270 RUSSIAN ESTABLISHMENTS IN AMERICA. [1806. 



Greek Catholic faith. These privileges were confirmed and in- 

 creased by the emperor Alexander, whose chief minister of state, 

 Count Romanzoff, was a zealous promoter of all that could tend to 

 advance the power and interests of Russia in the Pacific ; and the 

 company still enjoys the favor of the government, its charter having 

 been renewed by successive decrees in 1821 and 1839. 



Under these advantageous circumstances, combined with great 

 skill and energy in the management of its affairs, and aided by the 

 constant increase of facilities for communication throughout the 

 empire, the Russian American Company prospered ; and its estab- 

 lishments soon extended over the whole of the Aleutian Archipelago, 

 and thence eastward along the coast and islands of the American 

 continent, to the distance of more than a thousand miles. In 1803, 

 the most eastern of these establishments was on Norfolk Sound, the 

 Port Guadelupe of the Spaniards, near the 56th degree of latitude, 

 at the southern entrance of the passage which separates Mount 

 San Jacinto or Edgecumb from the largest island of King George 

 III.'s Archipelago. This settlement, founded in 1799, was de- 

 stroyed, in 1803, by the natives of the country, with the assistance, 

 as it is said, of some seamen who had deserted from an American 

 vessel; but another was formed there in 1805, which received the 

 name of New Archangel of Sitca, and has ever since been the 

 capital of Russian America. The other principal establishments 

 of the company were in Unalashka and Kodiak, and on the shores 

 of Cook's Inlet, Prince William's Sound, and Admiralty or Bering's 

 Bay. In 1806, preparations were made for occupying the mouth 

 of the Columbia River ; but the plan was abandoned, although that 

 spot, and the whole region north of it, was then, and for some time 

 after continued to be, represented, on the maps published by the 

 company, as within the limits of its rightful possessions. 



The population of each of these establishments consisted princi- 

 pally of natives of America, brought by the Russians from other and 

 distant parts of the coast ; between whom and the people of the 

 surrounding country there were no ties of kindred or language, 

 and there could be little community of feelings or interests. The 

 Aleutian Islands and Kodiak furnished the greater number of these 

 forced emigrants, and also a large proportion of the crews of the 

 vessels employed in the service of the company. The Russians 

 were enlisted in Kamtchatka and Siberia, for a term of years : 

 they entered as Promuschleniks, or adventurers, and were employed, 

 according to the will of their superiors, as soldiers, sailors, hunters, 



