Fort Ross

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Fort Ross State Historic Park
National Register of Historic Places
National Historic Landmark
Fort Ross 1828, Auguste Bernard Duhaut-Cilly (1790–1849), published in his Voyage autour du monde, principalement a la Californie et aux Iles Sandwich, pendant les années 1826, 1827, 1828, et 1829, Paris: Arthus-Bertrand and Saint-Servan: D. Lemarchand, 1834

Fort Ross 1828, Auguste Bernard Duhaut-Cilly (1790–1849), published in his Voyage autour du monde, principalement a la Californie et aux Iles Sandwich, pendant les années 1826, 1827, 1828, et 1829 , Paris: Arthus-Bertrand and Saint-Servan: D. Lemarchand, 1834

Fort Ross (California)
Paris plan pointer b jms.svg
location Sonoma County in California (USA)
Coordinates 38 ° 30 '51.3 "  N , 123 ° 14' 37.1"  W Coordinates: 38 ° 30 '51.3 "  N , 123 ° 14' 37.1"  W.
Built 1812
Number of visitors 125 310 (Fiscal Year 2016-17)
NRHP number 66000239
Data
The NRHP added December 15, 1966
Declared as an  NHL 5th November 1961

Fort Ross (probably derived from Russian Россия , transcription Rossija , for Russia ) was a branch of the Russian-American trading company in California from 1812 to 1841 . It is located on the Pacific coast in what is now Sonoma County , about 90 miles northwest of San Francisco .

As the southernmost fortified outpost of Russian America , Fort Ross served both as a base for fur hunting and as a food supply for Russian trading establishments in Alaska .

With the decline in sea ​​otter populations and insufficient success in agricultural use, Fort Ross proved increasingly uneconomical from the 1830s. At the same time, the Russian-American Company was facing increasing difficulties in maintaining its territorial claims against the growing pressure from Mexican and American settlers.

In 1841 Fort Ross was finally sold to Johann August Sutter , who incorporated it into his private colony New Helvetia , which was subordinate to Mexico . After the Mexican-American War , all of Upper California (Alta California), including Fort Ross, fell to the United States in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 .

In 1906 the fort was sold to the State of California and in 1916 and 1925 parts of the buildings damaged by decay and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake were reconstructed. In 1948 the only completely preserved building was restored and, after a fire in 1970, the Orthodox chapel as well. The entire complex had been recognized as a National Historic Landmark a decade earlier . The reconstruction of a two-story department store was completed in 2012.

Today the fort is used for tourism and serves as a reminder of the Russian colonial history of America. Fort Ross has been on the list of state parks in California since 1962 .

history

Background: Russia's expansion into America

While the Thirty Years' War was still ongoing in Western Europe, in 1639 Russian hunters and soldiers advanced to the shores of the Pacific Ocean . In 1648 the Cossack Semjon Ivanovich Deschnjow sailed the strait between Asia and America, refuting the view that there was a land connection between Asia and America. But it was not until the Russian advance to Alaska in the course of the Second Kamchatka Expedition under Bering and Tschirikow in 1741 and the associated discovery of its economic potential that the start of Russian expansion into America was initiated. Driven by the profits of the seal and sea ​​otter hunt, more than 40 Russian merchants and trading companies equipped expeditions to the Aleutian Islands and mainland Alaska from 1745 to the end of the 18th century . In the early 19th century, an average of 62,000 fur skins from North American branches came into Russian trade every year.

This rapid growth in the fur trade made it necessary to establish permanent bases for hunting and storing the fur. In 1784, the Russian navigator and entrepreneur Grigori Ivanovich Schelichow founded the first permanent trading post on Kodiak Island off the southern coast of Alaska. When he died in 1795, Shelichov's company dominated Russian American trade. Two years later, his widow Natalia combined the trading company with a business partner and a competitor to form the United American Company . After a further two years, the Russian-American Company was formed in 1799 through the ukase of Tsar Paul I from the United American Society . This received - always for twenty years - the trade monopoly in Russian America and thus the right of economic use of the Aleutians, the Kuril Islands and the territories on the North American mainland down to the 55th parallel, the assumed landing point of Tschirikows in 1741. To the shareholders belonged to members of the royal family, the Russian nobility, as well as leading officials of the Russian Empire.

