Married to the Empire: Three Governors' Wives in Russian America 1829-1864 1602232644, 9781602232648

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Married to the Empire Three Governors' Wives in Russian America 1829–1864

Susanna Rabow-Edling

University of Alaska Press Fairbanks

Text © 2015 University of Alaska Press All rights reserved University of Alaska Press PO Box 756240 Fairbanks, AK 99775-6240 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rabow-Edling, Susanna.   Married to the empire: three governor’s wives in Russian America 1829–1864 / by Susanna Rabow-Edling.   pages cm  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 978-1-60223-264-8 (cloth: alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-60223-265-5 (electronic: alk. paper)   1.  Governor’s spouses—Alaska—Biography.  2.  Wrangel, Elisabeth von, 1810–1854. 3. Etholøn, Margaretha, 1814–1894. 4. Furuhjelm, Anna, 1836–1894. 5. Russians—Alaska—Biography. 6. Rossiiskoamerikanskaia kompaniia. 7. Alaska—History—To 1867. 8. Sitka (Alaska)—Biography. I. Title.  F907.R33 2015  979.8’010922—dc23  [B] 2015003421 Cover and interior design by Mark Bergeron, Publishers’ Design and Production Services, Inc. Cover image: Sitka, Alaska 1839, watercolor by Magnus von Wright, photographer Markku Haverinen, 2006. From The Enckell Collection, The National Museum of Finland. This publication was printed on acid-free paper that meets the minimum requirements for ANSI / NISO Z39.48–1992 (R2002) (Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials).

Con t e nts

Maps  v Acknowledgments  xi 

Introduction  1 Pa r t I: El isa b e t h v on W rangell

Chapter One  The Journey across Siberia to Russian America  41 Chapter Two  The Encounter With the New World  77 Pa r t II: Ma r g a r e tha Etholén Chapter Three  From Helsinki to Sitka  107 Chapter Four  The Inner Life of a Governor’s Wife  139 Pa r t III: An n a Furuhjel m Chapter Five  The Perfect Wife in the Wilderness  171 Chapter Six  A Woman’s Mission and Sphere  211 Epilogue  245 Bibliography  253 Index  269 iii

M ap s

v

vi

Map of the Russian Empire. Principal places on the route of the von Wrangells across Siberia to Sitka. (Bill Nelson)

vii

Map of russia’s Pacific empire. Places relevant to the lives of von Wrangell, etholén, and furuhjelm. (Annie Christensen)

Map of Europe. Important cities in the lives of the three women. (Bill Nelson)

viii

Map of north and south America. routes of the etholéns and furuhjelms. (Bill nelson) ix

Ac k n owl e dgm e nt s

A

s a student of Russian political thought, this is not a book I ever expected to write. But I am immensely grateful for the journey it has taken me on, from the western periphery of the Russian Empire by the Baltic Sea to its stunningly beautiful easternmost outpost in Russian America, and for allowing me to get to know three remarkable women and their innermost thoughts and feelings. I stumbled on the letters of Anna Furuhjelm by chance, and everything followed from there. The book was made possible by a research fellowship, first at the department for Eurasian Studies and then at the Center for Russian and Eurasians Studies (UCRS) at Uppsala University. I would like to thank the director, Claes Levinsson, and all the staff, fellows, and visiting scholars who contribute to making UCRS such a stimulating and positive research environment. A year spent as an Anna Lindh fellow at the Europe Center, Stanford University, allowed me to give my undivided attention to the manuscript. I want to thank the director of the Europe Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Amir Eshel, the associate director, Roland Hsu, and the program manager, Laura Seaman. During my time at Stanford, I had the pleasure of meeting Karen Offen and benefited from her perceptive comments on my introductory chapter. I also greatly appreciated the seminars at the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. I have presented my work at different conferences, workshops, and seminars, and I am very grateful for the insightful comments and positive feedback I have received on these occasions. I would like to extend a special thanks to the members of the Society for the History of Women in the Americas (SHAW), who made me feel welcome among American historians despite being a Russianist rather than a “proper” Americanist. A condensed account of the experiences of the three governor’s wives in Alaska appeared as “From the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean: Three Governor’s Wives in Russian America” in History of Women xi

xii

Acknowledgments

in the Americas 1: 1 (April, 2013). I am grateful to the editor for allowing me to use that material here. The staffs at Åbo Academy Library, The Estonian Historical Archives, and The Museum of Cultures in Helsinki have been very helpful in my pursuit of material, as has the division for interlibrary loans at Uppsala University. I would also like to thank the following people who have assisted and supported me in various ways: Annie Christensen, Jarmila Durmanova, Maria Jarlsdotter Enckell, Caroline and Catherine Hamilton, Eva Meyer, Ingegerd Rabow, and Katarina Rehn. My editor at Alaska University Press, James Engelhardt, has been very helpful and understanding, and my two readers, Ilya Vinkovetsky and Sine Anahita, did a fantastic job with the manuscript, correcting numerous errors, providing me with new, interesting insights, and, most crucially, offering lots of encouragement. I am grateful to Bill Nelson for producing the maps of the Russian Empire, Europe, and North and South America, and to Annie Christensen for allowing me to use the map of Pacific Russia as well as the photograph of Anna Furuhjelm. The images of Elisabeth von Wrangell and Margaretha Etholén are used with the permission of Anchorage Museum and Finland’s National Board of Antiquities, respectively. Finally, I wish to extend a special thanks to my teenaged sons, August and Leopold, who have been surprisingly supportive of this project and, more importantly, have kept things in perspective. Ultimately, to Max, a thousand thanks for your unfailing support in both domestic and intellectual matters, and for the genuine interest you have shown for this project, despite your aversion to reading rough drafts during the summer holidays. I dedicate this book to my late father, who was convinced that I would become a chef rather than an academic.

Introduction it was our duty—or rather we considered it as such, to introduce the concepts of decency and mores to this remote corner of the globe. —ferdinand von Wrangell1

R

ussian America was the easternmost outpost of the Russian empire and the empire’s only maritime colony.2 The occupation and settlement of Alaska in the late eighteenth century was part of a prolonged and far-reaching process of eastward expansion that was instigated by the Grand Duchy of Moscow, the predecessor state of imperial Russia, in the mid-sixteenth century and which eventually led to Russian control over Siberia. Yet the North American venture represented something new and unique in Russia’s colonial experience. Alaska differed from the other parts of the Russian empire both geographically and administratively, and in the way its territory and resources were contested by foreigners and their governments.3 The rapid advance across Siberia was aided by its network of rivers, weak Native resistance, and absence of foreign competition. The fur trade was the driving force behind expansion, and there was a constant search for new hunting grounds. By 1639, sixty years after they crossed the Ural Mountains, Russian fur hunters and Cossacks reached the Pacific Ocean and pushed onwards to Kamchatka. Here, the advance came to a standstill until the survivors of Vitus Bering’s expedition, who had searched for the Northwest Passage, returned to the peninsula in 1741–1742, bringing news of great lands on the other side of the ocean and, more importantly, samples of valuable sea otter pelts.4 These reports brought about what James Gibson has called a “fur rush” across the Bering Sea, which opened a new chapter in the history of the Russian fur trade that resulted in the exploitation of the Native population and the depletion of the sea otter in Northwest America.5 1

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Married to the Empire

At first, fur hunters and merchants made hunting voyages mainly to the Aleutian Islands. The first permanent settlement was established in 1784 on Kodiak Island by the merchant Grigorii Shelikhov and his crew of 300 men after the massacre of a large number of Alutiiq (Sugpiaq) people at Refuge Rock, near the present-day village of Old Harbor. A number of small trading companies operated in Alaska at the time, but Shelikhov, together with his partner, Ivan Golikov, tried to secure a monopoly on all trade. In the end, it was his widow, Natalia Shelikhova, who together with her son-in-law, Nikolai Rezanov, convinced Tsar Paul I that it was in Russia’s interest to have a single strong company in Alaska. Thus the Russian-American Company (RAC), a chartered joint-stock company, was founded in 1799 and granted the right to administer all the territories claimed by Russia in North America. In 1804 the settlement of Novo Archangelsk, or Sitka, was established. Sitka would become the colonial capital for the duration of Russia’s possession of Alaska. The Tlingits, who inhabited the area, were defeated in the Battle of Sitka (1804) but were never completely subdued, and they continued to live alongside the Russian population. They never forgave the Russian intruders for seizing and occupying their land, and the white citizens of Novo Arkhangelsk lived in constant fear of Tlingit attacks. In the 1830s a high wooden wall was constructed between the Russian settlement and the Tlingit village, but the Europeans never felt completely safe. During the Crimean War, 100 soldiers were sent to Sitka to strengthen its defense against the British. Yet the soldiers’ presence in the colony did not prevent the relationship between the Russians and the Tlingits from deteriorating further. In 1855, tensions sparked a violent confrontation in which two Russians died, at least nineteen were wounded, and more than seventy Tlingits were killed.6

Th e c iv il iz ing mi ssi on By the end of the eighteenth century, Russia had adopted European ideas about colonization, including the notion of cultural and moral superiority over nonChristian peoples, who were considered “primitive.”7 Related to these notions was the idea of a mission to bring civilization and Christianity to supposedly savage and uncivilized peoples. Cultivating the new lands of the empire and pacifying, enlightening, and converting its new subjects in America became Russia’s own mission civilisatrice. Although the idea was expressed somewhat differently than in Western Europe, Russian ideologues employed a language

Introduction

3

of “enlightenment,” “civilization,” and the promotion of a “common good” to describe their role in relation to the empire’s conquered peoples.8 This imperial ideology was applied to the colony in the New World, particularly with the onset of the circumnavigations that connected the Baltic Sea with the Pacific and brought increasing numbers of Russians from the Europeanized metropolis Saint Petersburg to Alaska.9 The first Russian circumnavigation expedition left Kronstadt, a navy base close to Saint Petersburg, for the settlement in North America in 1803, in the brief lull of European hostilities brought about by the French Revolution and the ascension of Napoleon. It is one of history’s ironies that this was also the year of the Louisiana Purchase, which would set the United States on the course to become a Pacific power and eventually a competitor with Russia over the control of the West Coast of North America. Great expectations surrounded the expedition, which was seen as the advance guard of the enlightenment. It gave rise to feelings of patriotism and pride and the belief that Russia would now contribute to spreading “civilization” and “enlightenment” to the other side of the world and bring glory to the empire. The common good and universal progress would be promoted and “the name of Rus” would “be known among the savage peoples.”10 Several prominent individuals donated books and other objects that they believed would enlighten the indigenous peoples of America. They wished to contribute to “the humanitarian intention to disseminate the seeds of learning among peoples separated from Europe and thus from learning” and hoped that the books they sent “may serve to educate people who do not have in their own land the means to rise above the condition of ignorance.”11 Nikolai Rezanov, the chief secretary of the Imperial Senate who traveled as an envoy of the tsar, wrote that his duty in America was “to abolish all barbarian customs” and let everybody know that it was only by being “humane” that they could aspire to deserve “the Graces of Your Imperial Majesty.”12 Although Russia had grown rapidly in power and international status to become one of the European great powers, its position as one of the civilized nations was less secure and depended on its perceived ability to advance enlightenment and the common good within and without the borders of the empire. This ability was not the function of military strength but of the development of science, commerce, industry, and the arts, and of the uses to which they were put. From this perspective, a nation’s level of enlightenment measured not only political and economic success, but just as important, moral success too.13 As the Russian state extended its supervision over the Russian-American Company, officials in Saint Petersburg became increasingly concerned about

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the lack of civilization and enlightenment they saw in the American colonies. Criticism of the conduct of Russian colonists in America had first emerged at the end of the eighteenth century from a group of Russian-Orthodox missionaries sent to Alaska—a “land darkened by paganism”—at the request of Shelikhov.14 These missionaries, led by Archimandrite Iosaf, had been instructed by the tsar and the Holy Synod to “improve” the region, and their mission was not exclusively religious. In addition to introducing Orthodox Christianity, they were to disseminate knowledge of civil virtues and economic subsistence. This included teaching the Native population to read and write and giving them basic knowledge of arithmetic. Missionaries also taught the indigenous peoples farming, husbandry, industry, and the social norms and general moral values of Russia.15 Since the missionaries’ task was to enlighten and to convert the Natives, a healthy relationship between Russians and Native Americans was essential. But it was also imperative that the Russians taught by example. This led the missionaries to complain not only about the colonists’ cruel treatment of the indigenous population but also to criticize the immorality exhibited by the Russian colonists. Above all, they were upset by the sexual liaisons between Russian men and Native women. Most distressing was the fact that the Russians used very young Native girls as mistresses. In a letter to Shelikhov, Archimandrite Iosaf expressed his indignation at the depraved life of the Russians: “The barracks where the workers live are full of prostitutes,” he wrote. “Everyone keeps one or several girls openly,” and “they often replace them too, despite the fact that some of them are less than 10 years old.”16 Although difficult to establish with certainty, there is reason to think that not all sexual relationships between Russian colonizers and Native peoples were involuntary. Native women sometimes formed intimate bonds with Russian men for the benefits they hoped this would bring their community, their family, or themselves. A relationship with a Russian man gave women access to European goods and other advantages. From the perspective of the colonizers, it is clear that they gained much more than sexual, and perhaps emotional, gratification from these relationships. The knowledge Native women had of local conditions was indispensable to Russian fur traders.17 Many Russians in fact formed lasting relationships with Native women and established families. Some married, but most did not. Chief manager Alexander Baranov, who was accused by the missionaries of being promiscuous, had a lasting relationship with the daughter of an Alutiiq leader, Anna Grigorievna. They lived together for thirty years and had two children. His successor only stayed in the colonies for ten months, but

Introduction

5

the next chief manager, Semyon Ivanovich Yanovskii, married Baranov’s Creole daughter, Irina, and brought her to Russia when his term ended. “Creole” was the Russian term used to describe people of mixed Russian and Alaska Native ancestry. This class of people was the most tangible result of the widespread relationships between Russian fur traders and Unangan and Alutiiq women in the late eighteenth century.18 Yanovskii’s successor, Matvei Ivanovich Muraviev, also had a Creole lover, Natal’ia Usova, whom he left in Sitka when he returned to Russia. However, on his way home he had second thoughts and no sooner had he arrived in San Francisco than he wrote to the new governor, Petr Egorovich Chistiakov, asking permission for Usova to travel to Russia.19 Because they were not married, this was against colonial rules, but Chistiakov took full responsibility and granted Usova permission to travel to Okhotsk with a Russian family returning to Russia across Siberia. Like Yanovskii, Chistiakov, too, had a Creole mistress, Matrena Fedorova, who lived with him in the Governor’s House. When Chistiakov went back to Russia, he left Fedorova in Sitka together with their two sons, Peter and Paul. This affair appears to have been embarrassing to the Company. The board of directors, which administered the Company affairs in Saint Petersburg, arranged for Fedorova to marry a Creole man, Vasilii Nedomolvin, and decided that the salary owed by the Company to Chistiakov should be paid to his lover and their children.20 Nevertheless, the RAC prohibited its employees from bringing their Creole wives and children back to Russia. Because the children of these unions could rarely return to their mother’s family, they often began working for the Company. Their local knowledge and language skills made them highly valuable to the RAC. On the first circumnavigation, both the Russian government and the Orthodox Church sent a representative to inspect the colonies of Russian America. They came to similar conclusions regarding the present state of the settlement. Hiermonk Gideon was the emissary of the Holy Synod. He arrived in America, “a country still untamed,” in the summer of 1804. In his letters home, he stated that Baranov and the Company had failed to bring enlightenment and civilization to the indigenous population. The Natives were forced to hunt for the Company and were ill treated. There was general disrespect for religious practices, something that Gideon found both barbaric and unpatriotic. In his view, to be a Christian was to be civilized, and to bring about Christian enlightenment was a patriotic duty. According to Father Gideon, it was not only Baranov who lacked moral standards. The majority of the Russians who served the Company

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Married to the Empire

were “of a most immoral disposition.” The agents of empire committed various “ugly and inhuman acts . . . in part among themselves, but more often against the Americans.”21 Despite such criticism of his neglect of the civilizing mission, Baranov was in fact well aware of the connection in Russian imperial ideology between notions of enlightenment, civilization, and patriotism. After a visit to the school that Father Gideon had established on Kodiak, Baranov expressed pride that the foundation for the education of the local youth, “a goal so long desired for the common good and the glory of the Fatherland, of enlightenment and building up of these untamed and remote regions,” was being accomplished during his tenure in office.22 Count Nikolai Rezanov, Shelikhova’s son-in-law and the chief secretary of the Imperial Senate, arrived in the colonies a year after Father Gideon. He, too, was critical of colonial mores. His reports described most of the men who came to work for the company as depraved, corrupt drunkards and told that the officers were violent and immoral. Many colonists, including the chief manager, had sexual relations with Native and Creole women without the sanction of marriage. In Rezanov’s view, Russian colonists were far from the role models of happy family life and good housekeeping that the Natives needed. In large part, this was due to there being very few European women in the colonies.23 Thus, the introduction of women imbued with European notions of domestic life and morality was presented by the highest Russian official who ever visited Alaska as an essential prerequisite for bringing civilization to North America. After his visit to America, Rezanov proposed a number of reforms aimed at turning the indigenous population into sedentary agriculturalists and providing the prerequisites for the European ideal of “an ordered domestic life” in the colonies. Rezanov believed that it was imperative to settle several Native families, whose moral conduct and husbandry would soften “the savagery” of the inhabi­ tants and thus constitute the first step toward “enlightenment.” In an attempt to replicate European practices, Native boys were to become family supporters as husbandmen, while Native girls were to become housewives. According to Father Gideon, Father Herman, another missionary, had already accustomed some of the Natives to industry, friendly contact, and husbandry, which was his obligation “as a propagator of faith among a people of savage custom.” For example, vegetable gardens had been established and experiments with different seeds in a variety of soils had been pursued.24 Rezanov now asked Father Herman to teach

Introduction

7

twenty boys farming skills, in addition to the traditional subjects taught in the school. This nucleus of boys would then be able to form the first farming families in the colonies. Thus, when the school at Kodiak opened in 1805, some of the pupils were taught how to prepare the ground for vegetable gardens, planting, and sowing.25 Rezanov also regarded female education to be of vital importance. Hence, he also founded a school for girls, which was led by Natal’ia Banner, the wife of the local RAC manager of the Kodiak office, as supervising teacher. Sixteen Creole girls were enrolled in this school. They were taught housekeeping, handicraft, and gardening and other skills considered to be essential for housewives to master. Leading by example, these girls would then bring about the domestication believed to be essential to the civilizing of America.26 In 1817, the board of directors of the RAC issued new instructions to Baranov, which stressed the family as the key to civilization. Baranov was instructed to improve the conditions for Creoles and Alutiiq families. For the purpose of “elevating them in civilization,” he should offer them homes, gardens, and orchards so they would be able to see the result of their own labor and enjoy their own possessions. He was also ordered to encourage Creoles to start families when they were old enough and to provide them with a farm.27 Ludwig A. Hagemeister, Baranov’s successor, continued in the same spirit. He formed a settlement for Tlingits outside the fort and tried to persuade both them and the Creoles to become farmers.28 In an effort to address some of the concerns about the social and moral situation in Russia’s American colonies, the board of directors of the RAC decreed in 1829 that the future governors of Russian Alaska had to be married before leaving Europe for the colonies. Elisabeth von Wrangell became the first European woman to travel to Russian America as a governor’s wife. She would reside in Sitka during the five-year appointment of her husband Ferdinand. Eight more governors’ wives followed before Russia was sold to the United States in 1867.

Wo me n a nd e mpi re This book tells the story of three of these women—Elisabeth von Wrangell, Margaretha Etholén, and Anna Furuhjelm—and seeks to understand their experiences as governors’ wives in the light of prescriptive notions of true womanhood and of the role of women in Russia’s perceived civilizing mission.29 It

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explores the difficulties of implementing these roles in frontier circumstances. What was it like to be a young middle- or upper-class woman in the most remote part of the Russian empire, and how can these experiences be related to the cult of domesticity and the new ideal of womanhood that took form in the nineteenth century? What was expected of these women as representatives of the Russian empire, and how did they themselves perceive their role? Did these women feel obliged to take part in the general civilizing mission of the empire, and did this duty conflict with their other roles and obligations as mothers and wives?30 Finally, and on a more general level, in what sense was the civilizing mission gendered? In what sense did it prescribe different roles for men and women in the empire? The role of women was long neglected in imperial history, and empire-building was seen as primarily a masculine project. In the last decades, however, several studies of women and empire have been published.31 This new scholarship, primarily focused on the British Empire, has shown that women played a central role in the colonization process and that the very idea of empire cannot be understood without employing a gendered perspective. The construction, practice, and experience of empire were influenced by people’s understanding of sexual difference and by the roles of men and women in the world. The idea of a civilizing mission stipulated specific roles for men and women in the empire. While men were to discover, conquer, subdue, and transform, women were to give birth, raise children, take care of their husbands, and bring European domestic virtues and gender roles to the colonies. Women were also to uphold Christian morality and Western cultural values in the New World.32 The role women were expected to play in the civilizing mission of European nineteenth-century empires was related to contemporary notions of womanhood, prevalent among the white middle and upper classes.33 “True women” were supposed to possess four cardinal virtues: piety, purity, domesticity, and submissiveness. This ideal, which was propagated in religious tracts, women’s magazines, fiction, and advice literature across Europe, portrayed women as the moral guardians of society, exercising their influence through the home and family as wives and mothers.34 The cult of domesticity grew out of new attitudes about work and family at a time when men increasingly worked outside the home and household. This development fueled the rise of what is known as the separate spheres ideology, which defined and prescribed different roles to men and women. The “natural” sphere of men was the public world of business and work, politics,

Introduction

9

commerce, and law, while women’s “proper sphere” was the private domestic realm, the home, running the household, rearing children, and taking care of her husband.35 Maleness and femaleness came to symbolize a series of oppositions characterizing these spheres. Women came to embody the virtues that the new modern order threatened to destroy. If men were competitive, women exemplified cooperation; if men were building an increasingly secular and amoral political and economic order, women sustained piety and morality; if men sought dominance, women would submit.36 Women were instructed that they had a special mission as wives and mothers in the home. According to this notion, it was a pious woman’s obligation to influence her husband and turn him into a good Christian. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, evangelical Protestants called on women to act as a source of moral reform, implying that women were naturally more virtuous, modest, and chaste than men. In contrast to the traditional Western European view that women embodied carnal desire, it was now suggested that women had fewer sexual desires than men. A new ideal of female moral superiority gradually came to dominate prescriptive literature. Middle class women lost their association with lust and were instead invested with the quality of innate purity. Women writers championed the notion of women’s lesser desire and her role in controlling men’s sexual urges. This new ideal created an antithesis: the fallen woman who defied female nature. Because women allegedly occupied a higher moral place than men, her fall was so great that it tainted her for life. Female power, in this sense, rested on her moral superiority and depended on her being a “good” woman, who was at all times modest and pure. After marriage, a woman’s primary duty was to set up a congenial home to prevent her husband from seeking the pleasures of the outside world. To be a “good” woman also implied to be always gentle, never to show agitation or irritation, never complain, and to always treat your husband with kindness and deference.37 Of course, not every woman aspired to this ideal, and many questioned it. Nevertheless, the ideal was strong, and one way or another most middle- and upper-class women were affected by it. It often led to feelings of guilt for failing to live up to the ideals of being a good wife, mother, or daughter.38 These ideas about a woman’s duty and role could be rather easily adopted by the imperial project. Due to their alleged propensity for religion, high moral standards, domestic values, and general refinement, European women were considered in possession of certain powers that could be used by the empire in its

