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Timofei Nikitich Tarakanov (born c. 1774 in Kursk, died after 1834, location unknown ), also written Timofey Tarakanov, was born into serfdom in Kursk, Russia. His owner was Nikanor Ivanovich Pereverzev, one of the richest merchants in Kursk in the late 18th century. Pereverzev owned over 3,000 serfs. He almost never freed any of them. Timofei Tarakanov was a special case in that regard.

Tarakanov is known for playing an important role in the expansion of Russian-American Company (RAC) operations south from Alaska into California, mostly as an overseers or manager of indigenous sea otter hunters, mosty Aleut and Alutiiq people. This task often involved US maritime fur trade merchant ships transporting RAC personnel to California and splitting the profits with the RAC. Tarakanov was one of the RAC overseers on the 1803–1804 voyage of the O'Cain from Kodiak to Baja California. He may have been with Nikolai Rezanov on his 1805–1806 voyage to San Francisco. He was involved in Russian reconnaissance for a location for an RAC outpost in California, especially in the vicinity of Bodega Bay. From 1808–1811 Tarakanov managed a number of hunting expeditions in California with support by both Russian and US ships. These operations included a large hunt in San Francisco Bay that may have wiped out sea otters in the bay.

In 1812 Tarakanov helped establish Fort Ross and the larger Ross Colony extending inland and south to Bodega Bay. Tarakanov was involved in the acquisition of land from the indigenous people who were living in the Fort Ross area.

During the late 1810s, Tarakanov was involved in a series of complex events as the RAC conducted multiple prolonged hunting expeditions in and around the Channel Islands. During this time Tarakanov and a number of other RAC employees were captured by the Spanish. While some hunters were killed, Tarakanov was eventually released. In 1814 RAC hunters under the command of Iakov Babin, a junior overseer under Tarakanov, massacred the Nicoleño natives of San Nicolas Island, which ultimately resulted in one Nicoleño woman, known as Juana Maria, living alone on the island for many years. These events became the basis for Scott O'Dell's 1960 children's novel Island of the Blue Dolphins and the 1964 film adaptation Island of the Blue Dolphins. Tarakanov blamed the massacre on Iakov Babin. Tarakanov demoted then fired Babin, who was ultimately required to stand trial for his actions in Saint Petersburg.

During the lengthy Channel Islands operations Tarakanov frequently traveled on board the Il'mena. In 1815–1816 Il'mena was held up at Fort Ross for repairs. In 1816, with Tarakanov and a crew of hunters on board, Il'mena left Fort Ross for Alaska, but leaks forced the captain to divert the ship to the Hawaiian Islands. There both Il'mena and Tarakanov became embroiled in the Schäffer affair, an RAC attempt to conquer the Hawaiian Islands or at least Kauai. The attempt failed and Tarakanov played a key role in getting RAC employees and material goods back to Alaska.

Early life
Very little is known about his early life. His parentage and ancestry is not known for certain. Using archival records at Kursk and elsewhere, A.V. Zorin, the Chief Curator at the Kursk State Regional Museum of Archeology, reconstructed a plausible but still conjectural family tree.

Tarakanov was born around 1774.

Tarakanov probably became an employee of the Russian-American Company (RAC) around 1801. The RAC identifies him as a promyshlenniki, a term that came from the Siberian fur trade and which the RAC used for employees that were lower class Russians, sometimes of mixed Russian and indigenous ancestry.

It is not known how Tarakanov got from Kursk to Russian Alaska or how he acquired his education and literacy. Possibly his legal owner, Pereverzev, took special interest in him and paid for his education and travel.

1803–1804 O'cain voyage
His presence in RAC records became more regular starting with the 1803 voyage of the maritime fur trade ship O'Cain. Captain Joseph Burling O'Cain worked for the Winship family of Boston merchants. He was involved in an earlier maritime fur trading voyage during. Details about that voyage are not well documented, but O'Cain had been left or marooned in Santa Barbara. Spanish authorities sent O'Cain to Mexico, New Spain, after which he was sent to Spain along with John Kendrick Jr. and Thomas Muir. Eventually O'Cain made his way back to Boston. It is possible that O'Cain briefly worked with the Spanish Naval Department at San Blas, Mexico, like John Kendrick Jr. did.

