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© 2013 Phi Alpha Theta

THE FIRST RUSSIAN

SETTLERS IN ALASKA1
A N D R E I V. G R I N Ë V

The history of the Russian colonies in Alaska in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries continues to attract the attention of researchers. However, the histori-
ography tells us little about the first Russian colonists in the New World, or
posel’shchiki (settlers) as they were called then. Only S.G. Fedorova briefly
touched upon this question in her works.2 In particular, she succeeded among
other things in finding a valuable archival document—the first list of Russian
settlers in Alaska. But she did not publish it, a deficiency this article remedies.3 The
topic has been more fully investigated in American historiography: A 1977 article
by Winston Sarafian provided, on the basis of archival documents, an in-depth

Andrei Val’terovich Grinëv is a Doctor of Historical Sciences and Professor in the History
Department at St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University, St. Petersburg, Russia.
Andrei Val’terovich Grinëv (Grinyov) was born July 4, 1960, in Barnaul (Altai, West Siberia).
In 1978–1983 he was a student of Altai State University and then ended the post-graduate
course at Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology in Moscow (1986). Now he is a
Doctor of Historical Sciences and Professor in the History Department at St. Petersburg
State Polytechnic University, St. Petersburg, Russia. He is author of The Tlingit Indians of
Russian America, 1741–1867, which was published in Russian in 1991 and translated into
English by Dr. Richard L. Bland for publication by the University of Nebraska Press in
2005. He also wrote a significant part of the three-volume monograph Istoria Russkoi
Ameriki (1732–1867), published in Russian between 1997 and 1999, as well as the encyclo-
pedic dictionary Kto est’ kto v istorii Russkoi Ameriki (Moscow: Academia, 2009), and
more than 100 scientific articles, which were published in the USA, Russia, Germany, Austria,
and Japan.
1. An earlier version of this article was published in Russian as A.V. Grinëv, “Pervye Russkie
Poselentsy na Aliaske,” Klio 2, 2001, 52–65. It has been translated into English by Dr.
Richard L. Bland of the Museum of Natural and Cultural History of the University of Oregon
in Eugene, Oregon.
2. S.G. Fedorova, Russkoe naselenie Aliaski i Kalifornii (konets XVIII veka-1867 g.), Moscow:
Nauka, 1971, 117, 119, 157; K.T. Khlebnikov, Russkaia Amerika v “zapiskakh” Kirila
Khlebnikova. Novo-Arkhangel’sk, ed. S.G. Fedorova, Moscow: Nauka, 1985, 224–5. Of
course, in the commentaries to the work of K.T. Khlebnikov, S.G. Fedorova allows an
inaccuracy, indicating Siberian exiles (I. Popov, V. Naplavkov, and others) among the
“posel’shchiki” in America who were not American colonists in the full sense of the
word.
3. See Appendix 1; S.G. Fedorova, “Etnicheskie protsessy v Russkoi Amerike,” in E.S.
Markarian, ed., Natsional’nye protsessy v SShA, Moscow, 1973, 158–80: 161.
444 THE HISTORIAN

study of the life of the settlers in Russian America and their descendants in
1818–1823.4 Nevertheless, as Sarafian himself attested, too little information
about the settlers for the period 1794–1818 was at his disposal, and therefore he
was limited only to fragmentary information about them for that period. Lydia
Black’s Russians in America covered more ground, but she does not use a great
deal of Russian archival material, and her view of the relations between Russian
colonists and native Americans has been criticized as overly positive.5 This article
is designed to fill the gaps in Russian and foreign historiography to a certain
degree.
First, it is necessary to say a few words about Russian colonization of the New
World. It began after the Second Kamchatka Expedition of V.I. Bering-A.I.
Chirikov (1741–2), which discovered the southeast coast of Alaska and the
Aleutian and Commander Islands. Enterprising Siberian merchants and
promyshlenniki (hunters of fur-bearing animals) quickly set out to the lands
discovered east of Kamchatka with an abundance of valuable furs. Moving along
the Aleutian Island chain, they reached the southwestern extremity of Alaska by
the beginning of the 1760s. The first permanent Russian settlements in America
were founded between 1784 and 1786 by the well-known merchant G.I.
Shelikhov on Kodiak Island, located near the south coast of Alaska, and the Kenai
Peninsula.6 It was apparently at this time that he conceived vast plans for the
development of America, from the Bering Strait in the north to California in the
south. In 1787, having just returned from his expedition to the shores of the New
World, Shelikhov presented a “note” to the authorities of the Irkutsk Province in
which he requested for his company, “based on its choice, to give it 50 men from
among the exiles located in the provincial city of Irkutsk.”7 He suggested that
these Siberian exiles would help him successfully develop shipping and trade in the

4. W.L. Sarafian, “Alaska’s First Settlers,” Alaska Journal 3, 1977, 174–7. For a more recent
comprehensive American account, see Lydia Black, Russians in America, 1732–1867,
Fairbanks, AK: U. of Alaska P., 2004.
5. See Black, Russians in America. For some of the criticism, see A. A. Znamenskii, rev. of
Russians in Alaska, 1732–1867 by Lydia Black, Slavic Review 2, 2006, 372–3; and Sergei
Kan, rev. of Russians in Alaska, 1732–1867 by Lydia Black, Russian Review 1, 2005, 127–8.
For a positive review, see Abraham Ascher, rev. of Russians in Alaska, 1732–1867 by Lydia
Black, International History Review 3, 2005, 595–7.
6. See G.I. Shelikhov, Rossiiskogo kuptsa Grigoriia Shelikhova stranstvovaniia iz Okhotska
po Vostochnomu okeanu k Amerikanskim beregam, ed. B.P. Polevoi, Khabarovsk:
Khabarovskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1972.
7. A.I. Andreev, ed., Russkie otkrytiia v Tikhom okeane i Severnoi Amerike v XVIII veke,
Moscow: OGIZ, 1948, 225.
FIRST RUSSIAN SETTLERS 445

Pacific Ocean. However, in spite of the support for their projects from the Irkutsk
governor and people in the central government, in 1788 Catherine II refused to
grant Shelikhov and his partner I.L. Golikov the trade privileges and advantages
of the treasury they had requested.8
In spite of this setback, Shelikhov energetically continued the business of
colonization of Russian America, persisting with further requests to the Siberian
authorities for assistance. Thus, in a “report” of 11 February 1790 to the Irkutsk
governor-general I. A. Pil’, he petitioned to obtain the right to purchase serfs for
his company, because “for purchasing people as sailors and for various establish-
ments and enterprises of our business our own serfs are necessary.”9 In the case
this petition was granted, the cunning merchant would have obtained an obedient
and almost free work force. For Shelikhov the benefit was evident since the
promyshlenniki, who were paid workers of his company, received by contract half
of all procurements of furs in America; consequently, they were interested only in
the fur trade, and to get them to do other work (as craftsmen, in the shipyards, or
at farming) was very difficult.
The Irkutsk governor-general reacted favorably to Shelikhov’s petition and
mentioned it in his report to the empress of 14 February 1790. In his opinion,
providing Shelikhov’s company the right to purchase serfs could help promote the
successful development of America and the establishment there of shipyards and
factories.10 However, no consent from the throne was given in 1790.
In 1793, Shelikhov and Pil’ renewed their petition, but changed tactics: instead
of the right to acquire serfs, which was a privilege of the nobility, they placed their
bet on an “administrative resource.” Thus, in a report to the government of 28
September 1793, the governor-general wrote about Shelikhov’s intention to con-
struct a shipyard on the American shore in the region of Cape St. Elias, in which
he explained that Shelikhov requested to be given several craftsmen together with
ten families of farmers. This latter group was to develop agriculture in Alaska and
the Kuril Islands. Those selected should be chosen from among the deportees
banished to Irkutsk Province. This time the empress met the desires of the
governor, and, on 31 December 1793, Pil’ was directed by imperial decree to

8. Andreev, ed., Russkie otkrytiia, 281–2. The reasons for the refusal of the Empress are
analyzed in the book by N.N. Bolkhovitinov, Rossiia otkryvaet Ameriku. 1732–1799,
Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1991, 183–6.
9. Andreev, ed., Russkie otkrytiia, 295.
10. Ibid., 313.
446 THE HISTORIAN

provide Shelikhov’s company with twenty craftsmen and ten families of farmers,
with the obligation of paying government taxes for them.11
The transmission by the royal government of its subjects into the hands of a
commercial company was not anything unusual: at the beginning of the eighteenth
century the state began to assign government serfs to state-owned factories, who
were then taken over by private owners. In the opinion of the eminent Russian
historian A. S. Lappo-Danilevskii, this amounted to the introduction of serfs in
businness enterprises, not just those run by the government but also those by
private company owners. Even voluntary craftsmen, who were attached “in
perpetuity” to a company, could fall into the “bonded” category.12 In a similar
way, based on a decree of 1722, each fifth government sailor was attached to a
merchant ship, with the traders owning the vessel being obliged to maintain them
at their own expense.
Nevertheless, the settlers provided to the company of Shelikhov-Golikov were
not serfs in the full sense of the word, as Sarafian correctly noted.13 It was not
possible to sell, mortgage, or give them away; they were owned by the company
only for the duration of its existence. Understanding this, Shelikhov tried to
strengthen his influence over the settlers by using (together with administrative
coercion) debt bondage, enslaving them financially. This corresponded well with
the traditions of the fur business in the Aleutian Islands formed during the second
half of the eighteenth century, when the majority of ordinary Russian
promyshlenniki were indebted contract workers of merchant companies that
outfitted hunting expeditions to the islands east of Kamchatka. The total amount
the settlers obtained from Shelikhov in goods and supplies was the impressive sum
of 12,930 rubles, 12.5 kopecks.14
The fate and status of the settlers were predetermined in significant measure by
an “authorization” of Pil’ of 11 May 1794.15 In it, he gave Shelikhov detailed
instruction for the organization of a special settlement in America where the new
colonists had to reside. The chief purpose of the future colony was the creation