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Married to the Empire

civilizing mission. The image of the female-centered Victorian home informed the efforts of colonizers and missionaries, who set out to shape the behavior of non-Europeans to fit this white, middle-class domestic model.39 European women were believed to have the ability to influence Native girls and women both by serving as an example and by participating in the education of indigenous girls. As a consequence, European women in the colonies were expected to mold indigenous women into European housewives and mothers, teaching them Christian values, modesty, and domestic virtues. The Lutheran women investigated in this book were also influenced by contemporary religious revivalists, who preached universal salvation rather than predestination.40 The idea that everyone who experienced conversion, and not just the elect, would be saved reinforced these women’s sense of moral duty. European women were also expected to influence European men. Their task was to keep the men from sexual involvement with indigenous women and to prevent them from indulging in other immoral behavior, such as drinking and gambling.41 In the Alaskan context this was a tall order, as Russian America, like other fur trade societies, was highly male-dominated and characterized by heavy drinking, lawlessness, prostitution, and gambling. Nevertheless, Russian officials believed that the presence of women in the colonies could mollify some of the worst excesses of masculine society on the frontier. Masculinity had to be controlled and domesticated, and to achieve this, women were assigned the task of making European homes in the colonies.42 By requiring the governor to bring a European wife to the colonies, the RAC hoped that other officials would follow his example in bringing their European spouses to Sitka. If all went according to the plans of the board of directors of the RAC, a greater presence of European women would be established in Sitka, which would improve frontier society by reducing corruption, immorality, and lawlessness. But women also had additional roles in the colonization process. They were entrusted with upholding social practices that policed the boundaries of race and class in the empire. As Russian Alaska was not a settler colony, race was a less important category than in some other European colonies and neo-European societies such as the United States. Nevertheless, European women in Sitka certainly demonstrated their difference from Native women by staging their civilizational superiority. Like women in other European colonies and in the American West, they tried to establish a social life in the settlement that reproduced life at home as far as possible. They organized balls, concerts, theatrical performances,

Introduction

11

masquerades, tea parties, and picnics, and they paid visits to other women of their own class and race. European practices and rituals, such as furnishing, needlework, setting the table, and letter writing, indicated that their homes in the New World were civilized.43 This role was especially important to the governor’s wife, who, in her capacity as First Lady, was both a model to be emulated and responsible for social life in the colonies. Though the three women in this book provide a unique insight into the life of European middle- and upper-class women in Russian America, their experiences of course tell us next to nothing of the lives of Native women and the few European lower-class women in the colonies. Social norms forbade any close relationship with women of a different class or ethnic identity, and von Wrangell, Etholén, and Furuhjelm wrote only sparingly about such encounters. Servants and other dependents are a constant presence in, but never the subject matter of, their writings. Nevertheless, the privileged position of the governor’s wife as the foremost female representative of the Russian empire meant that all women felt a special obligation to maintain the prescribed gendered notion of a civilizing mission, and they were certainly conscious of, and reflected on, their duty to shape life in the colonies broadly. To date, scholars interested in Russian imperial history and foreign policy have not paid much attention to the role of women. This is especially true for Russian Alaska.44 While important work has recently been done on Native women in Russian America, very little has been written about European women.45 The significant research on the Russian-American Company, the Orthodox Church, and the Native population has focused on the activities of men.46 Governors’ wives were not appointed by the Russian-American Company; they were not employed and were not paid a salary. A governor’s wife did not contribute to the company or to the running of the colonies in any formal capacity. Yet, she held the position as the highest female representative of empire in Russian America. She was, as Anna Furuhjelm put it, “the queen of the colonies.”47 In this capacity, the wives of governors certainly played an important role. By shaping an image of Russian America as a civilized colony in an enlightened European empire, they legitimized the colonial project. Von Wrangell, Etholén, and Furuhjelm were all aware of this role and tried to fulfill it to the best of their abilities. They endeavored to establish and uphold European practices and values in their various capacities—as chatelaines and leaders of colonial society, and as role models, educators, and foster mothers.48

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Married to the Empire

Lu t he r a ns i n the Ru ssia n emp i re Interestingly, these particular governors’ wives symbolically embodied the Russian tsaritsa without being ethnic Russians. They belonged to the Lutheran minority of Baltic Germans and Finns from the western parts of Russia’s extensive empire. Men with this ethnic and cultural background held a disproportionate number of high positions in the Russian empire due to their high level of education and well-developed skills.49 Many of the men worked for the RAC as administrators, navigators, sea captains, and doctors, but also as artisans and seafarers. Between 1710 and 1917, one-eighth of all high-ranking officials in Russian service came from the Baltic German nobility or educated middle classes.50 When Finland became part of the Russian empire in 1809, efforts were made to recruit Finns to Russian service in America. In the 1820s, Finns constituted the largest white non-Russian ethnic group in Russian America, and during the 1830s and 1840s about one-fifth of the inhabitants were of Finnish origin.51 Elisabeth von Wrangell’s husband was of Baltic German origin, and the husbands of both Margaretha Etholén and Anna Furuhjelm were Finns. Their non-Russian ethnicity did not prevent them from working hard to improve the Russian colonies in America. In fact, Ferdinand von Wrangell, Adolph Etholén, and Hampus Furuhjelm may well have been the three most effective governors of Russian America. They were certainly among the most accomplished and dedicated. All of them tried to improve the relationship between Europeans and Natives, and Etholén and Furuhjelm undertook the most successful initiatives to improve relations between European and Tlingits. Ferdinand von Wrangell replaced Peter Chistiakov’s easy-going regime with a more efficient and exacting administration. He tried to tackle corruption by ordering audits of all district managers’ accounts and traveled around the colonies to improve financial management. Wrangell also introduced and expanded education and health care, improved working conditions for company employees, and put an end to the over-hunting of fur animals. Adolph Etholén made his whole career in the service of the RAC. He went on his first circumnavigation in 1818 and subsequently distinguished himself as an explorer. His administration was an era of consolidation and improvement. Forts were renovated, posts were established, and knowledge of Alaska’s interior increased. He also took measures to enhance the living conditions of the Alutiiq people. However, these measures were based on European ideas of civilization, which involved cultural

Introduction

13

assimilation and thus contributed to the destruction of Native culture. In Sitka, Etholén established a school for Native people, launched an annual market with entertainment for the Tlingits, and in 1845 he issued an order that prohibited company employees from physically assaulting Natives, unless in self-defense. Furuhjelm is best known for his efforts to normalize relations between Tlingits and Russians, which had deteriorated dramatically during the governorship of Stepan Voevodskii. He also managed to renegotiate the terms of the agreement to sell ice to San Francisco, which had been very unfavorable to the company. The three governors devoted most of their professional lives to the Russian-American Company, and Wrangell and Etholén would go on to become members of its board of directors.52 Finns and Baltic Germans belonged to the most privileged minorities in the Russian empire, and they were known for their loyalty to the tsar. This was especially true of the Baltic Germans. The German presence in the Baltics dates back to the Middle Ages, when the Livonian Brothers of the Sword conquered large parts of modern day Estonia and Latvia. In the Great Northern War (1700– 1721), Peter the Great took control of large parts of the Baltics but allowed the German nobility to retain their privileges and power. The German community and its institutions were protected by Peter’s successors up until the Russification policies of the 1880s.53 Conquered from Sweden during the Napoleonic Wars, Finland became an autonomous principality and a constitutional monarchy within the Russian empire in 1809. In return for the allegiance of the Finnish estates after the war between Russia and Sweden, the tsar, Alexander I, guaranteed to keep the laws, liberties, and religion of Finland unchanged. It was only in the 1890s that Russia attempted to limit the special status of the Grand Duchy of Finland through policies of Russification, a move that evoked strong Finnish resistance.54 The loyalty to the tsar did not prevent both Finns and Baltic Germans from displaying a strong attachment to their homelands and to the Lutheran Church, which is a persistent theme in the writings of both Elisabeth von Wrangell and Margaretha Etholén.55 More unexpected is Anna Furuhjelm’s harsh and outspoken criticism of the Russian empire, the Russian people, and the Orthodox Church. Possibly her British mother and German upbringing had instilled negative views of Russians. Furthermore, these women’s identity as northern European Lutherans made it all the more important for them to appear civilized and cultivated, not only relative to the indigenous population but also to the “uncouth Russians,” who they believed had considerably lower moral standards than Protestants. The Orthodox and the Lutheran colonizers in Sitka both

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strived for the attainment of European civilization and enlightenment, and the Lutheran governors, with the possible exception of Hampus Furuhjelm, appear to have had good relationships to the Russian Church. Nevertheless, as both Uno Cygnaeus, one of the Lutheran vicars, and Anna Furuhjelm had to learn, the Russian Church did not appreciate the Lutherans’ wish to assist them with the civilizing mission. The Lutheran Pastor was not allowed to teach or preach among Natives or Orthodox Christians. Nor was he allowed to teach Creole children. He was restricted to care only for the few children whose parents were both Lutherans. Indeed, some Lutherans felt that their presence in Alaska was barely accepted by the Russian Church. In an article in the Finnish daily Åbo Underrättelser, from November 1858, Pastor Winter said that Finns would no longer be sent to Sitka because the Orthodox Bishop worked against Lutheran believers.56

Eu r op e a n women i n R u ssia n Am e ri ca Wrangell, Etholén, and Furuhjelm are especially interesting to study from the perspective of women’s and gender history because they lived in an era when the cult of true womanhood, as well as the ideology of imperialism, was disseminated across Europe and through Europe’s empires.57 They were all very young and recently married when they went to Russian America. The journey they set out on across half the globe was therefore both a journey to a new world and a journey into married life. Both destinations were unchartered territory. For these women, married life in the colonies brought new roles and relationships. The most significant was motherhood, which affected them in different ways. Elisabeth, Margaretha, and Anna each gave birth to her first child either on route to Russian America or in Sitka. Elisabeth, who traveled by land across Siberia, had a baby girl named Marie Louise in Irkutsk on 23 April 1830.58 Margaretha gave birth to a boy, Adolph Edward, on 6 April 1840 out on the Pacific Ocean, near the Equator, and Anna had a little girl, Annie Fredrika, in Sitka, on 11 December 1859, barely five months after arriving in the capital of Russian America. Life in the remote Russian outpost made it much harder for them to live up to the persistent ideas of how to be a good wife and mother, in particular because they had neither family nor friends in place to support them.

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On the other hand, and most likely because of their isolation, they all appear to have formed close relationships with their husbands. It is quite evident that none of the three were prepared for the years of isolation and loneliness they would come to experience in the Governor’s House in Sitka. Contemporary accounts overwhelmingly describe Sitka, the capital of Russian America, as a place of breathtaking beauty. Latter-day visitors to Sitka and Baranof Island can only agree. Yet, many Europeans described it as a difficult place to live in for extended periods. The climate, although mild, was extremely dark, damp, and windy. According to contemporary reports, the annual rainfall was about 95.5 inches a year. Sitka’s sky was predominantly gray and overcast. A normal year had clear weather for only one-third of the year, but in some years the inhabitants saw clear skies on average only every fifth day. Understandably, many residents found it difficult to adapt to this climate.59 But, it was even more difficult to cope with the isolation. Not only was the European contingent literally thousands of miles from home, but, more importantly, it was almost impossible to keep in touch with friends and family back in the old country. The sole means of communication was by sea, and as late as 1845 the American colonies only received letters from Europe once a year. In one of her letters to her parents, Elisabeth von Wrangell tried to give vent to her feelings upon the arrival of the mail ship. “I refrain from describing the tense anticipation which seized all those whose families live in Europe!” she wrote. “Suddenly a ship is sighted on the horizon and the whole town is in motion. It is impossible to describe the commotion that the arrival of the mail creates. For twelve months there has been absolute silence and suddenly the bustle of Europe is let in.” Later, having returned to the residence, seated with her letters laid out on the table in front of her, she hardly dared open them for fear of being struck down by homesickness. She also worried that the letters might be the harbingers of sad tidings. “At last everything has been opened and they contain nothing but good news,” she sighed in relief, only to remember that the letters were old. “But oh, my heart contracts against my will. They were dated a year ago. Could they be replaced by sad news within another one?”60 While poor communications made it difficult to keep in touch with family and friends at home, it was also difficult to find like-minded friends and real companionship in the colony. The European population was small and there were very few women. To make friends with Native or Creole women was prohibitively difficult. The position of governor’s wife only accentuated feelings of

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isolation and loneliness. Anna Furuhjelm complained that of all people in Sitka the governor’s wife was the loneliest, for nobody visited her. She had no company, and the governor was always busy.61 In addition, there was an underlying sense among many of Sitka’s European inhabitants that the settlement was in a precarious situation surrounded by a hostile Native population. The town’s location with high, snow-capped mountains and impenetrable forests on one side and dangerous seas on the other also contributed to the feeling of isolation and of being closed in. Life in the colonial capital seemed utterly monotonous to many European residents.62 Yet, Sitka was regarded as the most urbane and most civilized settlement on the North American Pacific coast until the establishment of San Francisco in 1849. The town became known for its many balls, dinners, masquerades, and theatrical and musical performances. Tongue-in-cheek and with more than a little exaggeration, it was sometimes referred to as the “Paris on the Pacific.” Although the three governors’ wives were privileged in many respects, the fact that they were sent across half the globe to Russian Alaska as companions to husbands they barely knew shows that they were anything but mistresses of their own fate. In this context it is important to note that Anna and, especially, Margaretha had a much weaker sense of class entitlement than Elisabeth did. While Elisabeth came from a long line of old Baltic German and French nobility, Margaretha’s father was not a nobleman, and her husband Adolph was the son of a merchant and the first member of his family to be knighted. Anna, on the other hand did come from a noble family, but one that had fallen on hard times. Her father abandoned his family only a couple of months after Anna’s birth, and mother and daughters were left to fend for themselves. In all three cases, financial need provided the main incentive for their husbands to accept the position as governor. If a man neither drank nor gambled it was possible to earn a substantial amount of money in the colonies, even though, as their wives became very well aware, the cost of living there was extremely high.

S o c ia l s tat us and cultural i d e nt it y in Russi a n Ameri ca The Russian government expected that all of the different Native peoples in Sitka would be “civilized” through the colonization endeavor. In practice, however, the various population groups were treated differently. The Tlingits regarded

Introduction

17

themselves as independent and were never completely subdued by the Russians. Their numbers declined from 30,000 at the time of European contact to 10,000 in 1840. Some converted to Christianity, but the Russians tended to regard them not only as heathens but as fiercely autonomous.63 A wall separated the Tlingit market from the Russian settlement and a manned gun was constantly trained on the Tlingit village, which stretched from the wall of the fort along the beach. The Russians fired the gun from time to time “as a lesson to the people,” as Lieutenant Lavrentii Alekseevich Zagoskin wrote.64 However, during Etholén’s time, the relationship between Russians and Tlingits improved.65 Good relations with the Natives were vital for the European population in Sitka, not least because they were dependent on them for food. Few in numbers and lacking military force, the Europeans tried to consolidate their position through alliances and economic agreements. European attitudes to the Tlingits combined fascination with their ferocity and admiration for Tlingit physical bravery and hardiness. Henrik Johan Holmberg, a Finnish naturalist, wrote that “hardly a trace of civilization is noticeable” among the Tlingit, with the possible exception of those living close to Sitka.66 Another naturalist, Reinhold Sahlberg, described them as “half human,” “more like animals than human beings.” At the same time, he pointed out that “a rapid attack by these by no means neither stupid nor weak people would not be without success.”67 It was in fact rather common for Europeans to be impressed by the Tlingits, especially by their strength, endurance, and pride. Alexander Frankenhaeuser for example was amazed by their ability to endure severe cold and snow; the way they could walk for several hours in the snow without shoes and swim in the middle of winter. He held these “proud natural people” in much higher regard than he did the Creoles.68 This idealization of Tlingits compared to Creoles was evidently influenced by contemporary “pure race” ideologies and the concept of the noble savage, which will be further discussed in relation to Elisabeth von Wrangell’s travels. The other major Native group in the area was the Alutiiq people.69 The Russian fur hunters and merchants who arrived in Alaska in the eighteenth century and who occupied their land treated the Alutiiq with great cruelty, forcing the men to hunt furs while sexually exploiting their women. The population was severely reduced by smallpox and other diseases from around 9,000 at the time of European contact to a few thousand in the mid-1800s. After the establishment of the RAC, many Alutiiq men worked for the company, principally as fur hunters. The company considered them to be pacified and Christianized, although only a few could read. As with the Tlingits, the European colonizers

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had an ambivalent attitude toward the Alutiiq people, but for different reasons. They admired their skills as hunters, but their “subjugated position” gave rise to feelings of both pity and contempt.70 The Creoles were also found among the company’s workforce. As a people, the Creoles were not required to serve the RAC, but those who attended Company schools had to serve for a minimum of ten years. While Native boys were discouraged from attending school, Creole boys were generally encouraged to do so. Moreover, many of the Creoles were orphans and were enrolled in school by the company. Although the Creoles had higher status than the Alutiiq in the eyes of the Russian Americans, they were nonetheless regarded as inferior to Europeans. Creoles were paid less than Russian employees for the same work, and promotion was slower, but in contrast to Russians they were exempt from paying taxes. A few individuals who took advantage of the educational opportunities offered to them achieved positions of high status in the colony, but as a group, the Creoles were disadvantaged. Yet, their social, economic, and cultural position in colonial society was closer to the Russians than to the Natives. Creoles were baptized, attended Russian churches and Russian schools, worked alongside Russians, and moved about freely in the Russian settlements.71 Still, they belonged to a separate social estate of people in Russian America and were considered neither Russian nor Native. Sahlberg described them as looking like Europeans without being their equal.72 Their status as “half-Russian” placed them in a position between the “wild Natives” and “civilized” Europeans, which, in the eyes of the colonizers, made them more receptive to civilizing efforts. Preventing the Creoles from returning to traditional indigenous ways seems to have been interpreted as a moral obligation, and the RAC board of directors decreed that Creoles must not be allowed “to return to a savage condition.” Colonial authorities had to “ensure that the Creoles who have become familiar with a European way of life will not fall away from it.”73 As was his habit, Uno Cygnaeus focused his attention on females and commented on the looks of Creole women in terms that were both sexist and racist. Describing one of Sitka’s balls to his sister, he wrote that Creole women looked old even when still young. “They are very dark which makes them look old.”74 At the ball, “they all looked faded, even though few, perhaps none, were over thirty years old.” Cygnaes was not alone in promoting stereotyping of social roles based on gender, whereby women and particularly old women were devalued. Frankenhaeuser also expressed racist and sexist views of Creole women in his writings. However, his negative views arose from his perception that Creole

Introduction

19

women lacked intellectual and social abilities rather than from their appearance. According to Frankenhaeuser, European men could not engage in serious conversation with Creole women because most of them had little formal education and some had none. They were unable to either read or write. If it had not been for the lack of white women in Sitka, he argued, Creole women would not have been so attractive on the marriage market.75 Cygnaeus agreed, but like many Europeans at the time he placed high hopes in the Finnish ladies’ ability to “refine” the Creoles. It was of the greatest importance that Finnish women learned to speak Russian so that by associating with the Creoles they could continue the process of civilization begun by Elisabeth von Wrangell and Iulia Kupreianov, he wrote. To Cygnaeus it was clear that “there exists a beautiful sphere here also for our ladies’ activities aiming at the spread of civilization.”76 A few years later, Cygnaeus had to admit that his expectations on the Finnish women had been disappointed. He now believed that Creole women had been hurt “both in word and in deed” by the Europeans, which had led to a feeling of resentment among them. In an acerbic remark, Cygnaeus wrote that rather than bringing enlightenment and civilization to Creole women, the Finnish women’s influence on the Creoles reached no further than the fashion of their dress.77 His view was confirmed by Frankenhaeuser, who observed that the clothes of the Creole women had been “much improved in form and cut by the examples of the Finnish ladies.”78 Not all men felt like Cygnaeus and Frankenhaeuser, however. Zagoskin, for instance, had a far more favorable opinion of Creole women. To those who wondered about dancing partners “in faraway Novoarkhangelsk,” he extended an invitation: “Come to Sitka and you will dance with the lightfooted Creole girls.”79 Governor Etholén’s main civilizing project was not directed at either Native or Creole people in Sitka, but at the Alutiiq people of Kodiak Island. Adolph Etholén believed that these people, whom he referred to as Aleuts, as did most contemporary Europeans, had suffered severely from their nomadic way of life. A recent smallpox epidemic, introduced by contact with European colonizers, had placed them in a particularly exposed situation. Yet, he was convinced that “with a constant and settled way of life they can forever end that unhappy condition which . . . has been the lot of the Kodiak Aleuts to the present time . . . They have faced constant suffering and impoverishment from the unsettled and disorganized aspects of their lives; and the intractable customs and prejudices of their forefathers have brought so many disasters upon them.”80 With the aim of “improving the living conditions” for “the Aleuts on Kodiak Island,”

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he consolidated the seventy-five settlements, where they “had lived a nomadic life,” to seven villages. Instead of the previous “low, unventilated” dwellings, he ensured that “large, spacious and bright” houses were built. Next, the governor ordered that all possible measures be taken to maintain cleanliness in and around the settlements. He gave responsibility to the elders to make sure that people took frequent baths and kept their dwellings clean. Company cattle were distributed among the settlements, and the seeds of various vegetables were sent from Sitka in order to introduce animal husbandry and gardening. The “Aleuts” were to learn European values and how to fulfill their Christian obligations.81 As was generally the case, the colonizers believed that a settled life, cleanliness, and ventilation were preconditions for civilization. But it was not only the Natives or Creoles who had to be civilized in the eyes of company directors. Because company employees abused the indigenous population: the governor was compelled to order them not to use violence against Native people except in self-defense.82 Civilization was a social state that had to be achieved, and once achieved, maintained. Unless the standards of civilization were maintained, the Europeans thought, people would backslide into barbarism. The civilizing mission was therefore directed also at the European population of Sitka, who, according to some contemporaries, lived lives that were anything but civilized. The European and Creole population in Sitka, which consisted of around 1,200 people in 1842, was divided according to social class and their position in the racial and ethnic hierarchy of the day. There were less than 500 Europeans living in Sitka at the time, the majority of whom were Russians, Finns, and Baltic Germans. The languages spoken were Russian, Swedish, Finnish, and German. In contemporary censuses, however, Russian citizens of European origin were counted as Russians.83 Sitka’s population was separated into eight social classes, from dock workers and sailors at the lowest level to the governor at the top. The middle and upper levels formed Sitka’s “society.” Those with the highest rank were welcome to have lunch with the governor on a daily basis. They were entitled to live in private quarters and were allowed larger quantities of alcohol and candles. Every day at one o’clock, the gentlemen of the first rank congregated in the billiard room at the Governor’s House for a game and pre-meal drinks, after which they went into the dining room. On Sundays, a larger company was invited for lunch. These guests were also expected to spend the evening together from five o’clock onwards. The gentlemen played cards and billiards, while the women were conversing in the reception room.84 It was not customary for men and women to socialize together at these occasions.

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21

Cygnaeus and Frankenhaeuser, who both preferred to spend their evenings in the company of the ladies, caused something of a sensation with their behavior.85 The British naval officer Simpkinson, who visited Sitka in 1837 on H.M.S. Sulphur, noticed that at the ball he attended, women were ignored and made to sit in a separate room in between dances. In addition, he was told that the women had only been allowed to attend in the first place because the British were visiting. To Simpkinson, such exclusion of women from society was uncivilized and a sign of the backwardness of Russia. The treatment of women, he wrote in his journal, showed “the abject state of slavery in which the Russians hold their wives.” How, he asked, can it “be expected that the manners and refinements of a country can flourish,” “while the female sex are held in such degradation as not to be admitted into society.”86 In light of Simpkinson’s remarks about Russian backwardness, it is interesting to note that a similar practice can be observed also in the Hudson’s Bay Company. At a banquet held at Fort Vancouver in 1842, Captain Charles Wilkes noted critically that not even the wives of the chief officers were present. Wilkes was upset to learn that the women were treated in “such a demeaning fashion.” Like Simpkinson, he believed that the exclusion of women from society would “tend to prevent improvement, and retard the advancement of civilization.”87 When balls were given in Sitka, as they often were, strict class boundaries were abandoned and female servants were invited. However, rather than a conscious attempt at social leveling, this was a function of the lack of white women in the colonial capital. In other respects, class boundaries, form, and etiquette were extremely important in Russian America. Social life was always circumscribed by rules and constraints.

