The Cultural History of Fort Ross

Russia’s eastward expansion took on a new dimension in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, as a counterpart to European and American westward expansion. About the same time that English colonists first settled along the Atlantic seaboard, Russian explorers, trappers, and settlers pushed east into Siberia and in 1639 reached the Pacific Ocean. By the mid-17^th century frontier promyshlenniki—self employed and contract entrepreneurs—had sailed through the strait that separates Asia from North America, inadvertently discovering a sea route from the Arctic to the Pacific. But it was not until almost 75 years later, when Tsar Peter the Great became determined to define the geography of the North Pacific, that the potential value of the discoveries in this region became clear. In two arduous voyages, Vitus Bering and Alexei Chirikov, under commission of the Russian Crown, sailed through the area now called the Bering Strait in 1728, and in 1741 discovered the Aleutian Islands and the mainland of Alaska, both of which they claimed for Russia. These results aroused great interest among Russian hunters and traders; the fur trade had long been the mainspring of Russia’s eastward expansion, and now these frontier entrepreneurs were drawn to the herds of fur seal and sea otter that lived in the North Pacific. From the 1740s to the end of the century, over forty Russian merchants and companies sponsored voyages to the Aleutians and the Alaskan mainland. By the early 1800s, Russian entrepreneurs were exporting an average of 62,000 fur pelts from North America each year, worth roughly two-thirds of a million paper rubles (about $133,200), a large sum in those days. Even though over eighty percent of the pelts were fur seal, the nearly five percent that were sea otter pelts were the most valuable.

The Russian foothold in Alaska remained undisturbed by other Europeans for several decades. In the minds of Europeans and American colonists of the 18^th century, Alaska was barely known—at most, it was little more than a place name for a remote and forbidding land. From the late 1760s on, however, the governments of Spain and Great Britain, both with claims to the North American mainland, became concerned about Russia’s presence in the North Pacific and, later, its monopoly of the fur trade. Spain advanced its territorial claims by sending naval expeditions as far north as Unalaska, and by establishing a chain of missions in Upper California between 1769 and 1776, from San Diego north to San Francisco Bay. Great Britain promoted its cause by sending Captain James Cook to search for a Northwest Passage; the Cook expedition visited the northern Pacific coast and Unalaska, where they met the Russians in 1778. The newly formed United States established a claim to the northwest coast, in part as a result of merchant voyages from Boston to the Columbia River of Oregon in 1787-88.

The Russian-American Company, like other European joint-stock companies (Dutch East India Company, Hudson’s Bay Company, Northwest Fur Company, British East and West India Companies), was given tasks to perform that went beyond the realm of trade. It was authorized to use the coastal areas of North America south to 55° north latitude (near Alaska’s current southern boundary) and to explore and colonize unoccupied lands. It was also given the right to exploit surface and mineral resources in the areas settled by Russians. In effect, it became the "right arm" of the Russian government in the American hemisphere. Members of the Tsar’s family, the court nobility, and high officialdom held shares in the Company, and it was understood that the Company would henceforth control all Russian exploration, trade, and settlement in North America. Shelikhov’s dream of turning the North Pacific into an "inland sea" of the Russian Empire was now under way.

The other nagging problem that drove the Russians south was the persistent difficulty in keeping the new settlements in the North Pacific supplied with adequate provisions to feed their colonists. The harsh physical environment of Alaska and the lack of familiarity with crop and stock raising among the Kodiak and Aleutian Islanders, on whom the Russians relied for labor, worked against their meager attempts at agriculture. Even the efforts of Russian settlers to grow garden produce and to obtain seed were disappointing. The winter of 1805-06 was climactic. The weather was unusually severe, and no supply ships arrived from Siberia for many months. The few staples on hand at Sitka were rationed but soon gave out, and the lean, ill-nourishing diet the settlers had to live on led to malnutrition, scurvy, and death. Upon this dismal scene arrived a high-ranking company official from St. Petersburg to inspect the colony. Nikolai Petrovich Rezanov, imperial chamberlain and son-in-law of Grigory Shelikhov, was appalled at what he saw and reported the colonial territories to be in a "disastrous situation."

