The Conquest of Siberia

The Cossack movement was not confined to the shores of the Dnipro River but by the early 16th century had been es­tablished along its eastern tributaries as well. The travels and rovings of the brodniki steppe Cossacks also included the me­dieval Siverian region of the Chernihiv Principality where steppe hunters and gatherers tended to congregate in towns, particularly in Putivl and Kursk.

The Ukrainian origin of the Don Cossacks is also shown by many common terms and practices, particularly the non­Slav ranks such as “ataman” and “osaul” (“osavul”) as well as borrowed Tatarwords such as “yassak” (tribute), “yassyr” (pris­oners, captives) and “bunchuk,” the horsetail standard common amongst the Zaporozhian and steppe Cossacks of the Ukrainian prairies.

The growth of the Don Cossack “stanitsas” and the spin­off settlements along the Yaik and Terek rivers was encouraged by Ivan the Terrible’s dependence on their detachments as fron­tier Tatar fighters who took part in the Tsar’s campaigns against the Nogay Tatars and the capture of Astrakhan. In 1574 an agreement was reached between the tsar and the Don Cossacks by which he would provide them with gunpowder, lead, money and (later) other provisions not available in the steppe region, in return for Orthodox Christian prisoners rescued from the Tatars and Turks by the Cossacks. The agreement was renewed in 1584 and again in 1592, just before the great uprising. Besides raiding Muslim centers they were also responsible for providing early warning of any imminent Tatar raid on Muscovite terri­tory. Not all were cooperative with Moscow, and others con­tinued making raids on shipping along the Don and Volga rivers. The Zaporozhian Cossacks were also active in raiding shipping and caravans such as those looted by Jushko Nesvitaey who came to the notice of the Muscovite authorities in 1585 after plundering English and Armenian merchants on the Volga and the Tsar’s convoy on the Don River. Three years later, led by hetman Matviy Fedorov, a detachment of Zaporozian Cossacks were raiding traffic on the Donets River and managed to put an end to all movements on the river.

Another outlet for the Cossacks’ energy lay to the north­east, the little known Ural mountain range and the mysterious land which lay beyond where few had ventured and returned to tell the tale. Those who did brought back stories of a land immensely rich in fur-bearing animals, ruled by Muslim Tatars led by a khan called Kuchum. In 1556 Tsar Ivan the Terrible had forced Kuchums predecessor to pay tribute, but when Kuchum conquered the region he refused to continue the pay­ments—his land, after all, lay well beyond Moscow’s reach. Busywith his western neighbors, Ivan the Terrible turned the region over to the Stroganov family in 1558, who received a 20- year license to “explore” the UralMountains and be accountable only to the Tsar. The Strognanovs were a prominent and wealthy commercial family whose fortune was laid in the be­ginning of the 16th CenturybyAnika Stroganov. Only 17 years of age, he acquired access to a salt lake, and began supplying Moscow with salt at a cheaper price than could be obtained from the Crimean merchants. To secure the region his grandson Grigory began to build settlements and forts along the rivers which very soon drew the attention of the Tatars, and in 1573 they were attacked by Kuchums nephew Mehmet-Kul. Not re­ceiving protection from Moscow, the Stroganovs decided to create their own private force by hiring Cossack freebooters, the natural Tatar fighters.

A tall, powerful Cossack by the name of Yermak Timo- fiyevich was commissioned to put together a Cossack regiment. With his Cossacklieutenants Ivan Koltso, Ivan Hroza, Jakov Mikhailov, Mikita Pan, MatviyMeshcheryak, and Bohdan Bri- aha, by 1581 Yermakhad raised a force of some 500 hand-picked Zaporozhian and Don Cossacks with 300 additional men pro­vided by the Stroganovs, all well-equipped with up-to-date fire­power and supplied from the family’s ample coffers.²⁷ Not much is known about Yermak, and most of it is contradictory. Claims that his grandfather was a peasant from Suzdal or perhaps a coach driver from Murom are most certainly incorrect. It seems that Yermak had fought in the Livonian War in Ivan the Terri­ble’s army, which would have made him either a Don or a Siver- ian Cossack, or a Zaporozhian. He was certainly not known on the Don or the Volga region.²⁸ The name Yermakwas also un­known on the Don but was known in the Ukraine from records of the early 16th century, such as one Yermak Sevriuk (the Siver- ian).²⁹ The names of his lieutenants are also Ukrainian rather than from the Muscovite north.

