Buy Alaska

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North America, Alaska highlighted in color.

The purchase of Alaska from Russia by the United States ( English Alaska Purchase ; Russian Продажа Аляски "Sale of Alaska") took place in 1867 on the initiative of US Secretary of State William H. Seward . The area sold covered approximately 1.6 million km² (600,000 square miles) of what is now the state of Alaska.

background

The check for the purchase price of $ 7.2 million

By the 1830s, around 800 Russians settled in Alaska, plus enslaved natives, some of whom were forcibly Christianized Russian Orthodox . They settled mainly on the offshore islands Kodjak (from 1784) and Sitka (from 1799), the main town was Novo-Arkhangelsk on Sitka. On the initiative of Grigori Schelichow , after his death in 1799, the Russian-American Company was established , whose first director was Aleksandr Baranov . Because the supply of food was difficult, the Russians established branches in what is now California from 1806 , including Fort Ross , which they sold in 1841. At that time, the Russian economic situation in Alaska was deteriorating as the fur population was running out. The Russian Empire found itself in a precarious financial situation after the Crimean War . It also feared the loss of Alaska without compensation in a military conflict, especially with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland . Its navy could easily have conquered this extremely difficult to defend territory. As a result, Tsar Alexander II decided to sell Alaska to the United States and commissioned the Russian ambassador to Washington , Baron Eduard von Stoeckl , to negotiate with Seward.

The negotiations ended in a meeting that lasted all night, at the end of which the sales contract was signed at around 4 a.m. on the morning of March 30th. The purchase price was 7.2 million US dollars set. A higher offer from the British was rejected. The public response was largely positive; However, according to one historian, there were also concerns about the purchase:

“It was argued that we already had the burden of owning a vast area without human settlement. The Indians within the present borders of the United States already claimed more than enough our ability to rule indigenous peoples. Could it really be that today we would try, with open eyes, to increase our difficulties still further by increasing the number of such people under our government? The purchase price was very high; annual administrative expenditures, civil as well as military, would continue to rise, and would continue to do so over a longer period of time. The territory designated for assignment was not adjacent to our current domain. It was far away, at an uncomfortable and dangerous distance. The treaty had been prepared in secret and signed at four in the morning and turned on to the country. It was just a sinister act, done in the middle of the night [...] New York World called it a 'sucked orange'. The land had nothing of value, save for a few fur animals that were already on the verge of extinction from excessive hunting. With the exception of the Aleutian chain of islands and the thin strip of land along the south coast, the land would not even be worth accepting as a gift. [...] If gold were not found, it would be a long time before the area could receive the blessings of the printing press, Methodist churches, and law and order. For the New York Tribune it was a 'frozen wilderness'. "

- Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer : A History of the United States since the Civil War , Volume 1

The Washington perspective

That the purchased land was ridiculed at that time as Seward's folly (“Seward's stupidity”), Seward's Icebox (“Seward's freezer”) and President Andrew Johnson's polar bear garden (“ polar bear park”) was long considered an invented legend. It is now known from letters published later that Alaska was indeed viewed by several Senate representatives as a personal asset to Johnson.

US Secretary of State William H. Seward

The signing of the treaty was spurred on by Secretary of State Seward, who advocated expansion of the United States, and Charles Sumner , chairman of the Senate committee. They argued that the strategic interests of the nation made the treaty necessary. During the civil war , Russia had been a valuable ally to the northern states , while the United Kingdom had been an almost open enemy. It seemed only right to help Russia and in the process thwart the British plans. There was also the problem of the adjoining area that belonged to the British (and now Canada ). Since it bordered almost entirely on United States territory, it might be of little strategic value to the United Kingdom and so could one day be bought. The purchase, announced by the New York Herald , was a warning from the Tsar to France and the United Kingdom that they “had no business in this continent”. "In short, it was a tactical flank move" on Canada, wrote the influential New York Tribune . Soon the world would in the northwest a "hostile cockney, flanked by two watchful Yankees" see and John Bull would view already be brought more to the fact that his only option was to its local interests in Brother Jonathan is (thus a the US personifying symbolic figure meant) to be sold.

On April 9, Sumner gave a lengthy speech in which he publicly defended the treaty. He went into more detail on Alaska's history, climate, natural condition, population and raw materials - forests, mines, furs, fisheries. Since he was relatively educated, he cited the statements of famous geographers and navigators such as Alexander von Humboldt , Joseph Billings , Juri Lisjanski , Friedrich Benjamin von Lütke , Otto von Kotzebue , Joseph Ellison Portlock , James Cook , John Meares and Ferdinand von Wrangel . After finishing the speech, he admitted that he "did a little more than just keep the scales". If this had leaned to one side, he continued, it would only be because "reason or consent were the more weighty for this side". Soon, Sumner continued, “an experienced breed of intrepid seafarers, ready for business or patriotic ventures, will flock to these shores. Trade will gain new muscles and the land new defenders; and the flag of the nation will find new hands by which to raise it. Give the area the blessings of American democracy, "he urged," and you will bestow what is even better than what you will receive, whether it be quintals of fish, sandbars full of gold, the best quality furs, or beautiful ivory . Our city, ”he shouted,“ can be nothing less than the North American continent with the gates to all the surrounding oceans. ”He went on to argue that the treaty was a“ visible step ”in this direction. The circumstances of the treaty meant that “we should expel another monarch from this continent. One after the other had withdrawn - first France, then Spain, then France again, and now Russia; and they all cleared the way for this unity, which absorbs everything that is already proclaimed in our national motto - E pluribus unum . "

Ratification and entry into force of the sales contract

William H. Seward and Eduard von Stoeckl in the negotiations for the Alaska Purchase. Painting by Emanuel Leutze

The United States Senate ratified the treaty on April 9, 1867, with a 37 pro-versus only 2 contra vote. However, the approval of the money needed to buy Alaska was delayed by over a year due to opposition within the House of Representatives . Finally, the Chamber of Parliament approved the provision of the money by voting 113 to 48.

