Why Didn’t Russia Sell Alaska to Canada?

The sale of Alaska by Russia to the United States in 1867 stands as a key moment that reshaped the geopolitical landscape of North America.

Yet, the question remains: why did Russia choose to sell this vast territory to its transcontinental rival, the United States, rather than to the neighboring dominion of Canada?

Delving into the intricacies of 19th-century geopolitics, economic pressures, and strategic calculations, this article seeks to unravel the complex web of factors that influenced Russia’s decision-making process.

Join us on a journey through history as we uncover the motives behind one of the most significant land transactions in modern times.

Table Of Contents

1. Russia's North American Ambitions
2. The Threat of British North America
3. Grand Duke Konstantine's Role
4. American Purchase Negotiations
5. British Reaction and Later Claims
6. Final Thoughts on the Alaska Purchase
Further Reading

1. Russia’s North American Ambitions

In the early 19th century, Russia was expanding its empire and influence across the Pacific.

Having established settlements in Alaska as early as the 1740s to capitalize on the region’s abundance of fur and natural resources, Russia maintained territories and claims along the western coasts of North America.

However, after the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 and settled the Oregon boundary dispute with Britain in 1846, Russia’s ambitions of extending its presence farther south were thwarted by the two rising powers.

With its claims confined to the Alaska region, Russia began to view the territory as an increasingly costly and indefensible colonial possession on the fringes of the empire. The logistics of maintaining and defending such a remote outpost became increasingly challenging, and the territory’s economic value was declining as the fur trade waned.

2. The Threat of British North America

While the remote colony of Russian Alaska was increasingly isolated from the heart of the empire, it was surrounded on the east by Britain’s dominion over modern-day Canada.

This geographic reality added to the concerns Russia had about the long-term viability and security of its North American possessions.

In the mid-19th century, the expansionist forces of Manifest Destiny and growing American settlement of the Pacific Northwest raised concerns in Russia about the long-term security of Alaska. With the United States asserting its ambitions to span the continent from coast to coast, the days of Russian control over the Alaskan territory seemed increasingly numbered.

At the same time, the British Empire maintained a strong presence in what is now Canada, with territories stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. There were fears in St. Petersburg that British North America could eventually threaten or encroach on Russian America.

There were concerns within Russian leadership that ceding the territory to Britain could eventually position the United Kingdom to dominate the northwestern Pacific region if Alaska was incorporated into British Columbia or other Canadian territories.

In this context, selling the territory to the United States, which had emerged as Britain’s closest imperial rival, made strategic sense from the Russian perspective.

By transferring Alaska to the United States, Russia could remove the territory from the path of potential British expansion while also ensuring it did not fall directly into British hands.

Moreover, the sale allowed Russia to extract value from a remote colony that was becoming increasingly costly and difficult to defend, given the growing power of the United States and Britain in the region.

While relinquishing Alaska marked the end of Russia’s North American ambitions, it was a calculated move to protect its strategic interests in the face of shifting geopolitical realities.

3. Grand Duke Konstantine’s Role

One of the key figures pushing for Russia to divest from its Alaskan colony was Grand Duke Konstantine, the younger brother of Tsar Alexander II.

As an admiral and statesman, Grand Duke Konstantine recognized the strategic challenges of maintaining such a remote and isolated outpost in the face of growing American and British power in the region.

Konstantine championed ceding Russian America to another great power while its value could still be maximized through a negotiated sale.

He argued that holding onto the territory would become increasingly untenable and drain resources from the Russian Empire.

However, Konstantine also harbored deep suspicions about selling Alaska to Britain due to lingering tensions between Russia and Britain stemming from their rivalry and conflicts in places like the Crimean War.

Konstantine’s vocal advocacy for the sale, combined with his stature as a member of the Russian imperial family and an authority on naval affairs, lent significant weight to the case for divesting from Russian America. His persistent arguments that the territory’s drawbacks outweighed its limited benefits were instrumental in persuading the Tsar to ultimately approve the 1867 sale to the United States.

