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Russian America: the Great Alaskan Venture 1741 - 1867
Russian America the Great Alaskan Venture 1741 - 1867 Author:Hector Chevigny Its name was not Alaska until we bought it in 1867. Until then it was Russian America. Russia had possessed it for 126 years. Americans at large are apt to forget that our forty-ninth state, Alaska, was first explored and settled by the Russians, who left a definite mark on the vast Northwest. — Hector Chevigny's full-scale account of that ph... more »ase of our continental history, based upon fresh material found in recent years, is a brilliant and exciting record of adventure and expansion. While the western part of the United States was still a rude frontier, the Russians had explored the coasts from the Aleutians down to California. From their base in what is now Alaska, their only overseas colony, they developed a trade extending from the Orient to New England.
They had the first seaport in western America, the first Pacific shipyard north of Hawaii, the first steam vessel built on the west coast of America. Their capital, New Archangel, had a population of a thousand before there were a hundred people in San Francisco.« less