A bigger Russian presence in North America?

[alexmilman]

Everyone was busy and occupied. That was why the Pacific was so wide open for anyone who would decide to prioritize even a little bit of resource to the area.

Sorry, “prioritize” for which specific purpose? Russia had everything it wanted on the both sides of the Pacific coast and used all naval resources it could spare.

Had Russia, say, sent a frigate and a couple of small cargo ships out to the Pacific every year or at least every other year it would have been decisive in the face of such low interest from everyone else.

Again, what for? The only reason for RAC’s existence was fur trade with China. Colonization of the empty places was not in the cards because Russia had to populate the empty spaces it already owned.

There were cargo ships in the Okhotsk flotilla (actually, all of them had been used almost exclusively for transportation) and they were busy sailing between Okhotsk and Kamchatka. The ships of RAC also had been carrying supplies and furs.

Nothing would have prevented this until the war with Britain started at the end of 1807, it wouldn't have cost an inordinate amount, and it's not as if the Baltic Fleet was being terribly active or useful at home anyway.

Doing something, has to have practical purpose, as did the first circumnavigation of 1803-06. But it was also about the furs.

Needless to say that “Neva”, “Nadezda”, “Juno” and “Avos” had been purchased in Britain. It does not look like at that time Russia was building too many ocean-worthy ships.

The food supply was such a problem was because it was going via Okhotsk. Sending it via naval circumnavigation was drastically cheaper, although OTL inefficiencies were such that it was even cheaper to let Yankees do the circumnavigation and buy the foodstuffs from them.

This was attempted but did not work out on a permanent base. RAC ended up making contract with the Hudson Bay Company.

The problem was they weren't buying all the furs. American and British vessels were sailing up the coast of Alaska and trading directly with the natives. To make matters worse, they sometimes traded firearms to tribes hostile to the Russians in return for the fur. This was the reason for Alexander's Ukase of 1821.

Ukase of 1821 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This ukaz was just empty words: Russia did not have means to enforce the claim and could not actually beef up these means, even in a complete power vacuum, because even supplying the existing population of the Pacific coast was extremely difficult.

The pretensions being those of the 1821 ukase, or more generally any territories TTL expanded into during the years of war and confusion, or for that matter Paul's claim to everything extending to 51 degrees latitude. OTL most of this was surrendered in negotiation with Britain and the US.

I repeat. Russia could not maintain a meaningful presence on the Pacific coast of America and did not have visible reasons for any expansion in that direction.

This is certainly the way the Russians must have wanted the Americans to act, but ensuring it would require maritime policing, and claims in that regard caused consternation in Washington and London and were soon abandoned. The fur trading, btw, went the other direction. The Americans would buy furs from the RAC for sale in Canton, since Russian vessels were not allowed in that port.

Actually, it was going in both directions but it does not matter: RAC was strictly about the fur trade and if it could get money immediately instead of carrying furs all the way to Kjakhta, it was just fine.

No resources to challenge a competing European power? Agreed. Sufficient resources for the Tlingit and other local tribes and to police noncombatant merchant vessels, however.

RAC did not have adequate resources even for the tasks you listed and the government was not excessively interested. Or rather it was more complicated:
(a) For the state trade with China amounted to something like 4-5% of the foreign trade, had a negative balance and was mostly about getting the tea (which was not, yet, as popular as later). The bulk of the traded furs was coming from Siberia, Kamchatka and the islands.
(b) Shareholders of RAC included high-placed figures all the way to Widowed Empress so there was obvious individual interest in maintaining the company functionng.

As far as the state resources on the Far East were involved, they were minuscule. Most of the ships of Okhotsk flotilla did not have any guns pr just few falconets. This situation only marginally improved during the reign of NI by which time the company was getting regular state subsidies.

 

[how]

Have Britain defeat the American colonists then have the French Revolution still occur on schedule and in a similar fashion to our timeline which I think is still possible without a successful American Revolution then Napoleon and the like happens dooming the Spanish Empire opening up the chance for the Russians to expand Alaskya southwards, after this then some sort of agreement between Russia and Britain in the Americans and Pacific as part of an alt Great Game. Russian Alaskya was sparsely populated so you really just need the lines to get drawn on the map in a way that is favourable to Russia as once the Gold Rush occurs this will spark the movement of Russian settlers to the region and perhaps provide an ample population to make the region viable and somewhat defensible.

 

[TrickyApe]

Sorry, “prioritize” for which specific purpose? Russia had everything it wanted on the both sides of the Pacific coast and used all naval resources it could spare.

For whatever purpose countries feel the desire to build colonial empires. Why did Catherine have grandiose plans for Pacific colonization in the 1790's? It could be something as prosaic as establishing an effective monopoly over sea otter furs, or something more ambitious related to dreams of riches from the lands of the New World or the China Trade, or even something as romantic as a quest for glory.

