Russian speaking American Alaska? Is this possible?

is it possible to have a Russian speaking territory like the Canadians with Quebec? How might this look in American history how would this affect the Cold War?
 
I'd say it would be very unlikely, if not completely impossible. Alaska's economy depended on hunting for fur and had/has a very fragile ecosystem, so depletion was a constant threat - even for Alaska's tiny Russian population (less than 1,000 at its height). As soon as gold was discovered, the region would have been overwhelmed with American migrants regardless of who it belonged to.
 
I'd say it would be very unlikely, if not completely impossible. Alaska's economy depended on hunting for fur and had/has a very fragile ecosystem, so depletion was a constant threat - even for Alaska's tiny Russian population (less than 1,000 at its height). As soon as gold was discovered, the region would have been overwhelmed with American migrants regardless of who it belonged to.
If there somehow was a sizable enough Russian population, Alaska's population density is low enough that there could be several sparsely populated, Russian speaking counties even as the majority of the population along the coast is assimilated.
 
The Russians discover the gold early? Despite its vastness, Siberia didn't stop thousands making the trek for the possibility of economic reward and a little freedom. However Alaska I think is still US or British by the end of the 19th century due to distance.

Russo-American War?

On a literal US Quebec, no. No way an Orthodox, Russian speaking majority territory is getting statehood until Yankees are dominant. A crude comparison but I think Puerto Rico is a good example of the limitations of American inclusivity.
 
@Jape, the Russians striking gold, say in Nome would obviously induce them to want to keep Alaska. The problem is that both the Americans and the British have closer geographic proximity to Alaska in the form of Canada and California, depending on the POD, which gives both of them substantially easier power projection into the area. Once word gets out that gold has been found in Alaska, they will both be tempted try to take Alaska from the Russians.
 
@Jape, the Russians striking gold, say in Nome would obviously induce them to want to keep Alaska. The problem is that both the Americans and the British have closer geographic proximity to Alaska in the form of Canada and California, depending on the POD, which gives both of them substantially easier power projection into the area. Once word gets out that gold has been found in Alaska, they will both be tempted try to take Alaska from the Russians.

Totally agree so I'm talking super early discovery to get a decent Russian population and then most likely war. Though if the Tsar genuinely fears British annexation, a US sale is still possible though for a much more inflated price.
 
Totally agree so I'm talking super early discovery to get a decent Russian population and then most likely war. Though if the Tsar genuinely fears British annexation, a US sale is still possible though for a much more inflated price.

Which the Americans will happily pay since they know that Alaska has something of value that they definitely want and that it won’t be that hard to convince people to go and settle there.
 
Which the Americans will happily pay since they know that Alaska has something of value that they definitely want and that it won’t be that hard to convince people to go and settle there.

BUT if there's a major Russian population and a fairley depleted, well excavated mining economy it doesn't have quite the appeal. Certainly, sign up as an employee of the Russo-American Mining Company but if you're looking to strike it rich alone you need to head north of Nome. And then you're fucked.
 
if you're looking to strike it rich alone you need to head north of Nome. And then you're fucked.
Well, some people would still try. And it's not impossible. Barrow is a thing, after all. But a lot of people would certainly die.
 
What if the Russians find gold in like 1789? Siberians looking to make their wealth come pouring in. Sure some Canadians and Americans come but the Russian presence is already strong from Russian fur trappers. Russians in this timeline are aggressive in the fur trade.
 
No it isn't possible for any American territory to ascend to statehood while speaking something that isn't English, see: literally every territory of the U.S. that doesn't and every state with a minority language that was actively campaigned and discriminated against fiercely until recently.
 
A solution could be to expand the Russian speaking population before the selling in 1867 and if needed to push back this selling.

It’s just a silly idea, but penal transportation and forced labor could perhaps do it. Gulags weren’t a Soviet invention. They were preceded by the imperial каторга/galley colonies. In OTL, none of them were built in Alaska. Instead Katorga camps were established in the 17th century in underpopulated areas of Siberia and the Russian Far East - regions.

Most of us know that the Russian-American Company Under the Supreme Patronage of His Imperial Majesty was chartered by Czar Paul I in 1799. In OTL, the RAC had historical difficulties to hire crewmen and officers to their ships and settlers (due to naval careers in the Imperial Navy and serfdom respectively). Faced with the reality of periodic Native American revolts, the political ramifications of the Crimean War, and unable to fully colonize the Americas to their satisfaction, the Russians concluded that their American colonies were too expensive to retain. They sold Fort Ross in 1842 and Alaska in 1867.

