Merchant Kings

by Stephen R. Bown

  A thousand or more people lived there, and dozens of ships might be at anchor in the bay at any given time. Baranov commissioned a great library and government hall for the colony there, and formalized the town centre with wooden boardwalks.

  The surrounding land became farmland as well as a site for light industry to service the port.

  But the farther Baranov expanded his commercial enterprise to the south and east, the farther he was from Okhotsk, and the greater became his logistical problems. All his supplies had to travel by ship the enormous distance from the Asian mainland, following the Aleutian Islands thousands of kilometres round the rim of the Gulf of Alaska in dangerous and uncertain sailing conditions. All of Baranov’s thousands of fur pelts then had to be shipped back along this same treacherous route to Okhotsk, before being carted overland into the heart of Asia to be traded to Chinese merchants at Kiakhta, still the only location where the Chinese government would permit Russian goods to enter China. This arrangement was ludicrously inefficient and expensive, eroding the company’s profits and saddling Baranov with unending aggravation. American traders were able to pay native hunters much more for their furs, and still be profitable because they were closer to their home market.

  But Baranov was a crafty man, not easily thwarted. His solution was to enter into deals with American merchant captains, who were allowed to trade directly with Canton, to supply the southern portion of his commercial empire with goods as well as to ship company furs directly to Canton and secretly avoid the Chinese embargo. As a result, by the early nineteenth century, the Boston-Sitka-Canton-Boston trade network, with stops in Hawaii, was well established. Baranov was joining Russian America to the web of Pacific commerce that was then evolving. He wanted a company base on Hawaii and also had his eyes set farther south, on Spanish California. It was certainly good business, but business was only half the guiding principle of the great trading monopolies. Was Baranov’s scheme in accordance with the policy of the Russian government?

  Not long after taking Sitka Sound and founding New Archangel, Baranov learned that he should expect an official visit from Imperial Chamberlain Nikolai Rezanov, the son-in-law of Baranov’s original patron, Shelikhov, and his superior. No company official that outranked Baranov had ever made the crossing to his realm before. Rezanov was now in Japan, and would soon be crossing the Pacific to tour the corporate domain over which he had held titular authority in St. Petersburg for years without ever seeing it.

  6

  AT THE TIME OF HIS VISIT, REZANOV WAS DISTRACTED and irritable, being overcome with grief. His beloved wife, Anna, had died in childbirth the previous year, and he was not his usual clear-thinking self. His diplomatic tour to Alaska on behalf of the Russian government, as well as on behalf of the Russian American Company, was his attempt to distract himself from the depression that had consumed him in St. Petersburg. His entourage included two Russian navy ships flying Russian flags and of course commanded by navy officers, but they had been outfitted and supplied with cargo by the Russian

  American Company. Rezanov’s official tour highlighted the ambiguous blending of authority and responsibility between corporate interests and state interests. Rezanov and the state were taking a greater interest in Russian America now that Baranov had increased the endeavour’s scope and size.

  After cruising along the Aleutian chain and stopping at the major company outposts en route, Rezanov arrived in Sitka in the summer of 1805. Rezanov’s expectations of Russian America had come solely from the exaggerated stories of his late father-in-law, Shelikhov, and he was ill-prepared for its primitive state. With great ceremony he disembarked from his ships and marched through the new town of Sitka, accompanied by the diminutive, arthritic Baranov, prematurely aged at the age of fifty-eight from his travails on the frontier and his struggle to place the company on a sound financial and political footing.

  Rezanov found the town to be dirty, cramped and noisy. Mud was everywhere, construction was ongoing and Sitka afforded none of the luxuries to which Rezanov was accustomed. He did acknowledge, however, that it was ideally suited for defence from the Tlingit and for the Russian command of the entire coast. The town’s hill was dominated by a solid wooden bastion mounted with twenty guns, while the remainder of the settlement, including the cabins, bunkhouses, a smithy and barns for the small herd of pigs, cows and goats, was enclosed by a rough stockade. Wrinkling his nose in distaste, Rezanov was shown to his private cabin by Baranov and settled down for the winter, during which he would drive Baranov and the others mad.

