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Speaker 1: The Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that talies the gains and losses of everyday history.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gabelusier, and in this episode, we're exploring the details

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Speaker 1: of one of the largest land deals in history, the

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Speaker 1: Alaskan Purchase. The day was March eighteen sixty seven. After

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Speaker 1: a long night of negotiations, the United States made a

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Speaker 1: deal to purchase Alaska from Russia at about four o'clock

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Speaker 1: that morning. The treaty was signed by Secretary of State

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Speaker 1: William Seward, who had been an enthusiastic champion of the deal,

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Speaker 1: and by Eduard de Stoecko, the Russian minister to the

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Speaker 1: United States. The agree upon price was seven point two

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Speaker 1: million dollars, the equivalent of about a hundred and twenty

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Speaker 1: million dollars today. In exchange. For that sum, which was

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Speaker 1: delivered as a check later that year, the United States

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Speaker 1: took control of five hundred and eighty six thousand, four

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Speaker 1: hundred and twelve square miles of new territory that's roughly

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Speaker 1: twice the size of Texas. The price broke down to

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Speaker 1: about two cents per acre, an incredibly good deal even

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Speaker 1: by eighteen sixties standards. However, cheap as it was, some

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Speaker 1: members of Congress thought buying Alaska was a bad investment.

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Speaker 1: They didn't see how territory so remote and frigid could

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Speaker 1: ever be worth owning, even at a low price. In

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Speaker 1: the halls of Congress and eventually in public, the deal

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Speaker 1: became known by several disparaging nicknames, including Seward's Folly, Seward's

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Speaker 1: ice Box, and President Johnson's Polar Bear Garden. Eventually, though,

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Speaker 1: opponents of the purchase saw just how wrong they were.

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Speaker 1: The Klondike Gold Rush in eighteen ninety six revealed massive

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Speaker 1: reserves of gold in Alaska, prompting further exploration and eventually

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Speaker 1: the discovery of other natural reserves, including oil. By now,

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Speaker 1: you may be wondering why Russia would give up such

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Speaker 1: resource rich land, especially for a bargain basement price, and

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Speaker 1: for that matter, how did Russia end up owning it

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Speaker 1: to begin with, the answer to that question, put bluntly,

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Speaker 1: is that the country stole it. Inuits and other indigenous

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Speaker 1: people's had called the region home for thousands of years

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Speaker 1: before Russia arrived in the mid eighteenth century. In fact,

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Speaker 1: the name Alaska is derived from an Alleyute word that

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Speaker 1: means great land. When the first Russian explorers reached Alaska

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Speaker 1: in seventeen forty one, roughly one hundred thousand indigenous people

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Speaker 1: were already settled there. In the years that followed, Russia

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Speaker 1: established a series of its own settlements in Alaska, and

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Speaker 1: although they were sparsely inhabited, the Russians managed to rule

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Speaker 1: over the local native populations thanks to their more advanced weaponry.

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Speaker 1: They also engaged in intimidation tactics like destroying the locals

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Speaker 1: hunting equipment, and even taking their children as hostages to

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Speaker 1: keep the men in line. By the time Russia sold

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Speaker 1: the territory to the United States a hundred years later,

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Speaker 1: it's estimated that only about fifty thousand indigenous people were

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Speaker 1: left in the region. At first, Americans treated Alaska natives

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Speaker 1: with almost as much hostility as the Russians, but gradually

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Speaker 1: indigenous populations secured more rights, and their claim to the

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Speaker 1: territory they occupied was finally recognized. Russia's own occupation of

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Speaker 1: Alaska had been driven primarily by the lucrative fur trade

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Speaker 1: that the first settlers had established there. The leader of

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Speaker 1: at first Russian expedition Vitus Bearing had died of scurvy

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Speaker 1: on the voyage back to Russia, but his ship arrived

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Speaker 1: loaded with hundreds of sea otters, foxes, and fur seals.

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Speaker 1: Impressed by Alaska's seemingly abundant wildlife, fur hunters flocked to

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Speaker 1: the region, and Russia's colonization began in earnest. However, in

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Speaker 1: the decades ahead, maintaining those settlements proved harder than expected.

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Speaker 1: The Russian government found it difficult to manage and communicate

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Speaker 1: with subjects who were half a world away, and then

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Speaker 1: there was the northern climate to contend with. It was

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Speaker 1: a fur trappers dream, but in terms of agriculture it

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Speaker 1: left a lot to be desired. Sustaining even the eight

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Speaker 1: hundred or so Russians who lived there required food to

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Speaker 1: be regularly shipped in, which again wasn't easy or cheap,

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Speaker 1: since supplies had to be brought in all the way

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Speaker 1: from St. Petersburg. Once the sea otter population began to

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Speaker 1: plummet thanks to their own handiwork, Russian settlers could see

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Speaker 1: the writing on the wall. The final deciding factor in

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Speaker 1: the sale of Alaska was the Crimean War that Russia

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Speaker 1: fought against an alliance of the Ottoman Empire from eighteen

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Speaker 1: fifty three to eighteen fifty six. After losing that war,

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Speaker 1: Russia could no longer afford to support its Alaskan colony

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Speaker 1: and decided to sell it to the United States. Negotiations

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Speaker 1: began shortly after the American Civil War, with the purchase

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Speaker 1: finding immediate support from expansion as politicians such as William Seward.

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Speaker 1: Nearly twenty years earlier, Seward had expressed his desire for

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Speaker 1: Arctic expansion, writing quote, our population is destined to roll

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Speaker 1: resistless waves to the ice barriers of the North and

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Speaker 1: to encounter Oriental civilization on the shores of the Pacific.

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Speaker 1: At the time, manifest destiny was a popular and powerful

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Speaker 1: delusion in the United Its States, so Russia's offered to

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Speaker 1: sell a massive amount of new land on the cheap

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Speaker 1: was very appealing to men like Seward, and of course

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Speaker 1: the potential for gold for fisheries and a stake in

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Speaker 1: the Pacific didn't hurt either, especially after a costly civil war.

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Speaker 1: When Seward and Dave Stoechko signed the Treaty of Session

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Speaker 1: in the early hours of March thirtieth, eighteen sixty seven,

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Speaker 1: Russia relinquished its last claim to North America, and the

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Speaker 1: United States expanded its reach to the northern rim of

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Speaker 1: the continent. The U. S. Senate approved the treaty on

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Speaker 1: April ninth of that year, and the following month, President

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Speaker 1: Andrew Johnson signed it into law. The land was formerly

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Speaker 1: transferred to the US on October eighteenth, eighteen sixty seven.

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Speaker 1: Once Russia had received its check in nineteen fifty nine,

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Speaker 1: the Alaska Territory officially became America's forty nine state, and

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Speaker 1: today a Alaska's g d P is around fifty billion

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Speaker 1: dollars each year, thanks largely to the natural resource extraction.

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Speaker 1: That outcome surely would have thrilled William Seward, but President

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Speaker 1: Johnson's polar bears not so much. I'm gay, Bluesier and

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Speaker 1: hopefully you now know a little more about history today

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Speaker 1: than you did yesterday. You can learn even more about

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Speaker 1: history by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at

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Speaker 1: t d I HC Show, and if you have any

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Speaker 1: comments or suggestions, you can always send them my way

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Speaker 1: at this day at iHeart media dot com. Thanks to

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Speaker 1: Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank you for listening.

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Speaker 1: I'll see you back here again. Tomorrow for another day

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Speaker 1: in history class,