Joseph O'Cain was employed as supercargo on board the maritime fur trading vessel Betsy, under Captain Charles Winship, from 1799–1802. Details about these first two voyages of O'Cain to the north Pacific are not well documented, but it appears O'Cain won favor with the Winship family such that they named a ship for him. In 1803 Joseph O'Cain left Boston as captain of the O'Cain maritime fur trading vessel. In late 1803 he arrived at Kodiak on Kodiak Island, the capital of Russian America at the time. In Kodiak O'Cain met Alexander Andreyevich Baranov and proposed a joint venture: The O'Cain would take RAC Aleut hunters and their kayaks and overseers to Spanish California to hunt sea otters. Baranov agreed. This was the first of many such joint ventures involving US ships taking RAC hunters and overseers to hunt California sea otters.

US maritime fur traders had been visiting San Diego and Baja California hoping to obtain California sea otter furs since at least 1798, but found it difficult. American ships traded for furs and did not have the skills or desire to hunt and process otter furs themselves. Spanish authorities prohibited trade. While there was some smuggling, the larger expedition and prolonged time required for hunting sea otters made it difficult to illicitly trade sea otter furs in Spanish California. Thus the idea of bringing RAC hunters to California was appealing to Americans trading ships, especially as sea otter populations began to plummet in the north. The idea was appealing to the RAC as well, since the company was plagued with a shortage of decent ships and was finding expansion south of Sitka Sound difficult due largely to Tlingit and Haida hostility as well as fierce competition with American fur trading ships. Also, not only did the Russian government want Baranov to push Russia's sphere of influence farther south, but otters in Russian Alaska were becoming scarce, since the "Great Hunt" of sea otters had always been based on unsustainable overhunting and a constant expansion of hunting grounds. By entering into joint ventures with Americans the RAC was able to expand their hunting to California, which would have been extremely difficult without US traders and ships. In time the RAC purchased some US ships, which helped the company conduct hunting operations on its own, although by that time the sea otter population in California was being rapidly depleted.

Baranov supplied O'Cain with twenty baidarkas (Aleutian kayaks) and about forty indigenous hunters, plus two overseers to manage the hunters and hunting. Afanasii Shvetsov was the senior Russian overseer and Timofei Tarakanov was assigned as the junior overseer.

In December 1803 O'Cain left Kodiak for California. Captain O'Cain stopped in San Diego and requested supplies but was refused. He continued south to San Quintín Bay, about 200 mi south of San Diego, on the west coast of Baja California. The local official, José Ruiz, came from Misión Santo Domingo de la Frontera. O'Cain claimed to be making repairs. Ruiz gave him four days. O'Cain stayed for over three months. While the details are lost, it appears that O'Cain had made contacts among the Spanish of the area, some of whom were eager to trade and barter sea otter furs. Local officials were reluctant to force O'Cain to leave.

Governor José Joaquín de Arrillaga, however, became increasingly frustrated and repeatedly ordered O'Cain to leave. In response O'Cain provided "respectful excuses". He also guarded his growing number of sea otter furs with armed hunters and the cannons of his ship, which were more than a match for Spanish defenses in California. Later, Arrillaga complained to Nikolai Rezanov about RAC poaching of sea otters in Spanish territory.

At the end of the hunting season, in March 1804, O'Cain returned north with 1,110 sea otter furs, plus 700 more acquired by illegal trade with Spanish officials and missionaries. O'Cain arrived back at Kodiak in June 1804.

Later life
Tarakanov obtained his freedom in 1818, having petitioned for such with the encouragement and support of Baranov. Once free from serfdom he was ranked in the Kursk middle class society.

Tarakanov's son Aleksey was born on 27 February 1819.

Tarakanov returned to Russia from Alaska in 1820, settling down in Kursk for a while.

Little is known about his life after his return to Russia. Archives in Kursk suggest he left Kursk sometime before 1844, without any indication of where he might have gone or why.

