Russia, America, and the Great Cession

Signing the Alaska Purchase. William Seward is seated at center. Public Domain

Russia’s Peter the Great was curious. Did anything divide Siberia from North America? Only a month before he died, Peter the Great commissioned one of his naval officers to answer this question. The Danish born Vitus Jonassen Bering, accompanied by his assistant lieutenant and navigator Aleksei Chirikov, led the St. Gabriel on the First Kamchatka Expedition from 1725 to 1730. In August of 1728, the ships passed between the two continents, confirming the separation in the North Pacific, now known as the Bering Strait.

The path of the First Kamchatka Expedition, map by Vasily Berkh. Public Domain

By the time the Second Kamchatka Expedition launched in 1733, Alaska had been discovered by another Russian naval officer, Mikhail Spiridonovich Gvozdev. His discovery in 1732 of the now Prince of Wales Island, located at the southernmost tip of Alaska, ushered in the Russian exploration and colonization of Alaska. The Russians found the discovery to be profitable within the fur and fishery industries. Although Russia maintained the colony for more than a century, the distance between its seat of government in St. Petersburg and the colony eventually proved untenable. After the Crimean War ended in 1856, in which Imperial Russia fought the Ottomans, French, and British, and lost, Russia was prepared to find a buyer.

Selling Alaska, however, was not simply about making money. It was also about putting distance between Russia and the increasingly powerful Great Britain. Alaska, part of what was then called Russian-America, shared the 1,500-plus mile long border with Great Britain’s British Columbia.

Two Empires Connect

The aging empire of Russia had reached far east with Alaska. A new and rising empire was quickly expanding westward. In the span of 45 years, America had acquired 1,353,000 square miles of land. First in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase, followed by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. When Russia offered America to buy Alaska in 1859, an addition of more than 586,400 square miles, it seemed to be the obvious step in the ongoing pursuit of what Americans considered their “manifest destiny.”

The Alaska Treaty of Cession. Public Domain

America was interested, but the country was dealing with its own struggles, which would soon culminate in the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Seward, was known for his political brilliance, his deft handling of foreign affairs, his understanding of naval dominance, and his foresight in the importance of Alaska. During his first term in Lincoln’s cabinet, his focus was solely on working with the president to bring about an end to the war. Once the war concluded, he returned his focus to other matters, specifically Alaska.

William H. Seward in 1859. Public Domain

After Lincoln’s assassination, and having survived his own assassination attempt, Seward, now Secretary of State under Andrew Johnson, began negotiations with Russian diplomat Eduard de Stoeckl. On March 30, 1867, America and Russia agreed to the Treaty of Cession. America would receive what would later become the Union’s largest state, and Russia would receive $7.2 million in gold (approximately $150 million today).

Some U.S. senators called the treaty agreement “reckless and wasteful.” Journalists scoffed at Seward’s agreement calling the treaty “Seward’s folly,” and the frigid land “Seward’s icebox” and Johnson’s “polar bear garden.”

Seward ignored the detractors, as apparently did most of the Senate. The Senate ratified the treaty 37-2 on April 9, 1867. During this week in history on Oct. 18, 1867, in Sitka, a city near Juneau located on one of the 1,100 islands in the Alexander Archipelago, Russia officially transferred Alaska to the United States.

Paying Dividends

Seward would die five years after this transfer. Many still held the decision to purchase Alaska in contempt. It was not until the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896 in Canada’s Yukon, which borders Alaska, that “Seward’s folly” began to prove prescient. Three years later, once the Yukon gold rush began to dissipate, gold was discovered with the greatest of ease in Nome, Alaska.

Thomas Nast cartoon on Alaska, 1867. Seward hopes that the purchase will help cool Johnson's fevered political situation. Public Domain

Prospectors scurried toward western Alaska and staked their claims along Snake River. Gold was quickly found. Those that arrived too late to stake their claims, pitched their tents along the beach of Nome. It was here that it was discovered that gold simply lay along the beach. The simplicity with which so much gold was found would lead Nome to be labeled a “poor man’s paradise.”

Seward had negotiated the cession of Alaska for a cheap price--one that would pay for itself countless times over during the gold rush. The state would also prove a great economic contributor in the industries of fishery, fur trade, and natural minerals. It would also prove to possess great scientific discoveries made famous during the 1899 Harriman Expedition.

Harriman Alaska Expedition members at Cape Fox Village, Alaska, 1899. Edward S. Custis, 1868-1952. Library of Congress. Public Domain

Exactly a century after Russia had offered to sell the frigid landscape to America, Alaska became the 49th state. In 1968, oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay, which would become one of the nation’s largest oil fields. The state makes so much money off of oil that each year since 1982 that state residents receive a check from the Alaska Permanent Fund. In 2022, the dividend check was $3,284. The state is also one of the leading providers of natural gas, coal, and hydroelectric power.

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