The Russian advance into California

Alexander Andrejewitsch Baranow (1746–1819), portrait from 1818

In 1790 Grigory Ivanovich Schelichow had recruited the fur trader Alexander Andrejewitsch Baranow as one of two area managers of his company and sent him to Alaska. Baranov was so successful in running the fur business that when it was founded in 1799 he was named the first head of the Russian-American Company . With the help of his assistant Ivan Alexandrowitsch Kuskow , Baranow later managed the growing business of the trading company from Novo-Arkhangelsk ("New Arkhangelsk "; today Sitka ) and became one of the "main architects of Russia's southern expansion".

On April 18, 1802, Baranov received secret instructions from the Russian-American Company to expand the Russian territory beyond 55 degrees north to the south and to establish a settlement near 55 degrees north for this purpose. The aim was to create facts in order to use the free space created after the Nootka sound controversy and to establish a recognized border between about 50 and 55 degrees north at some point in the future. In 1803 Baranow entered into a joint venture with the American captain Joseph O'Cain. He brought a group of Aleut hunters under Russian command on his ship to the coast of what is now San Diego . Baranow and O'Cain shared the profit from more than 600 sea ​​otter skins that were captured .

Another reason for the Russian advance into California was the persistent food supply problems at Russian bases in Alaska. With their attempts to create a sufficient supply situation, the Russian settlers had achieved only meager success in the inhospitable climate of Alaska. The winter of 1805/06 was the turning point. Supply ships could not regularly call at Novo-Arkhangelsk because of the Napoleonic wars that continued in Europe. The Russian inhabitants of the colony were malnourished and soon suffered from the deficiency disease scurvy . The first settlers died.

In this situation, Nikolai Petrovich Resanov , one of the initiators of the Russian-American Company and Shelichov's son-in-law, came to Novo-Arkhangelsk for inspection. In view of the catastrophic conditions in the settlement, he decided to act quickly. He bought an American ship anchored in the port of Novo-Arkhangelsk and sailed to Yerba Buena (the forerunner of today's city of San Francisco ) in the spring of 1806 to establish trade contacts with the Spaniards and buy grain.

In the Presidio , the Spanish military base in the Bay of San Francisco , Resanov lived for a few weeks with the family of the Spanish commandant José Dario Argüello and traded Russian tools for grain. Argüello assured him of his support and asked in a letter to Madrid for confirmation of the Russian-Spanish trade contacts. On his return to Novo-Arkhangelsk, Resanov urged Baranov to use the “uninhabited stretch of land” on the California coast as a Russian base for fur hunting and for supplying Alaska with food.

Fort Ross under the Russian-American Company

The establishment of the Russian colony

Balthazar, resident of Northern California . Drawing by Mikhail T. Tichanow from 1818.

Between 1808 and 1811 Baranow sent his deputy Kuskow on several exploratory trips to California. In what is now Bodega Bay , Kuskow built a first provisional settlement, which he named after Nikolai Petrovich Rumjanzew , the then Russian foreign minister. From Rumyantsev, Kuskow explored the surrounding coastal strip and in 1811 finally decided on a small bay to the north as a suitable point for a Russian colony.

There he met the Kashaya , a division of the Pomo . The Kashaya lived on a 50 km wide stretch of coast that stretched from the Gualala River in the north to Duncan's Point , about six kilometers south of the mouth of the Russian River . One of the central points in the territory of the Kashaya was the village of Metini , in the immediate vicinity of which Fort Ross was to be built.

The food supply in the habitat of the Kashaya was diverse and ranged from mussels, fish and the marine mammals of the Pacific to deer, elk and a wide range of smaller animals. The menu was supplemented by nuts, berries, cereals, as well as tubers and roots. The Kashaya obtained sea salt for their own consumption and for trade. The Kashaya were particularly skilled at making baskets. In the oral tradition, the first Russians appear as undersea people . For them they were only an episode because they disappeared after three decades. Nevertheless, in the late 20th century, the elders were still able to describe how the Russians thrashed grain by driving horses over the spread out stalks, which were spread out on a prepared clay, later wooden floor.

In March 1812 Ivan Kuskow began building the fort with 25 Russians - many of them craftsmen - and around eighty natives of Alaska (mostly simply referred to as " Aleutians " by the Russians ). In construction, the Russian craftsmen followed the example of the traditional one Wooden building of Siberia .