With the coming of spring, Yermak set out up the Kama River, entered the Chusovaya River and, turning into the Sere- bryanka, proceeded under oar and sail into the Ural Mountains. Progress was slow as the Cossacks bent their backs into the fast flowing mountain river, but once they reached the end of the Serebryanka the going became easier. Securing their boats for the return trip they proceeded on foot towards the mouth of the Tagil, into a wilderness trodden by few men. Reaching the river they paused for a well-earned rest, to build new boats, and setting out downstream soon reached the Tura River, their first main destination. Yermak and his men were now in Siberia (Sibir), a land of native pagan tribes ruled by Muslim Tatars, where they could be attacked at anytime as unwelcome guests. Their first contact with the local natives came soon enough.

With the arrival of spring Yermak and his men resumed their journey down the Tura towards their main destination, Khan Kuchums capital Sibir (lsker, Kashlyk) some 200 miles downstream. The Tatars didn’t wait for the Cossacks’ arrival. After several weeks of uninterrupted journey Yermak’s scouts informed him that an ambush was waiting along the river. Re­alizing they were outnumbered by the Tatars and their native subjects, the Cossacks decided on a ruse. Replacing most of the men in the boats by dummies assembled from branches and Cossacks’ coats and headgear, the rest of the Cossacks disem­barked and prepared a counter-ambush. At dawn the boats were launched by a skeleton crew, and as Kuchums men attacked with the customary shower of arrows and Otherprojectiles, they were struck in the rear and routed, losing many men from the Cossack rifle volleys and the hand-to-hand fighting which fol­lowed.

Yermak’s force had also suffered casualties and there were now only 400 men fit to continue the journey to Sibir. The fighting, however, was far from over as Kuchum decided to deal with Yermak once and for all. With the coming of autumn Yer­mak found himself facing a strong force of some 2,000 Tatar cavalry and Siberian native infantry blocking his path at the confluence of the Tobol and Irtysh rivers. With winter ap­proaching there was no turning back, and the Cossacks took up defensive positions and waited for the enemy to make the first move.

With a force of fewer than 300 men Yermak found himself virtually besieged in Kuchum s capital. Ammunition was run­ning low, and he needed reinforcements if he was to conquer Kuchums kingdom. Winter had set in and the dauntless Ivan Koltso was sent back with a party of men on skis and sleds car­rying bales of valuable furs. When they arrived in Perm the Stroganovs sent them to Moscow to meet Ivan the Terrible, with whom they had fallen out of favor, hoping to regain their good standing. The Cossacks had brought some 5,000 valuable sable, beaver and black fox pelts, which greatly impressed the Tsar. The Stroganovs were reinstated in Ivan’s favors, the Cos­sacks were forgiven all past “transgressions,” and Koltso was sent back to Siberia with woolen cloth for the Cossacks, some badly needed powder and shot, and a silver goblet for Yermak with two suits of armor bearing the Tsar’s double-headed eagle emblem. More supplies were to be sent with reinforcements.

In the meantime Yermakhad extended his rule over a large part of western Siberia, having routed a Tatar force with a de­tachment of 60 men and captured Kuchums nephew, Mehmet- Kul. Yermak’s supply parties began to be attacked and not all tributes of fur were reaching him. The problem, a local chief Karacha explained, was that Kuchums men were attacking him and would Yermak send some men to help. Taking 40 Cossacks hetman Koltso went to investigate, and was given lodging in Karachas supposedly friendly village. While they slept they were assaulted by Karachas men and killed, except for one Cos­sack who managed to bring word of the massacre. This was a signal for a general uprising and with reinforcements Karacha laid siege to Cossack-occupied Sibir, with the intention to starve the defenders into submission rather than risk a frontal assault. The siege lasted for 3 months, with the 300 Cossacks on the brink of starvation, and running out of ammunition. Realizing their predicament Matviy Meshcheriak took a detachment of Cossacks outside the palisade walls, and in the middle of the night with drawn sabers attacked Karachas camp. What fol­lowed was a complete rout of the surprised enemy, who, suf­fering heavy casualties, fled in confusion, leaving Karachas two sons dead on the battlefield. Gathering more men Karacha led another assault on Sibir to avenge the death of his sons. He was defeated in the ensuing battle and withdrew having lost a hun­dred of his men, not to return again. Although only some two dozen Cossacks were killed they had literally fired their last shot.

