The man who built Russian America: Alexander Baranov, and the quests he led in Alaska, California and Hawaii

By Al Palladin – speech at the Seattle Olympic Club, May 20, 2021. From the upcoming book “America’s arch ally: Russia’s forgotten role in the founding, development and defense of the United States”.

For close to 30 years, the imagination, initiative, resilience and determination of Alexander Andreevich Baranov, Chief Executive of the Russian American Company, and the First Colonial Governor of Alaska (as well as colonies in California and Hawaii), led to fortunes and victories, over great expanses. The results that he brought to his company’s shareholders, and to the Russian Empire, also came at great personal costs.

Born in 1747, the son of a lower-class merchant (mestchanin), he was adventurous from a young age. At 15, Baranov ran away from his hometown of Kargopol and took the ancient route from Arkhangelsk (once Russia’s only sea port), to Moscow, the old capital. He came home with the acquired skills of a managerial assistant, married, and after the birth of his first child, set out for the frontiers of Siberia, and beyond.

In his early 30s, from a base in Irkutsk, Baranov launched expeditions to pursue the riches of fur trapping in Alaska. Relying on hired help brought him modest prosperity, and a great deal of management experience, over the course of a decade. Baranov was approached by Grigory Shelikhov, the founder of the Shelikhov-Golikov Company, which specialized in sea otter fur trading, with an offer to become the chief administrator of his business, which Alexander Andreevich accepted in 1790.

During the voyage from the Russian mainland to Kodiak Island, which was serving as the company’s base of operations at the time, Baranov found himself shipwrecked at Unalaska, approximately 600 miles from his intended destination. Soliciting the help of the indigenous Aleut people, Baranov and his Russian team not only survived the harsh winter, but in the spring of 1791 reached their intended destination, completing their journey on Native sea-going boats. This was the start of a friendship with the Aleuts, which Baranov treasured and cultivated for the rest of his life.

Between 1792 and 1793 Baranov supervised the expansion and strengthening of the headquarters, and operations facilities – by establishing towns and ports, which today are known as Kodiak and Seward. In 1794 he guided the first successful sea-going shipbuilding effort in Resurrection Bay. This was a tremendous milestone, helping the colonies that he supervised to achieve transportation self-sufficiency, as without their own ships the Russian Americans in Alaska were predominantly at the mercy of opportunistic foreign captains. All this while the fur trade continued to grow.

Baranov’s initial employment agreement was for an engagement of 5 years, but in 1795 Grigory Shelikhov mysteriously passed away, and his widow Natalia, who would go on to become the first Russian lady tycoon, turned to one of the few people that she could trust at the time, asking Baranov to continue to serve. Which he did, for a total of 28 years.

One-way travel between Alaska and St. Petersburg took close to a year, and that was the speed at which communications traveled. For example, while it was decided in 1799 that Baranov would be appointed Chief Manager of all of the Russian American Company’s resources in the field, including those on the Kuril and Aleutian Islands, Alexander would not learn of the official promotion until 1800. Baranov was left almost entirely on his own to make executive choices on most issues. For all practical matters he was the government of Russian America, for almost three decades.

After founding the settlement in Yakutat Bay, Baranov focused on building up defenses against possible British encroachment on the prospering fur business in southeastern Alaska. In 1799 he chose Sitka Island, with the intent to fortify positions over Sitka Sound. It is disputed whether the natives ever accepted payment for these lands from the Russians, but what happened next became known as the Tlingit War.

In 1802, while Baranov was attending to matters on Kodiak Island, the Tlingit attacked, and slaughtered nearly everyone at the Sitka settlement. The Russian governor responded by preparing an army of nearly 700 Aleut warriors, along with naval forces, and in September of 1804 they were ready for a counterattack.

It was Baranov’s way to achieve progress through cooperation, and while he had a formidable force, including the frigate “Neva”, Baranov first decided to negotiate a peaceful resolution with the Tlingit Chief Katlian and other Native leaders. They met, but to no avail.

The Battle of Sitka began with a huge explosion - most of the Tlingit gunpowder (acquired from the British and Americans) was hit by Russian gunfire, while being moved in a war canoe. This loss greatly weakened the adversary’s resolve. After several days of fighting, the Tlingit abandoned their fort and escaped in a "survival march" to the adjoining Chichagof Island. Baranov immediately commenced construction of a new fort, overlooking Sitka Sound.

The Russians had a strategic weakness – food supplies. The governor sent a ship, commanded by his right-hand-man, Ivan Kuskov, on a journey of almost 3,000 miles, to Hawaii. The gamble was successful, with Kuskov returning in the nick of time, as the Russians at Sitka were on the verge of starvation.

Around this time a decree arrived from Emperor Alexander I, promoting Baranov to the rank of Collegiate Counselor. From the class of “mestchanin”, far below nobility, he had been elevated to a rank equal or superior to the Imperial Russian Navy ship captains, who had previously treated him with condescension. This elevation of status was a reflection of Baranov’s successes, as the Russian American Company paid close to 500,000 rubles in dividends to its shareholders in 1802-1803, and members of the Imperial family were among the beneficiaries. With these proceeds the patrons could buy, for example, close to 50,000 (!) modest cottages (“izbi”).