On August 30th, the name day of Tsar Alexander I , the completion of the picket fence was celebrated with a special service. In the northwest and northeast corners of the palisade, wooden towers overlooked the area around the fort. Flagpoles with the flag of the Russian-American Company were erected in the middle of the fort and on the edge of the cliff facing the Pacific. Inside the palisades there were log houses for the residents of the fort.

Outside the fence, a windmill, a bakery, an orchard, a cemetery and farm buildings were built over the next five years.

Life in Fort Ross

A multiethnic community
Unangan in Baidarkas , their boats made of driftwood, bones and hides. Over the years, the Unangan who lived in Fort Ross gave up their headdresses and traditional costume and replaced them with Russian clothing. Drawing from 1827.

The population of the Russian colony was divided into four groups. Inside the fort lived the more privileged Russian employees of the trading company. Descendants of Russian men and indigenous women lived in a village west of the fort, as did the lower-ranking Russians. A small cluster of simple wooden huts stretched out towards the Pacific, in which the native inhabitants of Alaska, who had been recruited for hunting by the Russians, lived. The Kashaya lived in a small village northeast of the palisade fence and in other villages in the mountains above the fort.

The majority of the Alutiiq inhabitants of the colony consisted of Alutiiq , a people from southwestern Alaska. They came from the bay of Prince William Sound , from the Kenai Peninsula and from Kodiak Island . From the files of the Russian-American Company and from archaeological findings it is clear that in addition to the Alutiiq, Unangan , residents of the eastern Aleutian Islands , lived in Fort Ross. Both Alutiiq and Unangan were skilled seal and otter hunters and were initially only used to hunt marine mammals. In later years they were also used for any form of hard work. For example, they worked as coopers , tanners, carpenters, hunters, fishermen and helped with the back of wood in areas where horses could not be used. In 1821 Ivan Kuskov asked his superior in Novo-Arkhangelsk for a special reward for five of his Aleut workers who had been working in the logging industry for years. The Aleutians, who had previously only been paid in clothes and shoes, received an annual salary of 100 rubles .

The relationship between the Russians and the Indians was remarkably tense compared to that between other foreigners in California and Indians. The Indians employed in Fort Ross were rewarded with flour, meat and clothing and were also given accommodation. Many of the Kashaya learned the Russian language and a number of Russian expressions found their way into the language of the Indians.

The Russians had brought Alaskan males almost exclusively to Fort Ross. The resulting shortage of women led to the formation of numerous communities between the Aleutians and the local Kashaya. According to a census carried out by Ivan Kuskov , founder of Fort Ross, in 1820, of 56 female Kashaya, 43 lived with men from Kodiak Island. The counts of 1820 and 1821 show that a total of 28 children emerged from these connections.

Religion at Fort Ross
Bell in front of the Orthodox Church at Fort Ross

Religion was an important aspect in the life of the Russian inhabitants of the colony. Between 1823 and 1824 the officers and men of three Russian ships donated money to build a chapel. This first Orthodox building south of Alaska is first mentioned for the year 1828 in the travelogue of the French captain Auguste Duhaut-Cilly ( Voyage autour du Monde. Principalement à la Californie et aux Iles Sandwich, pendant les années 1826, 1827, 1828, et 1829 , Paris 1834–1835) documented in writing. The chapel was used by the settlers for common prayer, but was never consecrated as a church (if only because no priest was permanently assigned to it).

In the summer of 1836 the missionary and priest Ivan Weniaminow, later canonized as "Holy Innocent of Alaska", visited Fort Ross. During his five-week stay, he conducted baptisms, weddings, confessions, funerals and worship services. In his travel journal, Weniaminow puts the total number of people living in Fort Ross at 260, including 15 percent Indians who had adopted the Orthodox faith.

Agriculture and ranching
Drawing of the Chernykh Ranch from 1841. This is the only known representation of a Russian farm in inland California.

As early as 1816, the sea otter population declined due to overhunting. From 1820 at the latest, the Russian-American Company therefore paid more attention to agriculture and cattle breeding in Fort Ross. The hopes that the Russian settlement in California could secure the food supply in Alaska, however, were not to be fulfilled.

