1796: Czar Paul I charters the Russian-American Company
The Russian Czar Paul I grants the Russian-American Company a charter with exclusive rights to the fur trade in Russian-controlled Alaska, which includes the Aleutian Islands and territories south. In return, the czar takes one-third of the profits. Despite a successful fur-trading enterprise with Native peoples, the Russians find it impossible to sustain a colony in this inhospitable environment.
- Theme
- Land and Water, Native Rights
- Region
- Arctic
Russian settlement at Three Saints Bay, Kodiak Island, Alaska, engraving by Luka Voronin, artist with the Billings Sarychev expedition, 1788–1792
Courtesy Alaska State Library, Wickersham State Historic Sites Photograph Collection