Date of Award
Spring 5-6-2016
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
History
First Advisor
Patrick Bottiger
Second Advisor
Eliza Ablovatski
Abstract
Fort Ross was established by the Russian American Company in 1812 about eighty miles north of the San Francisco Bay. There, Russians, Native Alaskans, Native Californians, Spanish civil and military personnel, Franciscan missionaries, and Pacific merchants intersected in the pursuit of commerce. No group could exert power. Instead, Fort Ross offered a space for mutually beneficial diplomatic, economic, and cultural entanglements. Knotted in various interlocking affiliations, a shared regional economy formed around Fort Ross, in which imperial and ethnic loyalties were consistently superseded by commercial dependencies and shared interests. This paper examines Fort Ross’s role in creating these relationships, and the unintended consequences that followed.
Recommended Citation
Buse, Michael G., "WAVES OF COMMERCE: FORT ROSS, THE PACIFIC WORLD, AND THE CREATION OF A CALIFORNIAN BORDERLAND" (2016). Honors Theses. 172.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/honorstheses/172
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