امریکہ کی جانب سے الا سکا کی روس سے خریداری
Alaska Purchase was the acquisition of Russian
America by the
United States from the Russian Empire
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| الاسکا کی روس سے خریداری کا معاہدہ جس پر روس کے زار کے دستخط موجود ہیں |
The Alaska Purchase was the acquisition of Russian
America by the United States from the Russian Empire in
the year 1867 by a treaty ratified by the U.S. Senate.
Russia, fearing a war with Britain that would allow the
British to seize Alaska, wanted to sell. Russia's major
role had been getting Native Alaskans to hunt for furs,
and missionary work to convert them to Christianity.
The United States added 586,412 square miles (1,518,800
km2) of new territory. Reactions to the purchase in the
United States were mixed, with opponents calling it
"Seward's Folly", feeling that U.S. Secretary of State
William H. Seward, the primary American negotiator, got
the worst of the bargain.
Originally organized as the Department of Alaska, the
area was successively the District of Alaska and the
Alaska Territorybefore becoming the modern state of
Alaska upon being admitted to the Union as a state in
1959.
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| وہ امریکی چیک جو الاسکا کی فروخت کے حوالے سے امریکی حکومت نے روسی حکومت کو دیا تھا |
Russia was in a difficult financial position and feared losing
Russian America without compensation in some future
conflict, especially to the British, whom they had fought in
the Crimean War (1853–1856). While Alaska attracted little
interest at the time, the population of nearby British
Columbia started to increase rapidly a few years after
hostilities ended, with a large gold rush there prompting the
creation of a British crown colony on the mainland. The
Russians decided that in any future war with Britain, their
hard-to-defend region might become a prime target, and
would be easily captured. Therefore the Russian Emperor
Alexander II decided to sell the territory. Perhaps in hopes
of starting a bidding war, both the British and the Americans
were approached. However, the British expressed little
interest in buying Alaska. The Russians in 1859 offered to
sell the territory to the United States, hoping that its
presence in the region would offset the plans of Russia’s
greatest regional rival, Great Britain. However, no deal was
brokered due to the American Civil War.
Additionally, the Russian Crown sought to repay money to
its landowners after its emancipation reform of 1861 and
borrowed 15 millionpounds sterling from Rothschilds at 5%
annually.[3] When the time came to pay back the Russian
Government was short on funds. The Emperor's brother,
Grand Prince Konstantin Nikolaevich offered to sell
something useless.
Russia continued to see an opportunity to weaken British
power by causing British Columbia, including the Royal
Navy base atEsquimalt, to be surrounded or annexed by
American territory.[4] Following the Union victory in the Civil
War, the Tsar instructed the Russian minister to the United
States, Eduard de Stoeckl, to re-enter into negotiations with
William Seward in the beginning of March 1867. The
negotiations concluded after an all-night session with the signing of the treaty at 4 a.m. on March 30, 1867, with the
purchase price set at $7.2 million, or about 2 cents per acre ($4.74/km2).
American public opinion was not universally positive; to
some the purchase was known as Seward's Folly.
Nonetheless, most editors argued that the U.S. would
probably derive great economic benefits from the purchase
; friendship of Russia was important; and it would facilitate the acquisition of British Columbia. Forty-five percent of
newspapers endorsing the purchase cited the increased potential for annexing British Columbia in their support.
] Historian Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer summarized the minority
opinion of some American newspaper editors who opposed
the purchase:
Already, so it was said, we were burdened with
territory we had no population to fill. The Indians
within the present boundaries of the republic strained
our power to govern aboriginal peoples. Could it be
that we would now, with open eyes, seek to add to
our difficulties by increasing the number of such
peoples under our national care? The purchase price
was small; the annual charges for administration, civil
and military, would be yet greater, and continuing
. The territory included in the proposed cession was
not contiguous to the national domain. It lay away at
an inconvenient and a dangerous distance. The
treaty had been secretly prepared, and signed and
foisted upon the country at one o'clock in the
morning. It was a dark deed done in the night…
The New York World said that it was a ‘sucked
orange.’ It contained nothing of value but furbearing
animals, and these had been hunted until they were
nearly extinct. Except for the Aleutian Islands and a narrow strip of land extending along the southern coast the country would be not worth taking as a gift… Unless gold were found in the country much time would elapse before it would be blessed with Hoe printing presses, Methodist chapels and a metropolitan police. It was ‘a frozen wilderness.’
While criticized by some at the time, the financial value of the Alaska Purchase turned out to be many times greater than what the United States had paid for it. The land turned out to be rich in resources such as gold, copper, and oil. The strategic geopolitical value of the purchase which could hardly be known to people at the time, was significant to the United States in the context of the 20th Century "Cold War" and beyond.[citation needed]
American ownership
With the purchase of Alaska, negotiated by Secretary Seward, the United States acquired an area twice as large as Texas, but it was not until the great Klondike gold strike in 1896 that Alaska came to be seen generally as a valuable addition to American territory.
Senator Sumner, as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, sponsored the bill. He told the nation that the Russians estimated that Alaska contained about 2,500 Russians and those of mixed race (that is, a Russian father and native mother), and 8,000 Indigenous people, in all about 10,000 people under the direct government of the Russian fur company, and possibly 50,000 Inuits and Alaska Natives living outside its jurisdiction. The Russians were settled at 23 trading posts, placed at accessible islands and coastal points. At smaller stations only four or five Russians were stationed to collect furs from the natives for storage and shipment when the company’s boats arrived to take it away. There were two larger towns. New Archangel, now named Sitka, had been established in 1804 to handle the valuable trade in the skins of the sea otter and in 1867 contained 116 small log cabins with 968 residents. St. Paul in the Pribilof Islands had 100 homes and 283 people and was the center of the fur seal industry.[9]
An Aleut name, “Alaska,” was chosen by the Americans. This name had earlier, in the Russian era, denoted Alaska Peninsula, which the Russians had called Alyaska (alsoAlyaksa is attested, especially in older sources).
The seal fishery was one of the chief considerations that induced the United States to purchase Alaska. It provided considerable revenue to the United States by the lease of the privilege of taking seals, in fact an amount in excess of the price paid for Alaska. From 1870 to 1890, the seal fisheries yielded 100,000 skins a year. The company to which the administration of the fisheries was entrusted by a lease from the U.S. government paid a rental of $50,000 per annum and in addition thereto $2.62½ per skin for the total number taken. The skins were transported to London to be dressed and prepared for world markets. The business grew so large that the earnings of English laborers after the acquisition of Alaska by the United States amounted by 1890 to $12,000,000.[10]
However exclusive U.S. control of this resource was eventually challenged, and the Bering Sea Controversy resulted. The conflict between the United States and Great Britain was resolved by an arbitration tribunal. The U.S. was required to make a payment to Great Britain, and both nations were required to follow regulations which were developed to preserve the resource.[10]
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