T hr e e l i f e s tori e s The narratives of Elisabeth von Wrangell, Margaretha Etholén, and Anna Furuhjelm are similar in certain respects, but they also display interesting differences, both in the way they experienced their encounter with the New World and their new role as married women. Anna was much more insecure, immature, and dependent than Elisabeth and Margaretha. She felt helpless without her husband, but she also continued to be dependent on her mother and constantly sought her approval. This sense of dependence rendered her insecure in her new role as governor’s wife. Her writings show the least interest in the colonies and

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in her imperial duties. Both Elisabeth and Margaretha became involved in the “civilizing mission”—educating local girls, engaging in charitable activities, and maintaining European practices—but Anna had difficulties assuming this role. She was deeply concerned with the way the prescribed ideal of female purity was at odds with colonial practices and felt an obligation to assert her female moral superiority.88 But, in a town where depravation and immorality seemed to lurk at every corner, her moral mission was to no avail. Instead she turned her energies inward to her home and family. In this sense she was the person of the three governor’s wives who had most clearly internalized the contemporary cult of domesticity and the virtues of true womanhood. But these virtues had to be played out on the extreme imperial periphery, which placed Anna under severe strain. The prescribed ideals of true womanhood were simply not very suitable to a rough and male-dominated frontier town. The virtues of true womanhood were also central to Margaretha, albeit to a lesser extent. She had a strong self-identity and an independent mind that she often tried to restrain. Margaretha was highly educated and considerably more cultivated than her husband. Her awareness of this made her careful not to let her superiority show in front of him. Overshadowing everything else in Margaretha’s stay in Sitka was the sudden death of her first-born child. Her loss threw her into a deep depression. Without professional help at hand and knowing that her deep feelings of despair were frowned upon socially, Margaretha used her diary as a therapy tool. Of course this is not a concept Margaretha herself would have used, but it helps us understand the way she, and many other women in the nineteenth century, used diary writing to come to terms with the realities that confronted them. To some extent, Margaretha’s diary represented the reverse of the traditional religious diary, which was supposed to chart the individual’s spiritual progress toward God. In this sense, it followed the secularization of contemporary diary writing, which expanded from self-examination to self-reflection and self-fashioning. By the 1830s diaries were used to record personal feelings.89 In Margaretha’s case, and strange as it may seem to modern eyes, these feelings were overwhelmingly feelings of guilt over her inability to accept the death of her first born. The combination of the prescribed ideals of true womanhood and Margaretha’s Lutheran faith produced the endless reflections over guilt that completely dominates her diary. Finnish Lutheranism, influenced by the revivalist movements of Evangelicalism and Pietism, stressed the importance of the individual commitment to lead a true Christian life. A true Lutheran woman was expected to bear her sorrow with patience and resignation. Margaretha was

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well aware that it was her duty to accept that God had taken her son and that it was her duty to submit to God’s will. But she simply could not accept this. As a consequence, her diary shows her often heart-rending struggle, not only with the terrible loss of her son but with the equally terrible loss of the comfort and support she needed to find in God. Driven by guilt, she grew alienated from her beloved mother. Unable to live up to the ideals she had imbibed from her mother, Margaretha felt she was no longer deserving of her mother’s love. Margaretha’s soul-searching faced with the loss of both her beloved child and her strong faith also made her conscious of her neglect of her husband. Well versed in the prescribed ideals of the day, she lived with a constant bad conscience toward Adolph for not providing him with a happy home.90 In sharp contrast to Margaretha’s diary, the writings of Elisabeth von Wrangell tend to be upbeat and brimming with joie de vivre. Elisabeth did not appear to hold the virtues of true womanhood in high regard. Whether this was due to her personality or to the fact that the cult of true womanhood had not yet firmly established itself among the Baltic German nobility when she grew up is difficult to say. It is also the case that whereas Elisabeth wrote many letters back to her family in Europe as well as a journal of her journey to Sitka, she kept no diary, or if she did it has not been preserved. Nevertheless, her letters make it clear that she valued virtues that have traditionally been attributed to men, such as irony, rationality, analytical ability, courage, determination, curiosity, and energy. She displayed much greater curiosity about foreign lands and cultures than the other governors’ wives, and her views of Native people differed noticeably from Anna’s. Unlike Margaretha, who was not happy about leaving Europe, Elisabeth relished the freedom of trekking through the Siberian wilderness. Family and home were not as important to her, and in her letters she did not present herself foremost as wife and mother. Even though she loved her children, motherhood was at times an impediment to her. This is particularly evident when she had to stay at home while her husband traveled. She was also a less devout Christian than the other two. It is noteworthy that her journal does not contain a single reference to religion. This book draws on both published and unpublished letters and diaries, written in English, German, and Swedish by Anna Furuhjelm, Margaretha Etholén, and Elisabeth von Wrangell to tell the story of these women’s experiences of the Russian empire and Alaska. These texts are quite different from one another both with regard to tone and theme. Von Wrangell’s letters are characterized by a witty and cheerful tone, but they are somewhat impersonal. Furuhjelm, on the other

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hand, writes in a very intimate and emotional manner. Her letters to her mother express an openness bordering on the naïve, which cannot be found in the other texts. The diary of Margaretha Etholén is the most private and intimate of the different texts. The way she writes about her grief seems unusual for a woman of her time, and the document is therefore quite unique. Etholén’s diary has sometimes been dismissed as irrelevant to the study of Russian Alaska because it is filled with religious ruminations rather than observations on the empire. But this seems a dubious conclusion. One has to remember that in the nineteenth century religion was absolutely central to the life and experiences of most middle- and upper class European women. As we have seen, religion also played a key role in the notion of a civilizing mission and the role of women in the empire. I have studied the letters and diaries written by these three remarkable women in relation to their specific historical context, and I have analyzed them in the light of scholarship on nineteenth-century conceptions of womanhood and gender roles, including the role of women in the civilizing mission.91 However, since both the experiences and the way they wrote about their experiences differ among the women, the relevant contexts of their texts differ as well. For instance, while Protestant views on death and mourning are relevant to the understanding of Margaretha Etholén’s writings, prescriptive ideas of marriage, motherhood, and a woman’s sphere are imperative in order to comprehend the experiences of Anna Furuhjelm. Protestant evangelicalism and its views on true womanhood are essential to interpret the experiences of both these women but much less so to interpret those of the Baroness von Wrangell. The same is true for motherdaughter relationships, which are significant to the understanding of the experiences of Margaretha and Anna but not to Elisabeth. In her case, the discourse on gender and travel, including notions of the exotic and the noble savage, provide the most fruitful contexts of interpretation. While placing the specific writings and experiences of each woman in their relevant historical context, they are all analyzed with respect to the general framework of the nineteenth-century ideal of true womanhood and its related conception of the role of women in the empire. I have also consulted material written by contemporary residents in and visitors to Sitka who commented upon the role of women in the colonies, or more generally on aspects of life in Russian Alaska that in some way pertain to the experiences of the governors’ wives. There are several memoirs, diaries, letters, reports, and travel journals written by priests, scientists, government officials, sea captains, and travelers from all over Europe and North America. Finally, I have consulted a number of diaries, letters, and memoirs

Introduction

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written by contemporary European wives of high officials in the Hudson’s Bay Company, as these women had similar experiences as female representatives of empire in a remote North American colony ruled by a commercial company. The book is divided into three parts, one for each of the three governors’ wives. These parts may be read separately, but they are linked by a shared theme. On a general level all three parts are concerned with questions of gender and empire, but they focus on issues that are relevant to each particular woman and to her particular story. In the final chapter I try to weave these stories together to present some general conclusions of the study. Part I tells the story of Elisabeth von Wrangell, who was the first governor’s wife in Russian Alaska and the first white woman in the Governor’s House in Sitka between 1830 and 1835. She was only nineteen years old when she married the newly appointed governor of Russian America, Ferdinand von Wrangell, who was fourteen years her senior. Barely a month later, the newlywed couple set off on the adventurous journey across Siberia to Okhotsk, where they were to embark on a ship to North America. This part examines the way Baroness von Wrangell portrays her journey, her encounter with peoples, places, and conditions unfamiliar to her; the ways in which gender affects her experiences of the Russian empire; and the way she describes them. It further examines von Wrangell’s arrival in Russian America, her encounter with the New World, and her role as a governor’s wife in the Russian colony by the Pacific Ocean. Part I shows that von Wrangell challenged traditional conceptions of both gender and ethnicity. She was fascinated by things she found exotic, and she showed a genuine interest in foreign cultures and mores, although this empathetic attitude did not prevent her from displaying a sense of cultural superiority. By taking an interest in public life and showing her appreciation for the freedom of traveling and the glory of heroic endeavors, von Wrangell challenged the notion of women as homemakers. When she was finally settled in the Governor’s House, her liberty became much more restricted and she began to feel trapped by the prescriptive gender roles. While von Wrangell appears to have been unhappy in her lonely life as mother and homemaker, she valued her public role in the colonial capital as representative of the empire. Part II tells the story of Margaretha Etholén, an intellectual and well-educated young woman from Finland who at the age of twenty-four married the newly appointed governor, forty-year-old Adolph Etholén. Two and a half months later, the couple embarked on the RAC company ship, Nikolai I, which would take them all the way from Turku to Sitka. This part is based on the diary

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Margaretha Etholén kept during the journey and her time in Sitka. It examines her dual roles as a married woman and representative of empire. Etholén set high standards for herself as wife, mother, daughter, and devout Christian but had a hard time living up to these self-imposed demands. After only two weeks on board Nikolai I, she reproached herself for feeling homesick and being in a foul mood. This feeling of guilt became much stronger when her little son died after a short period of illness, and she blamed herself both for her son’s death and for not being able to overcome her grief. Part II describes both Etholén’s inner struggle with her faith and her feeling of guilt as well as her public activities as a governor’s wife. It reveals the contrast between her private and public life, played out within the confined environment of the small colony. To most people in Sitka she appeared as a highly competent governor’s wife, who took her civilizing role very seriously, educating Creole girls and exercising moral leadership. Some of Sitka’s inhabitants even found her too zealous in her pursuit of form and etiquette, and they described her as insensitive and moralizing. However, her diary reveals a very sensitive, reserved, lonely, and, above all, a deeply unhappy woman, whose life fell apart when her son died and who struggled with feelings of guilt toward her husband, her mother, and her God. Part III tells the story of the last Lutheran governor’s wife in Russian America. Her name was Anna Furuhjelm. She was twenty-two years old when she met her thirty-seven-year-old husband-to-be at a Christmas ball in Helsinki. One month later they were married. Immediately after the wedding luncheon, Furuhjelm took leave from her dear mother, whom she would never see again, and set off on the long journey toward Sitka via Saint Petersburg, Dresden, London, Panama City, and San Francisco. Anna Furuhjelm wrote letters to her mother back in Helsinki. The letters are mainly concerned with Furuhjelm’s new role as a married woman and her desire to be a perfect wife despite difficult circumstances in the colonies. At the same time, the letters reflect the encounter between her small, familiar world and the vast, unfamiliar world of the empire. This part examines how Furuhjelm dealt with this strange encounter both in her private and public role. She was shocked by “the immorality” she witnessed in Sitka both among Russians and Native inhabitants and felt that it was her Christian duty to do something about it. But Furuhjelm knew neither what to do nor how to do it. Hence, she failed in her attempts to effect change and instead invested all her energy in trying to be a good wife and mother.

Introduction

27

Part III shows that when Anna Furuhjelm came to Russian America she was an extremely insecure and immature woman, almost completely dependent on her mother and her husband. However, life in Sitka made her realize that she was capable of dealing with difficult situations by herself. With time, she gained more self-confidence and became less dependent on her husband. Her experiences in the colonies thus made her more mature and turned her into a more independent, assertive woman. The epilogue attempts to weave together the narratives of the three women. It presents some general conclusions about the significance of gender roles to the experiences these women had of the Russian empire and its only overseas colony, and it discusses the implications of contemporary notions of gender and empire to their experiences. The prescriptive gender roles that informed these women’s experiences of their encounter with Russian America and their role as the governor’s wife were, at the same time, ill suited to frontier society. Elisabeth von Wrangell was probably the least affected by gender roles of the three women. However, as we will see in the next chapter, even in Elisabeth’s case, the very fact that she was a woman profoundly affected her experiences in the colonies.

No t es 1. Ferdinand von Wrangell, about the obligations both he and his wife had as governor and governor’s wife in the Russian colonies. My emphasis. 2. For literature on Russian America, see N. N. Bolkhovitinov, ed., Istoriia Russkoi Ameriki 1732–1867 (Moska, 1997–1999), 3 vols.; B. Dmytryryshyn, E. A. P. Crownhart-Vaughan, T. Vaughan, eds., To Siberia and Russian America. Three Centuries of Russian Eastward Expansion (Portland, OR, 1985–1989), 3 vols.; J. R. Gibson, Imperial Russia in Frontier America: The Changing Geography of Supply of Russian America, 1784–1867 (New York, 1976); P. A. Tikhmenev, A History of the Russian-American Company (Seattle, 1978–1979), 2 vols.; A. J. Petrov, Obrazovanie Rossiisko-amerikanskoi kompanii (Moskva, 2000); Lydia T. Black, Russians in Alaska, 1732–1867 (Fairbanks, AK, 2004); Sergei Kan, Memory Eternal: Tlingit Culture and Russian Orthodox Christianity Through Two Centuries (Seattle, 1999); A. V. Grinev, The Tlingit Indians in Russian America 1741–1867 (Lincoln, NE, 2005); Richard A. Pierce, Builders of Alaska. The Russian Governors 1818–1867 (Kingston, ON, 1986); S. G. Fedorova, Russkoe naselenie Aliaski i Kalifornii konets XVIII veka-1867 god (Moscow, 1971); Sonja Luehrmann, Alutiiq Villages under Russians and U.S. Rule (Fairbanks, AK, 2008); Ilya Vinkovetsky, Russian America.

28

3. 4.

5.

6. 7.

8. 9.

10.

11.

12.

Married to the Empire An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire 1804–1867 (Oxford, 2011). See also A. V. Grinev, “A Brief Survey of the Russian Historiography of Russian America of Recent Years,” Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 79, No. 2, 2010. I. Vinkovetsky, Russian America, pp. 6–13, 29–35. For Russia’s eastward expansion, see Dominic Lieven, The Russian Empire and Its Rivals (London, 2000); W. Bruce Lincoln, The Conquest of a Continent: Siberia and the Russians (New York, 1994); A. I. Andreyev, ed., Russian Discoveries in the Pacific and in North America in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Ann Arbor, MI, 1952); Dmytryshyn, Crownhart-Vaughan, Vaughan, eds., To Siberia and Russian America. In contrast to Siberian fur trade, American fur trade relied almost exclusively on Native hunters. Gibson, Imperial Russia in Frontier America, p. VIII; Vinkovetsky, Russian America, pp. 35, 73–81. For the relationships between Tlingit Indians and Europeans in Russian America, see Grinev, The Tlingit Indians. Yuri Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors. Russia and the Small Peoples of the North (Ithaca, NY, 1996); D. R. Brower and E. J. Lazzerini, eds., Russia’s Orient. Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700–1917 (Bloomington, IN, 1997); Andreas Kappeler, The Russian Empire: A Multiethnic History (Harlow, 2001); Michael Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier. The Making of a Colonial Empire, 1500–1800 (Bloomington, IN, 2002); Lieven, The Russian Empire and Its Rivals; Williard Sunderland, Taming the Wild Field: Colonization and Empire on the Russian Steppe (Ithaca, NY, 2004). Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier, p. 2. I. Vinkovetsky, “Circumnavigation, Empire, Modernity, Race: The Impact of Round-the-World Voyages on Russia’s Imperial Consciousness,” Ab Imperio, nos. 1–2 (2001), pp. 191–210; Russian America, pp. 35–51. See extracts from letters to Nikolai Rezanov in K. T. Khlebnikov, “Materialy dlia istorii russkikh zaselenii po beregam vostochnago okeana,” Morskoi sbornik, No. 3, 1861, pp. 117–120 and Colonial Russian America. Kyrill T. Khlebnikov’s Reports, 1817–1832. Translated with introduction and notes by Basil Dmytryshyn and E. A. P. Crownhart-Vaughan (Portland, 1976), pp. 91–94. Ibid. See also Langsdorff, Georg Henrik, abridged translation: Voyages and Travels in Various Parts of the World, During the Years 1803 .  . . and 1807 (London, 1813), 2 vols.; Lisianskii, Iurii Fedorovich, Puteshestvie vokrug sveta v 1803, 4, 5, i 1806 godakh (Saint Petersburg, 1812); Adam Johann von Krusenstern, Reise um die Welt in den Jahren 1803, 1804, 1805 und 1806 auf Befehl seiner kaiserlichen Majestät Alexander des Ersten auf den Schiffen Nadeshda und Newa (Saint Petersburg, 1810–1812); Aleksei Andreev, Russkie otkrytiia v Tikhom Okeane i Severnoi Amerike v XVIII veke (Moscow, 1948); Vinkovetsky, “Circumnavigation, Empire, Modernity, Race.” Tikhmenev, A History of the Russian-American Company, vol. 2, p. 150.

Introduction

29

13. Y. Slezkine, “Naturalists versus Nations: Eighteenth-Century Russian Scholars Confront Ethnic Diversity,” in Russia’s Orient, p. 39; Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier, p. 184. 14. Tikhmenev, A History of the Russian-American Company, p. 196. The Russian government criticized the treatment of the indigenous population in Alaska already in 1787 (Instructions, Colonel G. K. Ugrenin, Commendant of Okhotsk oblast to Company Personnel, June 15, 1787 in Tikhmenev, A History of the RussianAmerican Company, vol. 2, pp. 15–16). 15. September 13, 1812. A Personal Imperial Ukaz from Alexander I to the Senate Renewing the Privileges of the RAC and Approving Regulations for Its Activities; Dmytryshyn, Crownhart-Vaughan, Vaughan, eds., To Siberia and Russian America. Three Centuries of Russian Eastward Expansion. vol. 3. The Russian-American Colonies 1798–1867. A Documentary Record (Portland, OR, 1989). 16. Letter from Arkhimandrite Ioasaf to Shelikhov in P. A. Tikhmenev, A History of the Russian-American Company, vol. 2, pp. 77–79, 80–81, 83. 17. Gwenn A. Miller, Kodiak Kreol: Communities of Empire in Early Russian America (Ithaca, NY, 2010); Luehrmann, Alutiiq Villages under Russian and U.S. Rule. For a critical review of Miller’s book, see Ilya Vinkovetsky, American Historical Review, June 2011, p. 794, and Susan Smith-Peter, “Russian America in Russian and American Historiography,” Kritika, vol. 14, no. 1, Winter 2013, pp. 93–100. For relationships between European men and Native women in the Hudson’s Bay Company, see Jennifer S. H. Brown, Strangers in Blood. Fur Trade Company Families in Indian Country (Vancouver, B.C., 1980), and Sylvia Van Kirk, Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society in Western Canada 1670–1870 (Winnipeg, 1980). 18. The Unangax or Unangan Aleuts lived on the Aleutian Island, while the Alutiiq people came from the southern coast of Alaska and the Kodiak Island. 19. The term governor was an unofficial, colloquial rendering of Chief Manager [glavnyi pravitel’] of the RAC. 20. The company was administered by a board of directors in Saint Petersburg, with control of local affairs by means of appointed chief managers or governors in Sitka. Richard Pierce, Builders of Alaska, pp. 5, 9–11. 21. Letter to Metropolitan Amvrosii, dated June 2, 1805, in The Round the World Voyage of Hieromonk Gideon 1803–1809, Richard A. Pierce, ed., translated by Lydia T. Black (Kingston, ON, 1989), pp. 34, 69, 78, 80. See also The Russian Orthodox Religious Mission in America, 1794–1837, translated by Colin Bearne, Richard A. Pierce, ed. (Kingston, ON, 1978), pp. 55–56, 140–144. 22. The Round the World Voyage of Hieromonk Gideon, p. 97. 23. Tikhmenev, A History of the Russian-American Company, vol. 2, pp. 159–169, 172–173, 190–195; 225.

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24. The Round the World Voyage of Hieromonk Gideon, pp. 108–112. 25. A Letter from Nikolai P. Rezanov to the director of the RAC Regarding Russian Orthodox Missionaries in Alaska, November 6, 1805, in The Russian-American Colonies 1798–1867; Letter from Rezanov to Gideon, Dec. 1803 in The Russian Orthodox Religious Mission in America, 1794–1837, p. 153; The Round the World Voyage of Hieromonk Gideon, pp. 100, 74. 26. In his report, Rezanov enclosed a petition to the Czaritsa regarding female education (Tikhmenev, A History of the RAC, vol. 2, p. 189). See also Toivo Harjunpää, “The Lutherans in Russian Alaska” in The Pacific Historical Review, vol. 37, no. 2 (May, 1968), p. 92. 27. Instructions from the Main Administration of the RAC to Aleksandr A. Baranov Concerning Education for Creoles, March 22, 1817, in The Russian-American Colonies 1798–1867; Tikhemenev, A History of the Russian-American Company, p. 144. 28. Tikhemenev, A History of the Russian-American Company, p. 157. 29. For the notion of “true motherhood,” see Barbara Welter, Dimity Convictions. The American Woman in the Nineteenth Century (Athens, 1976). 30. For the cult of domesticity in Russia, see Barbara Evans Clements, A History of Women in Russia: From Earliest Times to the Present (Bloomington, IN, 2012), pp. 87–90. 31. See Claudia Knapman, White Women in Fiji, 1835–1930. The Ruin of Empire? (Sydney, 1986); Helen Callaway, Gender, Culture and Empire. European Women in Colonial Nigeria (Urbana, IL, 1987); Margaret Strobel, European Women and the Second British Empire (Bloomington, IN, 1991); Sara Mills, Discourses of Difference. An Analysis of Women’s Travel Writing and Colonialism (London, 1991); N. Chaudhuri and M. Strobel, eds., Western Women and Imperialism. Complicity and Resistance (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1992); Reina Lewis, Gendering Orientalism. Race, Femininity and Representation (London, 1996); C. Midgley, ed., Gender and Imperialism (Manchester, 1998); Julia Clancy-Smith and Frances Gouda, eds., Domesticating the Empire. Race, Gender and Family Life in French and Dutch Colonialism (Charlottesville, Va., 1998); Lora Wildenthal, German Women for Empire 1884–1945 (Durham, NC, 2001); Adele Perry, On the Edge of Empire. Gender, Race and the Making of British Columbia 1849–1871 (Toronto, 2001); Mary A. Procida, Married to the Empire. Gender, Politics and Imperialism in India, 1833–1947 (Manchester, 2002); Ann Laura Stoler, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power. Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule (Berkeley, CA, 2002); Philippa Levine, ed., Gender and Empire (Oxford, 2004); Angela Woollacott, Gender and Empire (Houndmills, Basingstoke, 2006); Judith Herrin, Unrivalled Influence: Women and Empire in Byzantium (Princeton, 2013).

Introduction

31

32. Kathleen Wilson, “Empire, Gender and Modernity in the Eighteenth Century,” in Philippa Levine, ed., Gender and Empire (Oxford, 2004), pp. 19–20; Catherine Hall, “Of Gender and Empire: Reflections on the Nineteenth Century,” in ibid, s. 70–71. 33. For similar views among Catholics, see Christopher van der Krogt, “Imitating the Holy Family. Catholic Ideals and the Cult of Domesticity in Interwar New Zealand,” History Now, Vol. 4, No. 1, May 1998; Maryann Valiulis, “Neither Feminist nor Flapper: The Ideal Ecclesiastical Construction of the Ideal Irish Woman,” in Mary O’Dowd and Sabine Wichert, eds., Chattel, Servant or Citizen? Women’s Status in Church, State and Society. (Belfast, 1995), pp. 168– 78; Karen Offen, European Feminisms 1700–1950 (Stanford, CA, 2000), pp. 196–197. 34. These texts were translated from English and spread across Europe, but notions of “true motherhood” were also replicated in Native languages. See Catriona Kelly, Refining Russia. Advice Literature, Polite Culture, and Gender from Catherine to Yeltsin (Oxford, 2001); Heide W. Whelan, Adapting to Modernity. Family, Caste and Capitalism among the Baltic German Nobility (Köln, 1999); Eva Helen Ulvros, Fruar och mamseller. Kvinnor inom sydsvensk borgerlighet 1790–1870 (Lund, 1996). The governors’ wives in this study spoke English (Furuhjelm), French (all), German (von Wrangell), Swedish (Furuhjelm and Etholén), and Russian (von Wrangell and Etholén). 35. Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820–1860,” American Quarterly 18 (2), 1966, pp. 151–174; Lisa A. Keister, Inequality: A Contemporary Approach to Race, Class, and Gender (Cambridge, 2011). 36. Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty. A History of Women in America (New York, 1989), pp 68–69. 37. B. Welter, Dimity Convictions; John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (Chicago, 1997), pp. 45, 56, 70; Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes. Men and Women of the English middle class, 1780–1850 (London, 1987). For sources, see Erna Olafson Hellerstein, Leslie Parker Hume, and Karen M. Offen, eds., Victorian Women. A Documentary Account of Women’s Lives in Nineteenth—Century England, France, and the United States (Stanford, CA, 1981). 38. The “cult of true womanhood,” originally discussed by Barbara Welter, has been criticized by women’s historian for framing women as historical subjects within a rigid notion of separate spheres and for neglecting the divisions created by class and race which make the notion of a unified woman’s sphere contradictory. See Leila J. Rupp, ed., “Women’s History in the New Millennium: A Retrospective Analysis of Barbara Welter’s ‘The Cult of True Womanhood, 1820–1860,’” Journal of Women’s

32

39. 40. 41.

