Alexander Andreyevich Baranov

Alexander Andreyevich Baranov was one of the most important men in early history of Alaska and Russian fur trade in the North America. In the 1790s he managed the interests of Shelikhov-Golikhov Company and from 1799 till 1818 he served as manager of the Russian-American Company (RAC).

In 1790 Baranov was employed by Grigorii Shelikhov to manage his company’s affairs on Kodiak Island. He had to struggle with company’s rivals (notably the Lebedev-Lastochkin Company), to control all trade and relationship with foreigners, to found new settlements, and to extend Russian control over newly explored territories.

Baranov arrived in Three Saints Bay in June 1791, but soon he decided to move his headquarters to St. Paul’s Harbor, where he founded the present-day settlement o Kodiak. He also established a settlement and shipbuilding facility in Resurrection Bay on the site of the present-day town of Seward. In July 1799 he established New Archangel, a few miles of present-day Sitka, which served as his new headquarters, a shipbuilding center and international port.

Baranov preferred to have his own men hunt directly than relying on trade with local natives. To this purpose he hired local natives into his service and sent out large fleets of Aleut hunters along the coasts of the Alaska and Kenai Peninsulas. He also sent ships south along the coast of Vancouver Island and Oregon as far as California.

Baranov left Alaska in 1818 for St. Petersburg to give an account of his 28-year stewardship, but he died as his ship negotiated the islands of Indonesia.