Background
Nikolai Petrovich Резанов was борн on April 8, 1764 in St. Petersburg.
Nikolai Petrovich Резанов was борн on April 8, 1764 in St. Petersburg.
He mastered five languages by the age of 14.
After serving in the army, he entered the civil service in his early twenties, making a brilliant career as an administrator.
In 1793 or 1794 Catherine II sent him to Siberia on a special mission relating to the expansion of the Empire in northwestern America, and as a result he became interested in the colonization of Alaska. It was largely owing to his enterprise and connections that the Russian-American Company was formed and granted the exclusive right to exploit that vast dominion. In the summer of 1803 he sailed from Kronstadt at the head of an expedition, organized jointly by the government and the Company, which took him all but around the globe. One of the objects of the trip was to test the possibility of sending supplies to the colonies in Russian America by an all-sea route instead of by the more expensive land route across Siberia that had been followed hitherto. He was to visit the new territory to investigate resources and needs and to set it on the road to civilization.
He was also to inspect the offices of the Company and revise its business methods and policies. Prior to undertaking these tasks, however, he was instructed to go to Japan, in the capacity of minister plenipotentiary to that country, and by means of diplomacy and rich gifts, to open the gates of the forbidden empire to Russian trade.
He had been not many weeks at sea when serious friction arose between him and the captain of the frigate which was carrying him. Having rounded the Horn and visited the Sandwich Islands, among other places, he reached Kamtchatka after a year's sail, battered in body and spirit.
From there he went to Japan, where he failed dismally, being held a virtual prisoner at Nagasaki through the winter of 1804-05 and being dismissed without so much as a hearing. Returning to Kamtchatka, he set sail for Alaska. He touched at several points and in August 1805 made a landing at New Archangel (Sitka) on Baranov Island, the seat of the governor of the territory. Here he distributed medals, reprimanded, pleaded, advised, gave instructions, and covered reams of paper with memoranda and reports. Amidst all these occupations, to which should be added ship-building, he found time to compile a dictionary of the local Indian tongue.
A terrible winter ensued, starvation and scurvy ravaging New Archangel, and Rezanov set out on a foraging expedition, taking the opportunity to try out his theory that the colonies should obtain their food-stuffs from the Philippines or California. On board an American vessel which he had recently bought for the Company and which was manned by a stricken crew, the envoy sailed south, reaching the port of San Francisco early in April 1806.
He achieved his end with difficulty and only by dint of diplomacy.
When he sailed away in May, his ship held a cargo of provisions which he had exchanged for the goods he had brought with him. The understanding was that as soon as he had made the necessary arrangements, he would return for his bride. He unloaded the provisions at New Archangel, and early in August was again on the high seas in command of two vessels bound for Japan, with the intention of wresting by force what diplomacy had failed to win. He planned to raid the coast, in the hope that the terrorized people would impel their government to open commerce with Russia.
He abandoned the military adventure, however, and on reaching Okhotsk, set out for home, inspecting the Company's offices as he went.
Being in poor health, he was unable to stand the rigors of a winter journey across the Siberian wastes, and died at Krasnoyarsk.
In January 1795 he married Shelikhov's and Natalia Shelikova's 14-year-old daughter Anna, who came with a dowry in shares of Shelikhov's company. Anna died in childbirth seven years later.
A frequent guest at the home of the commander of the local presidio, Don José Darío Argüello, he turned the head of his host's lovely young daughter, Doña Concepción, and, indeed, became affianced to her. The widower of forty-two may well have been smitten by her beauty, but, if we are to credit his own words, he entered into the alliance for reasons of state.