So moved was Rezanov by the misery of the colonists that he purchased a vessel from Americans in Alaska and sailed to San Francisco Bay early in 1806 to purchase grain and, if possible, to establish trade relations with the Spanish in Upper California on a continuing basis. On his arrival, Rezanov boldly ignored the fact that all California ports were officially closed to trade with foreigners. He was at once ordered to anchor. The commandant of the Spanish presidio, Don José Dario Argüello, was away, so Rezanov was met by his son, Don Luís Antonio Argüello, and by several Catholic missionaries, all of whom were favorably impressed by Rezanov’s credentials, guns, and good manners. Soon Rezanov was cordially received at the Presidio by the family of the Spanish commandant.

During the next few weeks, the persuasive Rezanov successfully carried out his goal of trading Russian-made utensils and tools for wheat. With the return of Commandant Argüello to the Presidio, Rezanov was able to gain support for permission to trade with Spanish California, which was referred to Madrid for approval. Rezanov’s cause was further promoted by his romance with the commandant’s daughter, Doña Concepción Argüello, which led to a marriage proposal, and its acceptance, on the eve of his departure.

Returning to Sitka with provisions and news of a possible trade agreement with Spanish California, Rezanov urged Baranov to make use of "the one unoccupied stretch" of California coastline as an agricultural and hunting base for the settlements in Russian Alaska. Then he set out on his return trip to St. Petersburg, traveling via Kamchatka and Siberia, to report to the Tsar and the Company’s home office. On the way, weakened by fever, Rezanov fell from his horse and died of injuries a few days later, on March 1, 1807. It was a year or two before Doña Concepción knew of his fate. But, in Alaska, Baranov and Russian-American Company officials hurried to act on Rezanov’s advice.

In March 1812, with orders to build and administer the settlement, Kuskov returned to the Sonoma Coast. With him came twenty-five Russians, many of them craftsmen, and eighty Aleuts. These Native Alaskans brought forty baidarkas, the swift, maneuverable skin kayaks used for hunting and a few larger skin boats, baidaras, for transport. Kuskov’s assignment was not an unfamiliar one. He had previously administered settlements in Alaska and had built Novo-Arkhangel’sk on Sitka Island after local Indians destroyed the Company fortress in 1802. Construction at the California site began at once. Some of the craftsmen with Kuskov may have worked on reconstructing the Sitka settlement. The structures which rose on the bluff of the new colony took on lines similar to those of Novo-Arkhangel’sk, as the workmen followed models of the traditional stockade, blockhouses, and log buildings found in Siberia and on Sitka.

By 1820 the stockade interior contained the house of the manager (now called the Kuskov House), the quarters of other officials, barracks for the Russian employees, and various storehouses and lesser structures. Some buildings had two stories. The manager’s house had glass windows and was comfortably furnished. The chapel was added about 1825, replacing a small bell tower on the same site. A well inside the stockade provided the colonists with fresh water in case of emergency. In 1832 an anonymous Bostonian who visited Ross recorded his description of the stockade and manager’s residence: The Presidio is formed by the houses fronting inwards, making a large square, surrounded by a high fence. The Governor’s house stands at the head, and the remainder of the square is formed by the chapel, magazine, and dwelling houses. The buildings are from 15 to 20 feet high, built of large timbers, and have a weather-beaten appearance.

Outside the stockade, a windmill, cattle yard, bakery, threshing floor, and cemetery, along with farm buildings and bath houses, appeared within five years. There were vegetable gardens and an orchard. In later years there were two windmills, two threshing floors, several bathhouses and assorted other structures described in the 1841 Russian Inventory for Sutter. Along the cove, at the mouth of the stream below the stockade, were located a shipyard, forge, tannery, boathouse and storage shed for baidaras and baidarkas.

Everyone in the vicinity of Fort Ross labored for the Russian-American Company. The organization and operation of the colony followed the same general pattern as in the Company’s Alaskan settlements. The Ross colony, as in Alaska, was headed by a manager. He was paid a salary and given living quarters, and, although he also had servants, he worked as hard as any of the colonists, even finding time to tend a garden to add to the food supply. Kuskov, the first manager, was a particularly avid gardener, growing cabbage and beets for pickling, with enough produce harvested for shipments to be sent to Sitka for distribution in Alaska. The Ross settlement had five managers during its existence—Kuskov served from 1812 to 1821, Karl Ivanovich Schmidt from 1821 to 1824, Pavel [Paul] Ivanovich Shelikhov from 1825 to 1830, Peter Stepanovich Kostromitinov from 1830 to 1838, and Alexander Gavrilovich Rotchev from 1838 to 1841.

