Alexander Baranof [pp. 9-22]

VIEW OF SITKA, LOOKING TOWARD MOUNT EDGECOMBE
vegetables, and in some places even cereals,
and plenty of excellent fish was always obtainable. By magnifying his conquests and
representing that he had added fifty thousand subjects to the Russian empire, Shelikof produced so good an impression on the
imperial authorities that he gained for his
company the exclusive privilege of trading
throughout Russian America, and on the
is] nds between it and Asia. Shelikof's
d&ughter had married Rezanof, a man of
good family and great influence. Rezanof
formed the ambitious project of procuring
from the Empress a charter as wide as that
of the British East India company, and of
adding an empire as vast as India to the
realms of the Tsar. His far-reaching
schemes received a check by the death in
1795 at Irkutsk of Shelikof, who must be
regarded as the founder of the Russian colonies in America; and by the death in 1796
of the Empress, before she had granted the
extensive charter he hoped for.
However, Natalia, Shelikof's widow, undertook the management of the company, and
VOL. XXX 2
being a woman of great energy and intelligence, though of little education, with the
aid of her son-in-law, she conducted its affairs with much shrewdness and discretion.
In 1798 the imperial government, thinking
that by giving exclusive privilege to one
strong company the natives would be protected, disorder prevented, the fur-bearing
animals saved from extermination, and Russian authority firmly established in America,
permitted an association with three quarters
of a million rubles (about $577,000) capital,
and known as the United American comany, to be formed. It had been feared that
the death of the Empress would be fatal to
the schemes of the association, but Rezanof.
by constant attendance on her successor,
Paul I, obtained confirmation of the act of
consolidation of the United American company, to which the name of the Russian
American company was given.
The company was granted the exclusive
privilege for twenty years of hunting, fishing, exploring, trading, founding, and building settlements on the northwestern main