  Towards Baranov he was cool, accusing him of drinking too much and being too lenient, and used his authority to end the profitable agreements that Baranov had cultivated with the American traders.

  Rezanov also quarrelled with his Russian naval officers and expounded with great distaste about what he saw of Russian

  America. He meddled in areas where he knew nothing, insulted people and rudely imposed his authority on them. His official correspondence to St. Petersburg included his suggestions for improving the company colony: banning marriage between Russians and natives, giving Baranov the powers of a provincial governor to punish people, bringing to heel the clergy and increasing the Russian settlement of the region by transporting unwanted drunkards, serfs and bankrupts there, as well as “criminals and men of bad morals” from Russia. In Russian America, they would provide cheap labour and presumably reform their wayward ways. “The dread that this law would produce,” Rezanov claimed, hinting at his impression of the company’s holdings, “would keep people from dishonouring themselves and would promote confidence and trust toward trade.” Rezanov also advocated using bases in Russian America to invade Japan and to attack and destroy all American traders along the coast. Fortunately, all his recommendations were ignored by both the government and the company’s board of directors.

  After three weeks in Sitka, Rezanov provided the long-suffering Baranov with his list of things to reorganize in order to eliminate what Rezanov believed to be anarchy and poor management. Baranov had been running the enterprise for thirteen years without much institutional support, and had just completed a small war and founded a new settlement that was still under construction. Tlingit warriors still threatened the settlement and were attacking other company outposts along the coast. Nevertheless, Rezanov announced that Baranov should proceed with the rapid development of self-sustaining industries and agriculture—activities that Baranov knew from years of experience to be completely unsuited to either the company’s finances or to conditions in Alaska. He must have thought Rezanov either deluded or deranged when the now unwelcome visitor proposed bringing in Japanese settlers and supplying the company’s outposts from Japan, to avoid dealing with the Americans. Rezanov was nonetheless horrified when Baranov tendered his resignation: “I tell you, gentlemen,” Rezanov wrote the board of directors, apparently changing his tune, “he is truly an extraordinary person and a most original character. His name is famed the length of the Pacific . . . and yet, though overwhelmed with praise by foreign nations, here he has to drink the bitter cup of disappointment. The directors should approach the Throne in a body and ask new honors for him. Something has to be done to shield him from further insults.” Rezanov was referring to the fact that Baranov still had no direct authority to punish the naval officers and navigators who ran all the ships in his domain, many of whom deliberately flouted his authority.

  However, Rezanov never seemed to consider the fact that one of the greatest insults was his own meddling. He also noted that “had Baranov given up New Archangel as lost after its destruction and not returned here, the value of the Company’s stock would not be where it is.” Eventually he departed, but not before claiming credit for Baranov’s plans to expand south into Spanish California. Still erratic and bewildered, Rezanov ordered some ill-advised raids on the Japanese coast before disembarking in Okhotsk. On the long journey back to Europe, he died of fever while riding his horse, leaving a wake of ridiculous dire
ctives that were all ignored.

  Although he had tendered his resignation, Baranov quickly returned to the job of running the company, formalizing trade agreements with King Kamehameha of Hawaii, sending hunters as far south as Spanish California in search of sea otters and resuming the use of American traders to conduct company business. Nevertheless he was waiting upon the directors to accept his resignation and send out a replacement. Meanwhile, his wife back in Russia had died, and he married Anna, his mistress of many years and the mother of his two Alaskan children. He petitioned to have them recognized as legitimate in Russia so that he could move there with them and enjoy the respect that his wealth and status would command there. To his great pleasure, the government declared his children to be nobles because he had described Anna as “the daughter of the Prince of Kenai”—the Lord of Alaska’s native wife’s descent from a chieftain under his dominion had secured for him entrance into the Russian nobility! And, by 1808, Baranov had his response from the company’s board of directors: do not retire, they pleaded. They could not decide upon a successor. Napoleon was still waging war in Europe; all was in turmoil. The war was distracting the other powers from exploiting Pacific America. Expand south, they urged Baranov, while we have the chance.

