Vision of trans-Pacific trade drove Alaska purchase

There aren't many Alaskans familiar with the Treaty of Wangxia, but when William Seward sat down with Eduard de Stoeckl in March 150 years ago to talk about Russian America, he was very familiar with it. It was an 1844 agreement between China and the U.S. which facilitated American trade with China on very favorable terms, conditions similar to those Britain had forced on China two years earlier following the First Opium War.

Trade with Asia was Seward's chief motivation for negotiating the Alaska purchase treaty. With other American statesmen, he had great hopes for trade with the east. "The Pacific Ocean," he wrote, "its shores, its islands, and the vast regions beyond will become the chief theater of events in the worlds created hereafter."

Possession of Alaska would afford protection for American merchant ships plying the North Pacific, and an ideal location for coaling and watering stations for ships of the U.S. Navy. That need became more pressing with the acquisition by the United States of the Oregon country in 1846 and California, following the Mexican War, in 1848, for now there would be American ports on the Pacific coast.

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The need for fueling and protecting American interests in the east was significant, for at the time of the Wangxia treaty, American trade in Far East Asia, limited mostly to whaling and pepper, was somewhat precarious. In response to the killing of some of the crew of a pepper trader in Sumatra in 1831, President Andrew Jackson sent two punitive naval expeditions to the region, and in 1835 the U.S. Navy established a Far East Squadron at Guangzhou (Canton), China. But the security of the base was always in doubt.

Also very present in Seward's thinking in his negotiations with Stoeckl was the more recent opening of Japan to American trade, in 1853 and 1854, when Cmdr. Oliver Perry, first with four U.S. Navy ships, and then with eight, forced the signing of the Convention of Kanagawa, opening two of Japan's ports to American traders and guaranteeing the safety of American castaways. But security was an issue there, too, for having forced its will on the grudging Shogunate, who signed only after learning of how Britain had forced open trade with China, the U.S. could not be confident of the security of its Navy, or the safety of its merchant vessels.

Even as Seward and Stoeckl were negotiating about Alaska, an American merchant ship, the Rover, struck a coral reef off Taiwan and its crew was massacred by Taiwanese aborigines. Two months later, 181 U.S. Navy officers, sailors and marines from the ships USS Hartford and the USS Wyoming failed in a retaliatory mission on the island. To be in a better position to monitor and protect American trade, Seward wanted forward bases in the Pacific. Hawaii and Alaska were his desired locations.

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Certainly there were other considerations than the Pacific trade in Seward's portfolio. With other American expansionists, he welcomed the notion of putting diplomatic pressure on western Canada where the good citizens of the crown colony of British Columbia were struggling with a recession following the collapse of the gold rush along the Frazier River. There was serious annexation sentiment in British Columbia, and the prospect of the colony decamping to the United States helped get the 1867 British North America Act through Parliament, creating the Dominion of Canada. Many in the U.S. assumed that American acquisition of Alaska was an initial step in taking the British crown colony.

What, then, were Seward's thoughts about Alaska proper? With others, he imagined the territory held important resources that would eventually be identified and exploited. But Alaska's character, as distinguished from its geopolitical importance, was not uppermost in his mind.

It was Charles Sumner, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who would have to make the critical recommendation to the whole Senate on whether or not to acquiesce in Seward's treaty. Sumner, while agreeing with Seward's assessment of Alaska's strategic significance, also interested himself in Alaska's internal character. After careful study, he became an enthusiastic advocate for the purchase, persuading the Senate to ratify the treaty. The 37-2 vote for ratification was a testament to both men.

Steve Haycox is professor emeritus of history at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

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