The Alaska Purchase was the purchase of Alaska from the Russian Empire by the United States for a sum of $7.2 million in 1867 (equivalent to $129 million in 2023). On May 15 of that year, the United States Senate ratified a bilateral treaty that had been signed on March 30, and American sovereignty became legally effective across the territory on October 18.
During the first half of the 18th century, Russia had established a colonial presence in parts of North America, but few Russians ever settled in Alaska. Alexander II of Russia, having faced a catastrophic defeat in the Crimean War, began exploring the possibility of selling the state's Alaskan possessions, which, in any future war, would be difficult to defend from the United Kingdom. To this end, William H. Seward, the U.S. Secretary of State at the time, entered into negotiations with Russian diplomat Eduard de Stoeckl towards the United States' acquisition of Alaska after the American Civil War. Seward and Stoeckl agreed to a treaty for the sale on March 30, 1867.
At an original cost of $0.02 per acre ($0.36 per acre in 2023), the United States had grown by 586,412 sq mi (1,518,800 km2).[1] Reactions to the Alaska Purchase among Americans were mostly positive, as many believed that Alaska would serve as a base to expand American trade in Asia. Some opponents labeled the purchase as "Seward's Folly" or "Seward's Icebox"[2] as they contended that the United States had acquired useless land. Nearly all Russian settlers left Alaska in the aftermath of the purchase; Alaska would remain sparsely populated until the Klondike Gold Rush began in 1896. Originally organized as the Department of Alaska, the area was renamed the District of Alaska in 1884 and the Territory of Alaska in 1912, ultimately becoming the modern-day State of Alaska in 1959.
Russian America was settled by promyshlenniki, merchants and fur trappers who expanded through Siberia. They arrived in Alaska in 1732, and in 1799 the Russian-American Company (RAC) received a charter to hunt for fur. No colony was established, but the Russian Orthodox Church sent missionaries to the natives and built churches. About 700 Russians enforced sovereignty in a territory over twice as large as Texas.[3] In 1821, Tsar Alexander I issued an edict declaring Russia's sovereignty over the North American Pacific coast north of the 51st parallel north. The edict also forbade foreign ships to approach within 100 Italian miles (115 miles or 185 km) of the Russian claim. US Secretary of State John Quincy Adams strongly protested the edict, which potentially threatened both the commerce and expansionary ambitions of the United States. Seeking favorable relations with the U.S., Alexander agreed to the Russo-American Treaty of 1824. In the treaty, Russia limited its claims to lands north of parallel 54°40′ north and also agreed to open Russian ports to U.S. ships.[4]
By the 1850s, a population of once 300,000 sea otters was almost extinct, and Russia needed money after being defeated by France and Britain in the Crimean War. The California Gold Rush showed that if gold were discovered in Alaska, Americans and Canadians would overwhelm the Russian presence in what one scholar later described as "Siberia's Siberia".[3] However, the principal reason for the sale was that the hard-to-defend colony would be easily conquered by British forces based in neighboring Canada in any future conflict, and Russia did not wish to see its archrival being next door just across the Bering Sea. Therefore, Emperor Alexander II decided to sell the territory. The Russian government discussed the proposal in 1857 and 1858[5] and offered to sell the territory to the United States, hoping that its presence in the region would offset the plans of Britain. However, no deal was reached, as the risk of an American Civil War was a more pressing concern in Washington.[6][7]
Grand Duke Konstantin, a younger brother of the Tsar, began to press for the handover of Russian America to the United States in 1857. In a memorandum to Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov he stated that
we must not deceive ourselves and must foresee that the United States, aiming constantly to round out their possessions and desiring to dominate undividedly the whole of North America will take the afore-mentioned colonies from us and we shall not be able to regain them.[5]
Konstantin's letter was shown to his brother, Tsar Alexander II, who wrote "this idea is worth considering" on the front page.[8] Supporters of Konstantin's proposal to immediately withdraw from North America included Admiral Yevfimy Putyatin and the Russian minister to the United States, Eduard de Stoeckl. Gorchakov agreed with the necessity of abandoning Russian America but argued for a gradual process leading to its sale. He found a supporter in the naval minister and former chief manager of the Russian-American Company, Ferdinand von Wrangel. Wrangel pressed for some proceeds to be invested in the economic development of Kamchatka and the Amur Basin.[8] The Emperor eventually sided with Gorchakov, deciding to postpone negotiations until the end of the RAC's patent, set to expire in 1861.
Over the winter of 1859–1860, Stoeckl held meetings with United States officials, though he had been instructed not to initiate discussions about the sale of the RAC assets. Communicating primarily with Assistant Secretary of State John Appleton and California Senator William M. Gwin, Stoeckl reported the interest expressed by the Americans in acquiring Russian America. While President James Buchanan kept these hearings informal, preparations were made for further negotiations.[8] Stoeckl reported a conversation in which he asked "in passing" what price the U.S. government might pay for the Russian colony and Senator Gwin replied that they "might go as far as $5,000,000", a figure Gorchakov found far too low. Stoeckl informed Appleton and Gwin of this, the latter saying that his Congressional colleagues in Oregon and California would support a larger figure. Buchanan's increasingly unpopular presidency forced the matter to be shelved until a new presidential election. With the oncoming American Civil War, Stoeckl proposed a renewal of the RAC's charter. Two of its ports were to be open to foreign traders and commercial agreements with Peru and Chile to be signed to give "a fresh jolt" to the company.[8]
Wikimedia Commons has a file available for full text of ratification.Russia continued to see an opportunity to weaken British power by causing British Columbia, including the Royal Navy base at Esquimalt, to be surrounded or annexed by American territory.[9] Following the Union victory in the Civil War in 1865, the Tsar instructed Stoeckl to re-enter into negotiations with William H. Seward in the beginning of March 1867. President Andrew Johnson was busy with negotiations about Reconstruction, and Seward had alienated a number of Republicans, so both men believed that the purchase would help divert attention from domestic issues.[10] The negotiations concluded after an all-night session with the signing of the treaty at 04:00 on March 30, 1867.[11] The purchase price was set at $7.2 million (equivalent to $129 million in 2023), or about 2 cents per acre ($4.74/km2).[1][12]
The Russian name for the Alaska Peninsula was Alyaska ("Аляска") or Alyeska, from an Aleut word, alashka or alaesksu, meaning "great land"[13] or "mainland".[14] The United States chose the name "Alaska" to refer to the area purchased from Russia.