11. Andreev, ed., Russkie otkrytiia, 321–3; A.I. Alekseev et al., eds, Russkie ekspeditsii po
izucheniiu severnoi chasti Tikhogo okeana vo vtoroi polovine XVIII v.: Sbornik
dokumentov, Moscow: Nauka, 1989, 316.
12. A.S. Lappo-Danilevskii, Russkaia promyshlennyia i torgovyia kompanii v pervoi polovinie
XVIII stolietiia, Istoricheskii ocherk, St. Petersburg: V.S. Balashev, 1899, 62–4.
13. Sarafian, “Alaska’s,” 174.
14. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Voenno-morskogo flota [The Russian State Archive of the
Naval Fleet, St. Petersburg], fond 198, opis’ 2, delo 79, listy 45–45oborot[verso].
15. Andreev, ed., Russkie otkrytiia, 324–36.
FIRST RUSSIAN SETTLERS 447

there of a self-sustaining, multi-faceted economy. To further strengthen it, Pil’

recommended to Shelikhov to teach native Americans to do agricultural work on
a voluntary basis. Intermarriage of the settlers with the local residents should also
be encouraged, “in order to have mutual relations between them.”16 For work in
the shipyard at the new settlement, Pil’ suggested attracting settlers with pay at 36
rubles per year. He, however, foresaw problems with discipline that might arise,
and therefore advised Shelikhov to adopt special measures “for observing peace
and tranquility in that area; in order that the mischief and insolence that might
sometime occur from these artisans and farmers sent to you there in that place be
prevented and suppressed.”17 As further experience showed, the governor’s
warning was by no means excessive, and his sanctioning of coercive measures with
regard to the settlers when deemed necessary permitted the manager of the
“Shelikhov” company in America, A. A. Baranov, not to stand on ceremony in
this respect.
In May 1794, Shelikhov obtained the future American colonists from the
authorities of the Irkutsk Province. Judging by the list of settlers preserved in the
archive, the local Irkutsk leadership reacted rather formally to the problem of
the development of Russian America.18 Thus, among the male settlers, a rather
noticeable number were of advanced age who could hardly adapt easily to the
severe conditions of Alaska (the average age of the men was just above 37). Some
“families” of the farmers being sent to America consisted of only a man, and the
total number of female settlers was almost a third the number of the men, that is,
twelve and 34, respectively. In addition, upon analysis of the list one is struck with
the almost complete absence of children (the total number of children was four),
in spite of the presence of twelve married couples and large families being
traditional in Russia at that time. All this made questionable any sustainable
demographic reproduction of the settlers in America and their transmission of
Russian culture and labor skills to subsequent generations.
Having obtained the settlers, Shelikhov quickly sent them to Okhotsk, from
where they were supposed to set sail to America. He laid out his plans in relation
to the settlers in a letter of 9 August 1794 to the manager of his Northeast-
American Company, A.A. Baranov. In it, Shelikhov wrote of the necessity to
establish a fort called St. Ekaterina and a settlement by the name of Slavorossiia

16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. See Appendix 1.
448 THE HISTORIAN

on the mainland shore south of Cape St. Elias, and to assign to them the craftsmen
and farmers, who would fall under the authority of the 30 Russian
promyshlenniki, while one hundred loyal Aleuts or Kad’yaktsi (Koniags, indig-
enous people from Kodiak Island) were to help and defend them against the local
natives at the beginning. So-called kaiury, slaves purchased or taken from the
natives, as well as amanaty (hostages), taken from the local Indians, could also
provide substantial aid to the settlers, in Shelikhov’s opinion.19 “Try to marry
settlers that are unmarried now to good [native] American girls,” Shelikhov wrote
to Baranov, “for which purpose I sent to you various things as gifts for their brides
and future wives, needed for clothing, which should be given for the wedding of
each who marries.”20 Shelikhov named I.G. Polomoshnyi the head of the future
colony—the latter had participated with him in the conquest of Kodiak—and then
returned in 1792 to Russia. For the development of agriculture in the future
colony Shelikhov sent Baranov a multitude of seeds of various plants as well as
livestock. In actively attracting craftsmen as settlers, he evidently planned to build
a shipyard there for the construction of ships.21
Shelikhov’s instructions on the whole repeated (with a few corrections) the
“order” of Pil’ of 11 May. In his account to the governor-general of 18 November
1794, Shelikhov reported that fulfilling his directions and the will of the govern-
ment, he had sent “forty-five settlers of both sexes” to the colonies on the ship Tri
Ierarkha. The ship left the Okhotsk port on 13 August 1794.22 In the spring of 1795,
the enterprising merchant sent four more families of settlers on the government
transport Sv. Aleksei for development of agriculture on Urup Island of the Kuril
chain.23 Due to possible hostility from the local residents (Ainu), as well as from the
Japanese, a party of 30 Russian promyshlenniki led by V.K. Zvezdochetov shielded
them. In this Kuril detachment, besides Russians (consisting of 35 men and two
women), there were also two Aleuts and one female Native.24 This expedition

19. See A. V. Grinëv, “The Kaiury: Slaves of Russian America,” Alaska History 2, 2000, 1–18;
See A. V. Grinëv, “Native Amanaty in Russian America,” European Review of Native
American Studies 1, 2003, 7–20.
20. Andreev, ed., Russkie otkrytiia, 336–53.
21. Ibid., 336–53.
22. Ibid., 354.
23. Four men and two women, see Appendix 1.
24. See V. O. Shubin, “Russkie poseleniia na Kuril’skikh ostrovakh v XVIII-XIX vekakh,” in
Russkie pervoprokhodtsy na Dal’nem Vostoke v XVII-XIX vv. [Russian Explorers in the Far
East in the 17th–19th Centuries], Vladivostok, RAN, 1992, 54–78: 60–3.
FIRST RUSSIAN SETTLERS 449

remained on Urup until the spring of 1805, when its leader Zvezdochetov died,
after which the remaining Russians moved along the islands of the Kuril chain to
Kamchatka. The life of the settlers in the Kuriles was hard, and in 1805 at least two
died on Urup.25 To establish extensive grain farming here through the efforts of six
colonists without support and regular connection with a population center was
entirely unrealistic.
The fate of the greater part of the settlers sent by Shelikhov to the New World
turned out more dramatically, if not to say tragically. This can be judged by a
document found in the Archive of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire: “Reg-
ister. On male and female settlers,” composed between 10 and 12 June 1798 by
the manager of the Northeast-American Company Baranov.26 By comparing this
valuable document with the first list of settlers for 1794, some striking discrep-
ancies appear. Thus, the age of several colonists, according to Baranov’s “regis-
ter,” was much higher than indicated on the 1794 list. For example, the craftsman
Ivan Shchukin and his wife Alena (Elena) were designated in 1794 as being 25 and
30 years old, respectively, while according to the “register” of 1798 both of them
were 50 years old; the farmer Ivan Trukhmanov “aged” in four years from 43 to
55. On the other hand, four people were “rejuvenated” by several years (Gerasim
Klokhtin and three women). Nevertheless, the main significance of the “register”
of 1798 consists not in making concrete the age characteristics of the settlers, but
in refining their biographies during life in the colonies between 1794 and 1798.
At the end of September 1794, the galliot Tri Ierarkha, which carried settlers,
arrived in Pavlov Harbor on Kodiak Island, which at this time was the main
settlement of Shelikhov’s company in America. En route the ship called at
Unalaska Island, where it left the sick elderly settler Dmitrii Molochkov, who died
on this Aleutian Island. This evidently was the first, but far from the last, loss
among the American settlers.27 The winter of 1794–5 on Kodiak was difficult for
them: the different climate, the food, the heavy work, and the severe conditions of
life led to discontent among the settlers. They began to secretly barter for furs
from the natives and refused to work for Shelikhov’s company or to obey
Polomoshnyi, the bookkeeper/official chief of settlers placed over them, and even
threatened to kill him. Though manager Baranov tried in vain to persuade them

25. P. A. Tikhmenev, Istoricheskoe obozrenie obrazovaniia Rossiisko-Amerikanskoi kompanii i

deistvii eia do nastoiashchago vremeni, St. Petersburg: E. Veimar, vol. 1, 1861, 110; ibid.,
vol. 2, 1863, Appendix, 228–30; Shubin, “Russkie poseleniia,” 62.
26. See Appendix 2.
27. See Appendix 2.
450 THE HISTORIAN

to be calm, the settlers conspired to arm themselves and seize a ship, on which they
intended to sail to their comrades in the Kuril Islands. A letter from Shelikhov’s
widow (he died in the summer of 1795), N.A. Shelikhova, to Count P.A. Zubov
of 22 November 1795, remarks how the settlers

. . . formed a conspiracy in which, with guns given to them for security from
savages [i.e., native Americans], when a ship moved to the shore, they were
going to seize it and set off to the Kuril Islands, and one among them was
selected as the navigator. They already had three guns with supplies; but the
head of the company discovered their conspiracy; the three main culprits,
according to the directives in the local Commander-in-Chief’s instructions
[i.e., according to the “order” of I. A. Pil’ of 11 May 1794], were punished
with flogging and sent to separate artels and in this way their undertaking
weakened.28

One of them, Savelii Stolbtsov, died in the Karluk artel in 1796.

