Historical Overview & Introduction
On March 30, 1867, Secretary of State William H. Seward signed the Treaty of Cession, transferring Alaska from the Russian Empire to the United States for $7.2 million in gold—roughly two cents an acre for 586,000 square miles, more than twice the size of Texas. Mocked at the time as Seward’s Folly, the purchase was later vindicated by the discovery of gold and oil and by Alaska’s rise as a tourist destination. Yet the popular narrative rarely confronts the transaction’s most consequential fact: the land was the ancient homeland of diverse Alaska Native peoples—the Tlingit, Haida, Iñupiat, Yup’ik, Unangan (Aleut), and Dene (Athabascan) nations—who, as was typical of nineteenth-century diplomacy, were never consulted when two distant empires exchanged their territory.
Ancient Homelands: Alaska’s First Peoples
Alaska holds a singular place in the human history of the Americas. The region has been populated longer than any other location on the continents, with the first people crossing over from Asia no later than 15,000 years ago via the Bering land bridge. Their descendants developed remarkably varied and sophisticated cultures: maritime whaling and sealing traditions among the Iñupiat of the Arctic coast, rich salmon-based economies among the Yup’ik and the peoples of the Pacific Northwest, and the magnificent carved cedar, Chilkat weaving, and potlatch traditions of the Tlingit and Haida nations of the Southeast.
When Vitus Bering’s scurvy-racked Russian expedition arrived in 1741 and claimed the land for the czar, these nations were not an empty wilderness—they were thriving, well-established societies whose trade networks, oral histories, and material culture predated European contact by millennia. The Russian-American colonial presence that followed remained strikingly thin: no permanent colonial settlement appeared until 1784, and there were never more than a few hundred Russians in Alaska at any one time. The colony depended heavily on Alaska Native labor and knowledge on one hand, and on British and American suppliers on the other, for its very survival.
Russia’s Calculations and the Road to the Treaty
By the mid-nineteenth century, Russian officials grew anxious about the colony’s future. They feared that American settlers might one day overrun Alaska, much as they had Texas. They also dreaded losing the nearly defenseless territory to Great Britain, a naval power that had defeated Russia in the Crimean War (1853–1856) and left the empire ravaged by debt. When the fur trade declined, even the czar’s own brother reportedly called Alaska a luxury Russia could ill afford.
Preliminary negotiations with the United States began in the late 1850s but were interrupted by the American Civil War. Notably, Seward had already declared that the towns and forts of Alaska would ‘yet become the outposts of my own country.’ Within months of the war’s end, Seward raised the issue with Edouard de Stoeckl, the Russian minister in Washington, who received the czar’s authorization to sell. Secret negotiations began around March 11, 1867, and after working through the night, the two men signed the treaty on March 30.
Here the Native dimension of the story deserves emphasis. Just as earlier European crowns had redrawn boundaries over Indigenous lands—as when Britain’s Royal Proclamation of 1763 asserted sweeping authority over Native territory—the Alaska purchase proceeded as a transaction between empires. Alaska’s vast Indigenous population was never consulted, and no compensation flowed to the nations whose homelands were transferred. This erasure would echo through the next century of Alaska Native history, from the denial of citizenship rights to the later struggles over land claims that were not resolved until the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act era.
‘Seward’s Folly’: Mockery, Ratification, and Scandal
Though most newspapers actually supported the deal, a vocal minority—largely tied to the Radical Republican faction and hostile to President Andrew Johnson—mercilessly ridiculed it. Alaska was derided as ‘Johnson’s Polar Bear Garden’, ‘Walrussia’, and ‘Russian Fairy Land’. Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, wrote that most of Alaska was a ‘burden…not worth taking as a gift’. Ironically, the phrase ‘Seward’s Folly’ itself was not coined until years later. One skeptical senator quipped he would support taking possession only if Seward were ‘compelled to live there’. Yet after lavish dinner parties hosted by Seward, the Senate ratified the treaty on April 9, 1867, by a decisive 37–2 vote.
The saga continued in the House of Representatives, where Republicans intent on embarrassing the impeached Johnson refused to appropriate the funds. A Massachusetts family even claimed part of the payment as repayment for arms allegedly supplied to Russia during the Crimean War. Finally, in July 1868, the House voted 113–43 to deliver the money. A congressional investigation later determined that Stoeckl had bribed lobbyists and journalists, and private notes suggest he made tens of thousands of dollars in illicit payments to members of Congress—with Seward’s knowledge.