A permanent settlement was established in 1804 at "Novo-Arkhangelsk". A fact mostly unknown is that New Arkhangelsk was built on a 1799 settlement, Fort Arkhangela Mikaila, that was destroyed by Tinglit warriors in June 1802. This destruction led to the Battle of Sitka (1804), the last major armed conflict between Russians and Alaska Natives. But more unknown is the fact that the first Russia permanent settlement wasn’t New Arkhangelsk. In 1784, with encouragement from Empress Catherine the Great, explorer Grigory Shelekhov founded Russia's first permanent settlement in Alaska at Three Saints Bay.

I am forgetting to present my POD idea ...

POD Русская Америка наместничество

ITTL, Paul I refused to charter a private company, considering the risks of failure and instead created the Viceroyalty of Russian America in charge of trading with natives and settling the unknown territories. This vice royality was similar to the ones of Caucasus and Poland with vice-regents directly responding to the Czar and in charge of both civilian and military authorities.

Considering the lack of volunteers to settle Russian America, a few crucial decisions were taken by the 1799 ukase.

- All settlements of Russia America will be directly managed by the military until the end of conflicts with natives (and to protect the settlements against neighboring countries).

- The Czar ordered the transportation of state-owned peasants to Russian America (and kindly asked the church and nobles to send some of their own serfs to those settlements).

- каторга penal colonies will be established in newly conquered territories, once peace is reached.

In 1803, Alexander I created the new social class of “free agriculturalist", for peasants voluntarily emancipated by their masters. All emancipated peasants are sent to border settlements, including tens of thousands to Russian America between 1803 and 1840.

By 1810’s, the southern settlements are built in California and Hawaiian forts are built. An increasing number of political exiles are sent to the northmost settlements of Russian America, including Decembrists alongside members of troublesome minorities.

From 1820’s to 1840’s, free settlers continued to settle in southern Russian America, where an extensive network of forts is built. New penal colonies are constructed in the north by captured Polish revolters. In 1849 P. P. Doroshin, a Russian mining engineer, discovered gold in the gravels of the Kenai River on the Kenai Peninsula.

Russian serfdom is abolished in the emancipation reform of 1861 by Tsar Alexander II. The same year, gold was discovered on Telegraph Creek near the settlement of Wrangell. Another discovery of placer gold was in 1865-66 on the Seward Peninsula by a party exploring for a telegraph route.

The discovery led to more mineral exploration and former serfs settlers. The Klondike discovery (1896) let the world know that there was gold to be found in the north. No Anglo-americans explorers are allowed in Northern Russian America (Alaska), as gold exploration is a state monopoly.

Russian civil war ... later Alaska and California join USA, after Texafication (influx of Anerican settlers).
 
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What if the Russians find gold in like 1789? Siberians looking to make their wealth come pouring in. Sure some Canadians and Americans come but the Russian presence is already strong from Russian fur trappers. Russians in this timeline are aggressive in the fur trade.

Siberian’s being who exactly? There was not enough Russian population even in the Western Siberia to “pour” anywhere and population of the Pacific coast (which is not Siberia) was even smaller. Travel from European Russia to the Pacific Coast by land was taking approximately two years. As for the trappers, the furs of Alaska were mostly those of the sea mammals, ala, that industry had almost nothing to do with the trappers: the valuable furs of the “land animals” were coming from Siberia (mostly from geographic Siberia which ends well before Pacific coast).

As for the early gold discovery, which seems to be a popular idea, gold extraction in the Ural Mountains started in 1745 with a big gold rush starting in 1828 when the gold was found near Enisei River in Siberia. Which means that discovery of gold in Alaska would not be a big deal for Russia because transporting it to the European Russia in the early XIX would probably cost more than the gold.
 
Siberian’s being who exactly? There was not enough Russian population even in the Western Siberia to “pour” anywhere and population of the Pacific coast (which is not Siberia) was even smaller. Travel from European Russia to the Pacific Coast by land was taking approximately two years. As for the trappers, the furs of Alaska were mostly those of the sea mammals, ala, that industry had almost nothing to do with the trappers: the valuable furs of the “land animals” were coming from Siberia (mostly from geographic Siberia which ends well before Pacific coast).