After this punishment the settlers grew quiet. In winter and spring of
1795, in accordance with the wishes of the leadership, seven of them were
married to baptized Koniags. Later still, three more settlers married indigenous
Americans; some women already had children from previous marriages or
relationships.29
Initially, Baranov intended to have his people settle in the regions of the Kenai
Peninsula and Prince William Sound.30 Besides settlements of the “Shelikhov”
company, fortified outposts were located there of the company of the Yakutsk
merchant P.S. Lebedev-Lastochkin, whose promyshlenniki were the chief com-
petitors of the “Shelikhov people” in Alaska. But since, in a letter of the deceased
Shelikhov, it was recommended that the territory to the south along the mainland
coast be occupied, Baranov decided to establish the colony of Slavorossiia near
the large Yakutat Bay, the vicinity of which was inhabited by Eyak and Tlingit
Indians. The manager was encouraged to occupy places southeast of Kodiak both
for political reasons (the penetration into this region by British maritime traders

28. Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi imperii [Archive of Foreign Affairs of the Russian
Empire, Moscow], fond Glavnyi Arkhiv II-3, 1787–1796 gg., opis’ 34, delo 1, list 16 [from
here, references to this archive’s documents indicated as AVPRI, f. GA II-3, 1787–1796 gg.,
op.34, d.1, l.16]; see also Tikhmenev, Istoricheskoe obozrenie vol. 2, Appendix, 95. Platon
Zubov (1767–1822) was Catherine the Great’s favorite at the time.
29. See Appendix 2.
30. AVPRI, f. GA II-3, 1787–1796 gg., op.34, d.1, l.15ob.
FIRST RUSSIAN SETTLERS 451

who bought up furs from the Indians), and the desire to outstrip the competing
“Lebedev people” in seizing new hunting grounds along the Northwest Coast of
America.
An expedition for the establishment of a new colony set off in summer of 1795
in two ships: the primary part of the settlers, led by G.I. Polomoshnyi, left Kodiak
on the galliot Tri Ierarkha under the command of navigator G.L. Pribylov; two
other settlers (one of them with his wife) were on the small, one-mast sailing-
rowing ship Ol’ga, commanded by Baranov himself, who had decided to person-
ally investigate the American coast. Arriving in Yakutat on 8 August, the manager
did not find Pribylov there with Polomoshnyi. Nevertheless, he made a solemn
procession (according to a scenario that had been laid out in one of Shelikhov’s
letters) with the Russian flag and coat of arms, the twenty promyshlenniki who
were with him marching with rifles and falconets, conducting military exercises.31
Under a three-gun salute from rifles and cannons, the surrounding territories were
declared possessions of the Russian Empire. This was announced to the local
Tlingit, who after long negotiations agreed to the construction of a colony on their
lands. The chief of the Yakutat people accepted the copper Russian coat of arms
and gave one of his sons as an amanat hostage. In his place, Baranov left Yakutat
to spend the winter among the Tlingit, with five promyshlenniki, all the settlers he
had brought with him, three Koniag, and a female Aleut interpreter under the
leadership of a non-commissioned officer of the Corps of Mining Engineers,
Dmitrii Tarkhanov.32
Having waited in vain until 15 August for the galliot with the other settlers,
Baranov set off farther to the south, where he studied the northern part of the
Alexander Archipelago and traded with the local Tlingit (whom the Russians
called “Koliuzhi” or “Koloshi”). On the shores of several islands, the manager
raised several wooden crosses with inscriptions indicating that those places
belonged to the Russian Empire. On the return trip, he wanted to make a stop at
Yakutat, but strong fall storms did not permit Baranov’s boat to approach the
shore. In October, the manager’s shebek reached Pavlov Harbor with great
difficulty (“to extremes,” as Baranov wrote).33

31. Falconets are small light cannons, trans.

32. AVPRI, f. RAK, op.888, d.121, l.10 ob.; A. V. Grinëv, “Zabytaia ekspeditsiia Dmitriia
Tarkhanova na Mednuiu reku,” Sovetskaia etnografiia 4, 1987, 88–100: 91 (see for a
translation, A. V. Grinëv, “The Forgotten Expedition of Dmitri Tarkhanov on the Copper
River,” Alaska History 1, 1997, 1–17).
33. AVPRI, f. RAK, op.888, d.121, ll.11–11ob.
452 THE HISTORIAN

The reasons for the non-arrival of the galliot with settlers in Yakutat in 1795
evidently lay in party leader Polomoshnyi’s fear of the militant Indians who
inhabited the vicinity of the bay. In June of that year a hunting party of several
hundred baidarkas of dependent natives (Koniag, Aleuts, Chugach Eskimos, and
Tanaina Indians) under the leadership of E. Purtov and M. Kondakov encoun-
tered the extreme hostility of those Indians.34 This party had been sent by Baranov
to hunt sea otters along the American coast from Kodiak to Lituya Bay. On the
return trip, hunting party members encountered Pribylov’s ship with the settlers in
Prince William Sound and reported to the Russians the panicky rumors about the
bloodthirsty Yakutat Tlingit. Pribylov and Polomoshnyi decided not to go to
Yakutat, instead going to Fort Konstantinovskii on Nuchek (Hinchinbrook)
Island allegedly for replenishing supplies of fresh water and then from there
returned to Kodiak without Baranov’s sanction. Naturally, the manager was
extremely dissatisfied with the breakdown in his plans for the creation of a new
Russian colony at Yakutat.35
Having returned to Kodiak, the settlers spent the winter there “with many
squabbles between them and Mr. Polomoshnyi,” according to Baranov.36 During
the course of the severe winter of 1795–6, three of them died on Kodiak.37 In the
spring of 1796, the manager placed three families of settlers on the Kenai Peninsula
between Fort Aleksandrovskii, which belonged to the Shelikhov company and Fort
Nikolaevskii, occupied by promyshlenniki of Lebedev-Lastochkin’s company. The
“Shelikhov” settlers quickly found a common language with the “Lebedev people”
and they did almost nothing the whole year, living through trade with the last of the
goods provided to them by Polomoshnyi. Only in the second year did a few turnips
and radishes grow in the gardens laid out by the settlers, but the ears of cereal plants
perished from cold and fog. Finally, the “Lebedev people,” evidently having ceased

34. A baidarka is a sort of kayak.

35. Ibid. ll. 2, 12; K.T. Khlebnikov, Zhizneopisanie Aleksandra Andreevicha Baranova,
Glavnago Pravitelia Rossiiskikh kolonii v Amerike, St. Petersburg: Morskaia tipografiia,
1835, 28–30; N.N. Bolkhovitinov, ed., Istoriia Russkoi Ameriki (1732–1867), vol. 1,
Moscow: Mezhdunarodnaia otnosheniia, 1997, 180–2. Some authors erroneously indicate
that Baranov left 30 people in Yakutat, others write that Pribylov delivered a group of
Russian settlers here in 1795, still others that the settlement of Slavorossiya was established
in this year (see for example Tikhmenev, Istoricheskoe obozrenie, vol. 1, 53; I.P. Magidovich
and V.I. Magidovich, Ocherki po istorii geograficheskikh otkrytii: geograficheskie
issledovaniya Novogo vremeni (seredina XVII-XVIII v.), Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1985,
229: 3; J.R. Gibson, Otter Skins, Boston Ships, and China Goods. The Maritime Fur Trade
of the Northwest Coast, 1785–1841, Seattle, WA: U. of Washington P., 1992, 13).
36. AVPRI, f.RAK, op.888, d.121, ll.12–12 ob.
37. See Appendix 2.
FIRST RUSSIAN SETTLERS 453

obtaining goods from the settlers, decided to oust them from their place. In
Baranov’s words, the promyshlenniki of the Lebedev company “created various
obstacles for acquisitions and attempts at cultivation of cereals and growing
vegetables, hindering in all kinds of disgraceful ways, crushed plants and did nasty
things, finally, even cutting off and taking the creek, which was there under them.”38
In addition, the “Lebedev people” beat the “Shelikhov” promyshlenniki sent to the
settlers for assistance and did not allow them use of a fish trap set in the stream by
the small community of settlers during salmon spawning. Therefore, wrote
Baranov, “there was nothing more to do than to become distanced from the fray
and take thence entirely the settlement without proper trial in growing.”39 After
liquidation of the settlement on the Kenai Peninsula, one of the settlers led the party
and spent the winter on Kodiak, while another died at Fort Aleksandrovskii.
In the spring of 1796, Baranov decided to fulfill the will of G.I. Shelikhov no
matter what and establish a fort and settlement at Yakutat. The necessity of this
step was dictated both by political considerations (securing for Russia this area of
the American coast) and by economic considerations: a base for rest and equip-
ping baidarka flotillas was necessary for Russia after advancing south into the
straits of the Alexander Archipelago, rich in sea otters. In order to fulfill this task
the manager again sent a large hunting flotilla of 450 two-man baidarkas of
dependent natives (that is, the party contained about 900 indigenous hunters) to
the region of Yakutat and Lituya Bays under the protection of the brig Orel.
Almost simultaneously, the galliot Tri Ierarkha was again sent to Yakutat with
settlers for establishing a new colony there. The party and ship reached Yakutat
at the end of June. The Russians who had been left there the previous year under
the leadership of Dmitrii Tarkhanov had safely survived the winter among the
Indians, though they often had gone hungry.40
The wintering over of Tarkhanov’s party contributed to the establishment of
neighborly relations with the local Tlingit. In this regard, Baranov later wrote to
his assistant A.I. Kuskov: “In Yakutat I left eight [Russians]: but they remained
unharmed, and through it we now in perfectly friendly relations with the people
[Yakutat Tlingit] and thence better now receive company benefits. . . .”41

