U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward signs a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska for $7 million. Despite the bargain price of roughly two cents an acre, the Alaskan purchase was ridiculed in Congress and in the press as “Seward’s Folly,” “Seward’s icebox,” and President Andrew Johnson’s “polar bear garden.”
Inuit and other Indigenous peoples had inhabited Alaska for thousands of years before the czarist government of Russia established a presence there around the mid-18th century. Russia first approached the United States about selling the territory during the administration of President James Buchanan, but negotiations were stalled by the outbreak of the Civil War. After 1865, Seward, a supporter of territorial expansion, was eager to acquire the tremendous landmass of Alaska, an area roughly one-fifth the size of the rest of the United States. He had some difficulty, however, making the case for the purchase of Alaska before the Senate, which ratified the treaty on April 9, 1867.
Six months later, Alaska was formally handed over from Russia to the United States. Despite a slow start in U.S. settlement, the discovery of gold in 1898 brought a rapid influx of people to the territory, and Alaska, rich in natural resources, has contributed to American prosperity ever since.
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Seward was tough. Had his face nearly gashed off in the Lincoln assassination plot.
And then there is Xiden’s Folly, where he banned utilizing the wonderful natural resources this great state could supply.
Alaska could be even more useful. In the far northwest corner a containment area could be designated for all the socialist gender-confused pedo-groomers who want to force their agenda on everyone else. Once there, they can survive by getting eaten by polar bears while enjoying their magic unicorns that are guaranteed to fart pixie dust and magic rainbows.
Only one problem. Polar bear poisoning from eating socialist gender-confused pedo-groomers.
I know that place! It’s called The Island of Broken Toys!
The people of Alaska did not want to be a part of the US and who could blame them. There was a lot of rebellion and
underground attacks. The Alaskan people said the US just wanted Alaska for its resources. Seems they were right.
Just like Hawaii except Hawaii was taken by military force.
The folks at history.com totally ignored the backstory to this event … which involved Russia’s presence off the West and East Coasts of the United States in 1863 …
“Surely the outcome of the Civil War would have been much darker had it not been for Czar Alexander II’s deployment of the Russian navy to California and Atlantic coasts of America in 1863 which kept British and French forces from assisting the confederacy in open warfare against Lincoln.
Later describing his motive, Czar Alexander II said:
“In the Autumn of 1862, the governments of France and Great Britain proposed to Russia, in a formal but not in an official way, the joint recognition by European powers of the independence of the Confederate States of America. My immediate answer was: `I will not cooperate in such action; and I will not acquiesce. On the contrary, I shall accept the recognition of the independence of the Confederate States by France and Great Britain as a casus belli for Russia. And in order that the governments of France and Great Britain may understand that this is no idle threat; I will send a Pacific fleet to San Francisco and an Atlantic fleet to New York…All this I did because of love for my own dear Russia… I acted thus because I understood that Russia would have a more serious task to perform if the American Republic, with advanced industrial development were broken up and Great Britain should be left in control of most branches of modern industrial development.” (5)