As for the early gold discovery, which seems to be a popular idea, gold extraction in the Ural Mountains started in 1745 with a big gold rush starting in 1828 when the gold was found near Enisei River in Siberia. Which means that discovery of gold in Alaska would not be a big deal for Russia because transporting it to the European Russia in the early XIX would probably cost more than the gold.

Mesoamerican silver being transported back to Europe was more expensive than European silver but people still did it.
 
Mesoamerican silver being transported back to Europe was more expensive than European silver but people still did it.

It was transported because Europe started running out of its own silver and transportation was not taking years. Getting gold from Alaska to Canada or US made sense (especially with the improved transportation means) but getting gold from (the wrong side of) Alaska to European Russia would not be a profitable exercise with plenty of gold being discovered in various places of Siberia. Not to mention that in OTL even maintaining few hundred Russian settlers was a major problem which required arrangements first with the Spanish authorities in CA and later with Hudson Bay Company: the area was not producing food and until mid-XIX neither did Russian settlements on the Pacific coast.

The point is: there would be no massive influx of the Russians to Alaska in the early XIX.
 
It was transported because Europe started running out of its own silver and transportation was not taking years. Getting gold from Alaska to Canada or US made sense (especially with the improved transportation means) but getting gold from (the wrong side of) Alaska to European Russia would not be a profitable exercise with plenty of gold being discovered in various places of Siberia. Not to mention that in OTL even maintaining few hundred Russian settlers was a major problem which required arrangements first with the Spanish authorities in CA and later with Hudson Bay Company: the area was not producing food and until mid-XIX neither did Russian settlements on the Pacific coast.

The point is: there would be no massive influx of the Russians to Alaska in the early XIX.

Fair point. Apologies.
 
Even after the goldrush if the Anglo-phones remain disproportionally male, while Russian and Amerindians population are more gender balanced, then Alaska destined to become either American or British/Canadian.
 
Fair point. Apologies.
Nothing to apologize for: the parallel is quite tempting. :)

To think about it, the whole situation could be quite different if Russia “rearranged” border with China century earlier ( this would require serious adjustments in OTL politics) and there was an early attempt to settle these new territories (started happening in mid- XIX even before the official change of the borders): these territories are in a much milder climate and can support agriculture, which means that supplying Alaska with food is a much lesser problem. Besides, while the Trans Siberian Railroad is still a matter of a future, works on the road construction started somewhere in the XIX and did not require any advanced technology (and prison labor had been used for some of these projects). Plus, by the mid-XIX sailing from the Baltic all the way to the Far East, while still taking along time, became a routine travel and the Pacific coast got its own merchant and fishing fleet which would allow transporting people.

In other words, with the political adjustments allowing to redirect some resources, there would be a technical possibility to provide Alaska with a greater population and gold extracted there could be used for purchases in the US (which was not possible in the XVIII or even early XIX). There would be an issue of keeping the whole thing under at least some administrative control allowing to tax gold extraction as was done in Russia proper. Probably not such an impossible task: the gold diggers needed food and supplies so the merchants could be taxed (consumption tax) and with the bigger companies it would be even easier because they needed licenses.

Of course, this would also require, besides earlier border changes, different Nicholas I (not obsessed with the domination of Europe and interested in the Asiatic direction) and Alexander II (capable of doing things correctly instead of as in OTL), which is almost ASBs. :)
 
Wouldn't weakening the Manchus be good start (either Ming survival or China divided into southern Ming part and northern Manchu part)?
 
The problem is if you find gold or have too large a Russian population the odds of Alaska being sold in 1867 go way down. The US is really not going to "take" Alaska from the Russians, the British via Canada were in a position to do that if they came to it. Basically you'd need a large enough Russian population to keep some identity with Russian spoken at home at least, and among other Russian descended folks in stores etc. See signs in Latin and Cyrillic alphabets. Basically you'd end up with something like parts of the southwest where for a long time had towns that more Spanish used than English, if any, and a lot of families where Spanish was first language at home. In the southwest had an infusion of Spanish speakers from south of the border to help keep it alive, if Alaska gets a bunch of refugees after the revolution, that might keep the Russian tradition alive. In any case the majority of the population needs to be OK in english before statehood.
 
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