The reasons for the agricultural failures were varied. On the one hand, the usable land in the immediate vicinity of the settlement was too small and not sufficiently fertile. The fog, which frequently appeared at the heights of Fort Ross, also led to grain harvests that did not come close to meeting the company's expectations. In addition, the settlers lacked sufficient knowledge of how to cultivate the land effectively.

Only fruit and wine growing showed early success. The first peach tree was planted in 1814. Between 1817 and 1818 vines from Peru and other peach trees from Monterey were added. When the Russians withdrew in 1841, the orchard planted in the immediate vicinity of the fort included apple, peach, cherry and pear trees and grape vines.

Compared to the cultivation of grain, the Russian settlers achieved greater success in raising cattle. The livestock grew over the years to several thousand cattle, horses, donkeys and sheep and so whole shiploads of salted meat, wool, tallow, hides and butter could be sent to Alaska. In the last years of the colony, Russian livestock numbered 1,700 cattle, 940 horses and 900 sheep, all of which were in "excellent condition" according to a report by Frenchman Eugène Duflot de Mofras .

Shipbuilding, craft and trade

The forests around Fort Ross provided abundant material for the construction of ships. In 1817, Alexander Baranov , the chief administrator of the Russian-American Company, sent a shipbuilder from Novo-Arkhangelsk to Fort Ross. In the following years three briggs and a schooner were built under his direction . The ships had a payload of between 160 and 200 tons and cost between 20,000 and 60,000 rubles .

The travel notes of Kyril Khlebnikov , an employee of the Russian-American company, give detailed information about the shipbuilding at Fort Ross. Khlebnikov resided in Russian America between 1817 and 1832 , and his journals and notes are among the most important sources on the Russian colony in California. It is known from Khlebnikov's accounts why shipbuilding at Fort Ross was finally abandoned. He reports several times of problems with wood rot that settled in the ship's planks. The fungal attack finally took on such proportions that the larger ships could only be used in coastal traffic.

The production of other goods, however, was crowned with greater success. The tanning of animal hides in particular flourished. On the banks of the small river Fort Ross Creek , a tannery was built, in which an Aleut tanner made materials for shoes, boots and other leather goods. The production was so successful that in the late 1820s between 70 and 90 tanned hides could be shipped to Novo-Arkhangelsk every year.

In 1814, the settlers built California's first windmill on a hill near the fort; another mill processed more than 30 bushels of grain a day. A third mill was powered by human and muscle power. A Kashaya legend has it that the hair of one of her wives, which was still worn for a long time at that time, got caught in the gears and that she was killed by the grinder.

In the area of ​​trade, there had been contacts with the Spaniards living in the south since Resanow's trip to Yerba Buena. Although the Spaniards were officially prohibited from trading with strangers, the Spaniards sold the Russians grain, fruit trees, cattle and horses in the early years. As the Russian colony grew, the craftsmen at Fort Ross increasingly produced goods for which there was a demand on the Spanish side. The Russians sold axes, nails, tires, pots and longboats to the Spaniards and received grain, salt and other raw materials in return.

With the end of the Mexican War of Independence in 1821, the trade restrictions also came to an end. As a result, the Russians competed to a greater extent with the Americans and British. The maintenance of the Russian port in Bodega Bay partially made up for this. The Russian-American Company had storage rooms built here, and its port was open to all foreign flags.

Explorer and explorer at Fort Ross
Map of the coastline between Fort Ross and Tomales Point from 1817

A number of explorers and explorers came to Upper California while Fort Ross was serving as the trading post of the Russian-American Company . They used the fort as a stopover during their travels and as a starting point for work on zoology, botany, geography and ethnology.

In 1818, the Russian naval officer Vasily Mikhailovich Golownin came to Fort Ross as part of his circumnavigation. In his memoir, Golownin provides detailed descriptions of northern California's indigenous people and their culture.

In the early 1830s, the then chief administrator of the Russian-American Company, Ferdinand von Wrangel , promoted the scientific study of the flora and fauna of Russian America . During a trip in 1833, he also explored the possibilities of expanding the Russian possessions to the hinterland of Fort Ross. In this context, Wrangel led the first major anthropological study of the indigenous people in the Russian River region and the area around present-day Santa Rosa .