38. AVPRI, f.RAK, op.888, d.121, ll.12–12 ob.

39. Ibid.
40. Khlebnikov, Zhizneopisanie, 34–6; Grinëv, “Zabytaia ekspeditsiia,” 91–2.
41. Otdel rukopisei Rossiiskoi gosudarstvennoi biblioteki [Manuscript Division of the Russian
State Library, Moscow], f.204, k.32, ed.khr.3, l.9. [From here indicated as OR RGB, f.204,
k.32, ed.khr.3, l.9.]
454 THE HISTORIAN

In the middle of July, Baranov himself arrived. He personally toured the whole
vicinity of the bay and finally found a favorable place for a colony. Not far from
the shore, a fort was laid out, and at some distance from it, at the mouth of a small
stream, a settlement. Baranov preferred to give the latter a more modest name
than that previously suggested by Shelikhov. In this regard, he wrote, not without
sarcasm, to the settlers in 1796: “Your settlement is to be named Novorossiisk
[“New Russia”] and not Slavorossiisk [“Glory of Russia”], because You have
done nothing glorious.”42 He also sometimes used the adjective form of this name
to designate the fort (Fort Novorossiiskii) located nearby, though in the sources
and literature it is usually designated as the “fort at Yakutat” or simply
“Yakutat.”
The fort initially consisted of light wooden barriers (“obstacles”) and three
batteries surrounded by a rampart and a ditch, while the village domicile for the
settlers consisted of a mere hut with two attached barns, one of which was
fortified and had a battery of light cannons. A storehouse on posts for keeping
food (a “labaz” or “corn-dealer’s shop”), a blacksmith shop, a kitchen, a smoke-
house, a bath, and a barracks were built in the village as well.43 In the streams in
the vicinity of the settlement, two fish traps were placed. About 80 Russian
promyshlenniki and settlers and several dozen hunting-party natives left there by
Baranov to winter over for hunting for furs and stocking up on fish took part in
erecting this settlement. The Tlingit at this time did not disturb the settlers. In the
words of eyewitness F.A. Kashevarov, “the Koloshi didn’t at that time dare to
move against the Russians, but they occasionally seized party members and
intimidated them, although they soon returned them, satisfied [with their
browbeating].”44
After about two months into the construction in Yakutat, on 2 September
1796, Baranov sent the galliot Tri Ierarkha under the command of V.G.
Medvednikov with a cargo of 500 sea otter hides to Kodiak. The galliot did not
reach Pavlov Harbor: on 10 September, it wrecked in Kamishak Bay in Cook
Inlet, where it had been carried by a strong storm. With the shipwreck perished a
Russian promyshlennik, the settler Yakov Volchenkov as well as his wife

42. Arkhiv Russkogo Geograficheskogo obshchestva [Archive of the Russian Geographical

Society, St. Petersburg], razr.99, op.1, d.113, ll.26ob.-27.
43. Grinëv, “Zabytaia ekspeditsiia,” 92–3.
44. L.A. Sitnikov, “Materialy dlia istorii Russkoi Ameriki (“Otvety” Filippa Kashevarova),”
Novye materialy po istorii Sibirii dosovetskogo perioda, ed. N.N. Pokrovskii, Novosibirsk:
Nauka, 1986, 82–103: 94.
FIRST RUSSIAN SETTLERS 455

Avdot’ya and a female Tlingit interpreter.45 This was a common kind of loss for
the settlers, and by no means the last time.
On the day of Volchenkov’s shipwreck, Baranov set off in his vessel Ol’ga for
Kodiak, leaving 21 settlers with wives and children to stay the winter in Yakutat
under the leadership of Polomoshnyi, accompanied by 28 promyshlenniki, who
were led by S.F. Larionov, as well as several Koniag for hunting and work. The
winter of 1796–7 turned into a true tragedy for them: many became ill from
scurvy due to insufficient fresh food, as a result of which 13 promyshlenniki had
died by the spring, as well as seven men, one woman, and two children among the
other settlers.46 The situation was complicated by constant conflicts between
Polomoshnyi and the promyshlennik chief Larionov.47
In the summer of 1797, Baranov ordered twenty two-man baidarkas with 40
Koniag, from the flotilla who had returned from hunting in the straits of the
Alexander Archipelago, to reinforce the colony in Yakutat. The manager wanted
to personally visit Yakutat that year but was not able to because a visit to Cook
Inlet and Fort Konstantinovskii, abandoned in this year by the “Lebedev people,”
took priority.48 It was quickly occupied by Baranov’s people. Subsequently, the
aged settler Andrei Budantsov with his wife Ulita and child were transferred here
from the small settlement on the Kenai Peninsula. Baranov intended to send him
on to the other settlers in Yakutat but doubted that the sick old man could make
the trip. The manager wrote in 1798:

Some settlers, of whom now there remain fifteen men, besides Budintsov
[sic], who is so weak and old as to hardly be able to make it there [to
Yakutat] and now lies in Chugach [at Fort Konstantinovskii], having
become sick; even among those fourteen who are left in Yakutat from last
year, [1]797, many are sick and decrepit; the year scarcely will be without
decline; what can such a small number of the remaining settlers do in a place
surrounded by barbaric peoples, who live all over mainland America[?]49

In general, the colony at Yakutat did not provide any benefit for the company,
but on the contrary, required constant expense for maintenance. Far from

45. Sitnikov, “Materialy,” 95–8.

46. See Appendix 2.
47. AVPRI, f.RAK, op.888, d.121, l.12ob.
48. On the fate of the “Lebedev people” in America, see Bolkhovitinov, ed., Istoriia Russkoi, vol.
1, 1997, 154–55, 161, 164–71, 187–95.
49. AVPRI, f.RAK, op.888, d.121, l.13ob.
456 THE HISTORIAN

becoming the agricultural granary of Russian America, the colony itself needed
food, which was shipped there from Kodiak. This is not surprising: at 60° north
latitude only a few vegetables (potatoes, radishes, beets, turnips, and carrots)
could ripen. Therefore, the basic food of the settlers was fish, for the preparation
of which several dozen natives who had participated in the baidarka fleet that
hunted sea otters in the straits of the Alexander Archipelago were left in Yakutat
to spend the winter.
Since especially many promyshlenniki perished in the tragic winter of 1796–7,
Baranov was forced to dispatch four more for duty at garrison service there at the
Yakutat fort. By that time, the manager saw few prospects for the Novorossiisk
colony. The only reason for preserving it was the possibility of keeping furs there
and to provide a safe resting place for native party members on the annual trip to
the straits of the Alexander Archipelago. Baranov had little hope that trade with
the northern Tlingit in Yakutat could develop. Meanwhile, Russian colonists had
little to offer the Indians, considering the constant deficit of European wares in the
Russian colonies at that time.50
Again in 1798 Baranov did not succeed in visiting Yakutat: the suppression of
Tanaina Indians who rebelled against the “Lebedev people” and various eco-
nomic affairs did not permit the manager to inspect the Novorossiisk colony. He
had nonetheless received information about the unfortunate situation in the
Yakutat colony. In the fall of that year, he wrote to Kuskov from Pavlov Harbor
about the unabating conflict between the local leaders, in which, besides the
promyshlenniki and settlers, even the local Indians had become involved: “Neither
Polomoshnyi nor Larionov wanted to come here, and again both remained there
to be at odds and upset the establishment to my regret. . . . The Russians and local
people . . . are requesting, asking me to visit, to establish a better order there than
prevails at present.”51
Only in June 1799, sailing in his shebek Ol’ga to establish a new Russian
colony on Sitka (Baranof) Island, did Baranov visit Yakutat, where he found
“utter disorder in affairs and people” because of the discord of the local leader-
ship.52 The settlers, together with Larionov’s promyshlenniki and the Yakutat
people, brought a lot of complaints to the manager about Polomoshnyi, and upon
confronting him, according to Baranov, “incriminated him in many unjust and

50. Ibid., ll.15, 17.

51. OR RGB, f.204, k.32, ed.khr.3, l. 7.
52. Tikhmenev, Istoricheskoe obozrenie, vol. 2, Appendix, 140–1.
FIRST RUSSIAN SETTLERS 457

cruel acts, and dishonesty in the written reports.”53 The manager had no choice
but to replace Polomoshnyi at the post of head of the Novorossiisk colony,
assigning in his place the Kursk merchant Nikolai Mukhin.
P. A. Tikhmenev wrote about this occasion that:

Unfortunately, it should be said that the incessant disagreements between

the leader of the settlement and his subordinates and the inability to deal
with the natives impaired very much the Russians left in Yakutat. . . .
Though the replacement of Polomoshnyi calmed the general irritation for a
while, it failed to erase the bad impression produced on the Yakutat people
by the Russians remaining among them, which Shelikhov’s company keenly
felt afterward.54