ConsideringYermakto be invincible, the local chiefs gave him their allegiance making him master of western Siberia. In the spring of 1584 the Tsar’s promised reinforcements arrived under the command of Prince Balkhovsky. Only 300 men, they came without horses, having eaten them on the long journey with many dying of scurvy including the Prince. The only re­deeming feature of the Muscovite force was the gunpowder and lead shot they carried. The fighting during the four years had also taken its toll of Yermak’s men; the hetmans Ivan Koltso, YakovMikhailov, and Mikita Panwere dead, and only 150 Cos­sacks remained. The Tatar Khan Kuchum had not given up the fight and he now realized that he could lure Yermak into a trap. Knowing Yermak was attempting to establish trade relations with the south, Kuchum spread a rumor that merchants from Bukhara were seeking to trade for furs, and had reached the Ir­tysh river. Taking a detachment of 50 Cossacks, Yermakwent out to meet them, but failing to make contact, he decided to camp on an island and wait for their arrival. Not sensing danger the Cossacks let their guard down and when the campfires dimmed the Tatars swam out, killed the sentries and attacked the sleeping Cossacks. Those not killed outright tried to reach the boats, which had been removed by Kuchums men, and sur­rounded, they fought to the last man. The powerful Yermak, who had brought the Tsar’s armor to impress the “merchants,” fought his way to the water’s edge, and attempting to swim to shore he was pulled down by the weight of the breastplate, never to be seen again. The symbolism surrounding Yermak’s death would leave a deep impression on the Cossacks. They never wore armor themselves and here was a great Cossack drowned by a breastplate bearing the tsar’s double-headed eagle. The les­son was clear—nothing good came from the emblem of the despotic Tsarist authority.

Yermak and most of the Cossacks were dead, with only 400 men remaining counting the Tsar s reinforcements. They decided to abandon Sibir and head back to Muscovywhere on the way the last hetman MatviyMeshcheryakwas killed during a Tatar attack. The power of the Tatar khanate, however, was broken, and more Cossacks and others began to cross the Ural Mountains in search of enterprise and freedom, particularly following Bolotnikov’s uprising in the decade that followed. Ivan the Terrible died in 1584 and his son Fedor I began to show a greater interest in the East, renewing expeditions beyond the Ural Mountains into what became known as Siberia. What was an impressive, in fact an amazing, feature was the rapid speed of the Cossack-Ied drive. Within 50 years of Yermaks death, Cossackbands had crossed 7,000 kilometers to the Pacific coast, and a Centurylater they were on the outskirts of San Francisco in California. Home to numerous Siberian tribes such as the Mongols (Tatars), Samoyeds, Tungus, Iakuts, Iukagirs, Chuk- chis, Koriats, Kamchadals and others, the main attraction was fur—“soft gold” as it was known, which had to be obtained in the harsh conditions north of the 50th parallel. Cossack camps and settlements became towns, and were followed by govern­ment officials to impose the Tsar’s order and collect tribute from the conquered tribes. This competed with private Cossack entrepreneurs, who often imposed their own “tribute.” By 1631 iron would be discovered in the Urals, gold in 1677 near Nerchinsk, and silver in the Kamchatka Peninsula in 1698.

Two years after Yermak s death, a first fort was built at Tymen by Cossacks and 300 Muscovite troops, and the follow­ing year another stronghold became established near Sibir, which would grow into the city of Tobolsk. Valuable fur pelts began to flow to Moscow in great volumes, particularly the much sought-after sable of which a single pelt when in perfect condition fetched 300 rubles, the annual salary of a Tsar s “voi- voda” or provincial governor! It has been estimated that by 1600 about 1 million pelts of black fox, arctic fox, ermine, beaver, squirrel and the prized sable pelts were sent to Moscow.³⁰ It seems nothing could stand in the way of the quest for “soft gold” and at times entire Siberian tribes were annihilated by the Siber­ian Cossacks, or others who claimed Cossack status. Rival Cos­sack bands also suffered casualties when attacked by other Cos­sacks in disputes over territory or were killed by Siberian tribesmen.

By 1628, Cossacks had explored the southern region along the Ob River bordering Muslim Central Asia, had reached the mouth of the Yenisei and Angara rivers and began to branch out north and east. In 1633 Ivan Perfilev led free traders and Cossacks along the Lena River, which empties into the Arctic Ocean, and founded a settlement on the Yana River. Five years later another Cossack, Ivan Rebrov, followed the route further east to the Indigyrka River, and four years later following the river other Cossacks reached the Sea of Okhotsk. Conflictwith the newly established Manchu dynasty of China became in­evitable when in 1650 Yerofei Khabarov set out from Yakutsk with 138 Cossacks and three cannons on his second expedition against the Daurians, who he knew paid tribute to the Chinese Emperor. When Peking sent out a task force to support the Daurians it was soundly defeated with the loss of 17 muskets, 2 cannons, 8 silk flags, 830 horses and many supplies.³¹ Kha- barov’s victory had opened the entire Daurian territory on the Amur River, but in 1658 a force of 500 Cossacks and other troops commanded by one Stepanov were attacked by a large Chinese force at the confluence of the Amur and Sungari rivers and defeated, with only 227 men managing to break through and escape up the Amur River. On 27 August 1689, a treaty was signed between the Tsar and the Manchu Emperor by which the entire Amur region was recognized as a part of China. The Treaty ofNerchinsk, as it became known, allowed trade with China, a concession Moscow had been seeking for several decades. Soon China replaced Europe in the Siberian fur trade and Chinese commodities began to make their way to Eastern Europe, including “tchai” or tea, which soon became a popular drink throughout Europe.