Among the later visitors to Fort Ross was the painter Ilya Vosnesensky , who stayed in Northern California for a year on behalf of the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences . Numerous drawings of the fort and the surrounding region come from his hand. In 1841 Vosnesensky was one of the participants in a voyage of discovery that advanced as far as the area of ​​today's Healdsburg . The first ascent of Mount Saint Helena , the highest point in today's Sonoma County, also succeeded . In the course of his travels inland, Vosnesensky put together an ethnologically significant collection of indigenous artefacts , which is now kept in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in Saint Petersburg.

The end of the Russian colony

Fort Ross in 1841. Drawing by Ilya Voznesensky . Here as a photograph in the Fort Ross visitor center.

In 1839 the Russian-American Company decided to give up Fort Ross. The decline in sea ​​otters since the mid-1830s made fur hunting uneconomical. The agricultural use of the colony had also not brought the desired success. Attempts to build ships had failed earlier, and the production of commercial products could not sufficiently make up for the deficits.

In addition, pressure from Mexican and American settlers had increased. In 1836 Ferdinand von Wrangel made one last attempt to improve relations with the young Republic of Mexico . During a visit to Mexico City , he campaigned for the recognition of Russian territorial claims in Upper California, but failed because of the demand that Russia should diplomatically recognize the Republic of Mexico in return.

In April 1839, the Russian Tsar Nicholas I finally agreed to the plan of the Russian-American Company to give up the Fort Ross base and withdraw from California. Alexander Rotschew , the last in command of Fort Ross, was charged with the dissolution .

Rotschew initially took up negotiations with the Canadian Hudson's Bay Company , but this turned down the offer in 1840. Then Rotschew turned to the French military attaché in Mexico City, Eugène Duflot de Mofras . After a visit to Fort Ross, Duflot also decided against buying it. Then Rotschew received the order to ask Mexico for an offer. But the Mexicans also refused - on the one hand, because they already viewed Fort Ross as being on their territory, and on the other hand, because they hoped that the Russians would withdraw from California without further intervention.

At the end of 1841 Rotschew finally got in touch with Johann August Sutter , a Californian landowner of Swiss descent. Sutter agreed to the purchase for the sum of 30,000 dollars and on January 1, 1842 the last Russian ship set sail from Bodega Bay for Novo-Arkhangelsk. The Russian engagement in California ended after around 30 years.

The time after the Russian-American company

Second half of the 19th century: agriculture and livestock

Fort Ross around 1865, earliest photo of Fort Ross and the bay in front of the fort

After the withdrawal of the Russian-American Company, a period began in which the lands around Fort Ross were mainly used for agriculture and cattle breeding. Until 1843 the fort and the associated lands were managed by three different administrators on behalf of Johann August Sutter. The fourth manager, Wilhelm Benitz from Baden in Germany, initially worked for Sutter before leasing Sutter's parts of the land in autumn 1843 together with his partner Ernest Rufus from Württemberg . In 1849 Benitz and Rufus added 17,760 acres to the northern part of the former Russian estate, which had been sold to Manuel Torres by the Mexican government in 1845. After a few years Rufus and Benitz separated; Benitz entered into a new partnership with Charles Meyer - but from then on the property essentially belonged to Benitz.

Benitz's company proved extremely successful. The freight books of the time list a wide variety of agricultural products being shipped from Fort Ross. Cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, hides, potatoes, apples, oats, barley, eggs, butter, ducks and pigeons were sold on behalf of Benitz in markets in Sonoma and Sacramento. For the production, Benitz used the indigenous Kashaya, who were obliged by the American government to work on the ranch for 8 dollars a month. In 1848, 162 Kashaya still lived around Fort Ross.

With the beginning of the American Civil War , Benitz got increasingly into economic difficulties. He sold parts of his property until 1867, then went to Argentina, where he ran a cattle farm on an estancia . His successors were the Irish mill builder and woodcutter James Dixon and the Virginia native Charles Snowden Fairfax. Dixon built a mill at Fort Ross Creek and a large loading ramp northwest of the small, Fort Ross cove. It is not known whether Fairfax ever came to Fort Ross.

Ships in the Fort Ross upstream bay (before 1900). On the right you can see the large loading ramp built by James Dixon.

