When Russia Colonised California(bbc.com) |
When Russia Colonised California(bbc.com) |
What would America look like if Russia had send more of its people overseas to California?
There was already a durable population of Hispanic and indigenous communities, a marked increase in Russian expatriates under Tsarist era Russian-American company would have had a very hard time gaining any numbers. As it was, "a combination of heavy coastal fog and rampant rodents yielded just 13 tonnes of wheat annually between 1826 and 1833" so sending more people would simply have increased the risk of them all starving.
The effort of expansion into California was primarily to try and rescue the fur traders in Russian held Alaska, and just about the only reason those efforts had any success was through illicit trade with the Spanish, who at the time claimed California as well.
Small scale made each group mutually supportive, but a drastic increase in numbers from Russia would have changed that balance and the Spanish were more than capable of simply denying the Russians any support, which would have doomed the majority of any such increase.
They also didn't send them because they were not really capable of sailing a significant number of people from populous regions of Russia, the very long nautical distance and losses from a long voyage balances the massive losses for overland travel to the pacific coast and then still needing a long naval voyage. Sure it is not that far to Alaska, but there is a reason they make 'Scary Fishing' shows about modern boats in those waters, and safer, more southerly routes are against prevailing winds across the wide Pacific.
So, they might have tried to send more, but the three to five months on foot or by horse from St Petersburg to Yakutsk, and then another thousand miles to Okhotsk which is frozen for half of the year, then sail to Sitka where there is already no food, and on to California with a ghost ship, maybe delivering 4 people for every 500 you start with, having taken close to Two Full Years. The Russian-American company was already losing 10k horses a year on that route for the minimal trade that did exist.
So, 'if Russia had tried' would probably have cost the Empire half or more of it's entire horse supply and not meaningfully changed the population at Ft Ross, maybe from less than two hundred persons max, to less than a five hundred persons in pretty miserable shape.
So, in 1841 Sutter bought Fort Ross - and failed to pay until 1849, a year after the USA officially took California from Mexico. And by incredible coincidence - a year after gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill. The existence of gold was likely already known for some time. It's simply too perfect.
Also, the Americans used their favorite weapon against the colony - sanctions! Prior to Sutter's arrival, Fort Ross could trade with Mexicans and the local Indians. Sutter forbade this - America would not trade with anyone involved with Fort Ross. The more things change the more they stay the same :)
There would have been no food supply to provision them for the long overland trek, nor horses to hire in sufficient quantity to make the trip - Horses actually are not great for long range long duration travel, they require significant down time to feed and rest or they die, and this is why during the expansion into 'the West' of the US stagecoach stops and towns were built at increments reasonable to provide a place to change teams of horses. Over the long haul, bullocck/oxen or cattle are more durable. They require less care in feeding and can travel while they eat but they are not nearly as fast, and over trip of this distance you run out of food for the people quite quickly if they do not have the skills required to hunt game while on the move. The serf class had been kept from having any such skill, and all of the game was technically reserved for the aristocracy as 'sport'. So, no, they couldn't have eaten wild boar and caribou on the way east across Siberia. At least not at any scale.
The concept of 'a road' for Okhosk is laughable - more like a trail across bogs and tundra, through forests full of wild animals (bears and wolves who really like to eat horses) and with sub zero temperatures. when it's warm enough to not loose a foot to frost bite while hiking, the ground is so wet you can sink to your waist in it.
The 'outgroups' wishing to be out of Tsarist Russia at the time would have been middle-wealth aristocracy with the means to travel, and a growing disaffection with the mismanagement of the national resources' under the growing centrism of the Empire. The agrarian populations had swelled, the three crop rotation scheme had caused a dramatic reduction in per capita grain and food production, and the revenues above subsistence for aristocratic farms was dramatically falling. Those aristocratic land and serf owning families which were not directly in the Tsars circle, and other such outgroups had a path out: Europe in Vienna, Paris, and Prussia and from there into the American Midwest.
Several cities in the Minnesota region have significant populations founded through that movement path, including the last Polish and Tsarist connected aristocratic households such as the three sisters from the Polish-Lithuanian House of Czartoryski who helped build St Mary's hospital in Duluth. (side note: there was no Poland on the maps from 1795 to 1918 - so during those years they would have been seen as 'Russian' emigres even though proudly aware of their own Polish and Lithuanian heritage)