In spite of the setback in the Amur basin the conquest of Siberia continued. Although Siberian populations were sparsely distributed in the vast territory they were nevertheless numer­ous, many were warlike, and presented an armed opposition to the Cossackbands. We have a personal account of the hardships Cossacks could suffer, from a letter by a Cossack from Irkutsk, Semen Dezhnev, from 1642 to 1661 who was in the service of Tsar Mikhail Romanov: “on your Majesty’s service [I had gone] to those new rivers on my own money... and received no salary... from you... either in cash, grain or salt, between 1642 and 1661.... I have risked my life, suffered great wounds and shed my blood, suffered cold and great hunger and starved.”³²

Little did he realize the significance of one of his discov­eries, the importance of which would only be realized a century later. After several years in Siberia he had set out in 1648 with 90 men in six flat-bottomed riverboats along the Kolyma River in northeastern Siberia and headed towards the Arctic Ocean. Prevented from landing on 1 October by hostile Chukcha war­riors, the Cossacks continued eastwards until a storm carried them out to sea, around the eastern tip of Siberia and south into the Pacific Ocean. Dezhnev and his men had sailed through the Bering Strait separating Asia and North America, 80 years before Bering.³³ Rounding the eastern Siberian coast he came to the mouth of the Anandyr River, at the base of the Kam­chatka Peninsula, where he was blown ashore by another storm.

As he wrote in his report: “When we had passed the mouth of the Anandyr, by the will of God, the sea broke our boats to pieces... many men were drowned, others killed by natives... and others died of hunger. In all, sixty-four people lost their lives.”³⁴

With 24 surviving Cossacks, Dezhnev set out for the Anandyr River on sleds and snowshoes, but short on supplies and other necessities, only 12 men reached the river. Here they could sustain themselves by ice fishing and build a fortified post, where they remained for the next several years hunting and collecting pelts. They decided to head back, and were at­tacked by natives and lost most of their furs, returning with only 234 sable skins and 573 pounds of walrus tusks to divide among themselves. Following his letter to the Tsar, Dezhnev apparently received some salt, but we don’t Icnowwhat happed to him after.

No further exploration to the east was attempted until Bering’s historical voyages. News of a “big land” to the east of the Chukotsk Peninsula began to trickle in, and in 1711 a Cos­sack sent by Tsar Peter the Great, Ivan Popov, was told of “A Big Land” to the east, rich in sable, fox, martin, wolf, wolverine, polar bear and herds of “deer” (probably caribou). It was only in 1732 that a ship commanded by Ivan Fedorov, accompanied by a cartographer, Michael Gvosdyov, set sail across the Bering Strait, past the Diomedes Islands, and reached the Alaskan shore. Due to bad weather and Fedorov’s scurvy, they decided not to disembark but the shore was plotted on a map by Gvos- dyov.³⁵ The immediate attention of the Siberian Cossacks and merchants, however, was drawn to the Aleutian Islands, which begin east of the Kamchatka Peninsula and lead to the Alaskan mainland, forming the southern limit of the Bering Sea. Mem­bers of Bering’s expeditions had brought back pelts of the sea otter, which very quickly drew the attention of the fur dealers. While sable pelts were in high demand in the markets of Mos­cow, Leipzig, Holland and England, the sea otter was sold mainly in northern China. Not as warm as sable, it was mainly used as trim by the Manchu upper class of China, and could be readily exchanged for tea, silk, porcelain and other commodities in high demand in Russia and Europe. The first to bring a large cargo of pelts in 1746 was a Cossack sergeant by the name of Basov, followed by a merchant Chuprovwho reached the first group of Aleutian islands. Men in his party behaved badly and the cruelty shown the Aleuts brought legal charges and pun­ishment of the guilty. Chuprov’s haul of furs was worth 112,000 rubles and more private merchants began to descend on the is­lands. Orders governing the humane treatment of the islanders were ignored and in three years open warfare had broken out between the Russian merchants and the islanders.

