Russian America Russian America
By Amy Goodpaster Strebe Russian America San Francisco Ever since the late 18th-century, when Russian fur trappers from Alaska first hunted along North America’s Pacific coast, there has been a Russian presence in Northern California. From the first Russian settlement at Fort Ross in 1812, through large-scale immigration during the Soviet period, Russians have made ittingly, the history of Russians in Petersburg on September 14. While jour- San Francisco begins with a love their influence felt in Northern neying through the wintry Siberian story. On April 5, 1806, Count Nikolai California, and particularly the expanses, however Rezanov was stricken Petrovich Rezanov, a Russian nobleman by a ferocious fever and died in San Francisco Bay Area. Fand representative of the Russian- Krasnoyarsk on March 1, 1807. American Company, sailed his ship, the The likelihood, if not all hope, for the Juno, into San Francisco Bay. California extension of Russian sovereignty on the was at that time a Spanish colony, Alaska exchanged pledges. Rezanov wrote of American continent died with Rezanov. a Russian dominion. Rezanov was desper- Concha in his report: Sixty years later, Alaska was sold to the ate to get relief supplies for the starving United States. The projected treaty with Russian colony at Sitka, Alaska. He met “Associating daily with and paying my Spain was never signed, and Rezanov with the commandante of the Presidio, addresses to the beautiful Spanish señorita, himself was largely forgotten by history. Don Jose Dario Arguello, and the colony’s I could not fail to perceive her active, ven- But what of his beloved “Conchita”? governor, Don Jose Arrillaga.
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