Image to the right from Kappa Map Group

Event Summary from the Office of the Historian, United States Department of State

• Purchase made March 30, 1867 for $7.2 million dollars or 2 cents an acre
  

• Summary of the Purchase from the Library of Congress
  

Seward's Bargain:  The Alaska Purchase from Russia, National Archives

150 Anniversary of the Alaska Treaty of Cession, Alaska Historical Society

See Dramatic Event page on the California and Alaska Gold Rush

Primary Sources

Treaty with Russia for the Purchase of Alaska, Library of Congress

Copy of the Check for the Purchase of Alaska

Impact on Alaska Natives and Their Rights

There are Two Versions of the Story of How the U.S. Purchased Alaska from Russia, Smithsonian (March 2017)

• In 1741 when Russians first came to the region, Alaska was home to about 100,000 people, including Inuit, Athabascan, Yupik, Unangan and Tlingit. There were 17,000 alone on the Aleutian Islands.

• By the time of the cession, only 50,000 indigenous people were estimated to be left, as well as 483 Russians and 1,421 Creoles (descendants of Russian men and indigenous women).

• On the Aleutian Islands alone, the Russians enslaved or killed thousands of Aleuts.

• Their population plummeted to 1,500 in the first 50 years of Russian occupation due to a combination of warfare, disease and enslavement

• After the purchase, Alaska natives were denied U.S. citizenship until 1924, when the Indian Citizenship Act was passed.