  So, glowing under the praise of his directors, none of whom he had ever met, and buoyed by his feelings of indispensability, Baranov threw himself with renewed vigour into the task of expansion. Sitka was by now a thriving international port, receiving over fifty ships a year. Many traders sailed directly there to buy their furs from the company and avoid the dangers of dealing with the Tlingit. A prominent feature of the town was its kremlin: an imposing, rough-hewn two-storey timber building where Baranov lived and that also housed the company’s administration centre. It was surrounded by a parade ground that proudly displayed the company flag, and boasted a large feast hall, library, piano and European artwork. The people called the building Baranov’s Castle.

  Baranov loved music and singing and was fond of hosting great celebrations. He provided ceremonial welcomes to all visitors to his capital, giving salutes to all incoming vessels. Of his love for partying, one English captain complained, “They all drink an astonishing quantity, Baranov not excepted . . . It is no small tax on the health of a person trying to do business with them.” After years of hardship and struggle, Baranov had at last become the merchant king of his domain: his word was law along thousands of kilometres of coastline, his directives were instantly obeyed. His name was celebrated throughout the Pacific American trading world, and he was loved by many of his men, particularly the old hands who had been with him for years and had shared the struggles and now the success. Others, however, viewed him as a tyrant and wished him dead.

  7

  BARANOV INITIALLY DISMISSED THE RUMOURS AS ridiculous: who would want to kill him and his children? But someone had warned him in the fall of 1809, and the mounting evidence compelled him to be more aggressive in dealing with malcontents in the Sitka garrison. His loyal men raided a secret meeting of nine plotters and recovered documents from a burning woodstove. They were still legible, and the contents chilled Baranov to the bone. Inspired by the revolutionary movements in Europe, the plotters planned to assassinate Baranov and his family, capture a ship in the harbour, kidnap the colony’s women and cruise off to found a paradise on Easter Island, in the South Pacific. They had been seeking further converts when their plot was uncovered.

  Now Baranov was shaken. He rushed his family to safety on Kodiak Island and dashed off a furious letter to the company’s directors demanding that his replacement be sent immediately, and threatening to leave if they did not move quickly enough.

  Although he had threatened to resign many times in the past nineteen years, this time he truly meant it. He also quickly wrote out his will: “Since my life is in constant danger not only from the hostility of wild tribes but from men often unwilling to submit to discipline, since my strength is exhausted and my health dissipated battling the hardships I have had to endure, I feel that that natural time, the hour of my death, is for me more uncertain than for most men, and therefore I make my will.” Considering the risks he had taken and the dangers he had overcome, it was unusual for Baranov to suddenly be gripped by fear. Perhaps it was the inevitable feeling of physical decline natural in a man over the age of sixty, after a hard life. Perhaps he feared for his ability to defend his Alaskan children, who were not yet grown. But apart from this foiled secret plot, Baranov was more secure and powerful than he had ever been in his entire life.

  For years no replacement arrived, and Baranov continued to rule from his castle on the hill. The first man sent from St. Petersburg had died in Siberia, after many months of hard travel. It took many more months for the news to reach St. Petersburg and for the company to arrange a second replacement. The second replacement, Baranov was informed, was on the way and was due to arrive in early 1813. During this time, Baranov had not been vigorous in pursuing expansion, claiming it should wait for his successor. He was now sixty-five years old; his eyesight was failing him, his clerk had to read important documents to him. His arthritis was crippling and painful, alleviated only by ever-greater quantities of rum. Baranov had, however, allowed one of his ambitious and energetic officers, Ivan Kus-kov, to lead an expedition of twenty-six Russians and about a hundred Aleuts south to California, where Kuskov founded Kre-post Ross, or Fort Ross, just north of San Francisco, in June 1812. The outpost was soon growing fruit and vegetables and raising domestic animals for the Russian American Company.

