“Russian America” sounds like something from that Red Dawn movie. The one with Patrick Swayze, not the “Oh yeah North Korea could totally manage an invasion of mainland U.S.” piece of shit reboot. Anyway, it was a real thing for over a century, but then they said anyone want to buy this shit and the U.S. said we’ll give you two cents an acre for it and the Russians said fine fuck it why not and that’s how Alaska became a thing.
--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: March 30, 1867--
Apparently, Siberia wasn’t big enough or far away from everything enough, so in 1732 Russian fur trappers said, “Hey, across that freezing fucking cold ocean is even more frozen-as- fuck land. Let’s go kill some critters there too.” There is a reason it had the nickname “Siberia’s Siberia.” The Russians set up business on the other side of the Bering Strait without the benefit of a land bridge, and the Russian Orthodox Church sent some missionaries over because Christians just love to try and convert heathens, but they never set up a colony. They basically laid claim to a place twice the size of Texas with only 700 Russians in residence, saying, “We own this shit.”
By the middle of the 19th century Russia completed its sea otter holocaust in the Americas and were like, well, fuck, what do we kill now? Speaking of killing, around the same time Russia got killed in the Crimean War by Britain and France and wars cost money so they were looking for shit to sell. They were also facing the reality that if gold was discovered in Alaska then Canadians and Americans would come pouring in and say get the fuck out Russians we want those yellow rocks and we’ll kill you to take them. So, they decided to unload it.
Canada was still part of Britain and they’d just gotten beat up by Britain, so the Russians said fuck Canada and fuck Britain too; hey ‘murica you wanna buy it? America said, “Kinda busy with a civil war right now. Call back later.”
And later they did call back, and on March 30, 1867, Alaska was sold to the United States for $7.2 million, which is about $130 million today. Helluva deal! Except perhaps not. Modern day economist David Barker asserts the cost of purchasing and administering Alaska is greater than the revenue generated via taxes and royalties on the exploitation of natural resources.
Speaking of exploitation, no one ever consulted Native Alaskans on any of this.
Subscribe for access to cool shit:
Get both volumes of ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY SH!T WENT DOWN
Of course no one consulted (or even considered) the Native Alaskans. No one considered the Native Americans, either.
If the natives were thought of at all, it was because the Russians and Americans considered them godless heathens. 🙄 Still goes on today.