Alexandr Andreievich Baranov
Russian trader and general manager of the Russian-American Fur Company who was, for at least 25 years, the presiding genius of the commercial venture which extended throughout Alaska, the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), China and the north-west coast of America. At the age of 33 he had left his wife and daughter near the Russo-Finnish border and had gone to Siberia to seek his fortune. For a while he was a farmer, distiller and glassmaker, but in 1790 he was appointed chief agent of the company of Grigorii Iavanovich Shelikhov for North America. In 1791 he explored the entire chain of the Aleutian islands in the ship Tri Svyatitelya until wrecked off Unalaska. In 1793 he transferred his attention to the Alaskan mainland, exploring Cook Inlet and Prince William Sound. There he established a shipyard and married the daughter of a Kenaitze chief, thereby strengthening his alliance with the native tribes. A previous settlement had been established by Shelikhov on Hinchinbrook Island.
In 1795 he continued east along the Alaska coast and visited Sitka Sound on Baranof Island. He returned to Sitka (7.7.99), and purchased a tract of land from the local Tlingit chief where he constructed the settlement of St. Michael's (6 miles north of present Sitka). In June 1802 natives attacked and destroyed the colony, the survivors escaping to English and American ships anchored in the harbour. In 1804 Baranov returned with the warship Neva, subdued the natives and constructed the village of Novo-Arkhangel'sk (also known as Sitka). This became the centre of Russian trading operations and, in August 1808, the administrative capital of Russian America, with (by 1848) a cathedral and shipyards.
From Novo-Arkhangel'sk Baranov extended his influence southward as far as California. Despite the presence of the American Fur Company (of John Jacob Astor), which held the mouth of the Columbia River, Baranov's agents built Fort Ross, 20 miles north of Bodega Bay, in the hope that the country would yield grain to feed the Alaskan outposts. When the region proved unsuitable, Baranov extended his vision into the Pacific and built a fort on the Hawaiian island of Kauai (1815). Two years later, however, the Russians were expelled by the Hawaiian chief Tomari, who had hoped for, but did not receive, military aid against his rival Kamehameha. In the late 1810s, power in St. Petersburg fell to men more concerned with defence than empire-building, and in 1819 Baranov was replaced by a less impulsive governor.
Other Internet resources:
Sources and bibliography:
- Alekseyev, A.I.: The destiny of Russian America 1741-1867 (Kingston, Ont. 1990 [trans. from Russian]).
- Berkh, Vasiliy N.: Khronologicheskaya istoriya vsekh puteshestviy v severnyya polyarnyya strany,... (St. Petersburg 1821-23; English trans. by Dmitri Krenov & Richard A. Pierce as: Chronological history of the discovery of the Aleutian Islands... (Kingston, Ont. 1974).
- Dibble, Sheldon: History of the Sandwich Islands (Lahainaluna, Hawaii 1843).
- Essig, E.O.: The Russian settlement at Fort Ross. California Historical Society Quarterly 12 (1933).
- Gibson, James R.: Feeding the Russian fur trade: provisionment of the Okhotsk seaboard and the Kamchatka Peninsula 1639-1856 (Madison, Wis. 1969).
- Gibson, James R.: Imperial Russia in frontier America (New York 1976).
- Khlebnikov, Kiril Timofeevich: Zhizneopisanie Alexandra Andreevicha Baranova glavnago pravitelia Rossiskikh kolonii v Amerikie (St. Petersburg 1835).
- Khlebnikov, K.T.: Baranov: Chief manager of the Russian colonies in America (trans. by Colin Bearne, Kingston, Ont. 1973).
- Khlebnikov, K.T.: Zapiski o koloniiyakh v Amerike (ed. by S.G. Fedorova, Moscow 1985).
- Newell, C.M.: Kaméhaméha, the conquering king: the mystery of his birth, loves, and conquests. A romance of Hawaii (New York 1885).
- Okun', S.B.: Rossiisko-Amerikanskaia Kompaniia (Moscow & Leningrad 1939).
- Pierce, Richard A.: Russia's Hawaiian adventure, 1815-1817 (Berkeley 1965).
- Poniatowski, Michel: Histoire de la Russie d'Amérique et de l'Alaska (Paris 1958, 1978).
- Tikhmenev, P.A.: A history of the Russian-American Company (trans. by Richard A. Pierce & Alton S. Donelly, Seattle & London 1978).
The material on this page was created by Ray Howgego, and publication was allowed by him to Discoverers Web. This page is an excerpt from a large amount of material that Ray has written, concerning voyages of discovery before 1800. He would like to have this work published, any publisher who is interested can contact him through email.