He died in Irkutsk in 1795; but in St. Petersburg, when
pressing upon {306} the government the necessity of uniting all the
independent traders in one all-powerful company to be given exclusive
monopoly on the west coast of America, he had met and allied himself
with a young courtier, Nikolai Rezanoff.[3] When Shelikoff died,
Rezanoff it was who obtained from the Czar in 1799 a charter for the
Russian American Fur Company, giving it exclusive monopoly for hunting,
trading, and exploring north of 55 degrees in the Pacific. Other
companies were compelled either to withdraw or join. Royalty took
shares in the venture. Shareholders of St. Petersburg were to direct
affairs, and Baranof, the governor, resident in America, to have power
of life and death, despotic as a czar. By 1800 the capital of Russian
America had been moved down to the modern Sitka, called Archangel
Michael in the trust of the Lord's anointed protecting these plunderers
of the sea. Shelikoff's dreams were coming true. Russia was
checkmating the advances of England and the United States and New
Spain.
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