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Russian America Following the Treaty of St. Petersburg  - Large Inset of Russian California

Rare Russian America, published at the height of Russian influence on the West Coast of North America.

This important map, published in St. Petersburg in 1826, depicts Russian America at a point in time where the geo-political future of the Northwest Coast was still very much undecided. It is one of the first maps to show Russian Alaska's newly defined boundaries with British North America, as defined by the Treaty of St. Petersburg (1825).  As shown on the map, the Russians were given the coastline as far down as 54"40', whereupon their territory hugged the coast up to the 141st meridian West, and thereafter due north to the Arctic. Ambiguities in this treaty ensured that portions of this boundary remain in dispute between the U.S. and Canada even up to the present day.

Streeter noted:

The boundaries of the Russian territory in North America are delineated, with an interesting inset of California from 35°N to 40°N showing the Russian establishment there. The slight extent to which the Seward peninsula had been explored to this time is demonstrated by the extension of Golovin Sound northeast from Norton’s Bay to the ocean north of Bering Strait, so that the area of the present Nome is shown as being on a large island.---TWS.

Piadychev based the map on a variety of Russian and British sources, The map depicts the coastal areas of southern Alaska and adjacent regions, including the Aleutians, with considerable accuracy, as well as the shores of the Bering Strait, on both the American and Asian sides. Various Russian forts are noted, ranging from Sitka (founded 1806), the capital of Russian America to Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka. Conspicuously, almost all of the interior and the Northern Slope of Alaska, remains a complete enigma, having not yet been explored, let alone mapped.

Interestingly, the large inset embraces the coastline of California, extending from Cape Mendocino down as far as Santa Barbara. This encapsulates the contemporary Russian ambitions in California, which were centered at Fort Ross (located in modern Mendocino County), which the Russian American Company maintained between 1812 and 1841. The present map was made not long after the expedition of Otto von Kotzebue (1815-8), visited both California and Alaska, strengthening Russian's territorial claims.

The map exhibits some of the most significant progress along the Northernmost coastline of Alaska, where the progress in mapping the coastline is perhaps most profound. There have clearly been significant improvements in the understanding of the coastline from the time of Wilbrecht's monumental map of 1802, as shown here: /gallery/detail/24404

The map was later included in Vasilii Petrovich Piadychev's atlas of the Russian Empire, Geograficeskij Atlas Rossijskoj Imperii, carstva Poljskago i velikago knjazestva Finlandskago raspolozennyi po gubernijam na dvuch jazykach s oznaceniem v onych gorodov, mesterek, sel Pjadysevym 1823 goda. - Atlas géographique de l'Empire de Russie, du Royaume de Pologne et du Grand Duché de Finlande. . ., published in 1828, which featured maps issued between 1823 and 1827. In order to appeal to an audience beyond Russia, the map is jointly inscribed in French. The title of the present map, transliterated title in Russian, is " General'naâ karta Cukotskoj zemli, Aleutskih" ostrovov" i severo-zapadnago berega Ameriki socinena po novejsim" svedenìâm".

Rarity

The map is extremely rare on the market.  The last example to appear at auction was the Streeter copy (1969), acquired from Henry Stevens in 1941.  There are no records of the map listed in dealer catalogs in AMPR.

A second edition of the map was issued with the date of 1829, which is also extremely rare on the market.