History of California To 1899 - Russian Colonization

Russian Colonization

Part of Spain's motivation to settle upper Las Californias was to forestall Russian colonization and British incursion in to their territory. In the early 19th century, fur trappers with the Russian-American Company of the tsarist Imperial Russian Empire explored down the West Coast from trading settlements in Alaska, hunting for sea otter pelts as far south as San Diego. In August 1812, the Russian-American Company set up a fortified trading post at Fort Ross, near present day Bodega Bay on the Sonoma Coast of Northern California, sixty miles north of San Francisco on land claimed, but not occupied by, the British Empire. This colony was active until the Russians departed in 1841. In 1836 El Presidio de Sonoma, or Sonoma Barracks, was established by General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, the Commandante of the northern frontier of Alta California. It was established as a part of Mexico's strategy to halt Russian incursions into the region, as the Mission San Francisco de Solano (Sonoma Mission) was for the Spanish.