One of the key leaders of the Russian American Company was Nikolay Rezanov, who had won the trust of both Natalia Shelikhova, the main shareholder of the RAC, and of the Czar, who also owned stock in the venture. By the time he paid a visit to Novo-Arkhangelsk (as Sitka was known back in the day) in 1806, it was a thriving community that was fueled by the fur business, with a constant flow of merchants from America’s East Coast and traders going all the way to China, and it even had its own ship building facilities. While it was one of the largest settlements on the Pacific coastline of North America, Baranov’s living conditions amazed Rezanov:

“None of us are particularly spread out here, but our ‘conqueror’ lives in some wooden yurt, so damp inside that mold has to be removed every day, to say nothing of the heavy local rains, which make the place resemble a dripping sieve. A remarkable man! He cares only for others’ convenient existence while disregarding his own needs to the extent that I once found his own bed floating in a puddle of water, and asked him if a section of the hut had been torn off by the strong wind, to which he casually responded: ‘No, I guess the water must have oozed inside from the town square,’ and continued his daily governance routines.” 

While he achieved success in establishing a solid presence at Novo-Arkhangelsk, to which Baranov had moved the capital of Russian America from Kodiak, there was ongoing opposition to his rule. Tlingit warriors attacked and massacred the Russian settlement at Yakutat in 1805.

The Russian Governor wore iron chain-mail beneath his outer shirt. The Tlingit made several unsuccessful attempts at assassination, and were amazed by his survival, not knowing of his body armor. Baranov was even at risk of being murdered by some discontent Russian soldiers, but he was warned, and the attempt was thwarted.

Activity in Governor’s region continued to grow, fueled by the boom of trade in sea otter and seal furs. Baranov convinced Aleut and Russian hunters to expand their range, to include the coasts of California.

At the same time the Chief Executive of the Russian American Company also sought more educational opportunities for the Alaska Native Americans. Baranov saw to it that schools were created, and frontier communities became less isolated. During his rule, Russian Orthodox missionaries operated across the vast expanses of Russian America. They translated the Bible into the Tlingit and other Native languages, conducted mass in those languages, and inoculated Natives against smallpox.

In 1807 Baranov, for his perseverance and successful leadership, was awarded the Order of St. Anna, 2nd class. That year he married his Aleut mistress in a Russian Orthodox church, and had their three children legitimized.

Baranov’s concerns with the livelihood of the colonies in Alaska led him to guide more expeditions, with the mission to establish reliable food supplies. In 1808 the crew of the “Sv. Nikolai” became shipwrecked on the coast of what is known today as the State of Washington. Following up on Rezanov’s negotiation with the Spanish Governor of California, which resulted in the promise that as long as the Russians’ ventures stayed north of San Francisco, the ruler would turn a blind eye, Fort Ross was established near Bodega Bay in 1812. And in 1816, while dressed in an Imperial Russian Naval staff officer’s uniform, the King “of the Sandwich Islands in the North Pacific Ocean, Kauai and Niihau, and hereditary prince of the islands Oahu, Maui, Lanai” raised the flag of the Russian American Company over Kauai. While it went into the history books as the “Sch?ffer affair”, it was an attempt to bring the whole Kingdom of Hawaii into the Russian Empire. And just like the Russian colonies in California, which thrived until 1842, the venture in Hawaii was driven by the strategic foresight of the First Colonial Governor of Russian America, Alexander Baranov.

After so many years abroad, the man, who built Russian America, was yearning to get back home. He had asked for replacements over the decades, and managers had been appointed by the RAC to relieve Baranov, but died on the treacherous journey to Alaska, to his great disappointment. Finally, the Board of Directors of the RAC sent Russian Navy Capt. Lt. Ludwig von Hagemeister. In 1817 the 70-year-old Baranov presented the fruits of his labor for inspection. Rumors and allegations against the Chief Executive had reached St. Petersburg.

Hagemeister and Kirill Khlebnikov (who later became Baranov's first biographer) audited the financial records of Russian America - and found no evidence of the Governor’s alleged wrongdoing. The books balanced down to the last ruble, with all income and expenditures fully accounted for. Further, the assessment revealed that Baranov was personally almost insolvent, as he had made it a practice to use his personal funds to help others in financial distress, throughout his rule. Hagemeister then succeeded Baranov as Chief Manager and governor in January 1818. Khlebnikov was appointed Office Manager, receiving company capital totaling two and a half million rubles.

In the summer of 1818 Mikhail Tikhanov, a Navy artist, painted the portraits of Baranov and one of the Tlingit chief Katlian, and his wife. These are the only known likenesses created during their lifetimes. In the Katlian painting the chief is shown with an "Allies of Russia" silver medal hanging on a chain from his neck, and with Baranov's fortress perched over Sitka Sound, behind him. The men, who had been mortal enemies, had ultimately found a path to prosperous coexistence.

On November 27, 1818, Baranov finally departed Alaska for good, joining Hagemeister on board the Navy ship “Kutuzov”, with the hopes of reaching Russia. A few weeks prior, Hagemeister had appointed his second-in-command, Navy Lt. Semyon Yanovsky, by then husband of Irina Baranov and thus Baranov's son-in-law, to act as Chief Executive and Governor.

The “Kutuzov” headed on a voyage more than halfway around the globe, plotting a course to travel south and west, around the Cape of Good Hope on the African continent, to then sail north to St. Petersburg. On their way they made a stopover in the Dutch East Indies. Very unfortunately the elderly Baranov became ill there, and as the “Kutuzov” set sail, he died on April 16, 1819. Tragically, the former head of Russian America was buried at sea, in the Sunda Strait, off Panaitan, never fulfilling his dream of seeing his homeland one last time.