42.

43.

44.

Married to the Empire History, vol. 14, no. 1 (Spring, 2002), pp. 149–173; Venetria K. Patton, “The Cult of True Womanhood and its Revisions,” in Women in Chains: The Legacy of Slavery in Black Women’s Fiction (Albany, NY, 2000); Shirley J. Yee, “Black Women and the Cult of True Womanhood,” in Black Women Abolitionists: A Study in Activitism, 1828–1860. (Knoxville, TN, 1992). Evans, Born for Liberty, p. 95. Ibid., p. 73. For missionary women, see Patricia Grimshaw, Paths of Duty: American Missionary Wives in Nineteenth-Century Hawaii (Honolulu, 1989); Fiona Bowie, Deborah Kirkwood and Shirley Ardener, eds., Women and Missions: Past and Present. Anthropological and Historical Perceptions (Oxford, 1993); Mary Taylor Huber and Nancy C. Lutkehaus, eds., Gendered Missions: Women and Men in Missionary Discourse and Practice (Ann Arbor, MI, 1999); Sarah A. Curtis, Civilizing Habits: Women Missionaries and the Revival of French Empire (New York, 2010); Rosemary E. Seton, Western Daughters in Eastern Lands: British Missionary Women in Asia (Santa Barbara, CA, 2013). Colonial Russian America. Kyrill T. Khlebnikov’s Reports, 1817–1832. Translated with introduction and notes by Basil Dmytryshyn and E. A. P. Crownhart-Vaughan (Portland, 1976), pp. 49–50; Original: “Materialy dlia istorii russkikh zaselenii po beregam vostochnago okeana,” Morskoi sbornik, no. 3, 1861, p. 64; Ferdinand von Wrangell, Russian America. Statistical and Etnographic Information, translated from German edition of 1839, R. A. Pierce, ed. (Kingston, ON, 1980), pp. 15–16; L. Zagoskin, Puteshestviia i issledovaniia leitenanta Lavrentiia Zagoskina v Russkoi Ameriki v 1841–1844, gg. (Moscow, 1956), pp. 69, 371–372. For similar views in the British Empire, see Hall, “Of Gender and Empire,” p. 60; Wilson, “Empire, Gender and Modernity,” p. 27; Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, p. 398. For similar experiences in other European imperial colonies, see Philippa Levine, “Introduction: Why Gender and Empire?,” pp. 6–10 in Gender and Empire; Wilson, “Empire, Gender, and Modernity,” p. 38; Hall, “Of Gender and Empire,” pp. 70–71; J. N. Brownfoot, “Memsahibs in Colonial Malaya,” in H. Callan and S. Ardener, eds., The Incorporated Wife (London, 1984), p. 189. For women in the American West, see Julie Roy Jeffrey, Frontier Women: “Civilizing” the West? 1840–1880 (New York, 1979, 1998), Frontier Women: The Trans-Mississippi West, 1840–1880 (New York, 1979). T. S. Fedorova, “Zhenshchiny v Russkoi Amerike” in Russkaya Amerika i Dal’nii Vostok (Vladivostok, 2001), pp. 91–103; Gwenn A. Miller, “‘The Perfect Mistress of Russian Economy:’ Sighting the Intimate on a Colonial Alaskan Terrain 1784– 1821,” in Haunted by Empire. Geographies of Intimacy in North American History, Ann L. Stoler, ed. (Durham and London, 2006), p. 300. For the renewal of interest

Introduction

45.

46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

33

in Russian imperial history, see J. Gibson, “Russian imperial expansion in context and by contrast,” Journal of Historical Geography, 28, 2 (2002). See Miller, Kodiak Kreol; “‘The Perfect Mistress of Russian Economy’”; Luehrmann, Alutiiq Villages under Russian and U.S. Rule. A few collections of original sources on European women have been published: Alix O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America 1829–1836. The Journey of Elisabeth von Wrangell (Fairbanks, AK, 2001); Annie Constance Christensen, ed., Letters from the Governor’s Wife. A View of Russian Alaska 1859–1862 (Århus, 2006); D. L. Black and A. Petrov, eds., Natalia Shelikhova, Russian Oligarch of Alaska Commerce (Fairbanks, AK, 2010). See also Maria Jarlsdotter Enckell, “A Finnish Sawmill Bookkeeper’s Daughter’s Journey to Alaska,” FEEFHS Journal, vol. X (2002); “Four North European Female Educators’ Toil in Russian Alaska, 1805–1849,” FEEFHS Journal, vol. XI (2003). For literature on Russian America, see note 1. Letter from Anna Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, October 20/4 1859, Collection Åbo Academy Library, Manuscript Collections. For a discussion of the experiences of women “incorporated” into their husband’s occupational institutions, see Callan and Ardener, eds., The Incorporated Wife. Most of the Finns in Alaska came from the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, which included both the upper and lower classes. Erik Amburger, Geschichte der Behördenorganisation Russlands von Peter dem Grossen bis 1917 (Leiden, 1966), p. 517. For the Lutherans in the Russian empire, see Alix O’Grady, “The Baltic Connection in Russian America,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 42 (1994); Harjunpää, “The Lutherans in Russian Alaska”; John A. Armstrong, “Mobilized Diaspora in Tsarist Russia: The Case of the Baltic Germans,” in Jeremy R. Azrael, ed., Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices (New York, 1978); Heide W. Whelan, Adapting to Modernity. Family, Caste and Capitalism among the Baltic German Nobility (Koln, 1999); Andrei V. Grinev, “Nemtsy v istorii Russkoi Ameriki” in Amerikanskii ­ezhegodnik 2002 (Moscow, 2004); N. I. Ivanova and N. M. Bazhenova, eds., Nemtsy v gosudarsvennosti Rossii (Saint Petersburg, 2004); Maria Jarlsdotter Enckell, “The Finnish Migration to and from Russian Alaska and the Pacific Siberian Rim 1800– 1900,” Migration 4/2002; Those NOT Russian Russians: Finlanders & RussianAmerican Company’s Multiethnic Evangelical Lutheran Community in the North Pacific Region 1800–1871: with a Postscript Covering 1872–1930 (Mariehamn, 2012); Dmitrii Kopelev, Na sluzhbe imperii. Nemtsy i Rossiiskii flot v pervoi polovine XIX veka (Saint Petersburg, 2004); L. E. Lempiyainen, ”“Finlyandtsy na beregakh Russkoi Ameriki,” Klio (no. 4, 2003); E. C. Thaden, Russia’s Western Borderlands 1710–1870 (Princeton, 1984); August von Haxthausen, The Russian Empire: Its People, Institutions and Resources (London, 1856), p. 198.

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52. Vinkovetsky, Russian America, pp. 108−109; Richard Pierce, Russian America. A Biographical Dictionary (Kingston, ON, 1990), pp. 136−139, 152−155, 543−548; Karl-Gustav Olin, Alaska: Del 1, Ryska tiden. Den okända historien på jordklotets baksida ( Jakobstad, 1995), pp. 51−81. 53. Toivo Harjunpää, “The Lutherans in Russian Alaska,” pp. 123–146, p. 125; Whelan, Adapting to Modernity, pp. 13–63, 65–102; Armstrong, “Mobilized Diaspora,” pp. 63–104. 54. Aleksander Kan, “Storfurstendömet Finland 1809–1917–dess autonomi enligt den nutida finska historieskrivningen,” Historisk Tidskrift, 2008, no. 1, pp. 3–27; Edward C. Thaden, ed., Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland 1855−1914 (Princeton, 1981); Tuomo Polvinen, Imperial Borderland: Bobrikov and the Attempted Russification of Finland 1898–1904 (London, 1995). 55. The First Lutheran Church in Russian America was founded in 1840. Margaretha Etholén, her husband, and Ferdinand von Wrangell were all influential in making this happen. The priests were all from Finland. 56. Harjunpää, “The Lutherans in Russian Alaska”; G. Winter, “Underrättelser fran Sitka af en luthersk prest om finnars arbete i kolgrufvorna,” Åbo Underrättelser 91, 19.11.1858; Max Engman, “Till ryska Alaska och jorden runt med Reinhold Ferdinand Sahlberg” in R. F. Sahlberg, En resa kring jorden 1839–1843. Anteckningar från Sydamerika, Alaska och Sibirien (Helsingfors, 2007), p. 31. 57. See Catherine Hall, “The Early Formation of Victorian Domestic Ideology,” in Sandra B. Burman, ed., Fit Work for Women (New York, 1979); Hellerstein, Hume, and Offen, eds., Victorian Women; Whelan, Adapting to Modernity. 58. They continued their journey when she was only four weeks old. 59. Colonial Russian America. Kyrill T. Khlebnikov’s Reports, 1817–1832, s. 24; “Materialy dlia istorii russkikh zaselenii po beregam vostochnago okeana,” p. 30; Letter from Hampus Furuhjelm to his Father Otto Wilhelm Furuhjelm, Sitka, 25 May 1852, Archives of the Museum of Cultures, Helsinki. 60. Undated letter from Elisabeth von Wrangell to her parents, Sitka, fall 1831 in F. P. von Wrangell, Ein Kampf um Wahrheit (Stuttgart, 1940), 78, translated in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, p. 202. 61. Letter from Anna Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, April 28, 1862 in Åbo Academy Library, Manuscript Collections. 62. See Pavel N. Golovin, Civil and Savage Encounters. The Worldly Travel Letters of an Imperial Russian Navy Officer 1860–1861 (Portland, OR, 1983), pp. 89, 94. 63. Kan, Memory Eternal; Wallace M. Olson, The Tlingit: An Introduction to Their Culture and History (Auke Bay, Alaska, 1997); Grinev, The Tlingit Indians in Russian America. 64. Henry N. Michael, ed., Lieutenant Zagoskin’s Travels in Russian America 1842– 1844 (Toronto, 1967), p. 71.

Introduction

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65. Andrei Grinev argues that scholars have exaggerated the negative aspects of Russian-Tlingit relations. The Tlingit Indians, pp. 175, 192. 66. Ibid.; Sahlberg, En resa kring jorden, p. 167; H. J. Holmberg, Holmberg’s Ethnographic Sketches, Marvin W. Falk, ed. (Fairbanks, AK, 1985), pp. 12, 16. 67. Sahlberg, cited in Engman, “Till ryska Alaska,” p. 23. 68. Frankenhaeuser, Letter to Natchen, Sitka 8 May, 1842, appendix to Jarl Enckell, Finländare i Sitka under 1840–talet, unpublished manuscript, Åbo Academy Library; letter to his brother Paul, Sitka 17/29 September, 1841 in ibid.; Kan, Memory Eternal; Grinev, The Tlingit Indians in Russian America. 69. The term Alutiiq is commonly used today to denote the people of Kodiak as well as the Chugach of Prince William Sound (Vinkovetsky, Russian America, p. 19). 70. See Luehrmann, Alutiiq Villages under Russian and U.S. Rule; Black, Russians in Alaska, pp. 210−216; Aron Crowell, Amy F. Steffian, and Gordon L. Pullar. Looking Both Ways; Heritage and Identity of the Alutiiq People (Fairbanks, AK, 2001); Lydia T. Black and Roza G. Liapunova, “Aleut: Islanders of the North Pacific,” in Crossroads of Continents: Cultures of Siberia and Alaska, William W. Fitzhugh and Aron Crowell, eds. (Washington DC, 1988); Engman, “Till ryska Alaska,” pp. 25−26; Pirjo Varjola, The Etholén Collection: The Ethnographic Alaskan Collection of Adolph Etholén and His Contemporaries in the National Museum of Finland (Helsinki, 1990). 71. Vinkovetsky, Russian America, pp. 146−152. Susan Smith-Peter argues that one of the main reasons for the creation of a creole estate in Russian America was to spread “the Russian way of life,” “Creating a Creole Estate in Early Nineteenth-Century Russian America,” Cahiers du Monde Russe, 51/2-3, 2010. See also her article “‘A Class of People Admitted to the Better Ranks’: The First Generation of Creoles in Russian America, 1810s–1820s,” in Ethnohistory 60: 3 (Summer 2013). For the later role of Creoles as cultural brokers in Alaska, see Sergei Kan, “Sergei Ionovich Kostromitinov (1854–1915), or ‘Colonel George Kostrometinoff ’: From a Creole Teenager to the Number-One Russian-American Citizen of Sitka,” Ethnohistory 60: 3 (Summer 2013). 72. Sahlberg, En resa kring jorden, pp. 167−168. 73. Dispatch from RAC Main Office, No. 157, dated Feb 28, 1822 to the chief manager in Khlebnikov, “Materialy dlia istorii russkikh zaselenii po beregam vostochnago okeana,” Morskoi sbornik, no. 3, 1861, pp. 58−59. See also Colonial Russian America. Kyrill T. Khlebnikov’s Reports, 1817–1832, pp. 45, 71, 101−102; Lütke, A Voyage Around the World 1826–1829, vol. 1, To Russian America and Siberia, Richard Pierce, ed. (Kingston, ON, 1987), p. 63. 74. Cygnaeus, letter from Sitka, January 6, 1840. 75. Frankenhaeuser, letter to Natchen, Sitka May 8, 1842 and May 15, 1843.

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76. Excerpts from Cygnaeus’s letters sent from Sitka, published in Borgå tidning January 20, 1841, October 30, 1841, and September 21, 1842. 77. Cygnaeus, letter to his sister, Sitka July 13, 1844. 78. Frankenhaeuser, letter to Natchen, Sitka May 15, 1843. 79. Zagoskin, Travels in Russian America, p. 72. 80. “Instructions from Arvid A. Etholén, Chief Administrator of the Russian American Company, to Toions who are to become Starshinas in Aleut Settlements in the Kodiak Department,” in The Russian-American Colonies 1798–1867, vol. 3. A Documentary Record. 81. The Renewal of the Charter of the Russian American Company for Twenty Years: Rights and Privileges, October 10, 1844, stressed the importance of industry, order, honesty, neatness, as well as “the Christian style of married life.” 82. Richard A. Pierce, Builders of Alaska; Tikhmenev, A History of the RussianAmerican Company. 83. Varjola, The Etholén Collection, p. 19. 84. Sahlberg, En resa kring jorden, pp. 169−170; Frankenhaeuser, letter to Natchen, Sitka, May 8, 1842. 85. Frankenhaeuser, letter to Natchen, Sitka, May 8, 1842. 86. Richard A. Pierce and John H. Winslow, eds., H.M.S. Sulphur on the Northwest and California Coasts, 1837 and 1839: The Accounts of Captain Edward Belcher and Midshipman Francis Guillemard Simpkinson (Fairbanks, AK, 1979), p. 103. 87. C. Wilkes, cited in Sylvia Van Kirk, Many Tender Ties, pp. 125−126. 88. See Evans, Born for Liberty, pp. 72−74 for a discussion of the female moral mission. 89. Steven Stowe, “Making Sense of Letters and Diaries,” History Matters: The U.S. Survey at http://historymatters.gmu.edu. 90. Some scholars argue that (at least British) women better than men could accept a child’s death since they had been trained to resign not only to God’s will, but to their father’s and husband’s will. See Pat Jalland, Death in the Victorian Family (Oxford, 2000). 91. See the discussion above on the cult of true womanhood and the role of women in the empire.

Pa r t I

Elisabeth von Wrangell

Untitled, Portrait of Elisabeth von Wrangell, Anchorage Museum Collection, 2009.13.2

I

n the summer of 1830, a large party was traveling down the Okhotsk trail in eastern Siberia en route to Novo-Arkhangel’sk (Sitka) across the Okhotsk Sea. At the head of the party was the newly appointed governor of Russian Alaska, Ferdinand von Wrangell. At his side was his wife Elisabeth and their baby daughter, Müs’chen. In their retinue was Müs’chen’s nursemaid, Maria Ivanovna, Elisabeth’s maid, Annushka, another gentlewoman by the name of Madame Rosenberg with her maid, on their way to Okhotsk, Dr. Mayer and a washer woman, also destined for Alaska, and several local guides and porters. The company had just passed the Aldan River and had left behind them both horrific swamps and a desolate and depressing landscape. The scenery had changed for the better. Hills covered with larches and birch trees now alternated with swamps. In the far distance the mountain range that they would have to cross to reach Okhotsk could be vaguely made out. On July 11, having traveled under clear skies but on a miserable and rocky road, the party reached the river Belaya, where the company was taken across by boat. While the horses were swimming the river and before being saddled for the onward journey, Elisabeth arranged a lasso throwing game to the delight of her fellow travelers. “Subsequently, I waded into the water up to my knees in order to determine whether my boots really were water-tight. This turned out to not be the case, for the water simply rushed into them. Ferdinand told me that I had been very naughty, but that made two of us, for he followed my example!”1

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Note 1. Elisabeth von Wrangell, “Briefe aus Sibirien und den Russischen Niederlassungen in Amerika,” Dorpater Jahrbücher für Litteratur, Statistik und Kunst, besonders Russlands, 2 vols. (Riga und Dorpat, 1833–1834), vol. I, pp. 365−366. English translation:“Staging Post Tünülä, 40 versts east of Yakutsk, July [ June] 27th, 1830,” in Alix O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America 1829–1836. The Journey of Elisabeth von Wrangell (Fairbanks, AK, 2001), pp. 101−102. O’Grady’s English translation will be used below except when it is far removed from the German original.

Chapter One

The Journey across Siberia to Russian America

E

lisabeth de Rossillon (1810–1854) was born in a cultivated family of French and Baltic-German origin. Her father, Baron Wilhelm de Rossillon, belonged to the French nobility. Through Baltic-German relatives on his mother’s side, he came into an inheritance and moved to the Baltic Province of Estland, then part of the Russian empire,1 in the early years of the nineteenth century. In Reval (Tallinn), he met Elisabeth’s mother, Natalie von Toll, who came from an old, established Baltic-German family.2 Elisabeth grew up at the manor of Ruil, or Roela, in the Northeastern part of Estonia, but she met her future husband, Ferdinand von Wrangell, outside the city of Reval. It happened on May 3, 1829. Elisabeth was nineteen years old. Ferdinand was thirty-three and had just been appointed chief manager of the Russian-American Company colonies in North America. His appointment had made it imperative for Ferdinand to marry, as the RAC had recently decided that the chief manager and governor of Russian America needed to bring a European wife to the colonies. Scheduled to leave Russia shortly, the new governor was in a rush to find a bride. He asked his cousin, Julie von Romberg, for help. Madame Romberg and her husband, Captain Friedrich von Romberg, had become Ferdinand’s custodians at his tender age of eleven,3 on his parents’ untimely death. According to Ferdinand’s memoirs, his cousin brought him to Reval in order to introduce him to suitable young maids from the Baltic German nobility. But when they reached the outskirts of the city, their carriage broke down. Having retired to a nearby inn to await its repair, Ferdinand caught sight through the window of Elisabeth walking down the street with two friends. “Behold this angelic face,” he called to Mrs. von Romberg. “Truly, I have never seen anything like it.”4 41

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Suddenly this unknown angelic young woman entered the room. It turned out that Madame von Romberg was acquainted with the baroness and, as Ferdinand wrote many years later, “a merciful fate intended to make her my friend, my priceless treasure and salvation in this life and beyond.”5 After only a few days of courting, Ferdinand asked for Elisabeth’s hand in marriage. She accepted without a moment’s hesitation, well aware that marriage meant leaving her home and family behind to travel to Alaska. It seemed that the long and dangerous journey across Siberia and the Pacific Ocean did not to trouble her at all. On the contrary, she was excited and looked forward to the journey as a great adventure.6 Elisabeth and Ferdinand were married on May 31, 1829, only three weeks after they had first met. A week later, the newlywed couple left Reval on their long voyage to Alaska. Their journey was divided into four stages. The first leg was by carriage via Saint Petersburg across Western Siberia to Irkutsk; the second by riverboat down the River Lena to Yakutsk; the third on horseback across mountain paths and swamps in eastern Siberia to the port of Okhotsk; and the fourth by ship across the North Pacific to Novo-Arkhangel’sk, or Sitka, as it was commonly called.7 The von Wrangells planned to spend the winter in Irkutsk waiting for the Okhotsk trail to open in late spring or early summer. Fortunately, the stages of Elisabeth’s pregnancy conformed well to the stages of their travels. She was due to give birth in the spring, and Irkutsk was the most developed town along the route. During her journey, Elisabeth kept a journal where she recorded her adventures in the form of letters to her parents and sisters in Estonia. Only a handful of women had made this journey before her: Eva von Behm, wife of the governor of Kamchatka, with two children; Natalia Shelikhova, also with two children; the aging mother of Father Veniaminov and his wife, Catherine Sharina, with their infant child.8 However, Elisabeth’s journal from Siberia and Russian America is the first written by a woman. Elisabeth’s father, who realized the significance of her letters, had excerpts from some of them published in the Baltic-German journal Dorpater Jahrbücher für Litteratur, Statistik und Kunst besonders Russlands. But, before they were published, the Baron showed Elisabeth’s letters to the family of Tsar Nicholas I, who spent part of their vacation at the seaside resort of Katharinenthal near Reval. The tsar’s daughter, the young Duchess Marie, apparently read them with great pleasure. In his diary, the Baron quoted Marie as saying “. . . they have returned from China! How interesting it is and what admirable courage Madame Wrangell must have and how she writes everything so well!”9



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One can only agree with the Duchess’s assessment. Elisabeth’s letters are a true pleasure to read. Interesting and amusing, she describes the world around her always with an open mind, analytical acumen, and a keen sense of humor.

