Just as Lord Selkirk indirectly brought about the consolidation of the
Hudson's Bay fur traders with Nor'westers, and John Jacob Astor
attempted the same ends between the St. Louis and New York companies,
so a master mind arose among the Russians, grasping the situation, and
ready to cope with its difficulties.
[Illustration: John Jacob Astor.]
This was Gregory Ivanovich Shelikoff, a fur trader {304} of Siberia,
accompanied to America and seconded by his wife, Natalie, who succeeded
in carrying out many of his plans after his death. Shelikoff owned
shares in two of the principal Russian companies. When he came to
America accompanied by his wife, Baranof, another trader, and two
hundred men in 1784, the Russian headquarters were still at Oonalaska
in the Aleutians. Only desultory expeditions had gone eastward.
Foreign ships had already come among the Russian hunting-grounds of the
north. These Shelikoff at once checkmated by moving Russian
headquarters east to Three Saints, Kadiak. Savages warned him from the
island, threatening death to the Aleut Indian hunters he had brought.
Pages:
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393