The Russian-American Company as a Corporation

This essay examines the corporate identity of the Russian-American Company (RAC). It argues that the 1799 design of this chartered joint-stock company was inspired by contemporary examples of West European-based colonial companies. As Russia's first truly global company, the RAC engaged in a number of profit-making ventures designed to reward its shareholders, the North American fur trade and the Chinese trade among them. At the same time, in overseeing the Russian Empire's Alaskan territories, the RAC functioned as an increasingly dependent contractor of the Russian Imperial government. Some of the relevant government officials viewed the Company with distrust whereas others embraced it. Looking at the founding and operation of the RAC, I argue that it constituted an early nineteenth-century joint venture involving private and government interests, but-and this is a crucial point-always with its own corporate identity, apart from the core structure of the empire's government.