Dixon was primarily interested in the forestry use of the lands around Fort Ross. Since he had no use for the kashaya, he sent her away. In the early 1870s they moved permanently to their previous winter quarters in Huckleberry Hills and Abaloneville.

By 1873 Dixon had cleared large parts of his property. He sold parts of the land and settled further north on the coast. His partner Charles Snowden Fairfax had died unexpectedly in 1869 at the age of 40. After 1873, other parts of the Fort Ross lands were sold to dairy farmers.

The largest part, around 7,000 acres including the fort, was bought by Ohio native George W. Call. He followed the same management strategy as Wilhelm Otto Benitz and concentrated on agriculture and cattle breeding. Together with his coming from Chile Ms Mercedes Leiva and four children lived in the first call after Alexander Rotschew , the last Russian commander of Fort Ross, named Rotschewhaus . In 1878 Call built a house for his family in the northwest of the bay and converted the Rotschewhaus into a hotel. The orthodox chapel, built by the Russians, was used for weddings, in winter also as a horse stable or for storing apples. Outside the picket fence, the calls set up a post office and a shop. The post office was in operation until 1928, with the shop not closing until the early 1960s.

One of George W. Call's most successful ventures was the production of butter, which was in great demand in San Francisco. Between 1875 and 1899, an average of 20,000 pounds of butter was loaded and shipped in Fort Ross harbor annually. In addition, the calls expanded the orchard planted by the Russians, which is still part of Fort Ross State Park today.

Fort Ross State Historic Park

Fort Ross after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake

In 1903, George W. Call sold approximately 21 acres of his estate, including Fort Ross and the adjoining buildings, to the California Historical Landmarks League . This transferred it to the State of California in 1906 .

Less than a month later, Fort Ross buildings were badly damaged in the 1906 earthquake. It took ten years before money was available for rebuilding.

In 1928, Fort Ross was listed as one of five historic buildings on the California State Historic Site List . In 1936, a small group of Russian-born Americans began publishing newspaper articles on the history of Fort Ross under the name Initiative Group for the Memorialization of Fort Ross . Fort Ross was a special attraction for the community of Russian-born Americans in California, which grew rapidly after the February Revolution of 1917 : it stood for the lost homeland and thus became a focal point of their cultivation of Russian culture. To this day they celebrate American Independence Day in Fort Ross.

In 1961, Fort Ross was designated a National Historic Landmark , the highest federal listed status. The following year, Fort Ross State Park was established as a California state park . On October 15, 1966, Fort Ross was added to the National Register of Historic Places as a monument . In 1970, the Kuskowhaus was the only originally preserved component to be declared a National Historic Landmark . In 1972 California State Route 1 (also: Highway One ), which up to this point still ran across Fort Ross, was relocated to the east.

A Citizens Advisory Committee was established in April 1972 under the direction of State Park Director William Penn Mott, Jr. This body was made up of local citizens, Americans of Russian descent and Kashaya Pomo and until 1990 supervised the reconstruction of the fort on a voluntary basis.

In July 1985 the new Fort Ross Visitor Center was inaugurated. The cost of $ 800,000 was partly raised by private donors. With the onset of glasnost , more and more Russian visitors came to Fort Ross State Historic Park . At the same time, a period of increased cultural exchange and increased scientific involvement with Fort Ross began.

Fort Ross today

Fort Ross, a Russian fort in California / Fort Ross Living History Day, July 31, 2010 (2 minutes 47 seconds, 12 MB)

The palisade

The palisade around Fort Ross has not been preserved in its original state. As early as 1833, the Mexican military commander of Northern California, Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo , wrote that the fort's walls could not withstand any cannonball - regardless of the caliber. Photographs from the years after 1865 show that already at that time large parts of the palisade had fallen into disrepair. In 1929 the eastern, southern and parts of the western palisade wall were renewed. After an archaeological dig in 1953, the western and eastern palisades were completed. In 1974 the enlistment was finally completely closed again.

The two Towers

One of the wooden towers as seen from the outside of the palisade

In the north-western corner of the palisade facing the sea and opposite, in the south-eastern corner, there are two wooden towers today. They are replicas of the original towers, which were badly damaged in the 1906 earthquake and later demolished. The northwest (heptagonal) tower was rebuilt in 1950 and 1951 using Russian carpentry techniques. The condition of the southeast (octagonal) tower dates from 1956/57. Originally the towers were armed with cannons and served to defend the fort.