Wom e n t r av e lers Literary scholars have often maintained that the conventions of travel writing are deeply marked by gender. This is due in part to the fact that male travelers defined the conventions of travel writing and partly to the fact that travel writing grew out of a context of imperialism and colonialism, in which the European traveler was perceived as the “master of all he surveys,” including landscapes, women, and Natives. It has been argued that because traveling was considered a male enterprise, women who traveled, at least in the British Empire, took care not to overstep more gender conventions than those they already challenged by journeying. Consequently, women travel writers tended to emphasize their femininity by traveling in dresses, writing in a demure voice, and understating their own courage and the physical challenges they encountered. Female travelers even had to control their curiosity, as the very notion of female curiosity was problematic.10 Elisabeth von Wrangell, however, did nothing of the sort. She traveled in trousers and a jacket of English leather, and she wrote in a “masculine voice” fully in control of events, rather than in the voice of a “modest and helpless female.” Nor did she shy away from describing physical challenges or her own courage. To the contrary, her letters are full of adventures, and she assumes the position of a hardy adventurer. In her journal, Elisabeth comes across as anything but the pious, submissive wife who finds herself at a loss outside the familiar confines of her home. Nor did she express contemporary notions of women as weak, sensitive, and delicate.11 Instead, she presented herself as confident, resolute, and resourceful. As noted, even the tsar’s daughter was impressed by her courage. Elisabeth’s travel journal is characterized by analytical thinking, rationality, irony, and curiosity, qualities that scholars of travel writing typically associate with male authors.12 She shared her inquisitiveness and thirst for knowledge with her husband, who was delighted to have a partner with whom to discuss and compare impressions.13 During the first part of the journey across Siberia to Irkutsk and Kiakhta, Elisabeth never expressed any longing for home or family. To the contrary, the

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letters from this period are filled with optimism, curiosity, and excitement. Ferdinand was clearly impressed by his young wife’s ability to keep up her spirits despite difficult circumstances. Three months and two weeks after their departure from Saint Petersburg, he reported to his close friend Friedrich von Lütke that Elisabeth’s “unfailing cheerfulness . . . accompanied by a sharp mind, goodness of heart, and spiritual balance prompts me to try to fulfill my companion’s every secret wish.”14 To Elisabeth the journey from Reval to Sitka meant taking farewell of a safe childhood at her father’s manor. But it was also an opportunity for her to do something out of the ordinary, something a young woman of her background was unlikely to ever experience. Typically, girls from the BalticGerman nobility had little direct contact with the world outside their home. The freedom of venturing out into the world was a privilege reserved for men. Elisabeth’s countrywoman, Sally von Kügelgen, once described her longing for the liberty possessed by men of her social class, when she wrote in her diary about the first time she rode a horse and “roamed through the woods as free as a man.”15 Elisabeth seems to have felt something similar when she left Europe and entered the wide, open spaces of Siberia. She was captivated by the free nomadic life and the untamed wilderness in its infinite beauty. Her travel journal conveys a strong passion for liberty, for freedom from conventions and restrictions, and for the right to live “free as a man.” The search for adventure and escape seems to have been significant to many European female travelers. They saw traveling as a release, an opportunity to experience something new and to cultivate their mental and spiritual capacities.16 Women from a social background similar to Elisabeth’s, who traveled from “civilized Europe” to the “North American wilderness,” appear to have felt this sense of liberation. Elizabeth Simcoe married the governor of Upper Canada and made the journey from the Old to the New World some thirty years prior to Elisabeth von Wrangell. In her diary, she wrote about the sense of liberty from social conventions and formality that she experienced in the vast Canadian wilderness. The backwoods of Canada made her feel exhilarated and independent, bold and spontaneous.17 The English writer Susanna Moodie traveled to Upper Canada at the time von Wrangell traveled to Russian Alaska. Moodie, too, experienced a sense of liberation in the great forest, which, she felt, protected her from the world outside, from its formalities and social conventions.18 Frances Simpson, the wife of Sir George Simpson, governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, is yet another pertinent example. She was the same age as Elisabeth von Wrangell when



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she traveled by canoe from Lachine to York Factory and she, too, was awed by the magnificence of the wilderness.19 In contrast to what might be expected of a newly married woman in the early decades of the nineteenth century, Elisabeth von Wrangell did not fill her letters with contemplations about her new role as a wife and mother-to-be. Nor did she write about her marriage. In fact, she wrote hardly anything about herself, her feelings, or her private life. In this regard, she differed radically from Anna Furuhjelm, who concentrated on her role as wife and mother in her writings even while traveling. Elisabeth’s interest was in the world around her. She was particularly observant of all that was different and new. When she learned that great hordes of Siberian cattle were kept outdoors year round despite the cold winter weather, she was intrigued and remarked that “[o]ne would think this were Italy and not Siberia!”20 She was instantly curious about the way the Buryat people had removed snow from the shores of the Selenga River in order to grow corn.21 An experiment with conveying goods across Siberia on camelback aroused her interest as well. As a true Romantic, Elisabeth was not only fascinated by exotic animals, peoples, and customs, but also by the wonders of nature. She wrote excitedly about traveling through poplar forests, where they saw “tree-trunks of unbelievable height and width,” and crossing “a tremendous ice field where the ice measures one and a half arshin [i.e., c. one meter] and never melts.”22 While traveling across Siberia to the New World, Elisabeth encountered peoples and cultures foreign to her. Unlike Anna Furuhjelm, Elisabeth did not find these cultural encounters disturbing, and she was not easily upset by novel practices and norms. Rather, she expressed a genuine desire to understand other cultures. At times, she even seemed to appreciate the superiority of foreign customs over European ones. In this she resembled other nineteenth-century female European travelers, who wrote sympathetic portraits of foreigners as persons with whom they could identify rather than “as symbols of an alien ‘otherness.’”23 Some scholars have argued that women were positioned outside the male colonial discourse and therefore did not feel the need to cement the values of the “imperial gaze.”24 Others have claimed that it was these women’s subordinate position in Victorian society that made them sympathetic toward colonial subjects.25 But in fact, most nineteenth century female travelers accepted the imperial framework and expressed the cultural arrogance generated by imperialism.26 Elisabeth was no stranger to such sentiments. Her interest in Native customs and desire to understand different cultures did not prevent her from expressing her sense

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of cultural superiority. One illustrative example is when she opened a letter to her sister Toni, penned on the Okhotsk trail, by apologizing for her “confused” way of expressing herself as a result of being “surrounded by numerous Yakuts, horses, cows, and so on which, in their own way, contribute to a certain amount of noise and are the cause for my distraction.”27 Elisabeth’s attitude to Russia’s colonial subjects, as well as to the landscape, flora, and fauna of the Empire’s possessions, was also heavily influenced by the Romantic exoticism of her time. Raised in a German cultural sphere, it was only natural that she should be affected by German Romanticism. But she was also inspired by contemporary Romantic American literature and its reinvention of the image of the “noble savage,” an idealized concept of uncivilized man symbolizing the innate goodness of humankind before exposure to the corrupting influences of civilization. In English, this image first appeared in the seventeenth century in John Dryden’s heroic play The Conquest of Granada (1672), but it later became identified with the idealized figure of “nature’s gentleman,” which was an aspect of eighteenth century sentimentalism. The noble savage became a prominent character in the Romantic writings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. François-René de Chateaubriand romanticized the North-American Indian in Atala (1801), René (1802), and Les Natchez (1826), as did James Fenimore Cooper in the Leatherstocking Tales (1823–1841).28 To Elisabeth, Siberia resembled the American frontier rather than the Orient, and she used Cooper’s romanticized image of the Indian to describe both Siberian and Alaskan people.29 When settled in Sitka, Elisabeth on one occasion described in a letter to her mother an old Creole woman who came to the governor’s house to help with the sewing. She wrote about the positive influence this woman had on her little son Wilhelm, who in the presence of the Creole woman turned into a calm and contented little boy. Jokingly, Elisabeth told of her suspicion that the woman possessed special powers, despite her appearance as “a gentle soft-spoken lady,” and she added that “sometimes she reminds me of Cooper’s Leatherstocking.”30

A v isit t o Chi na Elisabeth von Wrangell’s curiosity in the foreign and exotic came to the fore during a short detour to China that she was able to undertake as part of her journey. Three months out from Saint Petersburg, Elisabeth and Ferdinand arrived in Irkutsk in September 1830. The city served as the seat of the governor-general of



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Siberia, who exercised control over the entire Eastern Siberia, including Russian America and Fort Ross in California. A branch office of the RAC was also located here, as was a division of the Russian Imperial Navy. In addition to training personnel and building ships, the fleet was assigned the task of transporting convicts across Lake Baikal to the iron and silver mines at Nerchinsk, returning with metals. Founded in 1661, Irkutsk had developed into a major commercial entrepôt due to its strategic position near the Sino-Russian border on the old trading route between Beijing and Moscow. Furs from Eastern Siberia and from the North American colonies arrived at Irkutsk for sorting. Pelts of the highest quality were sent to Saint Petersburg and Moscow, while the remainder, including furs from the American colonies, was designated for the Chinese market and sent for barter to the border town of Kiakhta. Because Russian vessels did not have free access to Canton, furs from the American colonies took the roundabout way over the port of Okhotsk, from where they were transported via Yakutsk to Irkutsk in Eastern Siberia and then to Kiakhta on the other side of Lake Baikal. Garments made from sea otter fur were particularly popular among wealthy Chinese. The principal Chinese products coming into Russia from the border town of Maimachen (Maimaicheng) were tea and silk.31 Irkutsk was not only the administrative, military, and commercial center of Siberia. In December 1825, young officers, inspired by the French and American revolutions and the constitutional movements in Europe, attempted a coup against the tsar with the purpose of transforming Russia into a constitutional monarchy.32 Their uprising failed miserably. Five of the leaders were executed and the others were sent into exile, many to the mines at Nerchinsk. Several of the exiles settled in or near Irkutsk and helped to turn the city into a center of cultural and social life. At the turn of the nineteenth century Anton Chekov dubbed it the Paris of Siberia. However, the city’s heyday began many years after Elisabeth’s visit. Nevertheless, at the time of von Wrangell’s arrival Irkutsk had a population of around 14,500 inhabitants. The city had fifty-six stone houses, the largest number in Siberia, and more than 1,670 wooden dwellings. It boasted wide boulevards, large squares, parks, beautiful churches, and merchant mansions. There was even an amateur theatre, a regional museum, a gymnasium, and a School of Medicine. The workshops for the convicts were tucked away from public sight.33 Despite this, Irkutsk failed to impress Ferdinand. “Without taking into account the depressing jails, I do not believe there could be a more miserable place on earth than this,” he wrote as they were leaving the city. He was appalled that his family had resided there for nine months without forming any attachments.

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“[W]e felt close only to the Muraviev family with whom we formed a sincere friendship.”34 For her part, Elisabeth did not write a single word about Irkutsk in her journal. In contrast, she wrote extensively about a visit to China she and Ferdinand undertook when they wintered in Irkutsk. This excursion provides many insights to Elisabeth’s notions of the exotic and offers numerous examples of her perceptions of foreign cultures and peoples. The journey to Kiakhta from Irkutsk was not without danger, but Elisabeth showed no fear despite being six months pregnant at the time. The letter she wrote to her sister from Kiakhta dealt only with the exciting journey to China. She did not even mention her pregnancy. In the middle of the Siberian winter, Elisabeth and Ferdinand embarked on a three-day journey to the twin cities of Kiakhta and Maimachen on the SinoRussian border, where they would spend eight days. The party left Irkutsk at 9 a.m. on January 22. The distance between Irkutsk and Lake Baikal was no more than forty-four miles, but the road that wound its way along the Angara River was flooded, and it took three days to cover the distance through a forest that was almost impossible to penetrate. When the travelers finally reached the shores of Lake Baikal, darkness had fallen and they had to stay the night. The plan was to travel across the frozen lake by troika, a sled drawn by three horses. At 31,722 square kilometers, Lake Baikal is the largest freshwater lake in Asia. At 1,642 meters, it is also the deepest lake in the world. Normally, the lake is icebound for about four months a year, and a thick ice layer means that heavy vehicles may cross it safely. Yet, the journey is perilous if undertaken on foot or unprotected because of the cold wind blowing unobstructed across the ice. The cracks that form in the ice due to changes in temperature between day and night constitute another danger and can sometimes open up to 4-meter gaps. Elisabeth was well aware of the dangers of the frozen lake. Explaining to her sister why they had to await daylight before continuing the journey, she wrote: “one should never risk the trip across the ice in darkness on account of the hazardous crevasses.”35 The next morning the wind had cleared the snow and left the ice a smooth surface. With the troika moving rapidly across the lake, Elisabeth greatly enjoyed the crossing, despite the danger of “crevasses.” Having arrived safely on the other side, they spent the night in Verkhne-Udinsk (Ulan-Ude) at the house of a merchant’s widow. The next day they continued on the frozen Selenga River and arrived in Troitsko-Savsk at the outskirts of Kiakhta “rather the worse for wear,” as Elisabeth wrote to her sister. This part of the city was primarily inhabited by officials, whereas the population of Kiakhta proper was principally made up of merchants. The von Wrangells were accommodated at the RAC’s bookkeeper’s



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house. After lunch the next day, they drove in to Kiakhta to pay their respects to the commissioner. By the time they left his house, it was growing late and the gates to Maimachen were soon to be closed. Elisabeth watched as groups of Chinese were heading for the gate and was struck by their beautiful attire. “Their apparel is very handsome and most distinguished . . . Their clothes appear to have been cut from the richest of silks and velvets and the entire effect is most agreeable.” However, this distant encounter was not enough to still her curiosity. She wanted to meet these foreign people in person, and she was delighted when an invitation to dinner at a Chinese merchant’s house arrived soon after. Unfortunately, the dinner was postponed, and instead Elisabeth had to attend a long and rather dull evening at the Russian director of customs. All of Kiakhta’s high society had been invited to entertain the new governor of Russian America and his wife, but none managed to make much of an impression on Elisabeth. Writing to her sister, Elisabeth ridiculed Kiakhta’s beau monde, where “there was not a lady without a large hat decorated with what looked like an entire flowerbed.” She used a similar tone the next day when she described the family members of their hostess as “numerous corpulent ladies, wives of merchants with scarves covering their heads.” Despite having grown up in a small rural community, Elisabeth apparently found Kiakhta very provincial. The fact that the town’s elite was made up mainly of merchants no doubt made it more difficult for the aristocratic young lady to endure her stay.36 The following day it was finally time for Elisabeth’s long-awaited visit to China. Dawn had hardly broken when Elisabeth made her first exotic encounter. Hearing shouts in the street, she ran to the window to find a squadron of Buryats, a Siberian Mongolic people, lining up outside her window, dressed in sheepskin furs and matching caps and armed with bows and arrows. This unexpected encounter was far more stimulating to Elisabeth than dinner with provincial Russian ladies. “What a thrilling sight!” she wrote “[T]hey made such a fascinating spectacle on their shaggy little horses. In contrast, their leaders . . . looked extremely neat and were smartly dressed.”37 Already at the border Elisabeth encountered Chinese culture when a group of “masked and weirdly dressed dancers and musicians producing a cacophony unfamiliar to our ears—imitating music” took the lead, marching in front of them. Once across the border to China, Elisabeth was mesmerized by everything that was new and different. Walking down the streets of Maimachen, she noticed the little colorful pennants that were hanging between the low houses. “These pennants are constantly aflutter in the wind—which creates quite an

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exotic effect,” she wrote to her sister. In typical fashion, she then added a remark that took some of the edge off the strangeness: “[The] method resembles the way we decorate the streets at home with lanterns.”38 When they reached the fusa, or trading house, of their Chinese host, the Sergouchei,39 the Russian group was invited into his house. Elisabeth was surprised to find the interior of the house in semi-darkness, but soon realized that this was due to the windows being made of paper rather than glass. A table had been laid for the ladies in a small room separated from the gentlemen’s room by a low wall. The table was laden with all kinds of sweetmeat, which to Elisabeth’s astonishment were placed directly on the wooden surface, without a tablecloth. When the Russian visitors had helped themselves to refreshments, they were invited to visit some of the temples close to the house. Each temple was devoted to a specific deity. Elisabeth observed that offerings of mutton, various breads, and cakes were exhibited in every possible place. Apparently, these gifts to the gods and goddesses were in varying stages of decay. “As you can appreciate,” she wrote to her sister, “this hardly contributed to an inviting odor.” Much more amusing was “a small idol” which allegedly had the ability to ferret out any family secrets or feuds, which he then passed on to superior deities. “You should have seen the sacrifices in front of it,” she wrote. “They were by far the most abundant!”40 Although playful, this remark reveals Elisabeth’s interest in human behavior. It seemed to her that the idol and the offerings showed that Chinese people were not so very different from Europeans. East and West, the urge to keep secrets was equally strong. On returning to their host, Elisabeth was treated to another repast of savory cold courses, “which the Chinese call appetizers.” The dishes were prettily arranged on saucers but so miniscule that they made the table look like “a doll’s table.” Pork, Elisabeth observed, was the major ingredient. The appetizers were followed by dumplings with sauces, as well as ragouts prepared from various kinds of meat, fish, crab, crayfish, and vegetables. To the surprise of the Russians, soup was served last, to indicate the end of the dinner. “There were nineteen of them—some absolutely delicious!” Elisabeth wrote, singling out the pheasant soup as her particular favorite. The only course she did not enjoy was the dumplings, which Elisabeth compared to Russian piroshky (i.e., pasties), and pel’meni (i.e., a form of ravioli), and found the least exotic of the courses. Tiny saucers with “a very nice vinegar,” presumably some kind of dipping sauce, were placed in front of everyone, “much the way we arrange the place settings at home.” She was impressed by the way the Chinese managed to eat with two



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small chopsticks, which they “manipulated with great skill,” while the Russian guests were given forks. According to Chinese custom, they were invited to watch an open air opera after dinner. This turned out to be something out of the ordinary. The actors were dressed up in fantastic costumes, but their singing sounded shrill in the ears of the Russian guests, and they sang until they did not have any voice left. Elisabeth noted that the Chinese audience, nevertheless, appreciated the singing. “[T]he Chinese seemed to be most impressed, nodding their heads and clicking their tongues in appreciation.” The orchestra was located on stage instead of in a pit. In the rear were two coal braziers that the musicians used to brew tea. In her usual humorous tone, Elisabeth described how the actors, when they were not needed on stage, did not “remain idle but slurp their tea hurriedly with their musician friends. When they return at a given time they hold forth, with their throats duly fortified.” While the other Russian guests were not particularly pleased, Elisabeth found herself completely enthralled by the unusual performance. Though she did not much appreciate the singing, attending a theatre performance under open skies at a temperature of twenty degrees below Fahrenheit was a strange and extraordinary spectacle. At midnight, the party returned to Russia, exhausted by all the new and unusual impressions.41 The next day they had lunch with Mr. Kofatchen, a Chinese merchant of Kiakhta. The menu was similar to the day before, but it was much more to Elisabeth’s taste. She also appreciated that they were served wine instead of tchaussen, an alcoholic beverage made from grapes, which they had drunk the night before. To the surprise of the Chinese, the Russians had had to ask their host for water, something that apparently was unheard of. “No one here can remotely comprehend how Russians can drink water, when even a gulp of it would disagree with them.”42 Here was a case when the Chinese found Russian customs just as incomprehensible as the Russians found some of the mores of the Chinese.43 In between the courses the Russian guests were entertained by dancers and musicians. Elisabeth admired the dancers’ ability to move in such a small space without touching each other, but she did not care for the drummer, who in her opinion played rather too enthusiastically, which became “a bit much for our ears.” After the meal, they watched a Chinese man dressed up as a woman, dancing with ribbons accompanied by a balalaika. Elisabeth commented on his performance in deadpan fashion saying “This was most unusual.” Yet, she did not condemn or ridicule his performance in any way.44

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Before the return to Irkutsk, there was yet a final opportunity to savor Chinese culture. The commissioner of frontiers at Kiakhta had invited their Chinese acquaintances to a luncheon. Elisabeth was delighted, and her report again displays her interest in foreign people and customs. She noted that the Chinese guests were very relaxed and of cheerful disposition. They conversed happily in broken Russian, or in Elisabeth’s own words, “pidgin Russian.” The questions they asked the Russians were, in her opinion, extremely naïve and their answers and remarks frank. When a toast was proposed to the governor of Russian America and his wife, Kofatchen asked in a friendly manner if Elisabeth “was not a bit young for such an honor?! Yet,” Elisabeth wrote, “he emptied his glass to my health without leaving a drop.” For some reason, she found this episode highly amusing, but otherwise the Chinese did not strike her as comical in any way. To the contrary, she seems to have found that compared to Europeans, and perhaps above all to Russians, the Chinese had many merits. They were never offensive or annoying, not even when inebriated. “They will never forget themselves or become loudmouthed—and that is more than can be said about Russians or Western Europeans from similar backgrounds!” They were also very neat and orderly compared to Russians. When another merchant, Tchofatchen, invited them for lunch and showed them his house, Elisabeth found all the rooms both attractive and comfortable. As Elisabeth recalled afterward, everything was “extremely tidy and well kept, leaving one most favorably impressed, especially so after just having crossed Russia!”45 Having found Chinese manners and company in many ways preferable to the Russians, it must have been with heavy hearts that Elisabeth and Ferdinand returned to Irkutsk, where they remained until late spring.

I nt o t he wil d with a chi ld: The j ou r n e y fr om Ir k u tsk to Yakuts k On April 23, 1830, Elisabeth gave birth to her first child, Marie Louise Natalie Dorothea, or Müs’chen as she was called by her happy and doting parents.46 In late May, when the ice on the river Lena had broken, Elisabeth and Ferdinand took leave of Irkutsk and set off by carriage toward Yakutsk with their four-weekold baby girl. They were accompanied by their servants and their physician, Dr. Meyer. Despite Ferdinand’s complaints about social life in Irkutsk, several of their acquaintances from the town accompanied them as far as Kachuga Landing,



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located about 186 miles north of Irkutsk, to see them off. On account of the baby, they had to make frequent stops and did not reach the first overnight lodging until midnight. By that time, the whole company was cold to the bones. Fortunately, they had made prior arrangements to stay with a peasant family and were served “a generous and tasty dinner.”47 It took them three days to traverse the wooded land between Irkutsk and Kachuga Landing at the headwaters of the Lena. In springtime, Kachuga Landing was a very busy place. Merchants arrived with goods from Irkutsk bound for Yakutsk and beyond. The government sent goods from here to Yakutsk, Okhotsk, and Kamchatka. The RAC dispatched necessities to Russian America.48 Trading goods worth almost a million rubles arrived annually to Kachuga Landing and were sent on flat-bottomed barges down the river. It was on one of these river vessels that the von Wrangells and their party would float the 1,650 miles downriver to Yakutsk. Elisabeth was very pleased with this means of transportation. “You cannot imagine just how pleasant this mode of travel is!” she wrote to her parents. A river barge was much more comfortable than a cramped wagon, especially when traveling with a baby. The rainwater dripping through the roof was of course something of a drawback, but the leaks were soon sealed and Elisabeth, always positive, had no doubt the seals would hold.49 The Lena River winds its way between mountainous and wooded shores, and Elisabeth cherished the mighty river and the beautiful scenery slowly passing by. The serene, majestic wilderness affected both her and Ferdinand, and they felt more relaxed. Taking care of the baby on the first leg of the journey had made Elisabeth exhausted and irritable. She now felt invigorated and more her old self again. She tasted reindeer milk (bartered from the Evenk, a Tungusic people who were successful reindeer herders in the Baikal region) for the first time and found it delicious.50 Ferdinand happily watched his “beloved, excellent wife and our dear child.” A year ago, he could scarcely have imagined that he would one day float down the Lena with a young wife and newborn child. But his delight was clouded by feelings of guilt. Bringing his family to Alaska exposed them to danger. He felt he thereby failed to perform his part as a dutiful husband and father.51 Elisabeth, however, did not worry about safety. Her love of adventure, her curiosity, and her fascination with foreign cultures cured her from bouts of homesickness and let her thoroughly enjoy the journey. One year after her departure from Estonia, she wrote from the riverboat to her parents: “Yesterday, one year ago we left Reval! At the first thought of it I wondered, whether writing to you could be accomplished without shedding a few tears (forgive me!). Then I

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realized that no matter what I do, in one way or another, my sweet little daughter seems to be affected. Consequently, I desisted.”52 On June 12, they landed at Olekminsk on the left bank of the Lena River to replenish supplies. Olekminsk was a trading center on the river route 405 miles southwest of Yakutsk. The von Wrangells had arrived just in time for the annual market. For someone fascinated by the exotic, this was a thrilling event. Yakuts, Tungus and Russians were milling about, and lots of goods were on display. Ferdinand reported that “Lisinka [Elisabeth] could not see enough of this lively trading picture—so rare in this part of Siberia.” Four days later, on June 16 at 8 a.m., they reached Yakutsk, which is situated on a tributary of the Lena in a barren flat plain, some 5,000 miles east of Moscow. The commissioner of the RAC, Mr. Shergin, met them and kindly placed his home at their disposal. Madame Rosenberg, the wife of a company official, who would accompany them to Okhotsk, was also there. Rosenberg’s husband had had to leave for Okhotsk in a hurry. She longed for companionship and was naturally very pleased to see Elisabeth.53 Despite the warm welcome they received in Yakutsk, both Elisabeth and Ferdinand formed a very negative impression of the town. In Ferdinand’s words, it had “all the character of the cold and gloomy north. The streets are wide, but the houses and cottages are poor in appearance and are surrounded by tall wooden fences . . . [T]here is not a green tree or bush to be seen.”54 The town had about 4,000 inhabitants and consisted of some 500 houses, five churches, and a convent. Despite its vital importance to the trade of interior Siberia, the von Wrangells found the town to be in a deplorable state. The streets were in disrepair and the bridges unsafe. It was difficult to get hold of the simplest thing. Ferdinand put this situation down to the incompetence of the local administration.55 Elisabeth described Yakutsk as the most miserable place she had ever seen. “The houses are all built of wood, many of them look dreadfully dilapidated and the streets are full of refuse.”56 Though there was a lack of supplies in this Siberian trading center, gossip and slander flourished. Elisabeth’s letter from Yakutsk dated June 23, 1830, contains her first reference to breastfeeding. To Anna Furuhjelm, who would assume the role of governor’s wife thirty years later, breastfeeding was a moral obligation and an expression of maternal love, intimately linked to the essence of womanhood. Not so to Elisabeth, who discussed it in medical terms, arguing that breastfeeding was a means to prevent infant mortality. She was convinced that the reason for the extremely high infant mortality in Irkutsk and Yakutsk was that in both cities all mothers, whether young or old, rich or poor, fed their babies with cow’s