The OP question was whether Russia could build a greater empire in the Pacific Northwest and my answer is that there was a period when such a thing was possible for a fairly reasonable cost. I'm sure it looked prudent at the time to avoid speculative ventures such as this, but with the benefit of hindsight we can see that investment would have paid off. At the very least, a more successful fur trade would have more than paid back its investment, even without anachronistically looking forward to future discoveries of gold.

This was attempted but did not work out on a permanent base. RAC ended up making contract with the Hudson Bay Company.

By the time that contract was made, the HBC was producing food in the area, in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. This is something that the RAC could also have done, with a bit more investment and initiative. It's a case where thinking big would have saved money over thinking small. Alternately, provisions were available in Spanish/Mexican California, once trade restrictions ended.

Actually, it was going in both directions but it does not matter: RAC was strictly about the fur trade and if it could get money immediately instead of carrying furs all the way to Kjakhta, it was just fine.

The Canton trade paid off doubly first because the furs were sold without costly overland transportation and crucially also because they were exchanged for tea which was then shipped to Europe or the Americas much more profitably than overland across Siberia. In OTL most of this profit went to the foreign mariners that bought the Russian furs for resale in China. The RAC was quite eager to obtain access to Canton. Had Golovkin's Mission to China in 1805-6 succeeded in opening the port, I think things might have developed significantly differently for Russian America.

 

[alexmilman]

For whatever purpose countries feel the desire to build colonial empires.

The countries that felt the desire to build the colonial empires tended to have a lot of ships and a sea-going tradition. Russia had neither.

Until the late XIX getting the colonies was mostly for anticipated profit or for getting rid of the excessive population.

Russian first penetration into the Caucasus was based on the (wrong) stories about its alleged riches and then each next move was needed to cover results of the earlier mistakes. The CA expansion also was either commercial or to secure the commerce and newly conquered territories. American adventure started the same way but the fur trade from Alaska would not cover expenses of a bigger commitment.

Kyakhta Treaty was OK not only commercially but because it settled the border issues for more than a century allowing Russian government not to commit the big resources in the region. Alaska was OK as long as it cost close to nothing but within few decades from its creation RAC was getting the government’s subsidies and holding the territory became just a matter of prestige.

Why did Catherine have grandiose plans for Pacific colonization in the 1790's? It could be something as prosaic as establishing an effective monopoly over sea otter furs, or something more ambitious related to dreams of riches from the lands of the New World or the China Trade, or even something as romantic as a quest for glory.

Catherine’s plans regarding Far and even Near East were fantasies not based on any realities and as far as “glory” was involved, it was (a) obtained on the other side of the empire and (b) formally satisfied by a claim that she has territories in Europe, Asia and America.

As far as the China trade was involved it has to be considered within a general framework. Russia did not have resources for the aggressive policies vs. China and this opinion had been prevailing in the government all the way to the 1850’s: both Muraviev and (lesser figure) Nevelskoy had been acting on their own risk, which was not typical for a bureaucratic state.

The ghost of the Chinese army of few hundred thousands perhaps was fantastic but for the Russian decision makers it was a reality all the way to the 1st Opium War and this political reality could not be ignored. Second reality was that the whole China trade was peanuts (4-7% of the total Russian foreign trade) and not even too profitable (some of the caravans to Beijing were losing money). It was a barter for the goods which were not a necessity (tea became popular only in the second half of the XIX) and, thanks to the government’s inefficiency, some of the goods for re-export, like rhubarb, were rotting in the state warehouses.

The OP question was whether Russia could build a greater empire in the Pacific Northwest and my answer is that there was a period when such a thing was possible for a fairly reasonable cost. I'm sure it looked prudent at the time to avoid speculative ventures such as this, but with the benefit of hindsight we can see that investment would have paid off. At the very least, a more successful fur trade would have more than paid back its investment, even without anachronistically looking forward to future discoveries of gold.