Sumner reported on Russian estimates that Alaska was only populated by around 2,500 Russians and mixed race and 8,000 indigenous people , i.e. a total of 10,000 inhabitants, who were under the sovereignty of the Russian Fur Trading Company, and possibly 50,000 Eskimos and Indians outside their jurisdiction. The Europeans had settled at 23 trading posts conveniently located on the islands and on the coast. The smaller posts were manned by only four or five Russians each and their purpose was to store the furs that the Indians had bought and to have them ready for shipment when the ships of the fur trading company arrived. There were two larger settlements: Novo-Arkhangelsk (today's Sitka ) was founded in 1804 to coordinate the lucrative trade in sea ​​otter skins . The small town consisted of 116 small log houses with a total of 968 inhabitants. The second settlement was St. Paul on Kodiak Island with 100 log cabins and 283 settlers. This was the center of the seal hunt .

“Alaska”, a term from the language of the Aleutian people , was chosen by the Americans. The ceremony of the official handover took place on October 6th July. / October 18, 1867 greg. instead of. Due to the change from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar , October 1867 in Alaska only lasted about three weeks. Russian and American soldiers parade in front of the governor's house; then the Russian flag was withdrawn and the American flag was raised in its place under the gun salute . Frigate Captain Alexei Alexejewitsch Peschchurow finally spoke the decisive words: "General Rousseau, on behalf of His Majesty the Tsar of Russia, I hand over the territory of Alaska to the United States." General Lovell Rousseau accepted the area. A number of forts, log cabins, and wooden houses had been given over to the Americans. The troops moved into the barracks; General Jefferson C. Davis took up his quarters in the governor's house and most of the Russian settlers returned to their homeland. Only a few traders and priests chose to stay.

On Alaska Day , the official handover of Alaska from Russia to the USA on October 18, 1867 is still celebrated today. The signing is celebrated on Seward's Day , the last Monday in March. It is a public holiday in Alaska.

Selling attempt to Liechtenstein

On November 17, 2018, a documentary from the SRF bi de Lüt series of the Swiss radio broadcast the information that the Russian Tsar had initially offered Alaska to the Prince of Liechtenstein for sale in 1867 . But he refused. Only then was the area offered for sale to the USA. The world on Sunday reported something similar in 2015. The claim was initially referred to as a rumor in the media. However, Prince Hans-Adam II von und zu Liechtenstein wrote to the Liechtenstein newspapers a few days later with a letter to the editor in which he clearly stated that it was not a rumor. Rather, the offer to buy Alaska and the regret that it had turned down were discussed again and again in the princely family. He was also optimistic that so far missing written evidence for the purchase offer could turn up in archives.

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Andreas Kappeler : Russia as a multi-ethnic empire - emergence, history, decay . In: Beck's series . 2nd Edition. No. 1447 . Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-47573-6 , p. 170 f .
  2. ↑ There are various methods of comparing this value with today's purchasing power or economic output . Depending on the variant, values ​​of 100 million to 13 billion US dollars are given, an estimate based on the square mean would come to around 8.5 billion US dollars. See Measuringworth (based on data from the Federal Reserve Bank )
  3. ↑ 1917, p. 541.
  4. ^ Primary Documents in American History: Treaty with Russia for the Purchase of Alaska
  5. ↑ According to the Gregorian calendar, it was October 18, the time nine hours and 80 seconds behind Greenwich Mean Time . The calendar was officially introduced in Alaska the next day to replace the old Julian calendar with 14 hours, 58 minutes and 40 seconds ahead of GMT. For the Russians, the handover took place on October 7th.
  6. ↑ "Weltreise: Liechtenstein", article in the "Welt am Sonntag", January 18, 2015
  7. ↑ "It is certainly not a rumor", article in the "Liechtensteiner Vaterland", November 27, 2018
  8. ^ "Prince Hans-Adam II. Assures:« Alaska offer is not a rumor »", article in the "Liechtensteiner Volksblatt", November 29, 2018

See also

literature

  • Ronald J. Jensen: The Alaska Purchase and Russian-American Relations. University of Washington Press, Seattle WA et al. 1975, ISBN 0-295-95376-4 (also: dissertation).
  • Peter Littke: From the tsar's eagle to the stars and stripes. The history of Russian Alaska. Magnus-Verlag, Essen 2003, ISBN 3-88400-019-5 (contains German translation of the Alaska sales contract).
  • Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer: A History of the United States since the Civil War. Volume: 1: 1865-68. Macmillan, New York NY 1917.
  • Marie de Testa, Antoine Gautier: Le diplomate russe Edouard de Stoeckl (ca 1805–1892) et la cession de l'Alaska aux Etats-Unis. In: Marie de Testa, Antoine Gautier: Drogmans et diplomates européens auprès de la Porte ottomane. Éditions ISIS, Istanbul 2003, ISBN 975-428-258-7 , pp. 463-469 ( Analecta Isisiana 71).

Web links

Commons : Buying Alaska  - Collection of Pictures, Videos, and Audio Files