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milk from a cattle horn. Here, then, was a local custom she did not embrace, but interpreted as a sign of backwardness. In contrast, she considered herself to be an exceptionally progressive mother. “The fact that I am nursing the baby myself caused a sensation,” she told her parents with evident pride. “Nobody here has ever heard of or seen anything like it!”57 Elisabeth’s attitude to breastfeeding reflects changing perceptions of infant care in the early nineteenth century. Previously undertaken only by lower-class women, breastfeeding now became a natural part of European middle class womanhood.58 The von Wrangells spent nine days in Yakutsk in preparation for the last and most difficult stage of the journey across Siberia to Okhotsk: The YakutskOkhotsk trail. In addition to the usual preparations—repacking and obtaining supplies and travel clothes—they also practiced riding on horseback. The Yakutsk-Okhotsk trail was about 700 miles long and could only be traversed on horseback, preferably in the summer, due to the difficult terrain and unstable climate. Steep mountains and mosquito-filled bogs had to be crossed and fastflowing rapids forded.59 The trail itself consisted of a narrow path where not even two horses could walk side by side and the vegetation was so dense that “the rider has to brush aside the branches hanging from either side and from above, or else he will be caught, hence one is continuously flailing one’s arms about in order to plough one’s way through the brush.”60 According to a traveler contemporary with Elisabeth, Irishman Peter Dobell, “the roads were in many places so slippery the horses could hardly keep on their legs.” Like Ferdinand von Wrangell, Peter Dobell traveled with wife and daughter and was very concerned for their safety. “The reader will readily imagine what must have been my feelings at the situation of a female on horseback and our daughter of eight years,” he remarked in his journal. The idea of women travelers on the arduous and dangerous roads of Siberia made Governor Simpson of the Hudson’s Bay Company “marvel that delicately bred females could endure so much of pain and fatigue.” In addition to the notorious terrain, other dangers were lurking in the impenetrable forests in the shape of bears, robbers, and runaway convicts.61 During this time, Elisabeth was not quite her cheerful self. She found Yakutsk very depressing and parochial, but she was also affected by the demands of motherhood, which made her tired, anxious, and less positive than usual. Normally fond of company, she now lacked the energy to make new acquaintances and used her infant daughter as an excuse. In a letter to her parents her characteristic good humor and playful irony were noticeable absent. She was clearly worried about the trip: “By the time this letter reaches you we should have arrived in

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Okhotsk—with God’s help—and we shall know just how pleasant or unpleasant the journey will have been. In looking ahead I feel rather apprehensive that the latter might be the case—in view of the poor baby!”62 Shortly before they set off on the hazardous journey, Elisabeth wrote a few lines that for the first time revealed a tinge of homesickness: “The rain has stopped and in one-and-a-half hours we shall depart. I wonder what it is like in Reval today?” It is only when she turns to a description of her maid Annushka, looking like a goblin in her colorful Siberian travel suit, that Elisabeth’s usual sense of humor comes through.63

On t he Ok h otsk trai l Once Elisabeth was out on the Okhotsk trail, it seems as though all the gloom, fatigue, and negativity were swept away. The tone of her letter to her sister, Toni, from the first staging post 26.5 miles east of Yakutsk is yet again optimistic and humorous. “Although this is already the third day of our nomadic life . . . you should not miss out on anything,” she promised her sister, “for I am as determined as ever not to cut off the tale about our epic journey before having pulled my left foot out of the stirrup in Okhotsk!”64 Elisabeth was clearly pleased to be on the road again. The journey had been delayed by a day due to a heavy downpour, but on the morning of June 25 the company set off. The traveling party consisted of nine people: the Wrangell family; Dr. Mayer; Madame Rosenberg and her maid; Elisabeth’s maid Annushka; the child’s nursemaid, Maria Ivanovna; and a washer woman. The horses and their guides, all Yakuts, waited for them on the other side of the Lena River. There the baggage was repacked and weighed so that each horse would be loaded with 180 pounds each. Elisabeth was full of admiration for the unspoiled countryside where they had put up camp. Her letters painted the scene of an exotic picture. The wide river with its small green islets, their two tents with their luggage piled in the foreground, the horses, the tents of the Yakuts—the yurts—scattered on the plain with the mountain range that they would soon have to cross as the dramatic backdrop. In the middle of this picture, the travelers were “stalking about in the strangest of get-ups.” Ferdinand wore a jacket that was “dreadfully old fashioned” with grey trousers tucked into Yakut boots (saaris) that covered the length of his legs. Dr. Mayer resembled “a summer bird in a white linen jacket and matching trousers and saaris just like Ferdinand’s.” Rosenberg and Elisabeth had short jackets made of English leather,



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breeches of the same material, and saaris reaching to the knees. Rosenberg’s maid wore a similar outfit, made from nankeen, a pale yellow fabric of durable cotton originally made at Nanjing. Maria Ivanovna, the child’s nurse, was wrapped in a long, wide, black cape and looked “like a widow.” The washerwoman “cut a priceless figure.” She was dressed up as a boy in blue nankeen trousers and a tight, short jacket. Finally, Annushka, Elisabeth’s own maid, was dressed in breeches of blue nankeen, a green cotton shirt with slits at the sides, and a cape. “She reminds one partly of a green frog, partly of a parrot.”65 Loading the horses was a complicated affair, and Elisabeth was very impressed with the Yakuts’ skillful handling of the animals. “[T]he strength and skill of these people is amazing,” she marveled. Bringing a baby on the journey obviously made things more complicated. But as usual, Elisabeth tried to see the comical side of things. In the letter to her sister, she described the beginning of the journey as an amusing spectacle. First, she wrote, the horses reared and bucked when they tried to load the luggage, making everything fall off. When the horses had freed themselves from their load, they ran away and the Yakuts had to bring them back. They next selected the calmest horse to drag the little cart with mother and child and tried to harness it, but the horse fled as soon as it caught sight of the bars on each side of the “monstrous cart” behind it, and all of a sudden the cart was overturned and lost its wheels. It was almost 8 p.m. when they were ready to move on. By now, Müs’chen was howling, but to no effect. The company had to move on. Because it was clearly not safe to use the cart, the von Wrangells came to an agreement with the Yakut interpreter that he would carry Mary Louise. He mounted a calm, peaceful horse and the baby was put in a leather basket with a small canopy and straps that could be attached to the rider. They had hardly left before they had their first scare. Ferdinand’s horse broke free. Elisabeth describes how it was “racing wildly toward the child’s horse, which, thank God, continued lumbering at its slow pace.”66 When they were finally on their way, Elisabeth suffered another shock. She heard a scream behind her, and when she turned around she was horror-struck to see how Müs’chen’s horse was about to sink into a swamp. Later, Elisabeth recalled that it was Dr. Meyer, who “raced over instantly, returning with the comforting news that the baby was—sound asleep without ever having noticed any commotion!” At the foot of a mountain the party had to cross, the Yakut interpreter decided that it would be safer to carry Müs’chen on foot. He dismounted and led the caravan up the mountain. Traveling through dense fog, they finally arrived at their campsite at 11 p.m. only to discover that neither tents nor packhorses had

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followed. Camping under a tree beside a large fire, the party awaited the arrival of the packhorses, which caught up with them at 5 a.m. The horses had continued to throw off their load, and the entire supply of salt, sugar, and coffee had fallen into the river and was soaked through. Nevertheless, Elisabeth’s account of her trials and tribulations was as cheerful as always. She told how the sugar and coffee had blended into a “lovely mess” with the sugar looking black and repulsive and noted that thankfully “we do not pay much attention to outward appearances here.”67 Yet despite attempts to put a brave face on things, it is obvious that Elisabeth found this part of the journey very difficult. The initial optimism she had felt when they first left Yakutsk soon faded. The burdens of motherhood affected her carefree nature and cheerful mood, and she became sensitive and serious. No doubt, fatigue was part of the reason. But Elisabeth also felt the responsibility for a new little life, a person, whose temper she could not control. Writing to her sister, Elisabeth explained that “[i]n addition to the nervous strain which cannot be helped at the beginning of such a long and trying journey, there was the distress of our Little One. At first, I had been unable to calm her. Then, after the sudden shock caused by the horse I could restrain my tears no longer. Swiftly I mounted in order to follow the child and the rest of the caravan which, in the meantime, had moved ahead considerably.”68 Ferdinand also noted that circumstances had changed. In his journal, he remarked that “the baby cried so bitterly” and that Elisabeth was in tears when they were leaving.69 This seems highly uncharacteristic of his wife, who consistently portrayed herself as a brave, strong, and carefree woman, quite the opposite of an anxious young mother prone to crying. In contrast to Anna Furuhjelm, Elisabeth did not describe motherhood in a language of marvels and wonders. In fact, she did not write much about motherhood, or about her daughter, at all. Nevertheless, she was clearly enchanted by Müs’chen. However, to Elisabeth motherhood was not an expression of true womanhood. It was not the essence of being a woman. Rather she saw it as a task among others that she had to perform because she was a woman, while the rest of her life continued as normal. Motherhood was not supposed to affect her or her life. Hence, she regarded her inability to calm her baby as a personal failure, especially because Müs’chen’s screaming upset the rest of the company. It could not have been easy for any mother to keep a baby satisfied on a journey such as this. Already on the second day, Elisabeth wrote that Müs’chen had been “very naughty.” “I had changed her four times, which is no pleasant task on the ground on pine-cones and tree-branches; at last she cried so much that I had



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to carry her on my arm for one verst until, we finally arrived at the post.”70 At this post Elisabeth drank a lot of kumyss, a drink made from mare’s milk which the Yakuts drank before going on hunting or fishing expeditions. She made a point of stressing how quickly she regained her strength, as if to counter any sign of weakness. Although a nanny accompanied the von Wrangells on the trip, it is evident that she did not provide much help, at least not in the early stages of the journey. Elisabeth nursed her daughter herself, changed her, and carried her. The fact that she told her parents that she had to write her letter quickly “so as not to miss out on this free moment while the Little One is asleep” is further evidence of how busy the baby kept her.71 Sometimes Elisabeth was simply too tired to write at all. Never the one to complain, it still cannot have been easy to maintain her cheerful and humorous persona in a state of physical exhaustion. Some days the company rode for hours upon hours on rocky and boggy roads. Sometimes they climbed mountains on paths of loose pebbles and stones. At other times they crossed perilous bridges in poor state of repair that could only be crossed on foot. The campsites were often inhospitable, damp and infested with “bloodthirsty animals” (i.e., mosquitoes). On sunny days, the heat could be unbearable. At night it could be extraordinarily cold. On some mornings there was a thin layer of ice on their tents. When she was not too tired, Elisabeth could appreciate the beauty around her. One day they rode through magnificent forested mountains, with splendid views of small lakes and meadows covered with the most glorious flowers. A couple of days later, Elisabeth described a stretch of the path as “an avenue formed by nature” closely hugging the steep shore. “You may not find anything more beautiful in the loveliest of parks,” she insisted. The vistas and phenomena encountered in the untamed wilderness appealed to her more than the cultivated and manicured parklands she was accustomed to in Europe.72 Ferdinand tried to help out by accommodating their travel arrangements to the baby’s needs. He hired a Yakut whose task it was to carry a bearskin and four poles that turned into a panoply when Elisabeth changed Müs’chen’s diapers, which had been “so very unpleasant in rainy weather.” Next, he changed the company’s mealtimes. A hearty breakfast was substituted for the midday break in order to save time and allow the party to reach their campsite earlier. This arrangement saved the travelers from pitching their tents on ground made damp from the evening dew. Time was also saved by making the party take impromptu meal breaks when Müs’chen stopped the caravan with her crying. After one month on the road, little Mary Louise had less need for sleep and greater need for play and

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entertainment. When forced to sit still in her basket she would scream dreadfully forcing the expedition to make constant stops to try to calm her. Ferdinand ordered a kachka, a Siberian cart, made for Elisabeth, Müs’chen, and the nurse, allowing the child to move about more freely. The kachka proved a great success. A much more content Müs’chen now allowed the caravan to proceed with fewer interruptions.73 Aside from the baby’s needs, the young parents also had to worry about her security. One verst from the post station Porotov, where they had planned to eat and rest, Elisabeth rode ahead with Ferdinand to see to the arrangements at the post. Müs’chen was left behind with the nanny and two servants. Suddenly the nanny’s riderless horse caught up with a horrified Elisabeth and Ferdinand. Leaving his wife at the post stop, Ferdinand turned back on his own. Elisabeth was left “in the most dreadful state of anxiety” and decided “then and there firmly,” to always remain with her child and “never to leave it for a moment alone.”74 To her great relief Müs’chen was unhurt, although the nanny had broken her arm. The packhorse that carried Müs’chen’s basket had stepped into a wasps’ nest and reared. Aghast, the nanny had jumped down from her horse to help but caught her arm in the stirrup. As Elisabeth became more attuned to motherhood and learned how to comfort her daughter, much of her natural cheerfulness returned. Taking after her mother’s lively nature, Müs’chen was much happier when not confined to her basket but allowed to roam more freely in the kachka. Elisabeth no longer had to blame herself for delaying the party because of her child’s needs. Her letters again began to contain jokes and playful irony. Informing her parents that their granddaughter was in high spirits, she wrote: “Müs’chen is in good health and is most charming—at least the former applies to us too!” On another occasion, she described how Dr. Meyer went off hunting wild duck while the rest of the company anticipated “a splendid roast.” However, after a short period Dr. Meyer returned “yelling and lamenting pitifully, for he had been attacked viciously by swarms of mosquitoes which infest this area. Where now was our roast?!” Her irony also extended to the Yakuts. When one of the horses accidentally drowned swimming across a river, Elisabeth wrote that this was “to the great joy of the Yakut, who immediately made plans to eat it.”75 About the swamps they had to cross, she wrote that they “are keeping their promise. They do all their best possible in the way of bottomless mud.” Often the mud in the valleys was beyond description, and the horses sometimes sank up to their bellies, which did not prevent Elisabeth from remarking on the “delightfully” boggy roads. Alluding



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to the The Tales of the Baron von Münchhausen, she said she wished that like the Baron she could extract herself and her horse from a deep bog by pulling up her own braid.76 Elisabeth had a penchant for heroes and was readily impressed by acts of bravery, such as people crossing a rapid river in a small and fragile vessel. In contrast, she had little sympathy for people she considered cowards. Even little Müs’chen was described as something of a hero when upon reaching a mountain summit the travelers were attacked by a fierce wind and strong rain and yet Müs’chen was “sleeping sweetly in her basket oblivious to wind or weather.” Elisabeth herself did not hesitate to take risks. Nor did she fear the unknown. Instead, she approached the world with bold curiosity and an open mind. A striking example of this attitude is when she was given a pair of boots and told that they were waterproof. She immediately walked straight out into deep water to see for herself whether or not this was true. It was not, she remarked, “for the water simply rushed into them.”77 Pride was another character trait that Elisabeth cherished and associated with bravery and courage. She spoke in lyrical terms about a meeting with a Yakut prince and his two sons. “All three were dressed in their best finery and escorted us with solemn expressions, their faces full of importance.” Elisabeth’s depiction of these Yakuts and their dignity, courage, and perseverance has a parallel in contemporary favorable images of the North American Indian as “noble savage.” Like the conflicting images of the Indian in North American discourse, seen in the work of authors like James Fennimore Cooper, with which she was familiar, Elisabeth showed an ambivalent attitude toward the Yakuts.78 On the one hand, she admired their pride, equestrian skills, and perseverance in the hunt, when they were able to survive without food for more than a week. On the other hand, she sometimes thought of them as children and referred to them as “such surprisingly timid people.”79 But she never ascribed to the Yakuts such derogatory traits that were associated with the discourse on the “ignoble savage,” such as cruelty, vanity, indolence, improvidence, thievery, passion, lechery, and superstition. Nor did she subscribe to views common in colonial discourses on indigenous peoples that identified “uncivilized” and “repulsive” habits in order to establish the superiority of the European way of life, such as uncleanliness, primitive cooking, and sexual promiscuity.80 One day on the Okhotsk trail, a group of Russian convicts caught up with and passed by the company. Elisabeth described the prisoners in a rather disengaged and impersonal way, but when she found out that a Yakut woman, who

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rode behind the convicts, had chosen to follow her husband into exile, she felt strongly for her. To Elisabeth, this woman was a Romantic heroine, who had made enormous sacrifices to be with her beloved husband and who refused to abandon him to his fate. In addition to a five-year-old son accompanying her on the difficult journey, the woman had a little daughter whom she had to leave behind in Yakutsk. On top of that, the woman was pregnant, and the only thing they had to eat was zwieback, a kind of dried bread similar to rusks. Perhaps Elisabeth saw the parallel between the fate of the convict’s wife and the wives of the Decembrists, the young Russian officers who conspired against the tsar and were sentenced to exile in Siberia. Some of the Decembrist wives had selflessly gone into exile with their husbands, leaving family, wealth, and even children behind. Sacrificing everything for their devotion to their husbands, they came to be regarded as Romantic heroes.81 Elisabeth’s reflections differed from Ferdinand’s description of the same woman. To him, the convict’s wife was no heroine, but a victim and the object of sympathy. They also had different opinions of the exiles. Ferdinand apparently felt sorry for the convicts too. He noticed that they had to go barefoot through swamps and icy streams, and climb mountains with nothing to eat except zwieback. To Ferdinand it was “impossible to see these unfortunates, who are exposed to all sorts of sufferings, without having one’s heart wrenched.” Elisabeth, in contrast, was much more disengaged and took a practical interest in the group. She noticed how the convicts were tied together to iron bars but expressed no sympathy for their fate. Elisabeth’s Romantic ideals are also evident in her passion for the wild and dramatic. Given half a chance, she gave a dramatic twist to the company’s many ordeals. To be sure, crossing a river in strong winds was dangerous, but Elisabeth turned the crossing into high drama: “Two of our people got into an extremely tippable Yakut boat that would not be safe under the best of circumstances. In addition, these high waves and strong winds could well be fatal. They were being heaved and tossed about and finally reached the opposite shore safe and sound after having faced the greatest of dangers.” Another dramatic occasion she recounted was when the party rode through twenty-eight torrential streams (she counted them), which, after a rainstorm, were transformed into a series of cascades. Wading through deep streams with strong currents Elisabeth observed in her usual cheerful manner that “it would not have taken much for me to be pitched into the waters for an undignified bath.” “As we reached the most torrential part of the stream,” she continued, “my horse stumbled and jumped over



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a log we had not noticed, so that I could barely hang on. I put up gladly with the jolt I had received, since it had saved me from a dunking somewhat too cold for my liking.” At one place, it was so bad that “a minor slip of the horse would inevitably have ended in death.”82 On one occasion, the strap on the kachka was torn. This could have ended in a disaster, something Elisabeth was not late to point out. Had this happened “while fording a river it could have caused serious concern for our poor Müs’chen,” she remarked. Another constant danger was brown bears, fierce animals that were numerous along the track and frequently attacked convoys of horses.83 When they entered a leg of the trail known to be full of bears, the company fastened an enormous bell to the stirrups of the guide in order to frighten them off. Unsurprisingly Elisabeth was disappointed when they did not come across a single bear track. Always fond of drama, she was thrilled to hear that a group of convicts had escaped and attacked a merchant. They had robbed him and beaten him half to death, she reported to her family back in Estonia, adding that “[i]t would not be particularly pleasant if these ’friends’ decided to pay us a visit.”84

At t he e nd of the trai l No matter how much Elisabeth seems to have appreciated drama and danger, she was grateful to finally arrive in Okhotsk at the end of the trail. At the time, Okhotsk was an important port situated around 6,000 miles east of Saint Petersburg and 6,000 miles west of Sitka, or Novo-Arkhangel’sk. Because its port was ice-bound outside the months of June, July, and August, it was a busy place in the summer. Since 1740, Okhotsk had been the only port on the Siberian seaboard to serve shipments to and from the Russian colonies. Nevertheless, the town left a lot to be desired. Its climate was unhealthy. There were persistent food shortages due to its remoteness and lack of communications. Furthermore, the town had a bad reputation owing to its transient population of fur traders, sailors, convicts, and adventurers.85 Yet none of this seems to have bothered Elisabeth. No doubt she was relieved to have safely arrived at the end of the trail. In her journal, she wrote that “[m]iraculously, heaven saved her [Müs’chen] from all sorts of unavoidable evil.” Only now did she realize just how much she had worried about her baby daughter. Only now could she admit that it “was not always too pleasant traveling with the child.” This was also the first time that Elisabeth expressed pride in her husband, or at least spoke of him in words of admiration.

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It was not his kind heart that made the greatest impression, however, a trait that both Margaretha Etholén and Anna Furuhjelm valued highly in their respective husbands. Elisabeth admired her husband for his perseverance, his leadership skills, his inexhaustible enthusiasm, and his scientific involvement. Despite the difficult journey, he had managed to find sufficient time and enthusiasm to gather a collection of Siberian plants and make geognostic observations.86 Indeed, kindness was never a trait Elisabeth had much time for. She wished her daughter to be determined and strong-minded. Thus, she believed it was a good thing that Müs’chen knew her wants. To Elisabeth, this was above all a sign of character.87 Later on in Sitka, she wrote to her parents that their granddaughter was growing both in body and in mind. But rather than developing into a sweettempered little girl, to the greatest wish of many nineteenth-century mothers, Elisabeth told her parents that Müs’chen was becoming an independent, charming little girl, with lots of character, well liked by everyone despite her temperament. Like her mother, Müs’chen loved large gatherings of people.88 Having reached Okhotsk, Ferdinand concluded the journal he had kept of the forty days spent on the Okhotsk trail.89 It differs from Elisabeth’s in several ways. While her account is full of drama, humor, and Romantic ideas, his description is prosaic and not even remotely funny. Ferdinand emphasized how tired they were when for several days they rode for ten hours without break through mud, over mountains, and across deep streams. He mentioned the path between the rivers Amcha och Aldan as particularly difficult. The trail passed through several muddy swamps and over bridges in a terrible state of dilapidation. Without any attempt at humor or drama, Ferdinand stated that “[a]t various stages we were forced to travel for several versts on foot . . . having to jump from one log to the next. Whenever an inexperienced horse slipped with its legs between two logs into the bottomless mud below, everyone had to rush to its aid . . . In addition . . . there were the aggressive swarms of mosquitoes which even at night would not leave us in peace.” Only in his account of the surrounding landscape is it possible to sense the Romantic in him. One such example is his description of how, when standing on deck as their lighter barge “meandered between the mountains and densely forested shores” of the river Lena, he felt “how comforting and meaningful was the voice of the quiet, serene and majestic wilderness!”90 Ferdinand took on the role of protecting “the weak, defenseless women” in the company. Like Elisabeth, he described the difficulties of fastening Müs’chen’s basket and her terrible crying. In contrast to his wife, Ferdinand stressed how it was the women who could not cope with these trials, whereas he himself had



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been relatively unperturbed. “During the entire period the child cried bitterly, its mother, the nursemaid and the rest of the women were in tears, so that my heart weighed heavily.” The image conveyed here is of a responsible father and husband, who is always in control of the situation. Ferdinand assumed the masculine role of protector of the women and the child, or “the innocent travelers,” as he called them. Above all, he felt responsible for his young wife. Thus, he was much more concerned about Elisabeth’s comfort than she was herself. When they set out on the difficult part of the journey from Irkutsk, he could not look at his wife and their baby without feeling pangs of strong emotions, “envisioning an unknown future fraught with many dangers.” Ferdinand often doubted whether he had done right in bringing his wife and four-month-old baby on a journey so far from home and into uncivilized regions. He felt he was trifling with the lives of his loved ones in order to enjoy the tranquility of family life. Was this really what a dutiful husband and father should do?91 Hence, while Elisabeth was busy describing the drama and danger of the journey, generally avoiding the themes of wife and motherhood, Ferdinand was preoccupied with his paternalistic role of husband and father. Even though Ferdinand presented himself as the guardian of the weaker sex, he seems to have had precious little patience with their “weaknesses,” and he praised Elisabeth for her stoicism. He singled her out among the other women, whom he found intolerable, emphasizing that “[e]xcept for Lisinka all other females were absolutely unbearable.” One of them complained that the saddle was too hard, another did not like horses, a third demanded that her horse should be led by a guide, and a fourth was just generally dissatisfied with everything for no particular reason. It is through Ferdinand’s account that we learn about some of the difficulties that Elisabeth faced with such cheer and good humor. He was the one who noted how taxing it was for Elisabeth to constantly dismount from the horse to breastfeed or change diapers. It was he who revealed that the nursemaid refused to take care of the baby during the whole first week of the journey. Apparently, the nurse had traveled ahead and left the inexperienced parents to their fate.92 Elisabeth mentioned none of this in her journal. Elisabeth’s and Ferdinand’s travel narratives shared an excitement over the vast, wild lands of Siberia and a Romantic idealization of exotic nature. Yet, Ferdinand’s experience of nature was more spiritual than Elisabeth’s. In a typical Romantic vein, he wrote that “[t]hese so-called wastelands bring Man closer to Nature and endow him with an amazing fortitude which elevates him towards his Creator.”93 Ferdinand also appears to have been more religious than his wife.

