Alaska Purchase Check
After many years of negotiations with the Tsar, the United States buys Russia’s huge frozen chunk of North Aerica for two cents per acre, leaving some Americans to question if Alaska’s worth that much. But the check is, as they say, in the mail – for more than a year.
Imperial Russia was in desperate need of cash, due in part to its costly Crimean War (1853-56) with Britain. The Tsar’s brother also feared that Russia would not be able to defend one of his colonies – the frigid expanse now known as Alaska, from the future British invasion via Canada. Therefore, in 1857 Russia started trying to sell the 600,000-square-mile territory to the United States.
The Americans were especially attracted by the place’s lucrative sealskin industry – and they liked the idea of gaining another piece of North America.
Nothing happened for several years, however, until the aftermath of the American Civil War, when Russia’s foreign minister to the United States, Eduard de Stoeckl, resumed negotiations with Secretary of State William Seward. After an all-night session, the talks ended at 4 AM on March 30, 1867. The US and Russia had struck a deal.
The purchase price was set at $7.2 million, or about two cents per acre. The Senate approved the treaty by a vote of 37-2 on April 9, 1867
In October 1867, Russian and American dignitaries gathered at the governor’s house in Sitka for the formal transfer ceremony. Soldiers paraded, cannons were fired, and the Russian flag lowered and replaced by the Stars and Stripes.
But the appropriation still had to be approved by the House of Representatives, and that didn’t occur until July 14, 1868, by a vote of 113-48.
The $7.2-million check, payable to de Stoeckl, wasn’t issued until August 1, 1868.
The Americans chose an Aleut name which the Russians had used: Alyaska. With the purchase, the US added 586,412 square miles of virgin territory – an area twice the size of Texas, with a population estimated at about 70,000 persons, most of them Inuit and Alaska natives as well as a few thousand Russian fur traders.
Reaction to the deal was mixed. Opponents called it “Seward’s Folly” or “Seward’s Icebox” until 1896, when the great Klondike Gold Strike convinced most critics that Alaska was worth the money. Suddenly Seward seemed smarter.
Alaska became a United States territory in 1912 and a state on January 3, 1959. Its strategic importance was first recognized in World War II, when Japanse forces invaded the Aleutians, and that military value was later reinforced during the Cold War when US-Soviet relations were tense.