On 30 June Baranov left an uneasy Yakutat and set off farther south to Sitka.
Polomoshnyi, now former chief of the settlers, tried to escape from the
Novorossiisk colony since he seriously feared for his life. In August, Polomoshnyi,
his family, and the relatives of his settler wife (Egor Markov’s family) were taken
aboard the brig Orël under the command of Lieutenant G.T. Talin, who had left
for Yakutat from Sitka, where Baranov was building Fort Mikhailovskii. In
Yakutat, Talin together with Polomoshnyi tried to persuade the settlers to collec-
tively denounce the heads of the company, Baranov, S.F. Larionov, and N.
Mukhin, to the government. Talin proceeded to take without authorization the
furs stored in Yakutat and sailed to Kodiak, but the Orël did not succeed in
reaching Pavlov Harbor: At Sukli (Montague) Island the ship was caught in a
storm and wrecked.55 Five people drowned—Polomoshnyi, his settler wife
Agrafena Markova, his son and daughter, and Agrafena’s sister Mariia, and all
the furs were lost to the sum of 22,000 rubles.
Seventeen-ninety-nine not only saw the replacement of the leadership of the
Novorossiisk colony and the founding of Fort Mikhailovskii on Sitka Island
recommended, but also the final formation of the monopoly of the Russian-
American Company (RAC), which emerged as a result of the merger of the N.A.
Shelikhova-I.L. Golikov company with the company of other Irkutsk merchants.
Baranov was assigned to head the so-called Kodiak Department, that is, the

53. Ibid.
54. Tikhmenev, Istoricheskoe obozrenie, vol. 1, 55.
55. OR RGB, f.204, k.32, ed.khr.4, ll.1–1ob.; Tikhmenev, Istoricheskoe obozrenie, vol. 2,
Appendix,140; Khlebnikov, Zhizneopisanie, 49–50.
458 THE HISTORIAN

Russian colonies in the territory of all of southern Alaska, including Yakutat, and
in 1802 was appointed governor of Russian America (actually taking the office in
April 1803).56
After laying the foundation for Fort Mikhailovskii on Sitka Island in 1799,
Yakutat lost its significance as the foremost Russian outpost in southeast Alaska
and ultimately turned into a staging base for hunting parties on their way from
Kodiak to the straits of the Alexander Archipelago. At least two settlers, the
“farmer” Aleksandr Golovin and blacksmith Gerasim Klokhtin, participated in
the construction of Fort Mikhailovskii together with Baranov and were left to
spend the winter on Sitka. In 1800 Golovin returned to Yakutat, while Klokhtin
remained in the new settlement and perished at the hands of the Tlingit Indians
during their seizure of Fort Mikhailovskii in June 1802.57
The settlers from the Novorossiisk settlement also took an indirect part in the
dramatic events that were unfolding at this time in southeast Alaska. Two of them
were taken along by the commander of a hunting party, Kuskov, when he set off
once more from Yakutat to Sitka in June 1802 (the first time Kuskov left Yakutat
in May, but after a battle with Indians at Dry Bay he had to go back). Having
learned on this trip of the destruction of Fort Mikhailovskii, Kuskov’s baidarka
flotilla hurried back to Yakutat, where they found a multitude of Tlingit gathered,
allegedly for a fishing expedition. According to K.T. Khlebnikov, the Indians
intended to fall upon the Russian fort and settlement in Yakutat that very night,
but the unexpected return of Kuskov’s party upset their plans and forced them
to give up the attack. Soon they dispersed to their own villages, and nothing
happened.58
The news of the destruction of Fort Mikhailovskii caused the settlers of
Yakutat to panic. Together with their leader Nikolai Mukhin, they demanded that
Kuskov immediately evacuate them to Kodiak, assuring him that they would be

56. See Khlebnikov, Zhizneopisanie, 74; Bolkhovitinov, ed., Istoriia Russkoi, vol. 2, 1999,
15–24, 37–40, 67.
57. P. N. Pavlov, ed. K istorii Rossiisko-Amerikanskoi kompanii, Krasnoiarsk: Krasnoiarskii
gosudarstvennyi arkhiv, 1957, 97, 105; Tikhmenev, Istoricheskoe obozrenie, vol 2., Appen-
dix, 179; A.V. Grinëv, Indeitsy tlinkity v period Russkoi Ameriki (1741–1867 gg.),
Novosibirsk: Nauka, 1991, 114–24 (see for a translation A. V. Grinëv, The Tlingit Indians
in the Russian-American Period [1741–1867], Lincoln, NE: U. of Nebraska P., 2005,
116–32).
58. K. T. Khlebnikov, “Pervonachal’noe poselenie russkikh v Amerike,” Materialy dlia istorii
russkikh zaselenii po beregam Vostochnago okeana, vol. 4 (appendix to Morskoi sbornik 4,
1861), St. Petersburg: Tipografiia morskago ministerstvo, 1861, 53; see also Pavlov, ed., K
istorii, 116–7, 119.
FIRST RUSSIAN SETTLERS 459

the next victims of the bloodthirsty Indians. However, the lack of a suitable ship
and Kuskov’s coaxing forced them to put off this undertaking. Kuskov left two
Russian promyshlenniki and 20 Koniag in Yakutat as reinforcements, while he
himself set off to Fort Konstantinovskii with the primary part of the party, from
where he proceeded to Baranov on Kodiak.59
Already in 1803, the governor of Russian America intended to start a military
campaign against the Tlingit, in an attempt to bring Sitka Island back under his
control. To this aim, he began to concentrate forces at Yakutat for an expedition
to the south into the straits of the Alexander Archipelago, which was populated
by the recalcitrant Indians. Baranov sent the galliot Sv. Aleksandr Nevskii to
Yakutat at the beginning of May, and he set off there himself on the shebek Ol’ga
not long after. In Yakutat, the governor met his assistant Kuskov, who was
returning with the baidarka flotilla after an unsuccessful hunt in the south.
Baranov wanted to turn Kuskov’s party back and join in the planned conquest of
Sitka, but Kuskov was able to talk the governor out of an inadequately prepared
military expedition.60 To succeed, more and better ships were necessary, which
Baranov clearly did not have. To improve this situation, he laid out two new small
ships in Yakutat, the Ermak and the Rostislav. Before his return to Kodiak,
Baranov substantially strengthened the garrison at the Yakutat fort and settle-
ment, leaving there under Kuskov’s command about a hundred Russians and
approximately as many party members, and male and female kaiury with instruc-
tions to finish building the ships in spring 1804.61
Kuskov coped successfully with the task. When Baranov arrived in Yakutat in
spring 1804 on the shebek Ol’ga, he was able to replace it with the newly built
boat Ermak, which became the flagship for his campaign to the Tlingit; she was
accompanied by the Rostislav, a boat of the same type, and a hunting party of 400
baidarkas with 900 Native party members. Meanwhile, the decayed Ol’ga was
solemnly burned in Yakutat, at the conclusion of peace between the Russians and
several groups of northern Tlingit.62
At the end of September 1804, Baranov’s forces, with the additional support of
the naval sloop Neva commanded by Yu.F. Lisianskii, successfully dislodged the
Tlingit from their fort on the western shore of Sitka Island and established a new

59. Pavlov, ed., K istorii, 112–7.

60. Khlebnikov, Zhizneopisanie, 75.
61. OR RGB, f.204, k.32, ed.khr.5, ll. 15–17 ob.
62. Khlebnikov, Zhizneopisanie, 78; Tikhmenev, Istoricheskoe obozrenie, vol. 1, 106.
460 THE HISTORIAN

Russian fort named Novo-Arkhangel’sk.63 It was located not far from the site of
the former Indian settlement. In 1808, Novo-Arkhangel’sk became the “capital”
of Russian America.
After spending the winter there, Baranov sent a party of 302 baidarkas
under Kuskov’s leadership from Novo-Arkhangel’sk into the straits of the
Alexander Archipelago in July 1805 to hunt sea otters. After its safe return to
Novo-Arkhangel’sk in August, Baranov sent a large part of the hunting flotilla,
led by T.S. Demyanenkov, to Kodiak, with orders to make a call at Yakutat.64
On the way there, a Tlingit told Demyanenkov that local Indians had destroyed
the fort and settlement at Yakutat. Approaching Yakutat at night, his own
observations confirmed the reports, and he decided not to land on hostile
shores and set off directly to Fort Konstantinovskii on Nuchek Island.
However, Demyanenkov did not reach it: he and all his people perished at sea
in a storm.
Since several works have already discussed this topic in detail, we will not
investigate here the Indian seizure of the Yakutat fort and settlement in 1805, but
will depict the fate of the Yakutat settlers.65 According to the calculations of N.P.
Rezanov, who went to Russian America, only nine families of settlers were left in
Yakutat in 1805 (in 1798 there were fifteen, not counting several widows and
children), as well as more than a dozen promyshlenniki, led by S.F. Larionov.66
According to official data for 1807 from the board of directors of the Russian-
American Company, during the tragedy in Yakutat 22 Russians with “faithful
islanders,” that is, kaiury and native residents, lived in the fort and settlement (for
a total of more than forty people). As a result of the Indian attack, fourteen
Russians “and with them also many [native] islanders” of the total population of
the Russian colony at Yakutat perished. Only four promyshlenniki and four
settlers with two women and three boys succeeded in escaping. These ran to the
northwest along the coast toward Fort Konstantinovskii, but were captured by

63. Yu.F. Lisianskii, Puteshestvie vokrug sveta na korable “Neva” v 1803–1806 godakh,
Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo geograficheskoi literatury, 1947, 148–63; for more
detail, see Grinëv, Indeitsy tlinkity, 133–7.
64. Khlebnikov, Russkaia Amerika v “zapiskakh”, 45.
65. See A.V. Grinëv, “Indeitsy eiaki i sud’ba russkogo naseleniia v Yakutate,” Sovetskaia
etnografiia 5, 1988, 110–20; A.V. Grinëv, “The Eyak Indians and the Fate of the Russian
Population in Yakutat,” European Review of Native American Studies 2, 1989, 1–6;
Bolkhovitinov, ed., Istoriia Russkoi, vol. 2, Moscow, 1999, 77–82.
66. AVPRI, f. Gl. Arkhiv I-7, 1802g., op.6, d.1, l.154; see Appendix 2.
FIRST RUSSIAN SETTLERS 461