The Kurile, Commander, and Pribilov islands were also reached and explored for fur and beginning in 1765, over the next 13 years five companies procured almost 163,000 rubles worth of otter furs in just 8 voyages to the Kurile islands. Unlike the female sable, which Usuallybears 5 kittens each year, the sea otter female only raises one offspring a year, and it was the female that bore the prized fur. The sea otter soon disappeared and the fur trade moved to the Aleutians, and between 1743 and 1797 forty-two private Russian companies made 101 voy­ages to the islands, bringing back nearly 187,000 pelts worth almost 8 million rubles.³⁶ As the sea otter declined more voy­ages were made to KodiakIsland and the Gulf of Alaska. Com­petition became fierce; by 1795 three companies dominated the sea otter trade, two of which amalgamated to form the UnitedAmerican Companywhich then became the nucleus of the Russian American Company.

By 1787 the otter was rarely seen in the Aleutian Islands and soon became scarce in the Gulf of Alaska as well. The drastic reduction in the number of sea otters was accompanied by a 50 percent drop in the native Aleut population that was indispensable for the fur trade. Even as late as the early 19th century a Russian naval officer, Captain Lazarev, observed: “If the [Russian American] company should somehow lose the Aleuts, then it will Completelyforfeit the hunting of sea animals because not one Russian knows how to hunt the animals, and none of our settlers has learned how in all the time that the Companyhas had its possessions here.”

The Aleut population was ruthlessly exploited to maintain the flow of furs. There was no such thing as free trade for the furs since half of the males between the ages of 18 and 50 were forced to hunt under the supervision of Russian foremen, while their relatives were held hostage.³⁷ The Russian American Com­pany was chartered in 1799 for the duration of 20 years as an Imperial North American monopoly, its profitability witnessed by the fact that only high-ranking officials were allowed to be­come shareholders, including the Tsar himself. Its charter was “to make new discoveries not only north of the 55th degree of north latitude but (also) further to the south, and to occupy the new lands discovered, as Russian possessions, according to prescribed rules, if they have not been previously occupied by, or been dependent on, any other nation.”³⁸ The charter brought the Russian American Company into the Pacific Ocean as far south as Hawaii and along the North American coast down to California, the first step being the founding OfNewArchangelsk (Sitka) in 1799 by the territorial governor Baranov.

It was Baranov’s assistant, Ivan Kuskov, who led the first expedition from NewArchangelskin 1808 to explore the coast­line and report any sightings of sea otters. Following Baranov’s example he did not occupy or claim the Queen Charlotte’s or Vancouver Islands or Nootka sound although these territories had been abandoned by the British, but headed south towards the mouth of the Columbia River. The coastline was already occupied by Boston traders, led by John Astor, the owner of the American Fur Company. During the next three expeditions Kuskov mapped the north California coast, and when he dis­covered large populations of sea otter it was decided to claim the area for Russia. Taking 95 Siberian townsmen and Cossacks, with 80 Aleut hunters, the Russian American Companybegan to build a protective fort named Fort Rus (Slavyansk) which in English became known as Fort Ross. The location chosen was 100 feet above sea level on a terrace covering about a quarter of a square mile, between the Pacific Ocean and the rugged Coast. Situated just north of San Francisco between Cape Mendocino and Cape Drake, it was built of redwood and opened in September 1812 just as Napoleon was advancing to­wards Moscow. Surrounded by a palisade, Fort Ross had two watchtowers and cannons on four sides.

Almost half of the original 200 settlers were Aleut hunters, which indicates the main motive for moving into California was the profit from the sea otter fur trade. Some agriculture and animal husbandry was also undertaken, although Fort Ross never became self-sufficient. By the early 1830s the sea otter was overhunted, profits tumbled and the Russian American Company was increasingly losing money. Political develop­ments were also not favoring the Russian presence in California. Mexico had declared independence from Spain, and in 1823 the United States PresidentJames Monroe declared the policy which would bear his name—the American continents could no longer be colonized by a European power. California also declared its independence from Mexico in 1836, and it became clear that it would soon fall under the influence of the United States. A decision was made to sell all California holdings of the Russian American Company, and in 1841 they were bought for $30,000 U.S. by a private individual, the SwissJohan August Sutter, a general of New Helvetia. The payment was to be made within four years mainly in wheat. The full payment, however, was not made until 11 years later and the sale proved to be a good deal for Sutter since by this time Russian California had farms, orchards, vineyards and ranches. The transaction was approved by Tsar Nickolas I, and as usual such sales proved to be short-sighted. In 1848 gold was discovered on the sold ter­ritory, now known as Sutter ^,s Mill, sparking off the California Gold Rush.