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The Russian-American Company was a semi-official colonial trading company chartered by Czar Paul I in 1799. The 20-year revolving charter granted the company monopoly over trade in Russian America, which included the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, and the territory down to 55° N latitude. A second charter, in 1821, extended its domain to 51° N latitude. Under the charter, one-third of all profits were to go to the emperor. Under Alexandr Baranov, who governed the region between 1790 and 1818, a permanent settlement was established in 1804 at Novo-Arkhangelsk, (todays Sitka, Alaska), and a thriving fur trade was organized. The company constructed forts in what is today Alaska and California. Fort Ross, on the California coast just north of San Francisco, was the southernmost outpost of Russian America, and is now reconstructed and an open air museum. But from the 1820s onwards the profits from the fur trade began to decline. Already in 1818 the Russian government had taken control of the Russian-American Company from the merchants who held the charter. The explorer and government official Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel, who had been administrator of Russian government interests in Russian America a decade before, was the first president of the company during the government period. The company ceased its commercial activities in 1867, when the Alaska Purchase transferred control of Alaska to the United States. See also: Alaska Commercial Company Governors of the Russian American CompanyBelow is a list of the governors/general managers of the Russian American Company. Many of their names occur as place names in southeastern Alaska. Please note that the English spelling of the names varies between sources.
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