Eyak Indians.67 They were evidently subsequently released by the Indians, perhaps
for ransom, for Baranov wrote in a letter that those settlers and native Americans
who fled to the Eyak safely reached Fort Konstantinovskii on Nuchek Island in
1806.68 Even earlier three (possibly six) Chugach, who had succeeded in escaping
from Yakutat during the massacre, managed to arrive at of Fort Konstantinovskii
in a baidarka and reported to its commander the catastrophe that had befallen the
Russian colony on 20 August 1805.69
The number of Russians and dependent natives who were saved from the
Indian attack at Yakutat was in fact even greater, since other survivors were
captured by the Yakutat Indians and Tlingit groups who lived to the south. To
help them, Baranov used the American skipper Oliver Kimball on the ship
Peacock. As Baranov reported in a letter of 14 November 1806 to Kuskov,
Kimball, tacking by the Tlingit settlement of Kaknau, was able to capture one of
the influential Tlingit chiefs, whom the Americans exchanged for “a Yakutat
female settler, who lived with the locksmith Isai [Shchepotkin],” and two Koniag
(a man and a woman). Kimball transported them to Kodiak.70 For his aid, the
American received twelve baidarkas from Baranov for hunting sea otters along the
California shores. Of course, at this time several people from the Yakutat colony
continued to still remain captives of the Tlingit: a certain “German” and the
settlers Luka Filipov and (Avdot’ia or Pelageia?) Ivanova, whom the Tlingit
confined quite “decently,” not “using them in work.”71
In 1807, Baranov intended to send the ship Sv. Aleksandr Nevskii to Yakutat
to rescue the remaining captives and property of the devastated colony still in
Indian hands. He tried to disguise his expedition by recruiting English and
Americans to join the crew and entrusting the command to the American John
Smith.72 According to the governor’s plan, Smith was supposed to lure the Indians
on board the ship for trade and then take them captive. If he caught the murderers
of the settlers, he was to deliver them in chains to Kodiak. Since the brig
Sv. Aleksandr Nevskii was unavailable for the campaign to Yakutat, Baranov

67. AVPRI, f. Gl. Arkhiv II-3, 1805–1824gg., op. 34, d.7, l.2; see also Tikhmenev, Istoricheskoe
obozrenie, vol. 2, Appendix, 278.
68. OR RGB, f.204, k.32, ed.khr.6, l.3ob.
69. Tikhmenev, Istoricheskoe obozrenie, vol. 2, Appendix, 195.
70. OR RGB, f.204, k.32, ed.khr.6, ll. 2–3 ob., 5ob.
71. Ibid.
72. Ibid., ll.10–14, 20.
462 THE HISTORIAN

substituted the ship Kad’yak under the command of Navigator N.I. Bulygin.
However, Bulygin’s expedition to Yakutat was unsuccessful: Baranov wrote
Kuskov on 24 March 1808 that the Russians failed to retrieve the cannons or
other property from the plundered fort and settlement.73 Furthermore, it turned
out that the settler Filipov had died in Indian captivity and that the Tlingit, fearing
the vengeance of the Russians for his death, did not return the settler Ivanova.
Nevertheless, apparently using the amanaty, Baranov was able to bring back
several other captives from Yakutat, which the RAC board of directors reported
to the emperor on 5 November 1809.74
The young son of Stepan Larionov, the commander of the Yakutat fort, Creole
(that is, a Mestizo) Dmitrii Larionov, continued to remain in Indian captivity. He
was not able to escape until 1819. Two of his older brothers—Andrei and
Ivan—had already been in the RAC service for several years by that time, although
their sister Pelageia and Indian mother continued to live among the Tlingit.75
Almost no information has been preserved about the fate of the surviving
Yakutat settlers from 1805 to 1818, because a substantial part of the materials of
“Baranov’s archive” was lost, in particular documents that covered this period.
Nevertheless, I have been able to unearth some information on the settlers and
their children before 1818 in AVPRI. Thus, the son of the settler (coppersmith)
Semën Krylatskii—Creole Sergei Krylatskii—is indicated in the list of Creoles for
1816.76 At this time he was 22 years old (he was born in 1795), had learned to
read and write, and had mastered arithmetic as well as navigation. He had two
sisters, of 17 and 5 years old, named Nadezhda and Avdot’ia. In the list another
Creole Krylatskii, Mikhail, is mentioned, who studied at the Novo-Arkhangel’sk
school: in 1816 he was eleven, and likely a sibling. Sergei Krylatskii worked as
a clerk in the Okhotsk office of the RAC in 1816. At this same time the son of
another settler, seven-year-old Pëtr Fëdorovich Balakin, studied “Russian reading
and writing and the Bible” at the Kodiak school.
Only five of the adult male settlers remained in the service of the Russian-
American Company in 1817. In a financial document of the RAC’s Okhotsk office
for 29 April 1817, which regarded the payment of poll taxes by “workers” who

73. Ibid.
74. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv [Russian State Historical Archive, St. Peters-
burg], f.13, op.1, d.287, l. 65.
75. For more detail see Grinëv, Indeitsy tlinkity, 322–3; A.V. Zorin, “Russkie plenniki Ameriki,”
Pervye amerikantsy. Indeitsy Ameriki: proshloe i nastoiashchee 8, 2001, 10–20: 15–7.
76. AVPRI, f.RAK, op.888, d.251, ll.7ob.-8, 12ob.-14.
FIRST RUSSIAN SETTLERS 463

were in the company service, among others, the “settlers of the Irkutsk district”
Semën Krylatskii, Ivan Shchukin, Stepan Kazantsev, Aleksandr Golovin, and
Fëdor Balakin are named. The state collected from each of them 20 rubles, 27
kopecks for the year 1817.77 Of them, Stepan Kazantsev was grouped under the
heading of the “Kuril Department” and probably resided in Okhotsk, while the
remaining “American” settlers lived on Kodiak. These were evidently the very
four settlers who succeeded in escaping from the Yakutat during the slaughter
of 1805.
In 1818, the management of Russian America was transformed: Captain-
Lieutenant L.A. von Hagemeister replaced the aged Baranov as governor of the
colony. From this year until the sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867, the
post of governor was occupied exclusively by officers of the Imperial Naval Fleet.
They established more rigorous discipline and accountability in the colonies.
Therefore, from this time onward we have rather complete information on the
settlers in America. In April 1818 two of them, the locksmith Ivan Shchukin and
coppersmith Ivan Krylatskii, submitted a petition to Hagemeister with the request
that they be released to go to Russia, a request they repeated a year later.78 The
directors of the company responded by claiming that they did not have the right
to return settlers to the homeland without government sanction which would be
sent to them in America through a formal decree. In addition, in the documents of
the RAC board of directors, together with Shchukin and Krylatskii, two more
“settlers” are indicated by mistake, Podomarëv and Sokolov, who were allegedly
given by the government to Shelikhov.79 They belonged to the category of Siberian
exiles who had been recruited to go to America, and not about American colonist
settlers proper.80
The settlers also lodged other complaints. On 22 April 1818, Shchukin com-
plained to Hagemeister about the former manager of the Kodiak office, I.I.
Banner, who had acquired Shchukin’s home on Kodiak for 200 rubles, which he
had subsequently resold to the navigator N.I. Bulygin for 565 rubles.81 Shchukin

77. AVPRI, f.RAK, op.888, d.235, l.4ob.

78. National Archives and Record Service, Washington, DC [from here: NARS], RG 261,
RRAC, roll. 2, 10; see also ibid. roll. 26, ll. 74–5.
79. Nikolai Podomarëv and Eremei Sololov were Siberian exiles but not posel’shchiki (A.V.
Grinëv, Kto est’ kto v istorii Russkoi Ameriki. Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’-spravochnik,
Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 2009, 427, 500.).
80. See Appendix 3.
81. Sarafian, “Alaska’s First Settlers,” 175.
464 THE HISTORIAN

requested to be paid the 365 rubles as compensation. Semën Krylatskii asserted

that Baranov and the naval officers N.A. Khvostov and G.I. Davydov burned
down his home on Kodiak just for amusement. In 1819, the directors of the RAC
arranged for the new governor of Russian America, Lieutenant S.I. Yanovskii, to
check the validity of Shchukin and Krylatskii’s claims. Yanovskii found that
Shchukin’s request was unfounded, since the locksmith had willingly sold his
home to the company for 200 rubles. Krylatskii’s request, in Yanovskii’s opinion,
should be satisfied, however, since Lieutenant Khvostov had in fact burned the
unfinished home of the coppersmith, having gotten into a drunken brawl during
a New Year’s celebration. Krylatskii received 200 rubles compensation from the
RAC in 1821.
The government auditor, Captain of Second Rank V.M. Golovnin, who arrived
in the colonies in the summer of 1818 on the war sloop Kamchatka, also turned
his attention to the complaints of the settlers. This well-known mariner wrote
with bitterness:

The settlers Aleksandr Golovin and Fëdor Balokhov [Balakin, author] com-
plained about the following: in 1794 more than 35 families, who knew some
kind of craft, were brought from the Siberian Province; they were sent from
there in order to be settled on Kodiak Island, where they could teach the
residents agriculture and various crafts; but they separated them from each
other, dispatching them to different places and even to the America[n
mainland], where the company required them to do different work and
labor and engage in dangerous hunting expeditions; this depleted them so
severely that only three men and one woman of the 35 families were left
alive after 24 years, instead of the expected increase in their number; if they
exploited them in this way, . . . [the survovors] should now be given sub-
sistence, but, because they are old and ill, the company deprives them of
such means.82