Seward told the nation that, according to Russian estimates, Alaska had about 60,000 inhabitants. This included about 10,500 who were under the direct government of the Russian fur company: about 8,000 indigenous people and 2,500 people of Russian or mixed Russian and indigenous descent (for example, having a Russian father and a native mother). The remaining 50,000 or so were Inuit or Alaska Natives living outside of Russia's jurisdiction.
Seward also said that the Russians were settled at 23 trading posts, placed on accessible islands and at points along the coast. At smaller trading posts, typically only four or five Russians were stationed: their job was to collect furs from the natives for storage and then for shipment when the company's boats arrived to take the furs away. There were two larger towns. One was New Archangel (now named Sitka), established in 1804 to handle the valuable trade in the skins of sea otters; in 1867, it had 116 small log cabins and 968 residents. The other was St. Paul, in the Pribilof Islands, which had 100 homes and 283 residents, and was the center of the seal fur industry.[15]
Seward and many other Americans expected that Asia would become an important market for U.S. products, and that Alaska would serve as a base for American trade with Asia and globally, and for the extension of American power into the Pacific.
Senator Charles Sumner, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sponsored the Senate bill authorizing the U.S. to approve the treaty to acquire the territory. He not only agreed about the benefit to trade, but also said he expected the territory to be valuable on its own; having studied the records of explorers, he believed it contained valuable animals and forests. He compared the acquisition to contemporary European colonial acquisitions, such as the French conquest of Algeria.[16][17] The United States Senate approved the treaty by a vote of 37 to 2.[18]
Many Americans believed in 1867 that the purchase process had been corrupt,[17] but W. H. Dall in 1872 wrote that, "there can be no doubt that the feelings of a majority of the citizens of the United States are in favor of it."[19] The notion that the purchase was unpopular among Americans is, a scholar wrote 120 years later, "one of the strongest historical myths in American history. It persists despite conclusive evidence to the contrary, and the efforts of the best historians to dispel it", likely in part because it fits American and Alaskan writers' view of the territory as distinct and filled with self-reliant pioneers.[16]
A majority of newspapers either supported the purchase or were neutral.[17] A review of dozens of contemporary newspapers found general support for the purchase, especially in California; most of 48 major newspapers supported the purchase.[16][20] Public opinion was not universally positive; to some the purchase was known as "Seward's folly", "Walrussia",[3] or "Seward's icebox". Editorials contended that taxpayer money had been wasted on a "polar bear garden". Nonetheless, most newspaper editors argued that the U.S. would probably derive great economic benefits from the purchase, such as considerable mineral resources that previous geological explorations of the region suggested were available there;[21] friendship with Russia was important; and it would facilitate the acquisition of British Columbia.[22][23][24][25] Forty-five percent of supportive newspapers cited the increased potential for annexing British Columbia in their support,[9] and The New York Times stated that, consistent with Seward's reason, Alaska would increase American trade with East Asia.[17]
The principal urban newspaper that opposed the purchase was the New York Tribune, published by Seward opponent Horace Greeley. The ongoing controversy over Reconstruction spread to other acts, including the Alaska purchase. Some opposed the United States obtaining its first non-contiguous territory, seeing it as a colony; others saw no need to pay for land that they expected the country to obtain through manifest destiny.[16] Historian Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer summarized the minority opinion of some American newspaper editors who opposed the purchase:[26]
Already, so it was said, we were burdened with territory we had no population to fill. The Indians within the present boundaries of the republic strained our power to govern aboriginal peoples. Could it be that we would now, with open eyes, seek to add to our difficulties by increasing the number of such peoples under our national care? The purchase price was small; the annual charges for administration, civil and military, would be yet greater, and continuing. The territory included in the proposed cession was not contiguous to the national domain. It lay away at an inconvenient and a dangerous distance. The treaty had been secretly prepared, and signed and foisted upon the country at one o'clock in the morning. It was a dark deed done in the night… The New York World said that it was a "sucked orange." It contained nothing of value but furbearing animals, and these had been hunted until they were nearly extinct. Except for the Aleutian Islands and a narrow strip of land extending along the southern coast the country would be not worth taking as a gift… Unless gold were found in the country much time would elapse before it would be blessed with Hoe printing presses, Methodist chapels and a metropolitan police. It was "a frozen wilderness."
— Oberholtzer
The transfer ceremony took place in Sitka on October 18, 1867. Russian and American soldiers paraded in front of the governor's house; the Russian flag was lowered and the American flag raised amid peals of artillery.
A description of the events was published in Finland six years later. It was written by a blacksmith named Thomas Ahllund,