The old department store

The modern reconstruction of the Russian department store (completed in 2012)

The two-story department store (English Old Magasin ) was used to store and sell goods. The modern reconstruction of the building was completed in 2012, making it the youngest structure in the fort's ensemble. During archaeological investigations in 1981, the excavators found small glass beads, which presumably fell through cracks in the wooden floor and from which the archaeologists found the earlier one Location of the building closed. The exhibition, now housed in the old department store, introduces visitors to the history of the fort's trading goods.

The Kuskow House

The modern reconstruction of the Kuskow House (completed in 1983)

The so-called "Kuskov House" (English. Kuskov House ) served the first commandant, Ivan Alexandrowitsch Kuskow , as quarters. It is one of the first buildings to fall into disrepair after the Russian-American company left. Today's Kuskowhaus was reconstructed in the 20th century according to plans from 1817 and completed in 1983. The lower floor consists of storage rooms and the upper floor of living rooms. From the upper floor the residents could watch all incoming ships. A room on the upper floor is modeled after the study in which the Russian naturalist Ilya Vosnesensky spent his time at Fort Ross in 1841.

The quarters of the company employees

Today's replica of the house of the company employees

The quarters of the company employees were housed in a house that was probably one of the first buildings to be erected within the fort. The modern reconstruction of the house was completed in 1981. It includes a storage room, a wood workshop, a metal workshop, a prison room, several bedrooms and a dining room with an attached oven for baking bread. The furnishings of the rooms today do not necessarily reflect their original use.

The Russian chapel

The reconstruction of the Russian chapel from 1973

The striking and for North America very unusual Russian wooden chapel is one of the most photographed buildings of Fort Ross today. The original building was built in 1825 with the help of the Russian residents of the fort and the crew of the Kreiser ship . In the earthquake of 1906 the walls of the chapel collapsed completely; the roof and the towers were preserved. In the spring of 1916, the California state donated $ 3,000 for the reconstruction. Wood from a warehouse and from the quarters of the company employees was used for the reconstruction. During the reconstruction, parts of the architecture were changed, and from 1955 onwards, the building condition was finally brought into line with the original condition as part of a renewed restoration measure.

On October 5, 1970, the chapel was completely destroyed by fire. 1971 to 1973 the chapel lost its status as a historic landmark at short notice , but donations from locals, Russian-born Americans and government agencies made it possible to rebuild it. The current building was erected on the basis of historical and archaeological studies in 1973 and - as far as possible - reflects the original condition of the chapel.

The Rotschewhaus

The Rotschewhaus

The so-called "Rotschewhaus" (English. Rotchev House ) is the only building of Fort Ross largely preserved in its original state. It was renovated in 1836 for the fort's last Russian commander, Alexander Rotschew , on the basis of an earlier building. In an inventory from 1841 it is referred to as the “new commandant's house” - presumably to distinguish it from the Kuskow house or “old commandant's house”.

In Rotschev's time the house was comfortably furnished. In a report from 1841, the French Eugène Duflot de Mofras counts a selected library, French wines, a piano and a Mozart score among the furnishings. All of this disappeared with the withdrawal of the Russians in 1841/42.

literature

swell

  • The Khlebnikov archive. Unpublished journal (1800–1837) and travel notes (1820, 1822, and 1824) , edited by Leonid Shur, translated by John Bisk, Fairbanks 1990, ISBN 0-912006-42-0 (Kyril Chlebnikov's travel journals and notes are an important one Source for the history of Russian settlements in California. The travel notes contain descriptions of geography, flora, climate and the people of Fort Ross and Bodega, as well as detailed information on shipbuilding at Fort Ross and the trade of the Russian-American Company ).
  • А. А. Истомин, Жамес Р. Гибсон, Валерий Александрович Тишков: Россия в Калифорнии: русские документы о колонии Росс и российско-калифорнийских связях 1803-1850 . 2 volumes, 2005

Representations

  • Lyn Kalani, Lynn Rudy, John Sperry (Eds.): Fort Ross , Jenner, CA 2001, ISBN 1-56540-355-X .
  • Peter Littke: From the tsar's eagle to the stars and stripes. The History of Russian Alaska , Magnus, Essen 2003, ISBN 3-88400-019-5 .
  • Kent G. Lightfoot, Thomas A. Wake, Ann M. Schiff: The Archeology and Ethnohistory of Fort Ross, California , Contributions to the University of California Archeological Research Facility, 1991. A fundamental work that was created in cooperation with the Pomo.