The Russian-American Company paid the surviving settlers by the same

method as its hired promyshlenniki, but giving additional awards for vocational
skills. After 1818 the settlers, together with the promyshlenniki, were moved to a
fixed rate (the standard salary amounted to 350 rubles per year). However,
Yanovskii assigned Shchukin and Krylatskii an annual salary of 400 rubles as

82. “Zapiska Kapitana 2-go ranga Golovnina o sostoyanii Rossiisko-Amerikanskoi kompanii v

1818 g.,” Materialy dlia istorii russkikh zaselenii po beregam Vostochnago okeana, vol. 1,
St. Petersburg: Tipografiia morskogo ministerstva, 1861, 54, 109.
FIRST RUSSIAN SETTLERS 465

senior employees of the company. In 1820 Shchukin taught the locksmith business
to two boys, for which he received an increase in pay to 500 rubles (though he
claimed 1,000 rubles, which Yanovskii refused to pay). The coppersmith Semën
Krylatskii, who taught Creole boys metal-working in the shop on Kodiak, also
began to receive a salary of 500 rubles.83
In 1820 Shchukin and Krylatskii again submitted a petition to return to Russia,
and Yanovskii interceded for them before the RAC board of directors. However,
the company leadership was in no hurry to part with the last settlers.84 The RAC
directors conveyed this to Captain-Lieutenant M.I. Murav’ev, who had replaced
Yanovskii as governor of Russian America, in a dispatch of 4 March 1821. In
the opinion of the directors, the settlers were in fact property of the RAC as the
heir and successor of G.I. Shelikhov’s company; consequently, the directors
wrote to Murav’ev,

according to this [understanding], the designated petitioners belong to

it; not having the right to act against the will of higher authority,
[the company] cannot [allow] the dismissal of the designated settlers, [for
they are] people sent to Siberia for crimes, [who had been] then been
given to the Company to use as it saw fit; do not hesitate to tell them
about this.85

However, the settlers persisted with their petitions, as Murav’ev reported to the
RAC board of directors in a dispatch of 16 January 1821. At that point, the
directors of the company gave up and finally allowed for their return to Siberia.86
Thus, Murav’ev permitted the surviving settlers to leave the colonies. According to
Sarafian, in 1823 Semën Krylatskii, Fëdor Balakin, and Aleksandr Golovin set off
for Okhotsk, after 27 years of service in the colonies (Sarafian mentions among
the settlers another, a certain Ivan Shishkin, who, however, is not listed among the
initial settlers of Russian America).87 Thus, the American epic of the first Russian
settlers in Alaska ended.
The following conclusions can be drawn about their existence in America. The
attempt of G.I. Shelikhov to found an agricultural colony and craft center in the

83. NARS, RRAC, RG 261, roll. 2, 156; Sarafian, “Alaska’s First Settlers,” 176–7.
84. See Appendix 3.
85. NARS, RRAC, RG 261, roll. 2, 155–6.
86. See Appendix 4.
87. See Sarafian, “Alaska’s First Settlers,” 177.
466 THE HISTORIAN

New World had always been a gamble. The severe natural and climatic conditions
of Alaska were little conducive to the development of agricultural production
there. The ill-considered settlement of craftsmen in the isolated colony at Yakutat,
a location lacking the most elementary means necessary for survival, did not allow
for the practical application of their skills. Since the chief attention of the
company leadership was traditionally concentrated on procuring furs and pursuit
of the fur trade, creation of a self-sustaining economy in the colonies was a
secondary affair for the local leadership. In the enthusiastic bureaucratic reports
to the government, the presence in the colonies of craft and agricultural produc-
tion was rather used by the RAC directors for self-advertisement. Furthermore,
the socio-economic status of the settlers, as a kind of “semi-serfs” of Shelikhov’s
company and, subsequently, of the RAC, hindered them from becoming produc-
tive and high-quality workers who had a genuine concern for the region’s strong
development. Therefore, the aspiration of the company leadership to strengthen
the Russian colonization of Alaska by means of settlers with no rights was
doomed to failure from the very beginning. Finally, placing them in Yakutat
among hostile and not completely conquered Indians ended in the catastrophe
of 1805.
Inasmuch as the number of settlers had dropped in 1805 by almost two and a
half times in comparison with 1794, Chamberlain Rezanov, who visited the
colonies in 1805–1806, proposed requesting the tsar’s government to send 100–
200 more (male) exiles to the colonies, one part of which was to be “married off”
in Siberia, “[while] to the others women from Unalaska, where their number is
double that of males, were to be delivered.”88 Rezanov also advised the RAC
board of directors to hire serfs “who are drunkards” from their lords, with the
company paying them 25–50 rubles per year, of course, subject to “arranging
these things so that the landowners never required their return.”89 Later, his
recommendations were evidently partially fulfilled by the RAC directors, who sent
several Siberian exiles (I. Popov, V. Naplavkov, I. Shishkin, and others) to the
colonies, who are also called posel’shchiki [i.e., settlers] in company documents.
However, these “new settlers,” judging by everything, were not used by the
company as craftsmen and farmers but rather worked as ordinary Russian
promyshlenniki. Some of them were distinguished by “violent temper” and in

88. Tikhmenev, Istoricheskoe obozrenie, vol. 2, Appendix, 206.

89. Ibid.
FIRST RUSSIAN SETTLERS 467

Novo-Arkhangel’sk in 1809 plotted to kill Baranov and seize a sailing ship,

on which they intended to abscond to the southern Polynesian Islands “for
freedom.”90
The events of 1809 possibly caused the RAC leadership to refrain from further
widespread recruiting of Siberian exiles for Russian America. It is no accident that
the company directors rejected the proposal of State Councilor S.A. Kostlivtsov
(auditor of the RAC in 1860–1861), who wrote: “For the fastest colonization of
the region, it would be useful to permit bringing up to 500 families there, assigned
by sentence of various administrative and judicial districts to exile . . . in Siberia
[, who should settle first along] the shore from Cape Yakutat to Nikolaevskii
Redoubt.”91 The RAC board of directors’ answer to this dismissively read:

It must be noted that an agricultural settlement also necessarily requires

the hands of female workers. Over the extent of the 60 years [of its
existence,] the Company could not even find Russian women for the
most common occupations; the free ones do not come, and God save
the colonies and Company from exiles. Previous attempts in this regard
are still very memorable. The proposal to transfer up to 500 families
of exiles for settlement of the mainland by Russian families . . . should
be considered as unfeasible measures because the local and climatic
[inhospitable conditions] would subject the settlers to the greatest
disasters.92

The RAC saw another chief danger in the hostility of the Indians:

Inevitably an irreconcilable conflict starts up between the settlers and the

savages, and those latter are accustomed to take revenge, if impossible on
the guilty, then on their tribesmen, and this revenge most often will affect
the innocent employees of the Company. There are no means to assume the
Company, with all its proven willingness to promote the views of the
Government, is in a state to take upon itself such duties [i.e., to protect
the colonists].93

90. See Bolkhovitinov, ed., Istoriia Russkoi, vol. 2, 1999, 131–4.

91. Doklad Komiteta ob ustroistve russkikh amerikanskikh kolonii, vol. 2, St. Petersburg:
Departament vneshnei torgovli, 1863, 41.
92. Ibid., 465n.
93. Ibid., 476–7.
468 THE HISTORIAN

The RAC itself refused to deliver 2,000 “souls” of “dubious morals” to the
colonies and maintain them at its expense. The company was generally against
widespread colonization of Russian America, since this could undermine the fur
resources of the region.
The RAC placed its main bet on workers and employees contracted for a
five-to-seven-year period, with the company lending them money beforehand in
different amounts, which then permitted it to hold them as debtors in the colonies
for an undetermined period.94 Of course, living in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands
only for the extent of the contract period, these people felt themselves more
temporary workers than masters of Russian America. Even those few of them who
entered into a legal marriage with local natives and remained in the colonies all
their lives were not in a position to truly colonize the transoceanic possessions of
Russia. In the RAC documents the reason for the poor populating of Alaska by
emigrants from the homeland is rather frankly noted:

Europeans, Russian subjects arrive in the Colonies not for colonization, but
for work, and therefore the number of them is determined by production
needs of the latter. . . . Every Russian, as explained, serves the period of the
contract and then leaves; the rest of the Russians remaining forever in the
Colonies, the so-called Colonial Citizens, by themselves are not in a state to
establish a Russian household; they rather become accustomed to the form
of life of their [native] wives and their relatives than make efforts to
introduce their own customs.95

Of such colonial citizens (Russians, Finns, Yakuts, and others), on 1 January

1861 a total of about 100 “souls” were listed—54 men and 40 women (predomi-
nantly Creole women), whereas the number of Tlingit Indians alone living in
Alaska during these years was about 8,000 individuals.96 Neither the Russian-
American Company itself, nor the tsarist government wanted to change the
demographic situation that existed in the colonies. In conclusion, it should be
emphasized that the almost complete lack of a permanent Russian population in
Alaska was a key reason for its sale to the United States in 1867.97

