page_title: Russian Americans
section_title: Russian America (1733–1867)
hierarchical_section_title: Russian Americans / History / Colonial era / Russian America (1733–1867)
caption_attribution_description: English: Orthodox Holy Trinity St. Nicholas Chapel at Fort Ross, Sonoma County, California. The chapel is part of the Fort Ross State Historic Park. The chapel was originally built in the mid-1820s and got destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. In 1970, a restored version of the chapel was entirely destroyed in an accidental fire. The photo shows the reconstructed chapel, built in 1973. It continues to be used for Orthodox religious services.
context_page_description: Russian Americans are Americans who trace their ancestry to Russia, the former Russian Empire, or the former Soviet Union. This means that ‘Russian’ does not necessarily refer to East Slavic ethnic Russians. The definition can be applied to recent Russian immigrants to the United States, as well as to settlers of 19th-century Russian settlements in northwestern America.
  After Russian America was sold to the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, waves of Russian immigrants fleeing religious persecution settled in the United States, including Russian Jews and
  Spiritual Christians. These groups mainly settled in coastal cities, including Brooklyn on the East coast, and Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Portland, Oregon, on the West coast.
  Emigration was very restricted during the Soviet era, though in the 1990s, immigration to the U.S. increased exponentially.
context_section_description: The territory that today is the U.S. state of Alaska was settled by Russians and controlled by the Russian Empire; Russian settlers include ethnic Russians but also Russified Ukrainians, Russified Romanians (from Bessarabia), and native Siberians, including Yupik, Mongolic peoples, Chukchi, Koryaks, Itelmens, and Ainu. The southernmost such post of the Russian American Company was Fort Ross, established in 1812 by Ivan Kuskov, some 50 miles north of San Francisco, as an agricultural supply base for Russian America. It was part of the Russian-America Company, and consisted of four outposts, including Bodega Bay, the Russian River, and the Farallon Islands. There was never an established agreement made with the government of New Spain which produced great tension between the two countries. Spain claimed the land but had never established a colony there. The well-armed Russian Fort prevented Spain from removing the Russians living there. Without the Russians' hospitality, the Spanish colony would have been abandoned because their supplies had been lost when Spanish supply ships sank in a large storm off the South American coast. After the independence of Mexico, tensions were reduced and trade was established with the new government of Mexican California.
  Russian America was not a profitable colony because of high transportation costs and the declining animal population. After it was purchased by the United States in 1867, most Russian settlers went back to Russia, but some resettled in southern Alaska and California. Included in these were the first miners and merchants of the California gold rush. All descendants of Russian settlers from Russian Empire, including mixed-race with partial Alaskan Native blood, totally assimilated to the American society. Most Russians in Alaska today are descendants of Russian settlers who came just before, during, and/or after Soviet era; two thirds of the population of town of Alaska named Nikolaevsk are descendants of recent Russian settlers who came in the 1960s.
caption: Fort Ross, est. in 1812 in present-day Sonoma County, California.
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