  In early 1813 , while awaiting the arrival of his second replacement, Baranov was exasperated to learn that this man, too, had died on the way, in a shipwreck not far from Sitka. Baranov became thoughtful. He became pious. Perhaps it was his destiny to remain forever in Russian America. After all, an almost ludicrously improbable series of events had conspired to keep him here for most of his adult life despite all his efforts to leave. Indeed, it must be providence. Energized again, he reinstalled his family in his castle, ordered a church to be built at Sitka and arranged for a priest to oversee it, and hired a German governess for his daughter, Irina. An American tutor prepared his eager son, Antipatr, now sixteen, for entrance into the naval academy at St. Petersburg. With his newfound vigour and enthusiasm, Baranov was making the greatest profits yet for the company. A real schemer, he constantly spied opportunities and took advantage of them, even though this often involved dealing with American naval captains to circumvent Chinese restrictions on Russian trade.

  When Europe’s Napoleonic war ended, however, events transpired to hasten the end of Baranov’s reign as the merchant king of Pacific America. When the Russian American Company was officially founded in 1799 it had, like other famous monopolies, been granted a twenty-year licence, the renewal of which was considered a mere formality. After the war, however, the officers of the Russian navy were casting about for reasons to justify their continued employment during peacetime. Naturally they looked to Russian America, where many of them had served and where, they had always felt, government by a mere merchant company was undignified since it was the rightful provenance of noble officers rather than of common traders.

  Baranov’s elevation in rank notwithstanding, these officers still considered him their inferior. For years they had been hired as captains and navigators on company ships and had chafed at the indignity of taking orders from Baranov. Now that the company’s licence was nearing its time of renewal, they increased their agitation for “reform.”

  For years, the Russian American Company had been making enormous profits and paying enormous dividends to shareholders. Its head office was a magnificent, even opulent, former mansion in St. Petersburg that employed dozens of highly paid accountants, agents, secretaries, translators and clerks, in addition to executive managers such as Mikhail Buldakov, the well-connected man who had married Grigorii Shelikhov’s eldest daughter and who had been chairman of the board since the company was founded. None of its dire
ctors or urbane executives had ever been to Russian America, and none of the great fount of money that Baranov had consistently sent gushing from Pacific America to St. Petersburg had ever found its way back to the colony that the company was semi-officially managing on behalf of the government. There were no real schools in the colony, other than the underfunded, rudimentary ones that Baranov provided. There was no formal legal system, other than Baranov’s word. Neither were there physicians or hospitals. When questioned about why the directors had never sent out a physician during the twenty years of their rule, Baranov once admitted, “I do not know whether they trouble themselves even to think about it. We doctor ourselves as best we can, and if a man is so wounded as to need an operation he must die.”

  It was difficult for the directors to mount an argument as to why the company should be allowed to continue to plunder this valuable Russian colony. Left out of the argument was the question of why arrogant, swaggering naval officers would be more suited to the task of running what was still essentially a commercial enterprise. The navy, through its spokesman, Captain Vasilii Golovnin, without any evidence accused Baranov of negligence and corruption. On one occasion, Baranov had fired Sitka’s guns on a Russian ship commanded by a naval officer who had rebelled against his authority and tried to flee. More recently, Baranov had bungled negotiations for a base in Hawaii. So perhaps he was losing his touch and it was time for him to go. On the other hand, the directors, particularly Buldakov, recognized Baranov’s seemingly magical abilities to generate profit. They had fought to keep Baranov in power since the beginning, despite the opposition of the church and the navy.

  In the end, a compromise was reached between the two opposing entities: the navy agreed to let the company retain its charter, but the colony would be headed by a senior naval officer and his assistants, who would naturally be given company stock and high salaries. Baranov would have to go. Because of the navy’s hatred of Baranov and their belief in his corruption, the company’s board of directors did not even vote their representative, now aged seventy, a pension or an official letter of recognition. Indeed, one of his bitter enemies, Captain Lieutenant Leontii Hagemeister, was sent out with secret orders to investigate Baranov’s activities and depose him.