Russian America in the Emerging Global World of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

The emergence of Russian colonies in the New World in the middle of the eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries coincided with the progressive process of globalization that swept the world during this period. This process was associated with the development of capitalism in Europe and the United States, the completion of major geographical discoveries, the formation of the world market, and active political, cultural, and scientific interaction between various states and peoples. At the initial stage of the discovery and development of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, the Russians were engaged in the extraction and acquisition of furs, which then went to the domestic Russian market and to China in exchange for tea and other Chinese goods. Thus, the beginning of the retraction of the emerging Russian America into the global economy was laid. In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the Russians had dangerous foreign competitors who were actively exploring the Northwest Coast of America, including Alaska. The latter soon turned into a knot of political and economic contradictions between the leading powers and became an integral part of the global world, finally integrated into the world economy as one of the main sources of fur resources. At the same time, thanks to the process of globalization, European, American, Russian, and Chinese goods were widely distributed among the Alaskan natives. In addition, the Russians acted among them as conductors of European culture (Christianity, education) and tried to adapt the local population to agriculture and cattle breeding and to establish medical care of the European type. The globalization of scientific knowledge has led to the fact that knowledge about Alaska, and its geography, population, biology, and geology, became the property of mankind. As a result of the rapid development of capitalism and its triumph on a worldwide scale in the second half of the nineteenth century, the relatively backward Russian Empire was forced to abandon its overseas possessions, which were sold to the United States in 1867, contributing to their transformation into a global leader by the end of the nineteenth century.