The Transfer at Sitka: October 18, 1867
President Johnson appointed General Lovell H. Rousseau to facilitate the handover. Sailing from New York on August 31 and traveling across Panama to San Francisco, Rousseau endured a slow, cold voyage north to Sitka, the only sizeable Russian town in Alaska, arriving on October 18, 1867. That day, before Russian and American troops and a few Indigenous leaders, the Russian flag was lowered and the U.S. flag raised. Rousseau recorded that interactions were ‘of the friendliest character’ and described the fisheries as ‘very fine’ and the potatoes as ‘small…but of the finest flavor’.
The ceremony’s staging—two imperial powers trading sovereignty while the Tlingit people of the region watched from the margins, their own sovereignty unrecognized—captures the central irony of the Alaska purchase. Russian civilians were offered U.S. citizenship; Alaska Native peoples, the overwhelming majority of the population, received no equivalent offer and would wait generations for even basic civil and territorial rights.
Historical Context & Key Cultural Takeaways
- Ancient precedence: Alaska was home to flourishing Indigenous civilizations for at least 15,000 years before the 1867 treaty—far longer than either the Russian (1741–1867) or American periods of governance.
- Colonial fragility: Russian America never exceeded a few hundred settlers and depended on Alaska Native labor and outside suppliers, underscoring how superficial colonial control truly was.
- Consultation denied: The Treaty of Cession transferred millions of acres of Native homelands without the consent, participation, or compensation of the Tlingit, Haida, Iñupiat, Yup’ik, Unangan, and Dene peoples—emblematic of nineteenth-century treaty-making that excluded Native nations.
- Economic vindication: Gold and oil discoveries, plus tourism, transformed ‘Seward’s Folly’ into a masterstroke of expansion—enriching the United States while the original inhabitants waited another century for land-claim settlements.
- Enduring legacy: Alaska Natives later proved pivotal to the territory’s defense—as with the Alaska Territorial Guard of World War II—demonstrating the continuity of Indigenous commitment to these homelands.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why was the Alaska purchase called ‘Seward’s Folly’?
Critics—mostly Radical Republicans opposed to President Andrew Johnson—believed Alaska was a barren wasteland and mocked the deal with nicknames like ‘Walrussia’. The phrase ‘Seward’s Folly’ itself emerged years later. The discovery of gold, and later oil, along with tourism, proved the critics wrong economically, though the label stuck in popular memory.
How much did the United States pay for Alaska, and how large was it?
The Treaty of Cession, signed March 30, 1867, set the price at $7.2 million in gold—about two cents per acre—for approximately 586,000 square miles, more than twice the size of Texas. The Senate ratified it on April 9, 1867, by a 37–2 vote, and the House appropriated the funds in July 1868 by a 113–43 margin.
Were Alaska Native peoples consulted about the sale?
No. As was typical of the era, Alaska’s vast Indigenous population was never consulted when Russia and the United States exchanged the territory. The transfer ceremony at Sitka on October 18, 1867, involved only Russian and American officials and troops, alongside a few Indigenous leaders in attendance. Formal recognition of Alaska Native land rights did not arrive until the land claims era of the twentieth century.
When and where did the formal transfer take place?
The transfer occurred at Sitka, then the only sizeable Russian town in Alaska, on October 18, 1867, after General Lovell H. Rousseau completed his voyage from New York via Panama and San Francisco. The date is still commemorated in Alaska as Alaska Day.
What was the role of Alaska Native peoples in later territorial history?
Alaska Natives remained the backbone of the region’s economy and, later, its defense. During World War II, for example, Native volunteers of the Alaska Territorial Guard watched the coastlines, a story echoed in accounts of Indigenous Arctic endurance such as that of Iñupiat survivor Ada Blackjack.
Concluding Synthesis: Cultural Legacy and Modern Significance
By any economic measure, Seward’s deal was a triumph: two cents an acre bought fisheries, forests, gold, oil, and eventual statehood. By 1869, even before retiring from government service, Seward toured Sitka—describing a ‘curious medley’ of Russian townspeople, American soldiers, Indians in blankets and feathers, and San Francisco–styled traders—and predicted Alaska would become both a state and a tourist attraction. Today a city, a highway, a peninsula, and a state holiday bear his name.
Yet a complete history must look past the ledgers. The same purchase that enriched the United States transferred the homelands of nations who had lived in Alaska for over fifteen millennia without their consent. Modern scholarship, museum collections of Tlingit carving and Chilkat weaving, and the continuing vitality of Alaska Native governments and corporations all testify that the true story of 1867 is not merely one of a shrewd diplomatic bargain—it is the story of ancient Indigenous homelands caught between two empires, and of peoples whose resilient cultures neither Russia nor the United States could ever truly purchase.
