Russian Colonization of North America

Russian colonial activity in North America lasted from 1732 to 1867, centered on the territory known from 1799 onward as Russian America, which covered present-day Alaska along with the more distant outpost of Fort Ross in California. Russian interest in the region grew out of the fur trade, particularly the hunting of sea otters after fur-bearing stocks in Siberia had been depleted, and followed the voyages of explorer Vitus Bering, whose 1741 expedition reached the North American mainland. The colony's administrative capital moved from Kodiak to New Archangel, now Sitka, Alaska, as Russian traders and administrators worked the coast and the Aleutian Islands. By the mid-nineteenth century overhunting and competition from British and American traders had reduced profits, and following the strain of the Crimean War, Russia judged the territory too costly to keep, ending its American colonization with the Alaska Purchase of October 18, 1867, when the United States bought the territory for 7.2 million dollars.