Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nr4z6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-20T18:36:01.282Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

British-Russian rivalry and the search for the Northwest Passage in the early 19th century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2009

Barry M. Gough
Barry M. Gough
Affiliation:
Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

British-Russian rivalry along the North Pacific littoral after 1815 was at once an extension of 18th century ambitions, commercial and geopolitical, and an enlargement of the interests of both nations in the existence of a Northwest Passage. John Barrow in Britain and Adam John von Krusenstern in Russia exhibited the opposing yet complementary interests of the two powers. British Admiralty activities resulted partly from a fear of Russian pre-emption, partly from ambitions for territorial and commercial aggrandizement. The Russian government supported the Russian American Company, and consolidated its overseas empire in Alaska. This paper describes die maritime activities and plans of both nations concerning the North Pacific and Northwest Passage, explaining political and territorial ambitions of the two powers that underlay the exploration, and their expansion of territorial empire and commerce in this area.

Type
Articles
Information
Polar Record , Volume 23 , Issue 144 , September 1986 , pp. 301 - 317
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Admiralty, N.D. List of Admiralty ships employed on missions of discovery etc 1669–1860. R 3/34, Public Record Office, Kew.Google Scholar
Admiralty, N.D. Rough and special minutes. Public Record Office, Kew.Google Scholar
[Alman, ]. 1826. A letter to John Barrow … on the late extraordinary and unexpected hyperborean discoveries. London, privately printed.Google Scholar
Armstrong, T. E. 1979. Review. Canadian Journal of History 14 (1): 115–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barratt, G. 1981. Russia in Pacific waters, 1715–1825. Vancouver, University of British Columbia Press.Google Scholar
Barrow, J. 1818. A chronological history of voyages into the Arctic regions. London, John Murray.Google Scholar
Barrow, J. 1823. Memorandum, 14 November. Melville Papers, National Library, Scotland.Google Scholar
Barrow, J. 1846. Voyages of discovery and research within the Arctic regions, from the year 1818 to the present time. London, John Murray.Google Scholar
Barrow, J. 1847. Autobiographical memoir of Sir John Barrow. London, John Murray.Google Scholar
Beaglehole, J. C. (editor). 1967. The journals of Captain James Cook on his voyages of discovery: III, The voyage of the Resolution and Discovery 1776–1780. 2 pts., Cambridge, Hakluyt Society, Extra series 36.Google Scholar
Beaufort, F. 1830. Letter to Admiral Krusenstern, 25 June 1830. HH2, 619, Hydrographic Department, Ministry of Defence (Navy), Taunton, Somerset.Google Scholar
Beechey, F. W. 1831. Narrative of voyage to the Pacific and Beering's Strait … 1825–28. New edition, 2 vols. London, Colburn and Bentley.Google Scholar
Beechey, F. W. 1856. Presidential address. Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society 26: ccviii–ix.Google Scholar
Caswell, J.E. 1969. The sponsors of Canadian Arctic exploration, III, 1800–1839. The Beaver 300: 26–33.Google Scholar
Cooke, A. and Holland, C. 1978. The exploration of Northern Canada: 500 to 1920; a chronology. Toronto, Arctic History Press.Google Scholar
Coxe, W. 1804. Account of the Russian discoveries between Asia and America. 4th ed.London, T. Cadell.Google Scholar
Dawson, L. S. 1885. Memoirs of hydrography. Eastbourne, Henry W. Keay.Google Scholar
Day, A. 1967. The Admiralty Hydrographic service, 1795–1919. London, HMSO.Google Scholar
Fisher, R. H. 1977. Bering's voyages: whither and why. Seattle, University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Fisher, R. H. (editor). 1981. The voyage of Semen Dezhnev in 1648: Bering's precursor, with selected documents. London, Hakluyt Society, Second series 159.Google Scholar
Fleming, R. H. (editor). 1940. Minutes of Council of the Northern Department of Rupert Land, 1821–31. London, Hudson's Bay Record Society 3.Google Scholar