94. See Appendix 3.

95. Arkhiv Russkogo Geograficheskogo obshchestva, razr. 99, op.1, d.101, ll.38 ob.-40.
96. Doklad Komiteta, vol.2, 109, 131.
97. For more detail, see A.V. Grinëv, “Prichiny prodazhi Russkoi Ameriki SShA v otechestvennoi
istoriografii,” Klio 2, 2000, 17–26 (translated as A.V. Grinëv, “Why Russia Sold Alaska: The
View from Russia,” Alaska History 1–2, 2004, 1–22).
FIRST RUSSIAN SETTLERS 469

APPENDIX 1
List of selected craftsmen and farmers in America given to Shelikhov’s Companion
for the American Company, with their ages as far as registered

No. Name & other name Age

Male Female Child

1 Coppersmith Semën Krylatskoi 27

2 Blacksmith Isai Shchepotkin —
3 Ivan Shchukin 25
1 His wife here, Alena Ivanova, was taken from 30
the Cossack clan
1 His stepson, Aleksei Fedotov, son of Cossack 7
Rysev
4 Gerasim Klokhtin 38
5 Dmitrii Molochkov 54
6 Stepan Valuiskii 39
7 Andrei Budantsov —
[2] His wife Ulita —
8 Painter Savelii Stolbtsov 32
9 Carpenter Timofei Iakovlev 25
2[3] His wife Pelageia Ivanova 28
Wheel-wrights
10 Vasilii Chernikov 46
11 Semën Vologdin 28
Carpenters
12 Filip Gerasimov 27
13 Andrei Terent’ev 38
14 Miron Fedotov 32
15 Luk’yan Filipov 30
16 Pëtr Isakov 23
3[4] His wife Marina Iakovleva —
2 Their daughter Anna 2
Farmers
Families
17 1st family Fëdor Anisiforov 59
18 His first cousin Iakov Volchenkov 27
4[5] His wife Avdot’ia Iakovlevna 29
2nd family
19 Filip Tyapkin 50
3rd family
20 Ivan Trukhmanov 43
4th family
21 Pavel Fëdorov 27
5[6] His wife Avdot’ia Ivanova 34
5th family
470 THE HISTORIAN

APPENDIX 1 Continued

No. Name & other name Age

Male Female Child

22 Fëdor Balakin 43
6[7] His wife Akulina Mikhailova 27
23 His brother Stepan Balakin 25
6th family
24 Aleksandr Golovin 33
7[8] His wife Fëkla Ivanova Petrova 23
7th family
25 Egor Markov 46
8[9] His common-law wife Natal’ia Ivanova 42
Their daughters
3 Agrafena 13
4 Mar’ia 7
8th family
26 Evdokim Dugin 27
9[10] His wife Feona Vasil’eva 25
9th family
27 Ivan (and) —
28 Foma Tatarkin —
10th family
29 Semën Ivanov 42
30 Vasilii Karsuntsov 24
10[11] His wife Dar’ia Zhukova 27
Settlers assigned to Kuril Island “18” [Urup],
who stayed in Okhotsk before the voyage
31 Stepan Kazantsov 26
11[12] His wife Anis’ia Borodina 18
32 Kondratii Glotov 48
33 Danila Putov 50
12[13] His wife Irina Artem’eva 30
34 Ivan Dorokhin 35
In the above-written number, provided to Mr.
Shelikhov from governmental affairs, are
men “31,” women “10” in all forty-one
people. Others are provided by the people’s
court.
Authentic [list] for the signing of Aleksandr
Kondratov
May “12” [date] “1794”

Source: Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Voenno-morskogo flota, St. Petersburg, f.198, op. 2,
d.79, ll.42ob.-44.
FIRST RUSSIAN SETTLERS 471

APPENDIX 2
Register of settlers (men and women)

Living males Living females

No. Age No. Age

1 Andrei Budantsov 70 1 Wife Ulita Efimova, 40 Were in Kenai Bay,

there is a child are in Chugach
2 Vasilii Karsuntsov 45 2 Dar’ia Petrova 40 Russians in Yakutat
3 Aleksandr Golovin 45 3 Fëkla Petrova 25
4 Isai Shchepotkin 35 — Single —
5 Evdokim Dugin — 4 Feona Vasil’eva 25
Daughter Stepanida 3
6 Fëdor Balakin — 5 Akulina Mikhailova — Was born on Kodiak,
Daughter Dar’ia — and son, all died at
Yakutat
7 Pëtr Isakov — — —
8 Ivan Shchukin 50 6 Elena Ivanova 50
His stepson Aleksei 12
9 Egor Markov 50 7 Natal’ia Ivanova 50
Daughter Agrafina was 18
married to a settler 10
Another [daughter]
Mar’ia
10 Vasilii Chernyshov — 8 Natal’ia — American
Stepdaughter Matrëna 4
11 Luka Filipov — 9 Anna Ivanova — American
Son Fëdor 3
12 Gerasim Klokhtin 35 10 Stepanida Vasil’eva 25 American
Kad’iatskaia
13 Stepan Balakin — 11 Fedora Ivanova 25 American
14 Ivan Trukhmanov 55 12 Tat’iana 28 American
Stepson Sergei —
15 Semën Krylatskoi 30 13 Katerina Filipova 30 American
Son Sergei 3
16 Filip Gerasimov — 14 Matrëna Gavrilova — American
472 THE HISTORIAN

12 June 1798 Manager of the Company [A. A. Baranov].

No. Later deceased No. Living wives of the deceased Age

Timofei Iakovlev 15 Pelageia Ivanova 27 Russian

Child 2
Andrei Terent’ev 16 Marem’iana Pavlova — American
Foma Tatarkin 17 Malaniia Iakovleva — American
Stepdaughter Anna 3
Filip Tiapkin 18 Fëkla Ivanova — American
Son Ivan 3
Fëdor Anisiforov 19 Anis’ia Ivanova — American
Stepdaughter Marfa 5
Pavel Fëdorov 20 Avdot’ia Ivanova 30 Russian

No. Deceased No. Where and why

1 Dmitrii Molochkov — On Unalaska was left and died by some unknown illness
2 Timofei Iakovlev — In Kenai from fever and boils in 1797
3 Ivan Tatarkin — In 1795 on Kodiak from fever
4 Stepan Valuiskii — In 1795 on Kodiak from fever
5 Sava Stolbtsov — In 1796 at Karluk of boils and cancer
6 Semën Vologdin — 1796 on Kodiak
7 Iakov Volchenkov 1 Wife Avdot’ia Yakovleva died in a shipwreck in 1796 in
2 Kamyshak Bay
Wife of Isakov the Russian Marina Iakovleva with
stepdaughter Anna and son Pavel in Yakutat from
scurvy and asthenia
8 Pavel Fëdorov — 1797 in Yakutat of scurvy
9 Fëdor Anisiforov — 1797 in Yakutat of scurvy
10 Filip Tiapkin — 1796—also of scurvy
11 Foma Tatarkin — 1796—also of scurvy
12 Andrei Terent’ev —
13 Miron Fedotov — 1796 and 1797 in Yakutat of scurvy
14 Semën Ivanov —

Aleksandr Baranov.
10 J[une] 1798.
Source: AVPRI, f. Snosheniia Rossii s Angliei, op.356, d.507, ll.8-8ob.
FIRST RUSSIAN SETTLERS 473

APPENDIX 3
“16 January 1820
Under HIS SUPREME IMPERIAL MAJESTY
Patron of the Russian-American Company from the Board of Directors
To Governor of the Russian-American Colonies
Fleet Captain-Lieutenant and Knight Matvei Ivanovich Murav’ëv

On the list, sent under no. 346 from the Manager of the Colonies Mr. Ianovskii
of 1 May 1819, of people wishing to leave the colonies in the present year is
recorded those 37 men, about whom it was not announced whether or not they
are indebted to the Company or it is permitted for them to leave based on illness,
or on incapacities, in order not to have freeloaders; in this number are four
settlers: Shchukin, Krylatskii, Podomarev, and Sokolov, who were given by
nominal decree to Shelikhov for crafts and farming, and who without the will of
the leadership should not be released; in discussion of which, if, upon your arrival
in Novo-Arkhangel’sk, these settlers are still found there, then be so kind as to
stop their expulsion; the same also for other employees, if they owe the Company
and do not have those defects that cannot be tolerated in the colonies, also do not
dismiss them until they pay off their debts; and further be so kind as to adopt the
rule: do not release employees to damage the Company, if the strictest justice does
not demand this.

[Directors of the RAC] Mikhailo Buldakov

Venedikt Kramer
Andrei Severin
Office Manager Zelenin”

Source: NARS, RRAC, RG 261, roll. 2, 10.

APPENDIX 4
“Received on the Sloop Appolon
11 October 1822
Under HIS SUPREME IMPERIAL MAJESTY
Patron of the Russian-American Company from the Board of Directors
To the Governor of the Russian-American Colonies
Fleet Captain-Lieutenant and Knight Matvei Ivanovich Murav’ëv

Based on your report of 16 January of this year under no. 14, the Company
Board of Directors notifies you that, though it must remain with its former
474 THE HISTORIAN

opinion about the settlers Shchukin, Krylatskii, Podomarev, and Sokolov, based
on the reasons described by you, in that they are already unable to continue their
service in the colonies and may, finally, be a burden to the Company, the Board
agrees to release them from there. Thus it allows you to let them go through
Okhotsk, according to their wish, to Russia, and to give them certification from
yourself to travel to those places where they are listed, having completely dis-
charged them.

[Directors of the RAC] Venedikt Kramer

Andrei Severin
Office Manager Zelenin
No. 589
6 October 1821
[Resolution by M. I. Murav’ev] Bring to Action”

Source: NARS, RRAC, RG 261, roll. 2, 272–3.