Alaskan History 2: Russian Alaska Quiz

Answer: Danish

This was the first reliable information brought to the European continent about Alaska. Bering died of an illness, probably scurvy, while shipwrecked on "Bering Island" in Kamchatka, just across the "Bering Sea" from Alaska.

Answer: Kodiak Island

After Shelikhov and his party put down resistance and established control of the island, they built the first school to teach Russian to the natives and introduced the Russian Orthodox Church.

Answer: to control competing interests from rival companies of Russia and to prevent competition from other countries

Exploitation of the fur resource and the indigenous peoples of the region continued in the more organized Russian-controlled Alaska. The founders of the Russian American Company were Grigory Shelikhov and, principally, Nikolai Rezanov. Baranov's personal role in the formalization of the company's power isn't clear, though he was the chief manager (governor of Alaska) from its conception until 1818.

Answer: Sitka

The reclamation is known as the Battle of Sitka. The area was, of course, controlled by the Tlingits before the Russians arrived. Baranov arranged purchase of the settlement from the Tlingits. That it was fair market value is doubtful but impossible to know.

In this specific incident, it took a marine and land campaign by Baranov's forces to retake the future capital of Russian America in 1804. It was then officially regarded as Novo-Arkhangelsk (New Archangel) by the Russian American Company in reference to Baranov's birthplace in Russia.

The new site became the capital in 1808.

Answer: the United States

Previous close trade relations with the US, including reliance on their supply ships for transport of goods, allowed American fur trappers and traders to encroach on the southern areas of Alaska. Britain also had great influence in the area, France had by 1818 ceased to be a powerful trade force in Americas, and, though the Chinese bought many furs from the region, they had no real physical presence in Alaska.

Answer: the Hudson's Bay Company

The American Fur Company (US) and the North West Company of Canada were strong competitors of the Hudson's Bay Company of Britain on the Eastern seaboard, but their influence didn't go as far northwest as Alaska. The Plymouth Company, also British, dealt in joint stocks.

Answer: The holdings of the Russian Alaska Company were liquidated.

The holdings weren't liquidated until after Alaska was sold to the US in 1867. As Russian interests in the region declined, native interests rose, however slightly. The Tlingits were never conquered and fought back well into the 50s. Some significant improvements were also made in the Russian's treatment of indigenous peoples, most notably to the long abused Aleuts.

The dictionary of their language was developed by Father Ivan Veniaminov.

Answer: the Crimean War

Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812. The last of many wars with the Swedes took place in the late 18th century, and their final war (pre 1914) with the Turks took place a decade after the sale of Alaska. During the Crimean War, Imperial Russia took on France, the UK, and the Ottoman Empire.

The conflict sapped Russian economic resources and made defending a mostly unprofitable territory in North America unfeasible.

Answer: Tlingit and Haida

The Tlingits and Haidas claimed that the Russians hadn't paid them for their land, so it wasn't theirs to sell. A federal court agreed and arranged some compensation be paid.

Answer: Nikolaevsk

Most Russians currently living in Alaska are not descendants of the settlers of Russian America. Ironically, many or most of the Russian Old Believers, an offshoot of the Russian Orthodox Church dating back several centuries, came to Alaska by way of South America where they found they couldn't survive financially.

The fishing industry proved a more lucrative occupation and the community, along with a few others like it, survives in Alaska to this day. Ninilchik began as a retirement community for pensioners of the Russian American Company in the mid-1800s, but any "dominant" Russian influence is long past.