The problem was multi-fascet:
1. Russia did not have ability to develop its territories in Eastern Siberia so getting even further did not make too much of a practical sense.
2. The sea-going merchant class was absent (so the comparison with the UK or US is apples and oranges), RAC was a monopoly that was not doing too well and due to #1 the extra resources were not available.
3. Russian state was heavily engaged elsewhere and deeply in debt. The fancy projects related to the further expansion had been stopped by Paul and during the reign of Alexander they went in the different directions. Add to this gradual settlement of the Siberia which was not cheap and, together with a need to safeguard the border in CA, was consuming considerable human resources.
4. The idea of just “sending” few ships to the Far East on annual basis was a complete fantasy prior to the early XIX and even then this was not a routine. During the reign of Catherine sailing from Kronstadt to the Med was a major achievement that required a prolonged stop in Britain for extensive repairs (at least one ship had to be sold for wood and few did not make it out of the Baltic) and hiring of the crews. Only by the early XIX Russia got enough officers with the experience of serving in the RN and long voyages to even try something on its own and even then the ships had been bought in Britain (not the very good ones).
5. Return on investment would be quite questionable to start with, taking into an account the geopolitical framework, an absence of the merchant fleet and general inability to populate the Eastern Siberia and Asia Pacific coast.
6. As for the fur trade with China, there seems to be certain confusion. The main sources of furs had been Siberia and Kamchatka with the main volume being the furs of fox, sable, squirrel, etc. Sea otters were a nice but not critical addition. Anyway, in the period 1800-1805 about two thirds of Kyakhta exports were of non-Russian origin (aka, not furs)
7. The gold part as a reason is a complete fantasy. The gold and silver had been discovered in Siberia well before the Klondike or California gold rush and it was much easy to get profit out of them: besides pure geography, no need to deal with the hordes of the foreign prospectors.
8. While the idea of sailing to China looked attractive on a paper (hence Krusenstern’s expedition), in practice it was heavily dependent upon the British and Spanish good graces because Russia was lacking its own bases. And this made the whole schema rather shaky and too dependent upon the third parties to become foundation for the ambitious expansionist projects.

By the time that contract was made, the HBC was producing food in the area, in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. This is something that the RAC could also have done, with a bit more investment and initiative. It's a case where thinking big would have saved money over thinking small. Alternately, provisions were available in Spanish/Mexican California, once trade restrictions ended.

The RAC may and did try to develop its own supply base on the American coast. It did not work out because there were not enough settlers. The theories like this one are logical but tend to ignore the Russian realities. Unlike the “classic” examples of Britain and US, there was no big pool of the landless peasants willing to go anywhere to get their own piece of land. By the mid-XVIII even traditional class of the Russian “conquistadors”, the Cossacks, was put under the government’s control and its activities had been channeled into the higher priority areas: Caucasus border, border with the CA and settling Siberia.

BTW, to a noticeable degree conquest of the CA was triggered by desire to get a big part of Kyakhta imports (50-60% of which was cotton) from the alternative source.

The Canton trade paid off doubly first because the furs were sold without costly overland transportation and crucially also because they were exchanged for tea which was then shipped to Europe or the Americas much more profitably than overland across Siberia. In OTL most of this profit went to the foreign mariners that bought the Russian furs for resale in China.

See above. The bulk of the furs, both by the volume and by cost, was coming from the Russian Asia (the biggest by volume was squirrel), not Alaska. And Russian policy was not to stir any trouble with China because its cost would be greater than a potential profit.

The RAC was quite eager to obtain access to Canton.

But RAC was not Russian Empire or EIC. It did not have any naval or military resources and hardly could defend itself against hostile Indians.

Had Golovkin's Mission to China in 1805-6 succeeded in opening the port, I think things might have developed significantly differently for Russian America.

Golovkin’s mission, just as two other parts of Rumyantsev’s strategy in Eastern Asia, was not backed by any show of the military force so its failure was inevitable (ditto with Japan). Chinese position was that Russian trade in Canton will hurt Kyakhta trade and two sloops were not intimidating enough to change anything.

 

[Tupiniquim]

American revolution failed, the spanish, the british and the russians fight for holding Cascadia

 

[TrickyApe]

As far as the China trade was involved it has to be considered within a general framework. Russia did not have resources for the aggressive policies vs. China and this opinion had been prevailing in the government all the way to the 1850’s: both Muraviev and (lesser figure) Nevelskoy had been acting on their own risk, which was not typical for a bureaucratic state.

The ghost of the Chinese army of few hundred thousands perhaps was fantastic but for the Russian decision makers it was a reality all the way to the 1st Opium War and this political reality could not be ignored. Second reality was that the whole China trade was peanuts (4-7% of the total Russian foreign trade) and not even too profitable (some of the caravans to Beijing were losing money). It was a barter for the goods which were not a necessity (tea became popular only in the second half of the XIX) and, thanks to the government’s inefficiency, some of the goods for re-export, like rhubarb, were rotting in the state warehouses.

I've agreed with you from the start that the idea of conflict with China, seizure of the Amur, early settlement of the Russian Far East, or whatever, is fantasy. I'm talking about expansion along the Northwest Coast of North America.

8. While the idea of sailing to China looked attractive on a paper (hence Krusenstern’s expedition), in practice it was heavily dependent upon the British and Spanish good graces because Russia was lacking its own bases. And this made the whole schema rather shaky and too dependent upon the third parties to become foundation for the ambitious expansionist projects.

Aside from Britain, nobody had a global network of bases connecting their heartlands to China. That didn't stop the Americans, French, Dutch, and others from having profitable maritime trade with China in the 19th century.

Golovkin’s mission, just as two other parts of Rumyantsev’s strategy in Eastern Asia, was not backed by any show of the military force so its failure was inevitable (ditto with Japan). Chinese position was that Russian trade in Canton will hurt Kyakhta trade and two sloops were not intimidating enough to change anything.

