The Baranov’s era

Alexander Baranov was born in 1746 in Kargopol, a small town in the Russian north. He moved to Irkutsk in 1780 and was involved in various businesses¹¹¹. Ten years later, Baranov was appointed as a manager of Shelikhov’s company and sent to Alaska to supervise the activities of the fur trade there. Upon his arrival, Baranov was entitled to hire his own assistants. Ivan Kuskov, a townsman from Tot’ma (also in the Russian north), who moved to Irkutsk in 1787 and got acquainted with Baranov, became one of them. The cooperation between Baranov and Kuskov developed and the latter became his closest associate, holding a position of senior assistant. Eventually, Kuskov was sent by Baranov to establish a new outpost of the Russian Empire. He sailed to California with a group of settlers and founded Fort Ross in 1812. Kuskov became the first commander of the newly established colony.

Throughout 28 years of his presence in Alaska (1790 - 1818), Alexander Baranov earned himself quite a reputation and still today remains as one of the main symbols of Russian

109 I. Vinkovetsky, op. cit., p. 59-60.

110 L. T. Black, op. cit., p. 121.

111 Ibidem, p. 121.

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presence in Alaska. Barret Willoughby, one of the most popular writers of the interwar period and an Alaska native, described him in her 1930 novel Sitka: a Portal to Romance in a following manner:

This strange and peerless commander, the greatest pioneer Alaska has even known, was in truth both ‘a candle to God, and a poker to the Devil.’ He was a Napoleon of the wilderness who colored the pages of Alaska’s history with such deeds of unflinching courage, such victories over apparently insuperable obstacles, such triumphs of boldness and strategy, that they read like a fascinating epic. With his own sword he defended himself against his personal enemies. If he used the knout on lawbreakers, it must be remembered that the whipping post was at that time vogue in New England. He could labor with hammer and saw to build a shed for his cow, yet he himself was waited upon hand and foot by his turbaned East India servant. He had a passion for music and a love of reading, but he had also a genius for barter and trade that has never been since seen equaled.

Master of wassail and song, Baranov could drink under the table any captain of the Seven Seas who visited him, yet he never permitted his beautiful half-breed daughter to see him under the influence of liquor¹¹².

Willoughby’s popular, romanticized account reflects the legends circulating around Baranov among some local citizens of Alaska. The author herself grew up there in first decades of 20^th century, and she was therefore able to listen to stories of people who still remembered the times of Russian rule over Alaska.

One of the main chroniclers of Russian America was Kirill Khlebnikov. He worked for RAK since 1801 in various places in various capacities. Since 1817, he has worked in New Archangel as a director the company’s office for 15 years¹¹³. Therefore, he eye-witnessed the development of Russian colony in America, which he described in his survey of 1833. According to Khlebnikov Baranov received a good offer from Shelikhov, because the latter needed a “worthy and capable man”¹¹⁴. The contract entitled Baranov

112 Willoughby B., Sitka. Portal to romance, Boston and New York 1930.

113 J. R. Gibson, Russian America in 1833: The Survey of Kirill Khlebnikov, [in:] The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Vol.

63, No. 1, January 1972, p. 1.

114 K. Khlebnikov, Baranov: Chief Manager of the Russian Colonies in America, ed. R. A. Pierce, Kingston (Ontario) 1973, p. 1.

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to hold 210 shares in the RAC (with annual dividends paid to him in money, not in furs), numerous benefits, responsibility solely to Shelikhov and the privilege to control the trade with any foreigner operating there¹¹⁵. The latter proved in time to be a real challenge for Baranov. Since the claim to some lands was still disputabed, various sailors and frontiersmen attempted to conduct trade with Indigenous peoples on their own. Another chronicler of that era, Petr Alexandrovich Tikhmenev noted in his first publication that Baranov had struggled in 1800 with American and British sailors, who insisted on trading with the indigenous peoples without Russians as middlemen¹¹⁶. Tikhmenev was a Captain 1^st rank, a member of the Navy, who authored the first comprehensive study of the Russian America’s history.

The new Chief Manager had difficulty adapting to the new situation. The land was severe and inhospitable, and the conditions of life were harsh in general. Baranov had to establish and maintain peaceful relations with indigenous Alaskans, making sure at the same time that the endeavor conducted there was profitable. What is more, even the relations with some of his own fellow settlers proved to be demanding. The main core of his subjects consisted of former serfs and townsmen. Around 150 of them came with Baranov upon his arrival¹¹⁷. Moreover, some of the Russians, who came to develop new colony were recruited from the Russian Navy. Those men were often proud soldiers, who sometimes also had earned a relatively high rank. Receiving orders from a civilian and a merchant of a relatively low rank was beneath their honor¹¹⁸.

Having learned that Shelikhov’s headquarters at Three Saints Bay were no longer in a good shape to serve as such, Baranov decided to found a new capital. Three Saints Bay were partly destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami. In 1792 Baranov established a new settlement on Kodiak Island, which he named after the Crown Prince (and future tsar) Paul – Paul’s Harbor (Pavlovskaya Gavan / Павловская гавань)¹¹⁹. This town remained a

115 L. T. Black, op. cit, 122.

116 P. A. Tikhmenev, Istoricheskoe obozrenie obrazovaniia Rossiisko-Amerikanskoi Kompanii i deistvii eia do nastoiashchego vremeni, v. I, St. Petersburg 1861, p. 83.

117 L. T. Black, op. cit., p. 127.

118 Ch. Manning, Russian influence on early America, New York 1953, p. 42.

119 L. T. Black, op, cit., p. 141.

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main settlement till 1808, when the capital was moved to New Archangel (Sitka) and remained the second biggest town of Russian America until its sale in 1867.