Alaska: Saga of a Bold Land

by Walter R. Borneman

With apparently little thought that he was turning his back on Peter’s dream of an empire encircling the North Pacific, Czar Nicholas I gave the order to abandon Fort Ross on April 15, 1839. The post’s manager, Alexander Rotchev, was charged with liquidating Russian interests there. Rotchev first approached the Hudson’s Bay Company and then the French. When neither expressed interest—perhaps because they recognized that any future operation of the post was likely to put them on a collision course with the United States—Rotchev turned to the Spanish, technically now Californios or Mexicans, Mexico having declared its independence from Spain in 1821. But the Spanish were hardly willing to buy what they still claimed was theirs by right. Besides, the handwriting was on the wall. The Russians were likely to abandon Fort Ross soon whether they received value for it or not.