There was a certain absurdity to the Golovkin mission. It was well planned and included serious experts on China, but then aborted in Mongolia because Golovkin wouldn't kowtow to an image of the Chinese Emperor, as if that hadn't occurred to anyone before. I'm doubtful that threats of violence were really necessary to open Canton; lots of minor nations were granted trading privileges there and the Chinese could probably be persuaded that the Kyakhta trade would continue. After all, as you point out most of the furs in question came from Siberia and not the Pacific. I'm also doubtful that the mission could ever have achieved its stretch goal of opening the Amur, but that's neither here nor there.

 

[alexmilman]

I've agreed with you from the start that the idea of conflict with China, seizure of the Amur, early settlement of the Russian Far East, or whatever, is fantasy. I'm talking about expansion along the Northwest Coast of North America.

To which end?

Aside from Britain, nobody had a global network of bases connecting their heartlands to China. That didn't stop the Americans, French, Dutch, and others from having profitable maritime trade with China in the 19th century.

The Dutch had been operating from Batavia and the French retained at least one base in India. Plus, all of them had long maritime traditions of which Russia had none.

There was a certain absurdity to the Golovkin mission. It was well planned and included serious experts on China,

It was not planned too well. Inclusion of the new spiritual mission caused a prolonged letters exchange because earlier the priests for the mission in Beijing had been traveling on their own and Chinese had bee crazy about the precedents. Ditto for the size: it was considered too big, again, based on the precedents. Not sure where and how the members of expedition could become experts on China because the embassies were rare and free travel non-existent.

From the letter of Count Vorontsov to his friend:
“A whole gang is preparing to go to China with Golovkin and a bunch of various people. Golovkin's first in the embassy is Baykov, who was in Paris. He already takes the tone over the others and behaves peculiarly here. They are already in a quarrel before they left St. Petersburg, what will happen after? They will probably start a fist fight at Kyakhta; and you need to know that Golovkin himself is a smart person, but however, do not look for a moral character in him, and I think that some of the young will be victims of the pride of Baykov and the Dutch rules of the ambassador himself. I would like the Chinese emperor to decide all this for them and, angry that engineers have been sent with them, who will draw the plans and profiles of the fortresses there, order everyone to be flogged from the first to the last and then escorted from his possessions.”

but then aborted in Mongolia because Golovkin wouldn't kowtow to an image of the Chinese Emperor, as if that hadn't occurred to anyone before.

Golovkin was not “anyone” and what was OK for a lower rank person would not be so for the top aristocrat born and educated abroad. There is no guarantee that even if he abide to the requirements the whole thing would work because his mission was going well beyond the Canton issue and most of its items were not to Chinese liking:
1) Opening access for Russian vessels to Canton;
2) trade permits on the northwestern border of China, on the river Bukhtarma (this measure was supposed to eliminate the monopoly of Kyakhta merchants and produced a strong negative reaction from them);
3) admission of a permanent Russian diplomatic representative to Beijing;
4) consent to send Russian representatives to Tibet in order to establish further direct relations with Tibet;
5) the rights for Russian merchants to send caravans to all internal cities of China, as well as to collect information on navigation along the Amur and obtain permission to build warehouses at the mouths of the Amur.

Most of these items were doomed to be rejected.

I'm doubtful that threats of violence were really necessary to open Canton;

Threats? I did not use this word. Show of strength was what I was talking about. And in the early XIX Russia had nothing to show.

lots of minor nations were granted trading privileges there and the Chinese could probably be persuaded that the Kyakhta trade would continue.

Kyakhta trade was continued but the Chinese involvec in it were not the same people who traded in Canton. A different lobby, if you wish.

After all, as you point out most of the furs in question came from Siberia and not the Pacific. I'm also doubtful that the mission could ever have achieved its stretch goal of opening the Amur, but that's neither here nor there.

Yes. This part was foolish on many accounts:
(a) It was a direct violation of Nerchinsk Treaty.
(b) At that time neither the Russians nor anybody else knew if the mouth of the Amur is open to the navigation and that Sakhalin is an island and not a peninsula blocking the way South. Even in the early 1850s there was a firm belief that the Amur “disappears” in the numerous small streams and swamps.
(c) Prior to the appearance of the steamships the whole navigation on Amur could go only downstream so how the whole schema was going to work?

IMO, this part of the whole issue had been pushed by the people who simply did not have enough information for making the sensible decisions. What Count Rumiantsev or Count Golovkin knew about the local geography, demographics, habits, etc.? Pretty much nothing. The same applied to the whole Russian government all the way to the 1850s when initiative had been grabbed (contrary to the Cabinet’s opinions and instructions) by the local administration.