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Nevertheless, he included her in his faith, writing for example that a strong belief in “the boundless Mercy of our Lord sustained us throughout our endeavors and His Will strengthened us in our resolve.” “Our faith in the teachings of our Church,” he continued, “confirmed our resolve to turn away from selfishness, vanity, and deadly conceit, from pride and hard-heartedness, which tend to poison our souls.”94 Elisabeth thanked God for protecting and helping them on the difficult trail to Okhotsk, but otherwise God was seldom present in her letters. In fact, she did not discuss her religious beliefs at all and seems not to have been affected to any great extent by the evangelical movement of her time. In this sense she belonged more in the eighteenth century than in the nineteenth. This is also true of her epistolary style marked by cheerfulness and playful ironic detachment, which reflects the lesson of eighteenth-century conduct books and didactic novels to never give way to pessimism or self-pity, but always meet the world with a sober mind.95 Looking back on the difficult journey in Okhotsk, Elisabeth concluded that Ferdinand had done a very good job as the leader of their expedition, because “[i]t was no mean task to accomplish, especially with six such simple people as the locals.” The “simple people” refers to the Yakuts who guided them on the trail.96 As we have seen, Elisabeth’s attitude to the Yakuts was ambivalent, and she both admired and belittled them, sometimes on the same page. However, she also took great interest in their customs and traditions. For instance, she was fascinated with their improvised singing in praise of the spirits, who dwelled in the forest, swamp, or mountain, or whatever part of nature they entered. “Their chants are quite strange and do not resemble anything I have ever heard,” she wrote. “The sounds seem to emanate from their noses, throat and gums.” She was also interested in the custom of making sacrificial offerings at the foot of a mountain, consisting of a tuft from a horse’s mane, which the Yakuts cut off and tied in a bow to a tree, before they ascended it.97 Elisabeth’s attitude toward the Native Yakuts differed from Ferdinand’s. While he saw them as a collective, she tended to see them as individuals. To him, they were “either extraordinarily talkative and stubborn” or “scoundrels with unfathomable intentions.”98 Elisabeth took a liking to the Yakuts and formed personal relationships with them. In this, she followed the habit of other female travelers, who were typically much more interested in human relationships than male travelers.99 One example is her description of Nasar, who was hired to lead Müs’chen’s horse. Even though he was only with them for a week, Elisabeth wrote of his looks, his pained legs, and the speed with which he walked. She also noted



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that when leaving, he wished them all the best for the trek ahead. Another example is Sergei, the old Yakut who carried the tent for Müs’chen. When he suddenly fell ill and had to be left behind. Elisabeth was concerned and wrote in her journal that Sergei “was everybody’s favorite and will be sadly missed by all.” In contrast, Ferdinand did not even mention him in his journal. Elisabeth’s description of Sergei clearly shows the influence of Romantic exoticism on her thinking. She wrote that he looked like “an almanac representation of ‘Signor Formica,’” one of the exotic characters in the Romantic writer E. T. A. Hoffman’s fantastic tales.100 In contrast to his wife, Ferdinand did not show much interest in the customs, mores, and character traits of the Yakuts. He saw them as people in need of enlightenment and civilization and felt they had been severely used by the local administration. Above all, the Russians had neglected to give the Yakuts a proper education, including religious instruction. As a consequence, they were weighed down by poverty and ignorance. To Ferdinand, the main reason for this situation was that the Yakuts had been forced to abandon their own customs and beliefs without first being introduced to Christian beliefs and civilization.101 Later on, he would come to the same conclusion about the Natives of Alaska. In his Statistische und ethnographische Nachrichten über die Russischen Besitzungen an der Nordwestküste von Amerika, he argued that the customs and practices of Native people had always been of interest to the civilized world because a correct description of the mode of life of “those tribes which are still in an untouched natural state, or at a low level of intellectual development, involuntarily remind us of our forefathers.”102 In short, Ferdinand saw the Natives as an ethnographic or social phenomenon, rather than as individuals.

Ac r o ss t he ocean On August 24, 1830, the von Wrangell family and their travel companions boarded the three-masted sloop Urup that would take them across the Pacific Ocean to the New World. The following morning, Ferdinand gave orders to weigh anchor, even though the mail from Russia was expected to arrive on that very day and they had all been looking forward to letters from home. It was necessary to take advantage of the favorable wind blowing them out to sea. It proved to be a fortunate decision, as a storm blew up the following day. Afterwards Ferdinand recalled that the wind blew so hard that their sails were torn, a whaling boat was washed overboard, and their cabins were filled with water. The winds

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were strong and the seas rough throughout the journey and virtually everyone on board was seasick. It was very cold and provisions were meager. As a naval officer, however, Ferdinand was in his right element and once again acted the protective husband and father. Just as in Siberia he felt bad for taking his family on a difficult voyage, especially since “Lisinka had to suffer the ultimate distress of being more exhausted than on the Okhotsk Trail.”103 Unsurprisingly, Elisabeth’s account was very different. She writes that she felt a bout of seasickness already on her first night aboard the ship, while still at anchor in the harbor. This made her “anticipate that ‘lovely’ feeling for the entire voyage!” Her anticipations were realized with a vengeance. As soon as they left the harbor, the boat began to roll and Elisabeth felt nauseous. But she was careful to point out that she was restored immediately afterwards and declared stoically that “I cannot say that I really suffered!” She did admit that she was tired at the end of the voyage but claimed that the reason for this was that she did not get enough nutrition to allow her to breastfeed. In fact, it was not uncommon for both children and mothers to die on sea voyages from dehydration and lack of nutrition resulting from seasickness, a fact Elisabeth seems to have been aware of.104 During the worst storm, Ferdinand and the captain were the only persons not seasick. Elisabeth felt sorry for her husband who was “nursing and waiting on us day and night, looking after us with endless love and care.”105 Müs’chen’s nurse was completely incapacitated, and Elisabeth could do no more than lie on her bed with the baby beside her. “This was the condition of this respectable family during 2–3 days until the storm abated and one could once more stand on one’s feet.”106 Apart from seasickness, not much happened during the voyage, except for the sighting of two whales in the distance. Elisabeth’s account of the voyage is not overly enthusiastic, but it is far more positive than Ferdinand’s. For example, while Ferdinand wrote in his journal that they had bad weather during the entire cruise, Elisabeth observed that “there were marvelous days of which I took full advantage to go on deck.”

Not es 1. Estonia from 1918. 2. Alix O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America 1829–1836, The Journey of Elisabeth von Wrangell (Fairbanks, AK, 2001), Maria Jarlsdotter Enckell, “Four North European Female Educators’ Toil in Russian Alaska, 1805–1849,” FEEFHS Journal, vol. XI (2003).



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3. O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, p. 15. 4. Baron Wilhelm von Wrangell, Ein Kampf um Wahrheit. Leben und Wirken des Admirals Baron Ferdinand von Wrangell (Stuttgart, 1940), p. 70. 5. Ferdinand von Wrangell, cited in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, pp. 24−25. 6. Ibid., pp. 5, 8, 25. 7. I will use the name Sitka here, as this is the name the three governors’ wives most often used to refer to the colonial capital as well as its current name. 8. O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, p. 6, n. 7. 9. “. . . retournées de la Chine! Comme c’est intéressant et quel courage admirable que Madame de Wrangell doit avoir et comme elle écrit tout si bien!” Diary entry 23 June, 1830 in Acta Wrangeliana, No. 1, ed. by Baron M. Wrangell (Viru-Roela, Estonia, 1934), pp. 12−15. Translated by the author. 10. Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes. Travel Writing and Transculturation (London, 1992), p. 104. 11. The cult of domesticity spread to the Baltics from Germany. Heide W. Whelan, Adapting to Modernity. Family, Caste and Capitalism among the Baltic German Nobility (Köln, 1999). See also Susan L. Blake, “A Woman’s Trek. What Difference Does Gender Make,” in Western Women and Imperialism. Complicity and Resistance, Nupur Chaudhuri and Margaret Strobel, eds. (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1992), p. 32. 12. Contemporary female travelers in similar circumstances who also openly expressed their curiosity were, for example, Anna Brownell Jameson, Winter Studies and Summer Rambles in Canada (Toronto, 1943). Extracts from the diary of Frances Simpson, published in three issues of The Beaver. “Journey for Frances,” Grace Lee Nute, ed. Outfit 284 (December 1953): 50−54, Outfit 284 (March 1954): 12−17, Outfit 285 (Summer 1954): 12−18. 13. von Wrangell, Ein Kampf um Wahrheit, p. 72. 14. Letter from Ferdinand von Wrangell to Friedrich von Lütke, Irkutsk, September 23, 1829 in von Wrangell, Ein Kampf um Wahrheit, pp. 71−72. 15. Sally von Kügelgen, Stilles Tagebuch eines baltischen Fräuleins 1855/56 (Berlin 1936), p. 76. 16. Shirley Foster, Across New Worlds. Nineteenth-Century Women Travellers and their Writings (London, 1990), p. 8; Catherine Barnes Stevenson, Victorian Women Travel Writers in Africa (Boston, 1982), p. ii. 17. Elizabeth Posthuma Simcoe, Mrs. Simcoe’s Diary, Mary Quayle Innis, ed. (Toronto, 2007). 18. Susanna Moodie, Roughing It in the Bush (Toronto, 1989). 19. “Journey for Frances,” The Beaver, no. 284 (December 1953), pp. 50−54 (March 1954), pp. 12−17; no. 285 (Summer 1954), pp. 12−18.

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20. Elisabeth von Wrangell, letter to her sisters from Kiakhta, January 24, 1830 in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, pp. 41−57. German original: “Briefe aus Sibirien,” Dorpater Jahrbücher, vol. 1, pp. 169−180. 21. The Buryats are the largest Mongolic group of indigenous people in Siberia. They are mainly concentrated in the Buryat Republic of Russia. During the time of von Wrangell’s journey, many of them had become Russianized and abandoned their nomadic lifestyle. 22. Von Wrangell, Letter to her sisters from Kiakhta, January 24, 1830. 23. Foster, Across New Worlds, p. 24. 24. Reina Lewis, Gendering Orientalism. Race, Femininity and Representation (London, 1995). See also Billie Melman, Women’s Orients: English Women and the Middle East 1718–1918 (Ann Arbor, MI, 1992); Foster, Across New Worlds. 25. Barnes Stevenson has frequently been criticized for linking women writer’s alleged feminism to an alleged anti-colonialism and for not examining these women’s participation in imperial discourses. See Antje Peukert, Off the Beaten Track? Divergent Discourses in Victorian Women’s Travelogues (Munich, 2010), p. 10, and Sara Mills, Discourses of Difference: An Analysis of Women’s Travel Writing and Colonialism (London, 1991). 26. Margaret Strobel, European Women and the Second British Empire (Bloomington, IN, 1991), p. 39; ed. with Nupur Chaudhuri, Western Women and Imperialism, p. 6. 27. Elisabeth von Wrangell, letter to her sister Toni from Staging Post Tünülä, 40 versts east of Yakutsk, July 27 [ June], 1830 in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, pp. 85−113. German original, “Briefe aus Sibirien,” Dorpater Jahrbücher, vol. 1, pp. 353−74. The Yakuts are a Turkic people who inhabit the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in the Russian Federation. It is one of the largest ethnic groups in Siberia. Historically, the northern Yakuts were hunters, fishermen, and reindeer herders, while the southern Yakuts raised cattle and horses. At the time of von Wrangell’s journey, most of them had been converted to the Russian Orthodox Church, although they retained a number of Shamanist practices. 28. Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., The White Man’s Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present (New York, 1978); for a critical examination of the concept of the Noble Savage, see Ter Ellingson, The Myth of the Noble Savage (Berkeley, CA, 2001). 29. For Siberia as Russia’s Orient, see Daniel R. Brower and Edward J. Lazzerini, eds., Russia’s Orient. Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700–1917 (Bloomington, IN, 1997); David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, Russian Orientalism: Asia in the Russian mind from Peter the Great to the emigration (New Haven, CT, 2010); Yuri Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North (Ithaca, NY, 1994). For the image of the Indian in Cooper’s work, see Anna Krauthammer,



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30.

31.

32.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

40.

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The Representation of the Savage in James Fenimore Cooper and Herman Melville (New York, 2008). For Cooper’s influence on Russian images of Siberia, see Mark Bassin, “Inventing Siberia. Visions of the Russian East in the Early Nineteenth Century,” The American Historical Review, vol. 96, no. 3 ( June, 1991), p. 783. See also Galya Diment and Yuri Slezkine, eds., Between Heaven and Hell: The Myth of Siberia in Russian Culture (New York, 1993); Michael Khodarkovsky, Russia’s Steppe Frontier: The Making of a Colonial Empire, 1500–1800 (Bloomington, IN, 2004); Eva-Maria Stolberg, The Siberian Saga: A History of Russia’s Wild East (Frankfurt am Main, 2005). Letter from Elisabeth von Wrangell to Natalie de Rossillon, Sitka, January 16, 1834 in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, pp. 216–17. German original in von Wrangell, Ein Kampf um Wahrheit, pp. 78–9. George Simpson, Narrative of a Voyage Round the World During the Years 1841 and 1842 (London, 1847), p. 173; O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, pp. 37−39. M. V. Nechkina, Dvizhenie dekabristov, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1955); A. G. Mazour, The First Russian Revolution, 1825. The Decembrist Movement. Its Origins, Development, and Significance (Stanford, 1961); M. Raeff, The Decembrist Movement (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1966); N. M. Druzhinin, Izbrannye trudy. Revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie v Rossii v XIX v (Moscow, 1985); S. A. Ekshtut, V poiske istoricheskoi alternativy. Aleksandr I. Ego spodvizhniki. Dekabristy (Moscow, 1994); M. N. Pokrovskii et al., eds., Vosstanie dekabristov. Materialy i dokumenty (Moscow, 1925–2001), 19 vols.; N. Eidelman, Udivitelnoe pokolenie. Dekabristy: litsa i sudby (Saint Petersburg, 2001); P. O’Meara, The Decembrist Pavel Pestel. Russia’s First Republican (BasingstokeNew York, 2003); S. Rabow-Edling, “The Decembrists and the Concept of a Civic Nation,” Nationalities Papers, vol. 35, no. 2 (2007); O. I. Kianskaia, M. P. Odesskii, D. M. Feldman, eds., Dekabristy: aktualnye problemy i novye podchody (Moskva, 2008). O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, p. 40; Simpson, Narrative of a Voyage, part. II, p. 168. Ferdinand von Wrangell, cited in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, p. 61. Elisabeth von Wrangell, letter to her sisters from Kiakhta, January 24, 1830. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Dzarguchei—a Manchu official who handled the border affairs of Maimachen. See Landlocked States of Africa and Asia, vol. 2, ed. by Dick Hodder, Sarah J. Lloyd, Keith McLachlan (London, 1998), p. 139. von Wrangell, letter to her sisters from Kiakhta, January 24, 1830.

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41. Ibid. 42. Ibid. 43. Elisabeth did not distinguish between Russian and Baltic-German customs here. In the Chinese context, she regarded Russian customs as European. 44. von Wrangell, letter to her sisters from Kiakhta, January 24, 1830. 45. Ibid. 46. O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, p. 58. 47. The Journals of Admiral Baron F. P. von Wrangell, “Putevye zapiski Admirala Barona F. P. Vrangelya,” Istoricheskii Vestnik, vol. 18, (Saint Petersburg, 1884), pp. 163−180. 48. James R. Gibson, Feeding the Russian Fur Trade. Provisions of the Okhotsk Seaboard and the Kamchatka Peninsula 1639−1856 (Madison, WI, 1969) p. 73; Ferdinand von Wrangell, Narrative of an Expedition to the Polar Sea in the Years 1820, 1821, 1822, & 1823 (New York, 1841) pp. 21−22. 49. Elisabeth von Wrangell, letter to her parents. On the Lena, June 4, 1830 in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, pp. 59−61. German original: “Briefe aus Sibirien,” Dorpater Jahrbücher, vol. I, pp. 263−264. 50. The Evenks were formerly known as Tungus, but Evenk became the official designation in 1931. 51. Ferdinand von Wrangell, cited in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, pp. 66−67. 52. Elisabeth von Wrangell, letter to her parents. On the Lena, June 4, 1830. 53. This was presumably Aleksandra Ivanova, the wife of Nikolai Rosenberg, Ferdinand’s adjoint, who later became governor (M. J. Enckell, “Commonly Known Finnish and Baltic Names Found in the Index to Baptisms, Marriages and Deaths in the Archives of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in Alaska 1816–1866,” Genealogia, 2004). 54. Ferdinand von Wrangell, Narrative of an Expedition to the Polar Sea, p. 115. 55. Ferdinand von Wrangell, “Putevye zapiski Admirala Barona F. P. Vrangelya” [Travel Notes of Admiral Baron von Wrangell], pp. 163−180. 56. Letter from Elisabeth von Wrangell to her parents, Yakutsk, June 23, 1830 in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, pp. 82−84. German original: “Briefe aus Sibirien,” Dorpater Jahrbücher, vol. 1, pp. 264−266. 57. Ibid. 58. Catriona Kelly, Refining Russia: Advice Literature, Polite Culture, and Gender from Catherine to Yeltsin (Oxford, 2001), p. 28; Marion Fowler, The Embroidered Tent. Five Gentlewomen in Early Canada (Toronto, 1982), p. 20; Erna O. Hellerstein, Leslie P. Hume, and Karen M. Offen, eds., Victorian Women (Stanford, 1981), p. 131.



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59. James R. Gibson, Imperial Russia in Frontier America (New York, 1976), p. 58; Feeding the Russian Fur Trade, pp. 58−68; Simpson, Narrative of a Voyage Round the World, vol. II, pp. 260−295. 60. Elisabeth von Wrangell, letter to her sister. Staging Post Tünülä 40 versts east of Yakutsk, July [ June] 27, 1830. 61. Peter Dobell, Travels in Kamchatka and Siberia (London, 1830), vol. I, p. 348; Simpson, Narrative of a Voyage Round the World, vol. I, p. 227; O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, p. 82. 62. Von Wrangell, letter from Yakutsk, June 23, 1830. 63. Ibid. 64. von Wrangell, Staging Post Tünülä, 40 versts east of Yakutsk July [ June] 27, 1830. 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid. 67. Ibid. 68. Ibid. 69. Ferdinand von Wrangell, “Putevye zapiski admirala barona F. P. Vrangelya,” pp. 163−180. 70. Elisabeth von Wrangell, Staging Post Tünülä, 40 versts east of Yakutsk July [ June] 27, 1830 71. Ibid. 72. Ibid. 73. Ibid. 74. Ibid. 75. Ibid. 76. Rudolf Erich Raspe, The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen (London, 1785) 77. von Wrangell, Staging Post Tünülä, 40 versts east of Yakutsk July [ June] 27, 1830. 78. James Fennimore Cooper established the Indian as a significant literary type in world literature. The best known of his books were the Leatherstocking tales, which von Wrangell had read. 79. von Wrangell, Staging Post Tünülä, 40 versts east of Yakutsk July [ June] 27, 1830. 80. Berkhofer, Jr., The White Man’s Indian, pp. 28, 93−94. 81. See Christine Sutherland, Princess of Siberia. The Story of Maria Volkonsky and the Decembrist Exiles (London, 1985). 82. von Wrangell, Staging Post Tünülä, 40 versts east of Yakutsk July [ June] 27, 1830. 83. Gibson, Feeding the Russian Fur Trade, p. 119; Simpson, Narrative of a Voyage, vol. II, p. 265. 84. von Wrangell, Staging Post Tünülä, 40 versts east of Yakutsk July [ June] 27, 1830.

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85. G. L. Davydov, Two Voyages to Russian America, 1802−07 (Kingston, ON, 1977), pp. 87−88; Glynn Barratt, Russia in Pacific Waters 1715−1825 (Vancouver, 1981), p. 44; O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, pp. 128−129. 86. Geognosy was a term commonly used in France and Germany, denoting a form of geology. Elisabeth von Wrangell, Staging Post Tünülä, 40 versts east of Yakutsk July [ June] 27, 1830. 87. Ibid. 88. Elisabeth von Wrangell, letter to her parents, Sitka, October 14, 1830, in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, pp. 132−143. German original: “Briefe aus Sibirien,” Dorpater Jahrbücher, vol. II, 1834, pp. 179−186. 89. His journal was private, written in the form of letters to his younger brother Georg O. A. von Wrangell. However, his nephew Baron Wilhelm von Wrangell preserved the letters and sent them to Saint Petersburg, where they were translated and published as “Putevye zapiski admirala barona F. P. Vrangelya” in Istoricheskii Vestnik, vol. 18, Saint Petersburg, 1884, pp. 163−180. 90. Ferdinand von Wrangell, letter to his brother Georg O. A. von Wrangell in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, p. 65. 91. Ibid., pp. 65−67. 92. Ibid., p. 117. 93. Ibid., p. 126. 94. Ibid., p. 117. 95. See Laetitia Hawkins, Letters on the Female Mind (London, 1793); Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility (Oxford, 2008); Samuel Richardson, Pamela or, Virtue Rewarded (London, 1741); Simcoe, Mrs. Simcoe’s Diary. Perhaps we should not assume that there was such a great rift between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. It is highly probable that eighteenth century ideals lingered for a while in the next century. Then again, it could also have to do with Elisabeth herself, her upbringing, and/or her disposition. 96. von Wrangell, Staging Post Tünülä, 40 verst east of Yakutsk, July [ June] 27, 1830. 97. Ibid. 98. Ferdinand von Wrangell, cited in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, p. 120. 99. Margaret Strobel, European Women and the Second British Empire, p. 36; Sara Mills, Discourses of Difference, pp. 21−22, 39; Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes, pp. 51−52, 104. 100. von Wrangell, Staging Post Tünülä, 40 verst east of Yakutsk, July [ June] 27, 1830. The novel Signor Formica was published in 1821 in vol. 4 of Die Serapionsbrüder by G. Reimer in Berlin. 101. von Wrangell, letter to his brother Georg O. A. von Wrangell, in O’Grady, p. 120.



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102. Ferdinand von Wrangell, Russian America. Statistical and Etnographic Information, translated from the German edition of 1839, R. A. Pierce, ed. (Kingston, ON, 1980), p. 29. 103. von Wrangell, letter to his brother Georg O. A. von Wrangell in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, p. 131. 104. Pat Jalland, Australian Ways of Death: A Social and Cultural History 1840−1918 (Oxford, 2002), pp. 22−23. 105. Elisabeth von Wrangell, letter to her parents. Sitka, October 14, 1830. 106. Ibid.

