Russian Americans

Russia's Colony

In the 1700s and 1800s, the Russian Empire created a colony based on the fur trade in the North American Pacific Rim. Although the Russian migrants numbered only in the hundreds, Russia's colonial mission made an impression that lasted long after the Russians sold Alaska to the United States in 1867. Russian fur traders intermarried with native peoples. Their children, termed Creoles by the Russian Empire, both tied Russian migrants to the colonies and provided a source of labor for the Russian American Company, which oversaw the colony. From 1812 to 1847, the Russians operated Fort Ross, in California, to help supply their territories further north. Russians brought their language, culture, and religion to the region, making a conscious effort to spread Orthodox Christianity to the indigenous inhabitants. Many indigenous people continue to view Orthodoxy as their native religion.

The First Wave of Migration

Migrants from the Russian Empire began coming to the United States in much larger numbers in the 1880s and 1890s. During the wave of immigration from Russia that lasted until the beginning of World War I, approximately 3.2 million Russians entered the United States. Since the census listed immigrants by their country of origin, about half of those counted as Russian were actually Russian Jews fleeing religious persecution and searching for economic opportunity denied to them in Russia. After the death of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, pogroms, religiously motivated violence sanctioned by the state, forced Jews from their [Page 1855]homes in the Pale of Settlement, territory in Eastern Europe where they had to live.

These immigrants tended to come as family groups with the intention of making the United States their permanent home. They settled in major cities in the northeast and midwest, often working in the garment industry. New York City's Lower East Side was the most famous of these Jewish immigrant communities. Other immigrant groups classified as Russian included Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Poles, since their territory belonged to the Russian Empire. The Russian Revolution of 1905 inspired the migration of political dissidents as well as Jews who had tried to adapt to Russian society by speaking Russian instead of Yiddish and studying secular subjects.

In 1914, World War I cut off migration from Europe across the Atlantic, but migration from Russia continued to the west coast. California's Angel Island served as the point of entry for those who made their way to the United States by crossing Asia. In the 1890s and early 1900s, religious nonconformists, including Baptists, Doukhobors or Old Believers, and Molokans, began emigrating in search of religious freedom. Both the Molokans, or “milk drinkers,” and the Doukhobors were persecuted in Russia for their pacifism. Although most of the 5,000 Molokans who settled in California entered through other ports, several hundred passed through Angel Island. During World War I, Russian Jews and others seeking to avoid military service and discrimination in the Russian Army also tried to immigrate to the west coast.

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