 

[TrickyApe]

2) trade permits on the northwestern border of China, on the river Bukhtarma (this measure was supposed to eliminate the monopoly of Kyakhta merchants and produced a strong negative reaction from them);

Would you happen to know how this was supposed to work? I've come across references to the Bukhtarma scheme but all I see are a bunch of unpleasant looking mountains when I look at a map.

 

[alexmilman]

Would you happen to know how this was supposed to work? I've come across references to the Bukhtarma scheme but all I see are a bunch of unpleasant looking mountains when I look at a map.

I added extra material to the post regarding the whole expedition, which you may find of interest.

Now, to your question, my guess is that because it is a tributary of the Irtysh, which is a tributary of the Ob so you can go somewhere by the water. On the map it is in the bottom right corner above Зайсан lake. How you are going to get there from China I have no idea and probably neither did Rumiantsev & Co. It could be the same “seduction of the map” that was driving British paranoia about the Russian conquest of India. 😉

 

[TrickyApe]

I added extra material to the post regarding the whole expedition, which you may find of interest.
View attachment 776773
Now, to your question, my guess is that because it is a tributary of the Irtysh, which is a tributary of the Ob so you can go somewhere by the water. On the map it is in the bottom right corner above Зайсан lake. How you are going to get there from China I have no idea and probably neither did Rumiantsev & Co. It could be the same “seduction of the map” that was driving British paranoia about the Russian conquest of India. 😉

Thanks, your information on Golovkin and company is indeed interesting.

I suppose you could argue that that sort of fiasco was inevitable in the days when only high aristocrats were considered suitable for ambassadorships, but I feel like a better choice than Golovkin must have at least been possible. Or else why waste so much money on the mission in the first place, if there are no plans for dealing with a predictable albeit unpleasant Chinese protocol?

I've gotten about as far as you have on the Bukhtarma plan, which is to say I also wonder if it ever made sense. I know Russians were trading with Kazakhs around the Lower Bukhtarma, and I can follow the Upper Bukhtarma to its source, but that's in the middle of nowhere surrounded by the Altai. Yet the plan was supposed to involve somehow crossing these mountains and then traversing Outer Mongolia to reach Beijing more easily than via Kyakhta. Your guess is probably the best.

 

[TrickyApe]

To which end?

The short answer to why further develop Russian America is to make profit on the fur trade. Somewhat more ambitiously, there was an idea from one of the RAC backers (I forget who) to use North American fur somewhat analogously to the British use of opium in the China trade, as a way to fund large purchases of tea and other Chinese goods without exporting specie to China. I think that could have worked and been extremely profitable had Russia established effective control over more of the Northwest and had obtained trade privileges in Canton. Maritime tea shipments needn't all be for Russian consumption; it could be marketed in Germany and any other country that didn't protect its own China trade.

The Dutch had been operating from Batavia and the French retained at least one base in India. Plus, all of them had long maritime traditions of which Russia had none.

Sitka and Petropavlovsk were closer than Batavia, although certainly less developed. The Okhotsk route was worth something too, at least in emergencies.

I am cognizant of the weak Russian maritime tradition, which would certainly have keep things on a small scale for a good period of time, but ships were successfully navigating to and from Russian America OTL and this could presumably be intensified gradually.

I also take seriously your argument that Russia lacked a mobile agricultural population that could easily settle a colony, but I have trouble believing an Empire the size of Russia couldn't scrape together a few hundred farmers to make a more successful attempt at something like Fort Ross. The HBC settled the Willamette Valley without government assistance.

 

[alexmilman]

Thanks, your information on Golovkin and company is indeed interesting.

I suppose you could argue that that sort of fiasco was inevitable in the days when only high aristocrats were considered suitable for ambassadorships, but I feel like a better choice than Golovkin must have at least been possible.

Definitely. The guy seemingly had no clue and was putting his personal dignity above the task and knew that nothing really bar will transpire from his behavior. The rationale behind his candidacy was that the Chinese will appreciate the high rank and they did in their own way: it was good that a vassal of the Chinese Emperor is sending the high ranking person to bring his tribute, etc. 😂

There were surely more capable even if less aristocratic people in the Russian foreign ministry but the whole exercise was done in a peculiar way. An unprecedentedly big embassy (obvious problems), special uniform invented for its members (as if the Chinese would care), a prick with no “Asiatic” experience and a set of demands that was extremely problematic to start with.

Or else why waste so much money on the mission in the first place, if there are no plans for dealing with a predictable albeit unpleasant Chinese protocol?

Indeed. My only guess is that Rumisntsev and other people involved did not have a clue and did not care.

I've gotten about as far as you have on the Bukhtarma plan, which is to say I also wonder if it ever made sense. I know Russians were trading with Kazakhs around the Lower Bukhtarma, and I can follow the Upper Bukhtarma to its source, but that's in the middle of nowhere surrounded by the Altai.

But, the area not being, yet, thoroughly researched and mapped, probably on the map some obstacles had been absent. It is also probable that the decision makers were not excessively proficient in reading the maps.