When Kuskov selected the settlement site for Ross on Kashaya territory in 1811, he was uncertain about relations with the Indians. Such concerns proved groundless. Unlike relations between the Indians and other foreigners in California, those between the Russians and the Kashaya were remarkably free of tension and strife. On the whole, the Russians appear to have treated the Kashaya fairly. The Indians employed at the settlement were paid in flour, meat, and clothing (either daily or monthly); lodging was provided, and their labor was at first voluntary, although relations deteriorated later. The coastal Indians regarded the Russians as far more desirable neighbors than the Spaniards, and they viewed the Russian presence as a safeguard against the Spanish (or Mexicans) and against other Indians entering their territory.

The Kashaya called the foreigners associated with the Russian colony the "Undersea People," whereas they referred to themselves as the "People From the Top of the Land." Originally, the land made available to the Russians by the Indians was accompanied by an exchange of gifts, mainly tools and trinkets, and professions of friendship. As the settlement grew, the Russians, who were amply aware of Spanish claims to all territory north of San Francisco, prudently decided to formalize their title. Consequently, Chief Manager Baranov sent Captain Leontii Andreianovich Hagemeister to the Sonoma Coast to document the transfer. A deed "releasing land to the Company" was drawn up and agreed upon in 1817 by the local Indian chiefs (Chu-gu-an, Amat-tan, and Gem-le-le), but it was signed only by the Russians present—Hagemeister and six other officials. It stated that "the chiefs are very satisfied with the occupation of this place by the Russians" and that "they now live in security from other Indians who used to attack them." A copy of the agreement, the only one known to have been executed between Indians and Europeans in California, was dispatched to Russia. Chief Chu-gu-an was presented a silver medal inscribed with the words "Allies of Russia."

The three-way culture of Native Californians, Native Alaskans, and Russians at Fort Ross was chiefly one of genuine cooperation, which some attribute to the religious values that had been instilled earlier in the Russians and Aleuts, by clergymen in Alaskan Russian America. At Fort Ross many of the Kashaya acquired a good understanding of the Russian language, and a number of Russian words found their way into the Kashaya vocabulary. It is also known that some Kashaya wives and children accompanied their promyshlennik husbands and fathers north to Alaska and even to Russia after the sale of the colony in 1841.

Although no one left a detailed account of daily life in the colony, the observations of both residents and visitors point to a busy if simple existence. In addition to hunting sea mammals and birds, parties fished for salmon, sea perch, and sea bass, and harvested local shellfish for the settlement’s larder. Sturgeon were caught in the Russian River. Farming and ranching consumed many hours of the colonists’ time, with even some of the Aleuts and Indians joining in to handle planting, cultivating, herding, logging, and construction chores. At the sheds along the cove, artisans got to work making furniture, barrels, plows, and other hardware, and later even ships and boats. The blacksmith’s anvil rang with the hammering of metal, as countless articles needed for trade and for operating the colony were fashioned by the skilled workers. Not all was hard work for the employees, however, for at Ross, as in Alaska and in the motherland, various holidays were observed. These occasions were cause for celebrations, which sometimes featured gun and rifle practice, followed by a feast of fresh meat obtained by slaughtering a bull from the settlement’s herd of cattle. All in all, everyday life was active and peaceful.

Presumably, Paul Shelikhov, the settlement manager at that time, deserves credit for supervising the chapel’s construction, for the first known reference to the "newly built" chapel, the first Orthodox structure established in the New World south of Alaska, came in 1828 from a French visitor, Duhaut-Cilly. The chapel, however, was never consecrated as a church because of the colony’s tenuous legality and the fact that no clergyman was ever permanently assigned. Nevertheless, the colonists conducted prayer meetings in the chapel and designated a sexton for its upkeep. In later years they hosted at least two priests who visited Ross and its chapel.

Agriculture at Fort Ross peaked in the early 1830s, but it fell far short of expectations. This disappointment gradually led Company officials to experiment with agriculture inland and to the south. They reasoned that establishing farms in more sheltered areas might not only raise the colony’s overall productivity but would serve as a buffer between the Russian coastal holdings and the Mexican and American settlers advancing from the south. Between 1833 and 1841, the Russians maintained three such ranches. The farthest ranch from Ross was that founded by the agronomist Yegor Chernykh. Chernykh had been sent by the Company to California to improve crop production on the Sonoma Coast

and, soon after his arrival in 1836, he recommended extending the colony’s farming activities farther inland. He established his ranch about ten miles from the coast, in a small valley watered by a wooded stream (Purrington Creek, between Occidental and Graton). There he erected barracks and five other structures, and grew vegetables, fruit, wheat, and other grains. Chernykh also developed a large vineyard, introducing what has since become a major crop in the area.

