Russian-american Fur Company
Chartered in 1799, with a monopoly of
the fur trade of Russian America. It absorbed the various smaller
independent companies, and for a time was a powerful rival of the
Hudson's Bay Company. Its operations were directed by Baranof, as
governor of Russian America, and the headquarters of the company were
established at New Archangel (modern Sitka), in 1800. =Index=: (Sir James Douglas era) Claim
north-west coast of America, 45; dissolved, 1861, 45. =Bib.=: Dall,
Alaska; Bancroft, History of Alaska; Laut, Vikings of the Pacific.