Yet the plan was supposed to involve somehow crossing these mountains and then traversing Outer Mongolia to reach Beijing more easily than via Kyakhta. Your guess is probably the best.

Thanks. 🤗

 

[alexmilman]

The short answer to why further develop Russian America is to make profit on the fur trade. Somewhat more ambitiously, there was an idea from one of the RAC backers (I forget who) to use North American fur somewhat analogously to the British use of opium in the China trade, as a way to fund large purchases of tea and other Chinese goods without exporting specie to China.

To start from the end, AFAIK, Kyakhta trade was strictly barter so no coin was involved but the cost of the furs was a different story and Chinese tended to use each and every way available to get an advantage. However, the furs part in the trade was failing during the XIX century with them being gradually replaced by the manufactured goods so the idea was not excessively brilliant in a long run: unlike opium, the furs were not addictive and majority of the population could not afford them.

As you know, it took some serious …er… “persuasion” to convince Chinese to do what the Brits wanted and for more than 150 years the Russians were lacking the persuading tools. But as soon as they got a single small steamship on the Amur the Chinese became extremely accommodating. Not only sailing by the Amur ceased to be a problem, the huge territory on its left bank had been ceded without a single shot being fired in anger.

You see, the Russian cabinet was just under the spell of the million (or whatever) Chinese soldiers appearing on the Amur and marching into the Russian territory. Nobody analyzed experience of the Dzungar wars and even the descriptions of the Qing military provided by the earlier Russian embassies were most probably ignored. China was something close to the British image of Russia: something gigantic, menacing and capable of moving the huge armies anywhere regardless any obstacles.

When Muraviev, governor-general of the Eastern Siberia (who obviously had a better idea of a real situation), proposed his plan to go down the Amur, all the cabinet was against it out of fear of the repercussions. Fortunately, he managed to convince the only person who really mattered and with his blessing did what he did.

Similarly, research of the Amur’s delta was not encouraged (after it was “discovered” that it disappears in the swamps) and construction of the forts in a “neutral zone” strictly verbotten. Nevelskoy got blessing from Muraviev but after establishing fort Nicholaevsk was risking a court martial. Fortunately, the same person who mattered, wrote on the report about criminal behavior “Good officer! Where the Russian flag was hoisted is Russia forever!” and instead of a court martial Nevelskoy got an award.

I think that could have worked and been extremely profitable had Russia established effective control over more of the Northwest and had obtained trade privileges in Canton. Maritime tea shipments needn't all be for Russian consumption; it could be marketed in Germany and any other country that didn't protect its own China trade.

Russia did not have a merchant fleet and its merchants were not, generally, interested in the overseas adventures so it would be a state run/sponsored adventure. Besides the fact that the state did no have extra money, extra ships, etc., its commercial record during the monopolistic period of Kyakhta trade was not good. The overheads were huge, the goods for re-exports had been rotting in the state warehouses and those auctioned domestically quite often had been sold at a minimal profit. The few small ships which the Navy could allocate for these operations would not be able to bring enough goods to make a noticeable profit on a state level.

RAC, after its initial period, was headed by the retired naval officers who had no clue about the commerce: it was on the state subsidies within few decades who who is paying the piper orders the music. Ditto for most of the top personnel. Which business qualifications had, say, K. Ryleyev? None whatsoever.

Sitka and Petropavlovsk were closer than Batavia, although certainly less developed. The Okhotsk route was worth something too, at least in emergencies.

I do like that “less developed”. 😂

They were tiny posts which could not exist without being supplied from outside. Batavia was a hub of the Dutch EIC.

I am cognizant of the weak Russian maritime tradition, which would certainly have keep things on a small scale for a good period of time, but ships were successfully navigating to and from Russian America OTL and this could presumably be intensified gradually.

By the time it intensified it was too late. Will be under almost any imaginable scenario because Russian main naval interests were elsewhere.
Baltic, Black Sea and even Northern trade would be higher on the list.

I also take seriously your argument that Russia lacked a mobile agricultural population that could easily settle a colony, but I have trouble believing an Empire the size of Russia couldn't scrape together a few hundred farmers to make a more successful attempt at something like Fort Ross.

Population of Fort Ross reached 260 including the local Indians, Aleutians, etc. The settlement was losing money. Agriculture did not quite picked up, except in animals growing, and the sea otter near the settlement became almost extinct.

The HBC settled the Willamette Valley without government assistance.

John Sutter, who bought fort Ross was much more successful in agriculture and other endeavors than RAC settlers. You may make any types o conclusions.

 

[TrickyApe]

As you know, it took some serious …er… “persuasion” to convince Chinese to do what the Brits wanted and for more than 150 years the Russians were lacking the persuading tools. But as soon as they got a single small steamship on the Amur the Chinese became extremely accommodating. Not only sailing by the Amur ceased to be a problem, the huge territory on its left bank had been ceded without a single shot being fired in anger.