4. American Purchase Negotiations

With the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Russia saw an opportunistic chance to finally get rid of its increasingly precarious Alaskan foothold.

Grand Duke Konstantine and the Russian government opened negotiations in 1867 to transfer the colony to the United States for several strategic reasons.

A sale to the Union would undermine British interests in the Pacific Northwest by removing Alaska as a potential extension of British North America.
Financial difficulties: Russia was going through economic troubles in the mid-19th century. The costly Crimean War (1853-1856) against Britain, France and the Ottoman Empire had drained the empire’s resources. The sale of Alaska provided a welcome influx of $7.2 million to the Russian treasury.
Declining importance: The Russian-American Company’s lucrative fur trade had declined substantially by the 1860s, reducing Alaska’s economic significance. The sale allowed Russia to cash out before the territory became a greater liability.

The negotiations were protracted, with both sides engaging in bouts of brinksmanship.

Russia sought to maximize its return on the territory, while American negotiators aimed to acquire the Alaskan lands at a bargain price. There were also disagreements over the precise boundaries and scope of the lands being transferred.

After extended negotiations and delays, the two nations finally agreed on a purchase price of $7.2 million. The Alaska Purchase treaty concluded on March 30, 1867. This sum amounted to less than 2 cents per acre.

For the United States, the Alaska Purchase represented a geopolitical victory. It secured valuable Pacific territories and resources while checking British ambitions.

But the true value of the acquisition was initially unclear, with many Americans derisively labeling it “Seward’s Folly” after the Secretary of State who negotiated the deal.

In Russia, the sale helped cement Konstantine’s reputation as a strategic thinker. While parting with the longstanding Alaskan colony was not universally popular, most agreed it was an apt move given the changing balance of power in North America that threatened Russia’s exposed Pacific possessions.

5. British Reaction and Later Claims

The sale of Alaska by Russia to the United States in 1867 did not sit well with the British and Canadian governments.

They were reportedly surprised and unhappy that Russia had prioritized transferring the territory to the distant American republic rather than to Britain’s closer dominion of Canada.

In London and Ottawa, there were arguments made that Russia should have logically favored ceding Alaska to an adjoining British territory like British Columbia. This would have kept the lands united under one contiguous sovereign administration in North America.

Instead, the sale opened up a wedge of American territory along the Pacific coast.

The British criticism stemmed from concerns that an American Alaska could potentially threaten British interests and claims in the Pacific Northwest in the future. There were worries it could complicate jurisdiction over the maritime borders and embolden American expansionism in the region.

Over subsequent decades, some Canadian nationalist figures and politicians pushed for reopening negotiations with the United States to transfer the Alaska Panhandle region to Canada. They argued this would bolster Canada’s reach across the Pacific coast and rectify what they saw as the odd geographic anomaly created by the Alaska purchase.

However, these proposals to readjust the Alaska borders never gained serious traction as the United States steadily consolidated its sovereignty over the newly acquired Alaskan territory throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries.

Attempts to challenge the integrity of Alaska fizzled out, cementing the region as an enduring part of American national territory.

Alaska’s lasting integration into the United States limited any realistic ability for later British or Canadian governments to alter the ground realities created by the original Russian transfer a century earlier.

6. Final Thoughts on the Alaska Purchase

Ultimately, a combination of factors led Russia to sell Alaska to the United States in 1867 rather than to its closer neighbor of British North America, the future nation of Canada.

Concerns about British imperial ambitions, isolation from the Russian mainland, expansion of American power in the Pacific, and a chance to potentially undermine a major rival power all likely contributed to the decision to transfer Russian America to the United States at a bargain price.

While the sale initially drew protest from Britain and Canada over being excluded, Russia calculated that relinquishing the colonial headache of Alaska to an emergent United States was preferable to surrendering it to strengthen an encroaching British presence on its Pacific doorstep.

With the Alaskan Purchase, America doubled its territory as Russia bid farewell to its last continental foothold in North America.