editors who opposed the purchase:[8]


While criticized by some at the time, the financial value of the Alaska Purchase turned out to be many times greater than what the United States had paid for it. The land turned out to be rich in resources such as gold, copper, and oil. The strategic geopolitical value of the purchase which could hardly be known to people at the time, turned out to be significant to the United States throughout the Cold War.[citation needed]

American ownership[edit]

With the purchase of Alaska, negotiated by Secretary Seward, the United States acquired an area twice as large as Texas, but it was not until the great Klondike gold strike in 1896 that Alaska came to be seen generally as a valuable addition to American territory.

Senator Sumner, as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, sponsored the bill. He told the nation that the Russians estimated that Alaska contained about 2,500 Russians and those of mixed race (that is, a Russian father and native mother), and 8,000 Indigenous people, in all about 10,000 people under the direct government of the Russian fur company, and possibly 50,000 Inuits and Alaska Natives living outside its jurisdiction. The Russians were settled at 23 trading posts, placed at accessible islands and coastal points. At smaller stations only four or five Russians were stationed to collect furs from the natives for storage and shipment when the company’s boats arrived to take it away. There were two larger towns. New Archangel, now named Sitka, had been established in 1804 to handle the valuable trade in the skins of the sea otter and in 1867 contained 116 small log cabins with 968 residents. St. Paul in the Pribilof Islands had 100 homes and 283 people and was the center of the seal fur industry.[9]

An Aleut name, “Alaska,” was chosen by the Americans. This name had earlier, in the Russian era, denoted the Alaska Peninsula, which the Russians had called Alyaska (also Alyaksa is attested, especially in older sources).


However exclusive U.S. control of this resource was eventually challenged, and the Bering Sea Controversy resulted when the United States seized over 150 sealing ships flying the British flag, based out of the coast of British Columbia. The conflict between the United States and Great Britain was resolved by an arbitration tribunal in which the waters of the Bering Sea were deemed to be international waters, contrary to the US' contention that they were an internal sea. The U.S. was required to make a payment to Great Britain, and both nations were required to follow regulations which were developed to preserve the resource.[10]

Transfer ceremony[edit]




When the business with the flags was finally over, Captain of 2nd Rank Aleksei Alekseyevich Peshchurov said, “General Rousseau, by authority from His Majesty, the Emperor of Russia, I transfer to the United States the territory of Alaska.” General Lovell Rousseau accepted the territory. (Peshchurov had been sent to Sitka as commissioner of the Russian government in the transfer of Alaska.) A number of forts, blockhouses and timber buildings were handed over to the Americans. The troops occupied the barracks; General Jefferson C. Davis established his residence in the governor’s house, and most of the Russian citizens went home, leaving a few traders and priests who chose to remain.[12][13]


After the transfer, a number of Russian citizens remained in Sitka, but very soon nearly all of them decided to return to Russia, which was still possible to do at the expense of the Russian-American Company. Ahllund's story “corroborates other accounts of the transfer ceremony, and the dismay felt by many of the Russians and creoles, jobless and in want, at the rowdy troops and gun-toting civilians who looked on Sitka as merely one more western frontier settlement.” Ahllund gives a vivid account of what life was like for civilians in Sitka under U.S. rule, and it helps to explain why hardly any of the Russian subjects wanted to stay there. Moreover, Ahllund’s article is the only known description of the return voyage on the Winged Arrow, a ship especially purchased in order to transport the Russians back to their native country. “The over-crowded vessel, with crewmen who got roaring drunk at every port, must have made the voyage a memorable one.” Ahllund mentions stops at the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands, Tahiti, Brazil, London, and finally Kronstadt, the port for St. Petersburg, where they arrived on August 28, 1869.[14]

Alaska Day[edit]

Alaska Day celebrates the formal transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States, which took place on October 18, 1867. The October 18, 1867 date is by the Gregorian calendar, which came into effect in Alaska the following day to replace the Julian calendar used by the Russians (the Julian calendar in the 19th century was 12 days behind the Gregorian calendar). For the selling party back in the Russia's capital city of St Petersburg, where the next day already started due to nearly 12 hours clock time difference, the handover occurred on October 7, 1867 (not 6th) of St. Petersburg time and date under the Julian calendar.

The official celebration of the 18th October Alaska Day is held in Sitka, where schools release students early, many businesses close for the day, and events such as a parade and reenactment of the flag raising are held.

Alaska Day is also a holiday for all state workers.

See also[edit]


  4. ^ a b Neunherz, R. E. (1989). ""Hemmed In": Reactions in British Columbia to the Purchase of Russian America". The Pacific Northwest Quarterly 80 (3): 101–111. doi:10.2307.2F40491056. JSTOR 40491056.  edit
  6. ^ A simple consumer price index calculation would put this at the equivalent of around $100 million dollars in 2011. see “Six Ways to Compute the Relative Value of a U.S. Dollar Amount”.
  7. ^ Richard E. Welch, Jr., “American Public Opinion and the Purchase of Canadian America,” American Slavic and East European Review, 1958, Vol. 17 Issue 4, pp. 481–494 .
  9. ^ Seward (1869).
  10. ^ a b Wikisource-logo.svg "Sealing". New International Encyclopedia. 1905. 
  11. ^ Ahllund, T. (1873/2006).
  13. ^ Pierce, R. (1990), p 395.


  • Grinëv, Andrei. V., and Richard L. Bland. “A Brief Survey of the Russian Historiography of Russian America of Recent Years,” Pacific Historical Review, May 2010, Vol. 79 Issue 2, pp. 265–278.

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