The analogy with opium only goes so far. In the case of the furs, the Chinese authorities approved of the goods and they were in fact imported into Canton, just not by Russian merchants. And again, I'm not talking about opening the Amur, just of allowing Russian merchant vessels into a port already frequented by British, French, Americans, Portuguese, Dutch, Danes, Swedes, and others.

I don't mean to imply that the fur trade could ever approach the scale the British trade, but we're not talking about supporting British India here, just Alaska and a bit more of the Pacific Northwest.

I do like that “less developed”. 😂

They were tiny posts which could not exist without being supplied from outside. Batavia was a hub of the Dutch EIC.

Alright, not the best analogy. Every port needs to start somewhere but in the case of Batavia that start was long before the Dutch even got there. Singapore would be a better analogy, since it was insignificant before the British developed it and very quickly became very significant. An even better comparison would be the British settlements along the Columbia River, which didn't even have good conditions for shipping and yet became the hub for their fur trade. The little Russian ports provided secure bases for warehousing and replenishment and were able to construct small oceangoing vessels already. Lack of an agricultural hinterland was certainly a problem, but on the other hand there was ample timber in the vicinity. Keep in mind that the Americans, Danes, and Swedes had no bases whatsoever and the French nothing closer than the Indian Ocean.

By the time it intensified it was too late. Will be under almost any imaginable scenario because Russian main naval interests were elsewhere.
Baltic, Black Sea and even Northern trade would be higher on the list.

Success breeds success and profitable trading would provide more money for construction of additional ships, without taking from other resources at home. Crews from successful voyages would provide a nucleus of experienced sailors that would train newcomers, just as in every other expanding navy and merchant marine. Merchant marines of the day often were manned by crews from many nations anyway, so if there's good business there's no need to only use Russian sailors.

Population of Fort Ross reached 260 including the local Indians, Aleutians, etc. The settlement was losing money. Agriculture did not quite picked up, except in animals growing, and the sea otter near the settlement became almost extinct.

John Sutter, who bought fort Ross was much more successful in agriculture and other endeavors than RAC settlers. You may make any types o conclusions.

With all do respect, you provide a cogent explanation of why Russian America and its trade didn't develop, not why it couldn't develop. I see personnel and management problems and bad executive decisions, not situations that require wild handwaving to provide alt-history outcomes.

 

[alexmilman]

The analogy with opium only goes so far. In the case of the furs, the Chinese authorities approved of the goods and they were in fact imported into Canton, just not by Russian merchants. And again, I'm not talking about opening the Amur, just of allowing Russian merchant vessels into a port already frequented by British, French, Americans, Portuguese, Dutch, Danes, Swedes, and others.

I don't mean to imply that the fur trade could ever approach the scale the British trade, but we're not talking about supporting British India here, just Alaska and a bit more of the Pacific Northwest.



Alright, not the best analogy. Every port needs to start somewhere but in the case of Batavia that start was long before the Dutch even got there. Singapore would be a better analogy, since it was insignificant before the British developed it and very quickly became very significant. An even better comparison would be the British settlements along the Columbia River, which didn't even have good conditions for shipping and yet became the hub for their fur trade. The little Russian ports provided secure bases for warehousing and replenishment and were able to construct small oceangoing vessels already. Lack of an agricultural hinterland was certainly a problem, but on the other hand there was ample timber in the vicinity. Keep in mind that the Americans, Danes, and Swedes had no bases whatsoever and the French nothing closer than the Indian Ocean.



Success breeds success and profitable trading would provide more money for construction of additional ships, without taking from other resources at home. Crews from successful voyages would provide a nucleus of experienced sailors that would train newcomers, just as in every other expanding navy and merchant marine. Merchant marines of the day often were manned by crews from many nations anyway, so if there's good business there's no need to only use Russian sailors.



With all do respect, you provide a cogent explanation of why Russian America and its trade didn't develop, not why it couldn't develop. I see personnel and management problems and bad executive decisions, not situations that require wild handwaving to provide alt-history outcomes.

Probably the main reason why it could not happen was almost complete absence of the interest of the Russian merchant class in a maritime trade in general. The trading activities were ending in the ports from where practically all cargo had been carried by the foreign ships.

Russian own naval trade was pretty much non-existent even on the Baltic and Black Seas until second half of the XIX. Not that government did not try to build such a trade but it was not happening even after the circumnavigations by the Russian navy became relatively routine. Changing peoples’ perceptions is much more difficult than building ports in a middle of nowhere and this absence of the interest makes a fundamental difference with the Brits, French, Dutch, etc.

As a side note, don’t get too fixed on the fur trade: I already explained that share of the furs in Kyakhta trade was steadily dwindling with the furs being replaced with the manufactured goods.