Although the Russians never made it their major enterprise, stock raising was more consistently successful than growing crops, and in time it became an integral part of the economy. Breeding stock, first obtained from the Spanish, produced several thousand head of cattle, horses, mules, and sheep, and enabled substantial shipments of wool, tallow, hides, salt beef, and butter to be sent to Alaska, as well as other destinations, for marketing. Moreover, sheep and cattle provided raw materials for clothing and a variety of household goods, much of which was used in trading. In the early 1820s, about 1,800 pounds of wool were produced annually, more than enough to cover the needs of the colony and to export to the California missions and elsewhere. Although wool blankets and saddle-cloths were woven at Fort Ross, efforts to expand woolen manufacturing proved unsuccessful because of the lack of skilled workers. From tallow the Russians made candles, with wicks of flax or rush, and they also used animal fat combined with oakwood ashes, seashell lime and water to make soap. Lanterns, combs, and powder horns were fashioned from the horns of oxen. Shoe soles and boot uppers were made from hides. In the last years of the colony 1,700 head of cattle, 940 horses and mules, and 900 sheep were in Russian hands, and were described by the French observer, Eugène Duflot de Mofras, as "in prime condition and unquestionably the finest in California."

Because of the abundance of timber, Company officials held high hope for the development of shipbuilding at Ross, primarily as a means of improving trans-Pacific trade and communication. Baranov, in particular, encouraged the enterprise and in 1817 sent a shipwright from Sitka, Vasily Grudinin, to supervise the project. In eight years’ time, three brigs and a schooner were built at the cove, ranging in size from 160 to 200 tons, and in cost from 20,000 to 60,000 rubles each ($4,000 to $12,000). In the end, however, shipbuilding was abandoned, as Company Agent Kiril Timofeyevich Khlebnikov reported, because the oak used in construction was " . . freshly cut and the wood used while still unseasoned, and by the time the ship was launched the rot had set in. After three or four years the changes in climate caused the rot to increase in all the main parts of the ship, and there was no way to repair it." As a consequence, the larger vessels could only be used for coastal trade from Monterey to Alaska, and occasionally for a voyage to Hawaii or Okhotsk. Nevertheless, the shipyard at Ross was the first of any size to operate in California, and many of the smaller boats constructed there found a ready market among the Californios, as the Spanish-Mexican settlers were called, of the San Francisco Bay area.

Other commercial activities were more consistently successful, particularly tanning, milling, brickmaking, blacksmithing and foundry work. At the tannery at the mouth of Fort Ross Creek, working with six redwood vats, an Aleut master tanner dressed, tanned, and fashioned hides and skins into shoes, boots, and other leather goods. By the late 1820s between 70 and 90 tanned hides were shipped to Sitka each year. In 1814, the first known wind-powered flour mill in California was built on a knoll north of the stockade; another windmill, added some time later, was able to grind over 30 bushels of grain a day. A third mill was hand and animal-powered. After the flour was ground, it was stored, exported, or used for baking in one of the fort’s kitchens. Two mill-driven machines were used to crush tan-oak bark for the tannery. A good-quality clay was found nearby, which led to the manufacture of bricks; their production and storage were moved to Bodega in 1832.

Much has been written about the enmity and suspicion that existed between the Russian and the Spanish-Mexican authorities in California, but their disagreements have been overstated. The Spanish government officially forbade its subjects from trading with foreigners. Commercial exchanges, however, did take place between the Spanish and the Russians beginning with Rezanov’s visit, and, in the early days of Ross, the Californios supplied the Russians with their first wheat, fruit trees, cattle, and horses. Because the Californios undertook almost no manufacturing of their own, they had considerable demand for farm implements and household wares. As the Russian colony grew, it was soon able to fulfill some of this demand. There was hardly a useful item of wood, metal, or leather that the promyshlenniki and artisans did not produce, and soon the Russians sold ploughs, axes, nails, wheels, metal cookware and longboats to their neighbors in exchange for grain, salt, and other raw materials.

The first of these observers, the physician and biologist Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff, accompanied Rezanov to California in 1806. Langsdorff was a correspondent member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, and the memoirs of his stay present a classic account of early Spanish California. His sketches of California Indians and their artifacts are among the earliest portraits of native life to have survived.

