Background
Alexander Andreyevich Baranov was born in 1746 in Kargopol, in St. Petersburg Governorate of the Russian Empire.
Alexander Andreyevich Baranov was born in 1746 in Kargopol, in St. Petersburg Governorate of the Russian Empire.
In 1780 he emigrated to Siberia, where he became manager of a glassfactory at Irkutsk and later a successful trader. The return of the Bering party from Alaska in 1742 loaded down with sea otter skins started a rush for the fur-bearing Aleutian Islands. In the course of the next forty years the sea otters were killed or driven off from these islands, and it became necessary to go farther and farther in search of good hunting-grounds. The distant expeditions called for a considerable outlay of money and necessitated the formation of companies. Shelekhov was one of the ablest of Siberian traders. By 1790 he had formed several companies and had established the American headquarters on Kodiak Island. He offered the place of resident director in America to Baranov, who accepted and started for his post in August 1790. He spent altogether twenty-eight years (1790 - 1818) in Alaska as head of the Russian American Company (organized in 1799). Until 1808 he directed affairs from Kodiak and after that date from Sitka.
Baranov had enormous difficulties but tremendous will-power. He made a reputation for himself and dividends for his company, but it was done at the expense of the natives of western Alaska, who were practically his slaves. He sent them in their frail skin boats to hunt on the exposed coast between Kodiak and Sitka. Many of the hunters were either swallowed up by the rough sea or killed by the savage natives of those shores. In 1811, 1812, 1813 the company received 270, 000 rubles as its share of the California catch.
One of Baranov's problems was to get food and supplies in and fur out of Alaska. His fleet was quite untrustworthy. Many of his ships were lost on the way to or from Kodiak to Okhotsk and those that succeeded in making the voyage spent a year or more in the effort. The Russians associated with him were made up in part of incompetent, coarse, brutal half-breeds or criminals of Siberia who could not be trusted. During the first years the colony was undermanned, half starved, down with scurvy or other diseases. Not only was Baranov short of food but also of things to give the natives of south-eastern Alaska in exchange for their fur. In 1800 he began buying supplies from the Yankees, sometimes the ship and cargo. From that time on to the end of his career he was more or less dependent on the American traders. They helped him in various ways. They took cargoes for him to Canton, to Manila, or to Okhotsk. Occasionally they got the best of him, and he clung to them out of necessity rather than choice. He tried to make a deal with Astor's company in the hope of excluding the individual Boston trader, but this agreement was of short duration.
Baranov was a fur-trader rather than an empire builder. He worked for a company that demanded dividends and asked no questions as to means employed. He satisfied the company by exploiting the country and the natives. In this respect he was no worse than the average trader. He was superior to most of them, however, in that he succeeded against such odds. He had to depend on himself, on his fist, and on his brain. This strenuous life began to tell on his health as he grew older. In 1809 he asked to be relieved, but it was not before 1818 that a successor appeared. Toward the end of that year Baranov set out for Russia in the ship Kutuzov. It put in for supplies at the Hawaiian Islands, Guam, and Batavia. At the last-named port Baranov was taken ill, and after leaving this place he grew gradually worse. He died on April 28, 1819, and was buried at sea.