Why did Russia sell Alaska to the United States?

Al Jazeera

17 hours ago

United States President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine.
On Wednesday, following a virtual meeting with European leaders including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump warned of 'severe consequences' if Putin refuses to accept a ceasefire after more than three years of war.
The venue for the high-profile meeting is Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a US military installation on the northern edge of Alaska's most populous city.
Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson is Alaska's largest military base. The 64,000-acre outfit is a key US site for Arctic military drills and readiness.
When Trump visited the base during his first term, in 2019, he said the troops there 'serve in our country's last frontier as America's first line of defence'.
But that wasn't always the case. Indeed, the US government actually bought Alaska from Russia – separated by just 90km (55 miles) at the narrowest point of the Bering Strait – in 1867.
At a news briefing on August 9, Russian presidential assistant Yuri Ushakov pointed out that the two countries are neighbours.
'It seems quite logical for our delegation simply to fly over the Bering Strait and for such an important … summit of the leaders of the two countries to be held in Alaska,' Ushakov said.
When did Russia assume control of Alaska?
When Russian Tsar Peter the Great dispatched the Danish navigator Vitus Bering in 1725 to explore the Alaskan coast, Russia already had a high interest in the region, which was rich in natural resources – including lucrative sea otter pelts – and sparsely populated.
Then, in 1799, Emperor Paul I granted the 'Russian-American Company' a monopoly over governance in Alaska. This state-sponsored group established settlements like Sitka, which became the colonial capital after Russia ruthlessly overcame the native Tlingit tribe in 1804.
Russia's Alaskan ambitions, however, quickly faced numerous challenges – the vast distance from then-capital St Petersburg, harsh climates, supply shortages, and growing competition from American explorers.
As the US expanded westward in the early 1800s, Americans soon found themselves toe to toe with Russian traders. What's more, Russia lacked the resources to support major settlements and a military presence along the Pacific coast.
The history of the region then changed dramatically in the mid-19th century.
Why did Russia sell Alaska after the Crimean War?
The Crimean War (1853-1856) started when Russia invaded the Turkish Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, modern-day Romania. Wary of Russian expansion into their trade routes, Britain and France allied with the ailing Ottoman Empire.
The war's main theatre of battle became the Crimean Peninsula, as British and French forces targeted Russian positions in the Black Sea, which connects to the Mediterranean through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits – previously controlled by the Ottoman Empire.
After three years, Russia humiliatingly lost the war, forcing it to reassess its colonial priorities. According to calculations by Advocate for Peace, a journal published by the American Peace Society in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Russia spent the equivalent of 160 million pounds sterling on the war.
Meanwhile, due to overhunting, Alaska yielded little profit by the mid-1800s. Its proximity to British-controlled Canada also made it a liability in any future Anglo-Russian conflict.
By the early 1860s, Tsar Alexander II concluded that selling Alaska would both raise funds Russia desperately needed and prevent Britain from seizing it in a future war. The US, which had continued to expand across the continent, emerged as a willing buyer, leading to the 1867 Alaska Purchase.
How was the sale received in the US?
After the American Civil War ended in 1865, Secretary of State William Seward took up Russia's longstanding offer to buy Alaska. On March 30, 1867, Washington agreed to buy Alaska from Russia for $7.2m.
For less than 2 cents an acre (4 metres), the US acquired nearly 1.5 million sq km (600,000 square miles) of land and ensured access to the Pacific northern rim. But opponents of the Alaska Purchase, who saw little value in the vast ice sheet, persisted in calling it 'Seward's Folly' or 'Seward's Icebox'.
'We simply obtain by the treaty the nominal possession of impassable deserts of snow, vast tracts of dwarf timbers… we get… Sitka and the Prince of Wales Islands. All the rest is waste territory,' wrote the New York Daily Tribune in April 1867.
But in 1896, the Klondike Gold Strike convinced even the harshest critics that Alaska was a valuable addition to US territory. Over time, the strategic importance of Alaska was gradually recognised, and in January 1959 Alaska finally became a US state.
What's its economy like now?
By the early 20th century, Alaska's economy began to diversify away from gold. Commercial fishing, especially for salmon and halibut, became a major industry, while copper mining boomed in places like Kennecott.
Then, during World War II, the construction of military bases brought infrastructure improvements and population growth. The most transformative moment, however, came in 1968 with the discovery of vast oil reserves at Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic coast.
Oil revenues became the cornerstone of Alaska's economy, funding public services as well as the Alaska Permanent Fund, which pays annual dividends – via returns on stocks, bonds, real estate, and other assets – to residents.
These payments, known as the Permanent Fund Dividend, will ensure that Alaska's oil wealth continues to benefit residents even after reserves run out. This system has allowed Alaska to have no state income tax or state sales tax, a rarity in the US.
More recently, tourism has surged in Alaska, drawing visitors to the state's national parks and glaciers. Today, Alaska has transformed from a ridiculed purchase into a resource-rich state, built on a mix of natural resource extraction, fishing and tourism.
Meanwhile, despite Alaska's history of trading land like currency, President Zelenskyy will hope that Friday's meeting between Trump and Putin does not come at the expense of Ukrainian territory.