Web links

Commons : Fort Ross  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ State Park System Statistical Report 2016/17 [1]
  2. ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: California. National Park Service , accessed July 29, 2019.
  3. ↑ Stephen Watrous, Outpost of an Empire. Russian Expansion to America , in: Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, pp. 2–5, here p. 2.
  4. ↑ Stephen Watrous describes Baranow as the "main architext of Russia's southward expansion". Watrous, Outpost of an Empire. Russian Expansion to America , in: Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, pp. 2–5, here p. 3.
  5. ^ Watrous, Outpost of an Empire. Russian Expansion to America , in: Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, pp. 2–5, here p. 4.
  6. ↑ On the Kashaya cf. Otis Parrish, The First People , in: Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, pp. 6f. and passim.
  7. ^ Folk Tales of the Kashaya
  8. ↑ See David F. Murley, Native Alaskans , in: Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, pp. 8-10, here p. 8.
  9. ↑ David F. Murley, Native Alaskans , in: Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, pp. 8-10, here p. 9.
  10. ↑ David F. Murley, Native Alaskans , in: Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, pp. 8-10, here p. 10.
  11. ↑ Stephen Watrous, Fort Ross. The Russian Colony in California , in: Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, pp. 11-20, here p. 13.
  12. ↑ Quoted here from Stephen Watrous, Fort Ross. The Russian Colony in California , in: Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, pp. 11-20, here p. 14.
  13. ↑ Stephen Watrous, Fort Ross. The Russian Colony in California , in: Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, pp. 11-20, here p. 14.
  14. ↑ As early as October 1822, Khlebnikov speculated that the ship under construction at the time might be the last to be built in Fort Ross. Leonid Shur (ed.), Khlebnikov archive , Fairbanks 1990, p. 96 (No. 5).
  15. ↑ Stephen Watrous, Fort Ross. The Russian Colony in California , in: Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, pp. 11-20, here p. 15.
  16. ↑ For the following cf. Stephen Watrous, Fort Ross. The Russian Colony in California , in: Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, pp. 16-18.
  17. ↑ Stephen Watrous, Fort Ross. The Russian Colony in California , in: Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, pp. 19f.
  18. ↑ see Clarence John Du Four: The Russian Withdrawal from California. In: California Historical Society Quarterly Vol. 12, No. 3 (September 1933), p. 244 jstor.org
  19. ↑ Stephen Watrous, Fort Ross. The Russian Colony in California , in: Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, p. 20.
  20. ↑ Cf. on this and the following After the Russian-American Company , in: Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, pp. 21-26.
  21. ^ A b After the Russian-American Company , in: Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, p. 23.
  22. ^ After the Russian-American Company , in: Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, p. 24.
  23. ↑ Maria Sakovich, Partners in Preservation , in Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, p. 27f., here p. 28.
  24. ↑ a b National Park Service - National Historic Landmarks Program: Listing of National Historic Landmarks - California (Status: 2015; PDF file; 32 kB)
  25. ↑ Entry in the National Register Information System . National Park Service , accessed May 21, 2016
  26. ↑ On this and the following cf. Maria Sakovich, Partners in Preservation , in: Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, p. 27f., here p. 28.
  27. ↑ Quoted here from Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, p. 30.
  28. ↑ On this and the following cf. The Old Magasin on the Fort Ross Conservancy website, last accessed December 25, 2016.
  29. ↑ Fort Ross Magasin on the California Department of Parks and Recreation pages, last accessed December 25, 2016.
  30. ↑ See Kalani [and a.], Fort Ross, p. 32.
  31. ↑ a b Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, p. 33.
  32. ↑ a b Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, p. 34.
  33. ↑ Fort Ross Chapel. Jenner, Sonoma County, California , National Historic Landmarks Program
  34. ↑ So Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, p. 36.
  35. ^ "Choice library, French wines, a piano, and a score of Mozart", quoted here from Kalani [u. a.], Fort Ross, p. 36.
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on October 31, 2010 in this version .