 

[TrickyApe]

Probably the main reason why it could not happen was almost complete absence of the interest of the Russian merchant class in a maritime trade in general. The trading activities were ending in the ports from where practically all cargo had been carried by the foreign ships.

But the impetus behind the RAC came from the merchant class, at a time when official St. Petersburg was at best uninterested. What happened to make the decline in merchant interest inevitable?

As a side note, don’t get too fixed on the fur trade: I already explained that share of the furs in Kyakhta trade was steadily dwindling with the furs being replaced with the manufactured goods.

The market for fur declined rapidly all over the world around the 1840's and that would be a problem down the line, but one as impossible to forsee in 1815 as the fortuitous discovery of gold just up the river from the fort the RAC actually did establish.

 

[alexmilman]

But the impetus behind the RAC came from the merchant class, at a time when official St. Petersburg was at best uninterested. What happened to make the decline in merchant interest inevitable?

I would not overestimate it. The whole thing was rather narrow even before RAC was founded. The Siberian fur merchants had been, quite naturally, looking at the newly discovered Kuril and Aleutian islands and the new items, sea otter and other sea mammals. They were reasonably close to the Russian territories and did not require any extensive travel. Shelikhov was rather unique in his activities because the rest of his colleagues were against any settlements on the American side.

Then again, these people had been getting the furs. Just as the sailors/merchants on other Russian coasts had been getting fish. I did not say that there was absolutely no tradition of going into the sea. But the naval trade is a seriously different thing from fishing and hunting and, by whatever reason, it did not pick up.

The market for fur declined rapidly all over the world around the 1840's and that would be a problem down the line, but one as impossible to forsee in 1815 as the fortuitous discovery of gold just up the river from the fort the RAC actually did establish.

The decline of the furs’ importance started much earlier. Below - percentage of furs in the Russian export to China. By 1840 textile became #1.

Годы	1757 — 1784	1790-е	1824 — 1828	1836 — 1840
Доля пушнины	85 %	70 %	50,7 %	34,5 %

One obvious (to me) conclusion you can make is that the government was not actually interested in stressing the furs issue as a matter of its foreign policy: the textile manufacturers were a much broader and influential group than RAC plus minor fur traders.

 

[durante]

After the Nootka Crisis between Spain and GB led to the Spanish dismantling San Miguel de Nutca, Vancouver Island would remain completely devoid of European settlement for nearly 50 years while the Americans and Brits competed for the Columbia river area to the south. By the 1840s, American settlers arriving overland convinced Britain the area was lost (due to having only perhaps 1000 British soldiers, trappers settlers and traders in the area), they moved north and established what would become Victoria.

The Puget Sound Agricultural Company had been founded in the 1830s as an agricultural colony to supply beef, leather, flour and wheat to the locals in Columbia as well as the Russians operating in Alaska.

If Russia had established a trading post on Vancouver Island at any point before the Spanish, after 1795 they'd have the region to themselves.

The economic incentive for settlement would be to cut out the middle man - produce food for Russians soldiers and trappers operating further north.

You might have to take my word for it, but despite being a little out of the way, this Island is a hidden gem, has gold and coal, not to mention agricultural land (and the driest spot on the PNW coast!), the worlds furthest north Mediterranean climate.

If there is going to be a colony, it should start here. It could even grow and develop during a period (before 1840s) when there was virtually zero other European or American settlement in the area. The otter and beaver pelts could be profitably sold in Japan and China. The redwood trees on the island could be used to make seaworthy vessels.

It would probably be taken by the British during the Crimean War; but there could be a few Russian towns and a few thousand settlers by that point.

And then, considering how many Ukrainians and East Slavs immigrated to western Canada at the end of the 19th century, it could then become a magnet for settlers.

 

[Naval Aviation Fan]

Been lurking since I found this thread. I just happen to be playing with some similar ideas, centered on the same time frame/area, but with the USA getting there first, so this thread has been a good read. I was surprised that the Nootka Crisis didn't get a mention earlier on.

Anyway, liking what I'm reading, and thanks for providing facts and info.

 

[TrickyApe]

I've been enjoying the discussion with alexmilman about the plausibility of profitable trading schemes centered around Russian America. It strikes me that it's not necessary that the triangular fur trade actually prove to be successful, merely that there's enough belief in its prospects to trigger a more serious effort to establish posts in North America. How many business schemes ever live up to the promises of their early promoters, after all?

The area was wide open for decades after the Nootka Crisis, with the Spanish fading away, the British more than distracted by Napoleon, and the Americans not yet on the scene at all except for private traders. A certain investment in trading posts and patrol vessels could make Alexander's 1821 ukase realistic, and although Britain and perhaps the United States could challenge it in the 1815-25 period, would they really push it?

The project might only break even from a financial perspective, or it might turn out to be an outright white elephant, but it could still result in Russian colonization of the area. If they keep it until later in the century when circumstances make the natural resources of the area more available, there's another chance to gain from an accounting perspective.