Problems with the Locals during the First Steps to Explore the American Coast

The period of the Russian movement to the East featured frequent encounters with the Chukchi and Koryak peoples, who considered the white-skin aliens to be enemies. But the Russians always wanted to settle discrepancies between them and the aboriginals by way of peace negotiations.

Empress Elizaveta Petrovna ordered Russian people”… and if they see any unlevied people on the islands which we shall discover, who are not yet under citizenship of Her Majesty, they must ask such people sweetly and friendly to accept citizenship ”.

On July 14, 1731 the Russians had defeated the major Chukchi and Eskimo forces near the Cape of Dezhnev with a help of detachment which included also the Koryak and Yukagir men. It was the first encounter of the Russians with the New World dwellers. The way over the strait between Russia and North America was opened.

The news about huge breeding grounds of sea animals in the Far-Eastern seas could not leave anybody indifferent.

Nikifor Trapeznikov, an Irkutsk merchant and supervisor of Kamchatka stockaded towns, built a small boat Peter together with a Moscow merchant Andrey Chebaevsky to hunt on the American shores. A sergeant of the irregular fleet crew Yemelian Basov headed the first hunting expedition to Bering Island. During a season they managed to kill 12, 000 sea otters and 4,000 fur seals, which were sold in Kamchatka for 64,000 rubles.

Next year Y. Basov repeated the route. It was profitable too.

The advance of sea animal hunting in the Eastern Ocean required a great number of experienced navigators. So, navigational schools were established in Irkutsk, Yakutsh, Nerchinsk, etc.

The first Russian hunting co-operatives on the Blizhnie, Krysji, and Andreyanovskie archipelagoes had discovered new races of American Aleuts and Eskimos. Those peoples were taken under the power of Her Imperial Majesty.

Relations between the Russians and the American aboriginals were not always satisfactory on both sides. Trade relations were established with great difficulties, since the aboriginals could not understand the real value of goods offered to them by traders in exchange: glass beads, iron cauldrons, linen, etc. Sometimes it resulted in encounters. Little by little the relations with the locals got stable and peaceful.

In 1756-1780 48 trade expeditions from Kamchatka to America were undertaken.

The Russian Empresses supported campaigns taking place in the Eastern Ocean. In 1764 Catherine II ordered to organize the second expedition to the American coast under Pyotr Krenitsin and Mikhail Levashov. They had to explore the Aleutian Archipelago and a part of the Alaska Peninsula.

That expedition summed up the Russian researches in the northern part of the Pacific and demonstrated to the world that the Russian government resolved to consolidate and strengthen the newly discovered lands. The New World was opened to Russia. The first stage in exploration of the American coast was finished.

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