At the beginning of the 19th century, Northern California—then called Alta California and nominally under Spanish rule—saw the arrival of Russian, British, Prussian, and U.S. ships hunting whales and sea otters along the Pacific coast. Sea vessels flying the double-headed eagle, the Russian empire’s flag, soon dominated the waters of the Pacific Northwest as far south as San Francisco.
Although Spain had claimed California as its own territory since the early 1500s, it had no colonies or settlers in the area. The arrival of Russian fur traders along the coast spurred the Spanish to establish what would become a chain of 21 missions to bolster its claim to Alta California. Eventually, this chain of missions would reach as far north as Sonoma.
The Russian presence along the Pacific coast was headquartered in Sitka, Alaska, in a colony established by the Russian-American Fur Company. This commercial firm, similar to such European joint-stock companies as the Dutch East India Company or the Hudson’s Bay Company, was chartered by Russian Tsar Paul I in 1799. The company was given free reign in North America in exchange for one-third of its annual profits payable to the Tsar. However, the cultivation of foodstuffs proved difficult in Alaska. In 1806, an officer of the Russian-American Fur Company, Count Nikolai Rezanov, sailed to San Francisco to buy wheat and open trade relations with Spain, meeting with Jose Arguello, commander of the Presidio of San Francisco. During his trip, Rezanov fell in love with Arguello’s 15-year-old daughter, Concepcion Arguello, and announced their engagement on the eve of his departure. Perhaps it was this engagement that allowed Rezanov to load up his ship with wheat and set sail for the starving colony. (The marriage never happened. Rezanov died in 1807 before Arguello received permission from the pope to marry the non-Catholic.)
Despite the shipment, hunger continued to plague the Russian and Alaskan settlers in the Alaskan colonies of Sitka and Kodiak Island. Hope for a treaty with Spain grew even more unlikely with Rezanov’s death. Between 1808 and 1811, Alexandr Baranov, the leader of the Russian-American Fur Company, sent expeditions to explore the unoccupied stretch of California coastline north of San Francisco Bay. The Russians believed this area, called New Albion by Sir Francis Drake, was not under direct Spanish control.
In 1812, a scouting party of Russians and native Alaskans led by Ivan Kuskov, landed at Bodega Bay. The group decided the most suitable site for a new encampment lay 18 miles north. The redwood stockade fort they built, called Fort Rossiya or Fort Ross, was the southernmost base of operations of the Russian-American Fur Company. Their goal was to provide agricultural supplies, plus products from ranching and orchard farming for their Alaskan colonies. Fort Ross was located on the ancestral home of the local Kahaya Indians, who worked with the Russians. At its operational peak in 1828, roughly 60 Russian, 80 native Alaskans, and 80 local Indians lived in or worked at the Fort Ross settlement.
In 1821, following Mexico’s war of independence against Spain, the Russian Tsar Alexander I closed the waters of Pacific Northwest and California to Europe, the U.S., and Mexico. He warned them to stay 100 miles off the coast of Russian America. This edict was one of the motives for U.S. President James Monroe and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams to issue the Monroe Doctrine, calling any further European colonization of the Western Hemisphere an act of aggression against the U.S.
Fort Ross, despite its influence in international affairs, did not prove to be a successful colony. The massive over hunting of sea otters caused a collapse of the population. The reluctance of the colony’s hunters to engage fully in agriculture, combined with the coastal fog and indigenous gophers and mice, resulted in a string of unprofitable years in the late 1830s. By 1839, the Russian-American Company sought to leave Fort Ross. They negotiated with the Hudson Bay Company to supply Sitka with food and provisions. They also sought buyers for the Fort and all of its provisions, equipment, and livestock. In 1841, after extensive negotiations, the Russian-American Fur Company sold Fort Ross to John Sutter of Sutter’s Fort in Sacramento.