Russian colonization of North America

The Russian Empire’s exploration, settlement, and commercial expansion in North America, centered on Alaska and extending briefly down the Pacific coast.

Russian-American Company: A chartered Russian trading company that governed Russian America and monopolized much of its fur trade. Its monopoly organized Russian settlement, commerce, and administration in Alaska.
Russian conquest of Siberia: The eastward expansion of the Russian state across Siberia from the sixteenth century onward. Siberian conquest supplied the routes, precedents, and fur economy that pushed Russia across the ocean.
Fort Ross: A Russian settlement on the California coast, established in 1812 and abandoned in 1841. It marked the southernmost durable Russian colonial foothold in North America.
Alaska Purchase: The 1867 transfer of Alaska from the Russian Empire to the United States for $7.2 million. The purchase ended Russian rule and transferred the colony to the United States.
Sea otter fur trade: A global commerce in sea otter pelts, prized for their dense, soft fur. Demand for pelts drove Russian voyages and coastal expansion.
Vitus Bering: A Danish-born explorer in Russian service who led expeditions across the North Pacific. His voyages helped establish Russian geographical knowledge of the region.
Sitka: A city in southeast Alaska founded as a Russian colonial center and later renamed Sitka. Its successive names and rulers trace the colony’s political transition.
Treaty of Cession of Alaska: The 1867 treaty by which Russia ceded its North American possessions to the United States. Its terms formalized the legal transfer of Russian America.
Promyshlenniki: Russian fur hunters and traders who operated across Siberia and the North Pacific. These merchants and hunters formed the early human engine of expansion.
Bering expedition: A series of Russian state-sponsored voyages that explored the North Pacific and Alaska in the eighteenth century. Its reports and discoveries encouraged sustained Russian commercial expansion.

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