-- Main known "life story beats" (check and expand etc)"


 * 1803-4: O'Cain voyage to Baja California, "2nd overseer" of hunters. Afanasii Shvetsov was "senior Russian" on O'Cain.


 * 1805-6: Maybe with Rezanov on Juno to San Francisco for food.


 * 1807: On Peacock to Bodega Bay, SF Bay, maybe Baja CA?


 * 1808-1811: head of hunters on dropped off by Isabella in SF Bay. Albatross involved. SF Bay otters wiped out?


 * 1811: Continued CA hunting' Chirikov involved?


 * 1812: Fort Ross voyage(s) and establishment; details lost? Tarakanov bought land from natives there?


 * 1814-15 on Il'mena to CA. Captured by Spanish, St Nicolas Isle massacre, etc. Stop at Bodega Bay, repairs etc. Then back to Channel Islands? complex events. 1815-16 repairs at Bodega Bay


 * 1816-17 (and 1818?): On Il'mena, from Bodega Bay to Sitka but diverted to Hawaii for repairs (?). Involved in Schaeffer Affair; land grants on Kauai etc.


 * 1818?: involved in Hawaii mess "clean uip"?


 * Anything else known? Change after Baranov gone.

--


 * https://sandiegoarchaeology.org/Laylander/Baja/07farris.pdf "Slaughter of the sea otters on coastal Baja California by Americans and Native Alaskans in the early nineteenth century"; Glenn Farris; California State Parks.


 * https://www.fortross.org/lib/58/the-united-states-and-russiathe-beginning-of-relations-17651815.pdf "The United States and Russia - The Beginning of Relations 1765-1815"


 * The Age of Russian Imperialism in the North Pacific. Glenn Farris. Associate State Archaeologist, California Department of Parks and Recreation. https://digitalassets.lib.berkeley.edu/anthpubs/ucb/text/kas081-010.pdf


 * Molodin, Aleksander V., and Peter R. Mills. "Addressing Tensions between Colonial and Post-Colonial Histories: Modeling Hawaiian Fort Pa'ula'ula/Russian Fort Elizabeth, Kaua'i Island, Hawai'i." Asian Perspectives: The Journal of Archaeology for Asia and the Pacific, vol. 60, no. 1, spring 2021, pp. 2+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A667694603/AONE?u=anon~12b40b09&sid=googleScholar&xid=e3ff4298. Accessed 15 Nov. 2023.


 * https://www.fortross.org/lib/134/story-of-the-purchase-of-fort-ross-and-payment-for-bodega-bay.pdf


 * https://escholarship.org/content/qt2zn2c26r/qt2zn2c26r_noSplash_cc33cfdc76a0bf01c82d963185bc5eeb.pdf Metini Village: An Archaeological Study of Sustained Colonialism in Northern California (Fort Ross site)


 * https://books.google.com/books?id=mlU37uRbvmcC The California Sea Otter Trade, 1784-1848. Adele Ogden.


 * https://books.google.com/books?id=ZvMZvq63sNUCe The Wreck of the Sv. Nikolai


 * https://books.google.com/books?id=OySg5ESZD7AC The Great Ocean: Pacific Worlds from Captain Cook to the Gold Rush


 * https://books.google.com/books?id=Xb_XCgAAQBAJ Empire Maker: Aleksandr Baranov and Russian Colonial Expansion into Alaska


 * https://books.google.com/books?id=bp-7oO_0W5kC Russia's Hawaiian Adventure, 1815-1817


 * https://books.google.com/books?id=natRq6WCu4oC Alaska: An American Colony


 * https://books.google.com/books?id=OjDCCAAAQBAJ The Sea Is My Country: The Maritime World of the Makahs


 * https://www.historylink.org/File/7745 Russian ship Saint Nicholas wrecks near mouth of Quillayute River on November 1, 1808.


 * https://sandiegoarchaeology.org/Laylander/Baja/07farris.pdf Slaughter of the sea otters on coastal Baja California by Americans and Native Alaskans in the early nineteenth century


 * https://ia801908.us.archive.org/23/items/fur-war-volume-1/FurWarVolume1.pdf Fur War - the Political, Economic, Cultural and Ecological Impacts of the Western Fur Trade 1765-1840