How many of us know how the Alaska, a vast area of land and resources far in the north, came into possession of America and how it then became a state? I have to admit that before we were assigned to do our Chapter 10 blogs, I hadn’t the slightest inkling of how we came into possession of Alaska. The story behind it is really pretty cut and dry so this blog will be a rather short one compared to the epic novels that I usually tend to write (as in my Prohibition blog).The land that would become Alaska was controlled by the Russians since 1741. The Russians viewed the land of Alaska to be nothing more than an economic liability. This meant that in any case where the Russian government need money, they could simply sell the land, use the resources, or do whatever they wanted to get some money.The Russian Minister, Edouard de Stoeckl, sought to sell the Alaskan land. Moscow was unable to financially support any settlements or military bases in Alaska, so it was viewed as a beneficial thing to sell. The top two contenders for the purchase were Great Brittain and America. The Russians didn’t really want to give the land to Great Brittain because of a conflict between the two nations nearly a decade earlier. Great Brittain was Russia’s biggest rival, and the Russians wanted to counteract G.B’s control in North America by giving more land to the U.S. American Secretary of State William Seward, under Andrew Johnson, was able to come to an agreement with the Minister on a price for the land.
The 586,412 square mile purchase was set to be $7.2 million dollars. This would be about 2 cents per acre. Russia had actually offered to sell the land to the U.S. nearly ten years earlier, but the Civil War drew attention away from the offer.Seward found that it would not be as easy to get the money need for the purchase as he had originally thought. Congress was reluctant to provide the funds for they feared that the land was barren icy wastes. They had no idea about the benefits that would soon be reaped from the purchase of Alaska. The American people were also skeptical of the purchase they called Seward’s decision “Seward’s Icebox” and “Seward’s Folly.”After a year of lobbying and bribing done by the Russian minister to U.S. Congressmen, Seward was granted his funding for the purchase of Alaska. On April 9, 1868, Andrew Johnson signed the treaty papers which made Alaska an offical part of the U.S. In 1959, Alaska became a U.S. State.http://www.answers.com/topic/alaska-purchasehttp://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/gp/17662.htmhttp://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASseward.htm
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