geeky
In the middle of the 19th century, US expansionism was on everyone's minds. Thoughts of expansionism looked not only west and south, but north as well. A number of Presidents including Madison, Polk, Pierce and others, had believed that someday the huge land mass known as British North America (or Canada) would someday be part of the United States. The Civil War and some of the norther raids into Canada led to the formation of the Dominion of Canada in 1867 because the British thought this would be the preferable option to sending an army to defend the territory. But the initial Canadian Confederation only included what are today known as the Maritime Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island) and parts of modern day Ontario and Quebec.
A portion of the north west part of the continent was Russian territory, based on Russian expeditions in the 18th century. In 1741, Vitus Bering (for whom the Bering Strait is named) led an expedition for the Russian Navy. The first permanent Russian settlement was founded in 1784. But by the middle of the 19th century, Russia was in a difficult financial position and feared losing Russian America without compensation, especially to the British, whom they had fought the Crimean War (1853–1856).
When James K. Polk reached agreement with the British over the Oregon territory, the portion retained by Great Britain, north of the 49th parallel of longitude was called British Columbia. The population of nearby British Columbia started to increase rapidly because of a large gold rush there. The Russians decided that in any future war with Britain, their colony might become a prime target, and would be hard to defend. Therefore the Russian Emperor Alexander II decided to sell the territory. He hoped to start a bidding war between the British and the Americans, but the British expressed little interest in buying Alaska. In 1859 the Russians offered to sell the territory to the United States. But no deal was reached because the US government had its hands full dealing with secession and the Civil War.
Grand Duke Konstantin, a younger brother of the Tsar, believed that it was the United States that would inevitably control the territory and press for the sale of Russian America to the U. S.Russian minister to the United States, Eduard de Stoeckl held meetings with American officials in 1859-60. President James Buchanan and Senator William Gwin of California discussed a hypothetical offer of five million dollars for the Russian colony, but the Russians saw the offer as being too low. Buchanan's increasingly unpopular presidency forced the matter to be shelved until a new presidential election.
Russia continued to believe that it would weaken British power by causing British Columbia, including the Royal Navy base at Esquimalt, to be surrounded by American territory. Following the Union victory in the Civil War, the Tsar instructed the Russian minister to the United States, who was still Eduard de Stoeckl, to re-enter into negotiations with US Secretary of State William Seward in March of 1867, during the administration of President Andrew Johnson. The negotiations concluded after an all-night session with the signing of the treaty at 4 a.m. on March 30, 1867. The purchase price agreed on at $7.2 million, or about 2 cents per acre.
American public opinion was not initially positive. Critics called it Seward's Folly. But many newspaper editors believed that the U.S. would obtain great economic benefits from the purchase, and that it would lead to the acquisition of British Columbia. Opponents argued that the US was already burdened with too much territory with no population to fill. They said that the cost of administration, civil and military, would be large and ongoing. The territory was an inconvenient distance. They also complained that the treaty was "a dark deed done in the night", that the territory contained nothing of value but furbearing animals, and these had been hunted until they were nearly extinct.
Opinions changed with the great Klondike gold strike in 1896. When that happened, Alaska came to be seen generally as a valuable addition to American territory.
The name, "Alaska", an Aleut name, was chosen by the Americans. The seal fishery was one of the chief considerations that induced the United States to purchase Alaska. It provided considerable revenue to the United States in an amount in excess of the price paid for Alaska. The company which administered the fisheries paid an annual rental of $50,000 per year as well as $2.62 per skin for the total number taken. The skins were transported to London to be dressed and prepared for world markets.
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 and artillery guns were fired. After the transfer, a number of Russian citizens remained in Sitka, but very soon nearly all of them decided to return to Russia. Many of the Russians found themselves jobless, surrounded by rowdy troops and gun-toting civilians.
Alaska Day celebrates the formal transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States, which took place on October 18, 1867.