In May 1841, Chernykh and Voznesenskii joined forces to map and name the tributaries of the Russian River as far north as the Healdsburg area. Shortly afterward they made the first recorded ascent of Mt. St. Helena. A metal plaque, in Russian and Spanish, was made in advance, and the explorers installed it on the north summit to mark their feat. In the 1850s the plaque was removed, but a facsimile was made for the Fort Ross centennial in 1912 to replace it; this marker remains atop Mt. St. Helena. Voznesenskii also traveled up the Sacramento River to visit the Swiss émigré, Captain Johann (John) Augustus Sutter, at his ranch and fort, New Helvetia. He rode up California’s central valley to explore the volcanic Sutter Buttes with his host, who would soon play a major role in the fate of Fort Ross.

At the same time, the Mexican government’s active encouragement of new settlers into the area, as well as a growing influx of Americans, posed a looming challenge to Russian claims over territory, which neither the Imperial government in distant St. Petersburg nor the Russian-American Company was able to meet. A last effort to avert a Russian withdrawal came in 1836 when Baron von Wrangell journeyed from Sitka to Mexico City to seek an improvement in relations with the new Mexican Republic. He also sought Mexico’s formal recognition of the legality of Russia’s claim to Fort Ross, previously denied by both Spain and Mexico. The Mexicans were willing to yield on this issue, but only in return for Russia’s diplomatic recognition of their own national independence as a republic. However, Tsar Nicholas I, an unwavering defender of absolute monarchy and a foe of revolutionary change, rejected the condition, and so ended any chance of a favorable resolution of the contested issue of the "legitimacy" of the Russian colony. In April 1839, the Tsar approved of the Company’s plan to liquidate the settlement, and shortly thereafter the Company offered all of its California holdings for sale.

The man charged with selling the colony and its assets was Alexander Rotchev, who had arrived at Fort Ross in mid-1836, on a temporary assignment. Joining him later were his wife, Helena, the Princess Gagarina, and their three children. A prominent writer and literary translator conversant in several languages, the energetic and talented Rotchev, together with his attractive wife, soon lent a new tone to life in the frontier community, giving it vigor, intensity, and sophistication in its last few years. Named to succeed Kostromitinov as manager of the colony in late 1838, Rotchev was quick to grasp the problems facing the distant colonial outpost and proved himself to be a resourceful administrator and diplomat. Although he personally opposed the decision to sell the colony, he faithfully carried out his orders, ably conducting the intricate negotiations that led to the sale of the Company’s assets in California.

Rotchev first approached the Hudson’s Bay Company regarding the purchase, but the British turned down the offer in 1840. He then made overtures to France through the French military attaché in Mexico City, Eugène Duflot de Mofras. Duflot made an extensive visit to Ross to investigate the area first-hand, but he, too, declined to put forth a bid, on the grounds that he lacked authority in such matters. The Russian-American Company then ordered Rotchev to offer the outpost to Mexico. Both the Mexican Government and General Vallejo of Sonoma rejected the Russian terms, partly because Mexico already considered Fort Ross as legally its own, and possibly because they hoped that the Russians would simply abandon the outpost.

Rotchev then approached Captain Sutter at his ranch in the Sacramento Valley, and in late 1841 Sutter agreed to buy the Russian-American Company’s assets. This included all the buildings, livestock, and implements, but not the land itself, which was still claimed by Mexico. The contract stipulated that Sutter pay the Company the equivalent of $30,000 in installments, in both cash and produce. However, a separate, unofficial deed, signed by Rotchev one day earlier than the day on which Sutter, a Mexican citizen, signed the official contract, transferred to the new owner a stretch of land extending from Cape Mendocino to Point Reyes and inland for 12 miles. (This deed did not surface publicly until 1857 and then caused considerable legal controversy.)

The abandonment of Fort Ross was a harbinger of Russia’s withdrawal from North America altogether. The Russian-American Company’s profits continued to decline, and, when the Company’s charter expired in 1862, it was extended thereafter only provisionally. Meanwhile, Russia’s preoccupation with developing its newly acquired Pacific territories north of China was increasing, and the prospective costs of continuing to maintain the outposts in America, especially in the face of a growing British presence, led Russia to sell its Alaskan holdings to the United States Government in 1867, thus terminating a century-long territorial presence in America. In retrospect, the withdrawal from Fort Ross, Russia’s easternmost outpost, signaled a turning point in the expansion of the Russian Empire. As the world’s largest contiguous empire, Imperial Russia chose to redirect its energies and consolidate itself on only two continents instead of three.