Franklin, J. 1823. Letter to J. Barrow, 26 November 1823. No 1, Letter Book, Vol 1, MS 248/281. Scott Polar Research Institute archives.Google Scholar
Franklin, J. 1828. Narrative of a second expedition to the shores of the Polar Sea, 1825–27. London, John Murray.Google Scholar
Galbraith, J. S. 1957. The Hudson's Bay Company as an imperial factor, 1821–1869. Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
GELL. MSS 255, 256, 257, 301 (Bundle C), SPRI Archives.Google Scholar
Gibson, J. R. 1969. Feeding the Russian fur trade; provisionment of the Okhotsk seaboard and the Kamchatka Peninsula, 1639–1856. Madison, University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Gibson, J. R. 1972. Russian America in 1833: the survey of Kiril Khlebnikov. Pacific Northwest Quarterly 63 (1): 1–13.Google Scholar
Gibson, J. R. 1976. Imperial Russia in frontier America. New York, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Golder, F. A. 1930. Proposals for Russian occupation of the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaiian Islands. Honolulu, Archives of Hawaii.Google Scholar
Golovin, P. N. 1979. The end of Russian America: Captain P. N. Golovin's last report, 1862. Translated by Dmytryshyn, B. and Crownhart-Vaughan, E. A. P.. Portland, Oregon Historical Society.Google Scholar
Gough, B. M. 1971. The Royal Navy and the northwest coast of North America 1810–1914: a study of British maritime ascendancy. Vancouver, University of British Columbia Press.Google Scholar
Gough, B. M. (editor). 1973. To the Pacific and Arctic with Beechey: the journal of Lieutenant George Peard of HMS Blossom 1825–1828. Cambridge, Hakluyt Society, Second series 143.Google Scholar
Hudson's Bay Company Archives. N.D. Correspondence. Manitoba Archives, Winnipeg.Google Scholar
Jensen, R. J. 1975. The Alaska purchase and Russian-American relations. Seattle and London, University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Khlebnikov, K. T. 1973. Baranov, chief manager of the Russian colonies in America. Translated by Bearne, Colin. Kingston, Ont., Limestone Press.Google Scholar
Kirwan, L. P. 1959. White road, a survey of polar exploration. London, Hollis and Carter.Google Scholar
Kotsebu, O. E. 1948. Puteshestviya vokrug sveta. Moscow.Google Scholar
Kotzebue, O. Von. 1821. A voyage of discovery into the South Sea and Beering's Straits for the purpose of exploring a North-East Passage, undertaken in the years 1815–1818. 3 vols. London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown.Google Scholar
Kotzebue, O. Von. 1830. A new voyage round the world … 1823–26. 2 vols. London, Colburn.Google Scholar
Lefroy, Bequest N.D. MS 248/347. SPRI Archives.Google Scholar
Lloyd, C. 1970. Mr Barrow of the Admiralty: a life of Sir John Barrow, 1764–1848. London, Collins.Google Scholar
Okun, S. B. 1951. The Russian-American Company. trans. Ginsburg, C.. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parry, W. E. 1826. Journal of a third voyage. London, John Murray.Google Scholar
Pierce, R. A. 1965. Russia's Hawaiian adventure, 1815–18. Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rich, E. E. (editor). 1953. John Rae's Arctic correspondence, 1844–55. London, Hudson's Bay Record Society 16.Google Scholar
Romanov, D. M. 1982. Kolumby Arktiki. [Columbuses of the Arctic] Tula, Priokskoye Knizhnoye Izdatel'stvo.Google Scholar
Stevenson, Surgeon LT. RN. 1822. Voyage to St Petersburg in 1814 with remarks on the Imperial Russian Navy. London, Sir Richard Phillips.Google Scholar
Temperley, H. V. 1925. The foreign policy of Canning, 1822–1827. London, G. Bell.Google Scholar
Tikhmenev, P. A. 1978. A history of the Russian-American Company. Translated by Pierce, R. A. and Donnelly, A. S.. Seattle, University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Wallace, H. N. 1980. The Navy, the Company, and Richard King: British exploration in the Canadian Arctic, 1829–1860. Montreal, McGill-Queen's University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, G. 1962. The British search for the Northwest Passage in the eighteenth century. London, Longmans.Google Scholar