Chapter Two

The Encounter with the New World

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n September 26, 1830, the fog that had enveloped their ship the entire day lifted, and Sitka suddenly appeared in the distance. After a month at sea, Elisabeth described how everyone on board was struck by the sheer beauty of the place. “Every able man came up on deck and peered hard into the distance until tears blurred out the wonderful vision.”1 Then, just as suddenly, the fog returned and the ship had to put out to sea again. The next day they approached the coast a second time. The vision was poor and no land was to be seen. Finally, at lunchtime, the sky cleared and they were able to see Mount Edgecumbe, a volcano sitting at the entrance to the Novo Arkhangel’sk bay. The ship approached slowly. By evening they signaled, but it was not noticed on shore and they had to spend the night in the bay. On Sunday, September 28, the sun rose on a clear and beautiful day. Elisabeth went on deck and saw the full coastline in front of her. Everyone dressed up in their Sunday best and waited impatiently for the pilot. Governor Peter Egorovich Chistiakov had dispatched three boats to take them ashore, but Elisabeth was unwilling to leave the deck because the magnificent sight of Sitka kept her spellbound. In her journal, she described the town in the following way: “It is situated close to the ocean on a narrow strip of land, surrounded by densely wooded mountains. The township itself consists of small and rather miserable houses, but their aspect is somewhat brightened by the imposing appearance of the fort, where our future home plays a dominant role. It is built on top of a rocky outcrop called a kekur, surrounded by four small watchtowers. Toward the sea there is a battery of ten cannon.”2 The first impression of the colonial capital was thus positive, and Elisabeth did not allow herself to be disheartened by “the miserable houses” or the damp climate, which made the roads 77

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in town constantly muddy and required that houses be coated every year with a mixture of yellow ochre, rye flour, and water to prevent wood rot.3 Elisabeth first encountered Sitka’s Native population at sea. “Dozens of Indians” had come out in their canoes to pay their respects. Whereas Anna Furuhjelm was frightened of the Tlingits, Elisabeth was mesmerized by their “exotic” appearance. She wished to learn more about them, who they were behind their intimidating exterior. She noted, for instance, that many of their slaves taken from other tribes had very fine features, despite being painted in a fearful manner. The Tlingits appealed to Elisabeth, partly because she was fascinated by their exotic appearance, partly because she associated them with an idealized version of a free and unrestricted life. She also saw features in them that she admired, such as heroism, strength, and dignity, virtues she admired in both men and women.4 Kirill Khlebnikov, director of the main office at Sitka, 1818–1832, was aware of Elisabeth’s perception of the Natives as “noble savages.” In a letter written on her twenty-seventh birthday in 1837, he recalled her time in Russian America. He pictured her on a quiet night, walking down to the harbor, watching a big, colorful canoe gliding past full of warriors, naked from the waist up with painted faces and their heads adorned with eagle feathers. “Surprised by this unusual spectacle and by the unbridled joy of the warriors, I hear you exclaim to your companion: ‘how magnificent!’”5 Khlebnikov’s recollection is strikingly similar to Elisabeth Simcoe’s reaction on a similar occasion. Like her namesake in Alaska, Simcoe was fascinated with Indians. Whereas “[a] European usually looks awkward. . .compared with the Indian’s quiet skill in a Canoe,” she wrote in her diary, “[t]o see a Birch Canoe managed with that inexpressible ease & composure which is the characteristic of an Indian, is the prettiest sight imaginable.”6 As she had in China and Siberia, Elisabeth made sense of alien customs and habits by comparing them with the familiar. Although this revealed a patronizing attitude on her part, it was also a reaction against the common European habit of seeing Natives as “the other”; as alien barbarians, altogether different from civilized Europeans. She compared the costumes of the toyons, or chieftains, with the Roman toga and claimed that it gave the chieftains a most distinguished air. Their hairstyle created the appearance of a painter’s brush, which gave them an artistic touch.7 Interestingly, she refrained from mentioning their pierced lips, a practice most Europeans disliked, particularly on women. European men believed it ruined their looks and made them ugly. “Women pierce the lower lip and insert a wooden labret, which usually gives the face a repulsive appearance,” Khlebnikov reported.8 Instead, Elisabeth focused on these women’s fine bearing



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and unaffected countenance. The same virtues were emphasized in her account of a meeting with “His Serene Highness” the toyon Chief Na’ushkes, when she wrote that “we were struck by his impressive appearance and his proud Kolosh bearing. . . [he] walks with a graceful swagger, and the expression on his face is friendly, but somewhat aloof.”9 Governor Chistiakov met the incoming governor and his wife three miles off shore with the news that he had already vacated the residence, which was now free for them to occupy. Chistiakov had even had some new furniture made for them, such as “chests of drawers and the like.” These were things that, in his view, would be “indispensable pour une dame.”10 After all, according to the colonizers’ view, Elisabeth was “the first woman of culture and education” who lived in the Governor’s House, and this required changes to be made.11 The governor’s palace had to be adapted to better accord with the sophisticated and cultivated demands a lady was expected to have on her surroundings. Elisabeth found the Governor’s House a pleasant and welcoming place. With the improvements that Ferdinand promised to make as soon as time would permit, it would be even more agreeable. Khlebnikov, the director of the RAC office in Sitka, presented her with a piano he had bought from a vessel that had circumnavigated the globe “just in case there might be . . . a lady with musical talent in Sitka.” Once the piano Ferdinand had ordered from Saint Petersburg arrived, she could pass it on to Mrs. Rosenberg, the wife of Ferdinand’s adjutant. Khlebnikov had also brought plants from Chile, and Elisabeth was very pleased with the garden that had been created for them. “[N]o doubt,” she noted, it “will take the seeds we brought from Europe.” Elisabeth did not describe the interior of the governor’s house in any detail, but informed her parents that they, in addition to the piano, had a billiards table and a library containing about 1,200 volumes. There was an oil portrait of the tsar, set in a golden frame, together with portraits of the imperial family from Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (1629–1676) to Anna Pavlovna (1795– 1865) displayed in the reception room above the sofa. In the bedroom window there were red geraniums, and on the windowsill next to Elisabeth’s desk there was a small flowerpot of mignonettes and another with a small pine. Khlebnikov had brought it from Chile the previous year for the Botanical Gardens in Saint Petersburg and entrusted it to Elisabeth’s care while he was in California. No doubt Elizabeth’s interest in indoor plants and flowers reflects their increasing and relatively new role as important markers of a cultivated home. In May the following year, she could report to her parents that “[g]radually things are being put in order and our house starts to look comfortable.”12

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Elisabeth arrived in Sitka in high spirits. After a long, arduous journey, she was happy to have reached her destination. Two weeks after their arrival she informed her parents that all “is wonderful and already after a few days I have settled down completely.”13 Yet, an uncharacteristic note of homesickness crept into her first letter from her new home. “With all those wonderful and lovely things surrounding me I catch myself thinking constantly: if only my family could see all this—my happiness would be twice as great! . . . and I do feel so sorry about not being able to show her [i.e., Müs’chen] off to you!” At the end of the letter, her longing for parents and siblings came to the surface. She tried to be brave, hoping that her letter would reach them quickly so they would know that “your distant children are happy, contented and well.” But then she called out: “When shall I experience the joy of receiving a letter? My heart wells up at the thought of it!” She promised to start a diary to be able to tell her family all the details about life in America because she knew how vital such details were when families were separated. “To get a true picture of the life people dear to us lead helps us to endure the separation,” she wrote.14 Sadly, if anything came of Elisabeth’s good intentions, the result has been lost to us. Apart from her first letter, homesickness was not characteristic of Elisabeth’s early correspondence from Sitka. Rather, it was dominated by her fascination with everything that was different: the eccentric individuals she met from all over the world, the foreign cultures she encountered, and the wild, magnificent natural world of Alaska. Unlike many other Europeans, Elisabeth was not discouraged by the social life of the frontier post. She found Sitka’s society amusing and felt appreciated in her role as its leading lady. There were so many distinguished gentlemen in Sitka who appreciated the presence of a lady, a cultivated social life, and the new practices she had established.15 Social life was not any worse or more restricted in Sitka than at home, she argued. To the contrary, although the circle was small in number, it contained much more interesting people than her social circle at home. Moreover, new individuals were constantly added, not counting the captains, whose ships were often at anchor in the harbor. Even though they were far away from the great cities of Europe, Elisabeth wrote, “[i]t is certainly not noticeable that they have been away for any length of time from ‘civilized’ society.”16 These interesting and distinguished individuals prevented Elisabeth from feelings of ennui. They entertained her with fantastic stories from different parts of the world so that, in her own words, “[a] resumé of our conversations would certainly make a vivid story of a voyage around the world.” Elisabeth was



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particularly interested in eccentric persons who had led exciting lives. One such example was the chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Peter Ogden. He had lived in the Pacific region for twenty-five years and had been on a number of dangerous expeditions to Alaska’s Interior. Another example was a German sea captain from Gdansk, who was married to a Creole woman in Sitka. He had sailed the seven seas, served in every merchant fleet imaginable, and spoke several languages. The fact that he had a wooden leg of course made him even more interesting.17 Such people appealed to Elisabeth’s fascination for the foreign and exotic, as well as to her Romantic idea of adventure and a free life. Had she not been the governor’s wife in Russian America she would never have met them. Soon after their arrival to Sitka, Chistiakov gave a ball, which provided Elisabeth with an excellent opportunity to study the behavior of local women in society. About half the male inhabitants of Sitka were Europeans, but there were only a handful of European women. According to Elisabeth, there were only three or four European women in Sitka, all married to RAC officials. Thus, most of the “local ladies” invited to the ball were Creole or Alutiiq. Elisabeth believed that the young Creole women looked very appealing. However, it was not their European features she appreciated, but “the characteristic traits of their mothers’ origin.” The purpose of emphasizing their indigenous origin was not to exclude these women from society. In her description of the Creoles, she made a point of their “natural aptitude” for “civilized behavior” and capacity to transcend cultural boundaries. Watching the local women at Chistiakov’s ball she was impressed by their “fine bearing and good manners,” especially considering that most of them had never attended a similar event before. “They carry themselves well and their movements are elegant.”18 Hence, Elisabeth made a special point of showing that their non-European origin did not prevent them from taking part in civilized society. Underlying this view was, of course, the belief that European concepts of good manners, fine bearing, and elegant movement represented a universal standard. Nevertheless, reading Elisabeth’s description of the Creole women dancing, it becomes clear that complete cultural assimilation was not something she wished for. Her interest lay in cultural translation and cultural transcendence. “They [Native women] dance well, keeping in rhythm,” she observed, but “they seem to hop about more than is customary in our salons in Europe.” Still, she saw no need to correct their dancing. Instead she noted that it looked “a lot more fun” and made the whole event “more lively.”19 In accordance with her idealized image of the Native population, she believed these women were expressing a

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freer, less-restricted lifestyle and perhaps a less “feminine” way of being than the behavioral standards prescribed for nineteenth-century European ladies. This view not only distinguished her from later governor’s wives in Russian America, but also from European women in British America. Letitia Hargrave, the first white woman who came to live at York Factory in 1841, for example, was much more condescending toward Native women and daughters of mixed marriages.20 To Elisabeth, the most interesting lady at Chistiakov’s ball was not a Creole but the daughter of a former Tlingit toyon. “When elegantly attired for the ball, she would certainly not draw any unfavorable comments either as to her comportment or her physical appearance.” The woman dressed simply but elegantly and with such a distinction that she would be welcome in the most sophisticated drawing rooms in Europe. However, it was her ability to transcend cultural boundaries that impressed Elisabeth the most: her ability to fit into a European context without assimilating to it, but rather by expressing what Elisabeth believed to be traits unique to North American Indians. “Her poise and manners express the reserve and gracefulness which distinguish the American race,” she wrote.21 Again, it is clear that Elisabeth did not advocate assimilation. Instead she valued what she thought of as the distinctively “Indian.” This view was of course based on racial stereotypes, which also legitimized white dominance. However, the ability to fit into “civilized” society, while expressing certain idealized Native traits made a favorable impression on Elisabeth. The von Wrangells’ first winter in Russian America was relatively mild, although snow enveloped the towering mountains that surrounded Sitka, offering Elisabeth a spectacular view from the windows of the Governor’s House. “To a resident of the endless plains of our Baltic homeland,” Elisabeth wrote, “this is most attractive.”22 In a letter written after her return to Europe, Khlebnikov told her that he could still see her in his mind visiting Sitka’s surroundings, enthralled by the wonders of the wild. He recalled the delight she showed “at the sheer height of a waterfall and at the wild turbulence of an avalanche as it thundered down the mountains with snow rising up to the clouds! You marveled at the hot mineral springs, and were amazed at the unbelievable abundance of fish at Ozerskoi Redoubt.”23 When spring arrived, Elisabeth was enthralled by nature’s wonder. Toward the end of April, “spring transforms the vegetation into a profusion of amazing proportions.” She noted that the local trees were in fact similar to the ones at home, but “their growth is so tremendous,” that it was difficult to recognize them. Everything was either green or in bloom. Unfortunately, the garden that



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she had had such high hopes for did not turn out well. Never one to give up easily, Elisabeth hired a gardener from Saint Petersburg and looked forward to future success.24 To most European middle- and upper-class women, the arrival to Russian Alaska, with the wilderness literally a stone’s throw away and with traditional class and ethnic boundaries difficult to maintain, resulted in a cultural shock. But Elisabeth was different. She appreciated life in a world less restricted by formal rules and less reserved compared to Europe. She enjoyed the excitement of living close to the foreign, the unknown, and the wild.

Th e c iv il iz ing mi ssi on Scholars have argued that women in the British colonies performed specific functions in the Empire’s so-called “civilizing mission.” Chief among them was to maintain Western culture and norms. Their role was to recreate European middle- and upper-class practices and rituals in the colonies, which meant that wherever they went in the world they devoted their time to seemingly superficial activities such as embroidery, letter writing, piano playing, tea drinking, and similar genteel practices. Furniture and home furnishings, as well as dress and food, were also important cultural markers and symbols of European civilization.25 Evidence shows that European women played a similar role in the Russian empire. Their civilizing effort was of course all the more striking in the midst of the wild. The chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Peter Ogden, visited von Wrangell’s in the Governor’s House in 1831. When he saw their furniture and other belongings “he was quite taken aback, exclaiming: ‘Oh, you really are quite civilized.’”26 Personal appearance was another indicator of civilization. As the First Lady of Sitka, Elisabeth was the principal representative of European culture and civilization and a role model to the women in Sitka. Everyone looked up to her and imitated her. In fact, she was regarded as the local fashionista, and other women often asked her for advice about what to wear at various social occasions. However, transferring European fashion ideals to the Russian American colonies was not easy. “I have been consulted without much reservation about appropriate dresses and, as a result, have sometimes been quite surprised at how my descriptions were interpreted,” she wrote.27 Although race was not as important a category in Russian America as in places like the Indian subcontinent, the Russian Empire, like the British Empire,

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assigned a role as guardians of “civilization” to European women in the New World. Elisabeth took her role as leader of Sitka’s society seriously, although she was not as particular about social distinctions and etiquette as subsequent governors’ wives. Her home was the center of Sitka’s society and the place for refined social interaction. Here Elisabeth acted as a chatelaine in what seemed to many visitors an oasis of European civilization. Like women in the British colonies, she maintained a hectic schedule with balls, dinners, masquerades, and courtesy visits. Social events followed the European pattern. Even dinner menus imitated the menus at home as closely as possible. Elisabeth wrote about one dinner party which started out with a potage au moules, consisting of seafood that the Natives had dug up on the beach. Flounder replaced beef and steak as the main course. Sometimes they served what Elisabeth called roti de daim, a course made from mountain deer. Just like the food, music played an important role in civilized society. As part of her education, Elisabeth had been taught to play the piano but had been reluctant to play in public. In Sitka, however, where there were no connoisseurs, only admirers, she overcame her inhibition and played every day. “I have stopped being silly and will play in front of others every afternoon and evening as well as I am able to,” she told her parents. She realized that to men who had not heard anyone play in a long time, even the worst performance would bring joy.28 It was also part of her duties as a hostess to entertain her guests in the best way possible. In addition to her duties as the leading lady of Sitka’s society, Elisabeth had to make courtesy visits to the wives of the Russian officials. This was an onerous task, but one she handled splendidly. All the wives, both Russian and Creole, had to be called on. Still, she only managed to make two or three visits a day because, in contrast to European practice, Sitka’s etiquette did not allow short visits. Moreover, she had to send a servant half an hour in advance to ask if she might be received. This was done in order to allow the women to remove the watertight protection on the floors, required by the damp climate. All visits then followed a similar pattern. First, she embraced mother and children, who, Elisabeth observed, had received a quick and not always thorough wipe. Then tea was served from a samovar, after which the housewife excused herself and returned half an hour later with sweetmeat, nuts, dried fruit, and marmalade. The same procedure was then repeated at the house of the neighboring wife, “with no variation except for the number of embracing children and the composition of sweetmeats.” 29 Although Elisabeth did not particularly enjoy these visits, her social duties must have been made easier by the fact that she seems to have been an outgoing and



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unconventional person, quite unlike Margaretha Etholén and Anna Furuhjelm, who would follow her as mistresses of the Governor’s House of Russian America. Despite her youth and inexperience, Elisabeth did not seem to worry about her role as governor’s wife. Nevertheless, she was grateful to Chistiakov, who, during her first ten days in the colony, played the role of host until her “household got into full swing.” Chistiakov also left them many useful items that would not have been available until an American ship arrived sometime in November. The scarcity of goods in Sitka was a constant source of frustration to its European inhabitants. However, Elisabeth did not allow herself to become too perturbed by this. Instead she noted, with some irony, that the head office in Saint Petersburg “does not exactly provide its colonies with an abundance of articles pertaining to daily life, some of which are basic.” Indeed, the Governor’s House did have a “few inconveniences.  . . for such an exacting housewife as I am.”30 Yet, despite the lack of many items expected in cultivated places, Elisabeth’s letters did not complain about the difficulties she must have experienced in running a large household under trying circumstances. Her first event as a governor’s wife was Ferdinand’s installation dinner, October 17. At least according to her own account, it all went very well. By chance, the day of the dinner coincided with the celebration of Russia’s victory over the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish war of 1828–1829. The salute, coupled with plenty of champagne, helped to create a festive atmosphere. The guests praised the food, and Elisabeth considered herself fortunate to have hired a skilled cook. She told her parents that despite scarcity in some respects, they did have access to high-quality produce and were able to offer their guests “a tasty fare,” accompanied by plenty of champagne. This “noble drink,” Elisabeth observed, “literally inundates any Russian trading post wherever a courier may pass through or a vessel may tie up.”31 Apart from this remark, she did not comment on the widespread drunkenness in Sitka that struck so many visitors. In contrast, her husband was very critical of the local habit of devoting holidays to drinking, something he put down to a distinctively Russian character trait.32 This is one of the rare occasions when Ferdinand’s non-Russian identity comes fully into view. As a rule, he seems to have been unaware of any tension between his Baltic-German background and his position as governor of Russian America and principal agent of the Russian empire. Like other frontier communities, Sitka was dominated by men who drank, gambled, and whored. Casual sexual relations with Tlingit women were common.33 In his reports, Khlebnikov wrote that the Tlingits made money by

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offering their female slaves and young girls to the Russians. Acting as pimp, the owner or custodian took everything that the girl received and much of the money of the Russian fur traders, the promyshlenniks, ended up in the pockets of these men. According to Khlebnikov, many fur traders had lost everything buying fineries for “their notorious lovers.”34 In 1834, the Baltic-German navigator and explorer Friedrich von Lütke wrote that “Kolosh concubines, no less than European dancers, know how to bankrupt their worshipper and the examples are many that the earnings of promyshlenniki are entirely squandered on the toiletry of their beauty.”35 According to Khlebnikov, both company officials and visitors from Europe were involved in what he described as a despicable business. Yet, he believed that it was a necessary evil if they were to avoid “the sinful unnatural acts,” most likely a reference to masturbation and homosexual acts that were considered a greater immorality than prostitution, which would otherwise result from the shortage of white women.36 In the first half of the nineteenth century, excessive drinking and widespread prostitution were seen as a manifestation of untamed masculinity and the effect of the absence of European women in the colonies. The presence of European females was believed to raise the moral tone of all social contexts and to have a softening influence and a restraining effect on the rougher aspects of masculinity. By their very presence, “civilized” women would control unbridled masculinity and domesticate European colonizers.37 Women could wield moral influence because they possessed qualities such as love, patience, piety, and sexual restraint. Hence, European, middle- or upper-class women had an important function in frontier societies. Their role was to introduce and maintain awareness of what was decent and proper and to encourage devotion to family life on the European model. The result would be a more decorous, orderly, conformist community, with a focus on domestic virtue.38 The absence of a European female presence in Russian America had been seen as a problem long before Elisabeth’s arrival. In 1805, Rezanov wrote about the disastrous consequences of not having any models of family life in the colonies. In his report from 1839, Ferdinand raised the same problem, complaining about the lack of domesticity and family life. He argued that the welfare of both the RAC and the Native population depended on this particular factor.39 Preventing company employees from having casual sexual relationships with Native women and forcing them to marry would be one way to improve the situation. It has also been argued that one reason for sending priests to Kodiak was to formalize the common law marriages of RAC employees. Marriage as a



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temporary union sanctioned by the community was practiced in the northern Russian and Siberian communities where many of the company employees originated, despite the efforts of the government and the church to recognize only church-sanctioned marriages.40 Formalized marriages would also provide a more stable workforce in the colonies. In his reports, Khlebnikov said that “[i]t would be desirable to tie these people with bonds of marriage and homemaking; only in this way can stable citizens be created.”41 Yet, the main problem, as Ferdinand saw it, was that the main office in Saint Petersburg did not realize the importance of a European female presence.42 “In the absence of European mothers, our ideas, tastes, conventions of civilization and social life may be regarded as foreign to the female population. Female influence on the male must necessarily be reflected in the concept of morality and all the habits associated therewith.”43 Lieutenant L. A. Zagoskin, who traveled in Russian America in the early 1840s, described Elisabeth’s role in the colonies precisely in these terms. In his words, she tried to control “the spread of dubious pleasures” through her own example. “With her gentle and equable treatment of the Natives, she was able to show to some the true meaning of the words ‘woman’ and ‘wife.’” This, Zagoskin argued, meant that “[i]ncongruities became less and less apparent, and today it seems that everything is kept as much as possible within suitable bounds.”44 Interestingly, Elisabeth herself did not write about her role in the colonies in this way. Nor did she comment on the drunkenness and sexual “immorality” in Sitka. Instead she expressed her admiration for the company officials, who managed to hold things together. “The officials are energetic people—tough characters; they have to be, for simpletons and weaklings would not make it out this far.”45 Instead it was Ferdinand who wrote about the couple’s moral obligation as representatives of empire. “It was our duty,” he remarked, “or rather we considered it as such, to introduce the concepts of decency and mores to this remote corner of the globe.”46 If “civilization” was the von Wrangells’ shared goal, their manner of promoting it was gendered. The role of European women in the colonies was to give birth, to care for their husband and children, to manage the home, to be a model wife and mother, to exhibit sexual restraint, and to inculcate the idea of domesticity in the colonies. In contrast, men’s civilizing work took the form of exploration, map-making, and the conquest, control, and regulation of new areas and the Native population, as well as the organization and construction of new colonies.47 Ferdinand fitted this mold perfectly. He collected geographical, ethnographic, and linguistic data; he organized inland explorations; established

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new posts like Saint Michael’s Redoubt, a trading post on the east coast of Saint Michael Island in Norton Sound; erected new buildings in Sitka, including a new church; and established a sawmill at the Ozerskoi Redoubt, located south of Sitka at the head of Redoubt Bay. He also improved the working conditions for company employees, brought order to the accounts, and imposed restrictions on the use of strong liquor.48 However, in contrast to both Margaretha Etholén and Anna Furuhjelm, Elisabeth does not appear to have seen her civilizing role in moral terms. Unlike them, she was not upset by the immorality of frontier life. Nor did she express a need to convert or enlighten the Native population. Perhaps the reason for this was that she was not particularly interested in the virtues of “true womanhood” and its position of moral superiority. She was less judgmental and more sympathetic to the Natives, the Creoles, and the Russian fur traders. Thus, while Margaretha Etholén and Anna Furuhjelm would consider it important to monitor and limit the excesses of Sitka’s social life, Elisabeth was more permissive and easy-going in her role as governor’s wife. This attitude made her more popular among company employees than her two successors. Of course, her “popularity” was also due to the fact that she was the first European lady in the Governor’s House. As Ferdinand noted, this was the first time since Russian America became a colony that officers, officials, workers, and others were received by a chatelaine, “who also happened to be a charming, gracious and cultured young lady.”49 Hardly a neutral observer, Ferdinand claimed that Elisabeth won the heart of everyone she met. To him, she was an outstanding woman, always in high spirits. Her inexperience was more than compensated for by her consideration and tact, her bright and lively spirit, and her keen interest in everything and everyone, regardless of rank or education.50 Khlebnikov substantiates Ferdinand’s exuberant description, affirming that Elisabeth was liked by everyone, even the rough Russian fur traders and Sitka toyons.51 Unlike Margaretha Etholén, who was very particular about form and etiquette and who policed class boundaries, Elisabeth did not feel the same need to maintain strict social rules. Possibly, her upbringing in the old Baltic German nobility gave her greater confidence in her social position. In contrast to Anna Furuhjelm, who regarded Russians as less civilized than Western Europeans and felt that the colony would have done better if ruled by Britain or the United States, Elisabeth had a more favorable opinion of the Russian Empire she represented. In particular, this pertained to its treatment of the Creoles. Attitudes to the offspring of mixed sexual unions differed between the two fur-trade companies in America’s Pacific Northwest. Whereas



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the Hudson’s Bay Company showed little inclination to integrate these children, the Creoles in Russian America were granted full status as Russian citizens.52 Furthermore, they had the opportunity to pursue higher education in Russia at the RAC’s expense on the condition that they subsequently returned to the colonies and served for ten years.53 Although hardly regarded as equals, Elisabeth was nonetheless impressed by the way the Creoles had been allowed to integrate into the Russian Empire. A young Creole who had received his education at the naval college in Kronstadt outside Saint Petersburg and who then pursued a career in the Russian navy was a pertinent example. Elisabeth argued that “[t]his particular type of person could hardly be found anywhere else but among the rich diversity of ethnic peoples of Russia, who obviously enjoy the benefits of Christian civilization.”54 As an example of what, in her view, could be considered as successful integration, she recounted a farewell dinner for a young Creole man who was going to Russia to pursue his career. During the dinner, which was given by his family, Elisabeth noted how much attention the son bestowed upon his parents. What caught her attention was that his stay in Europe and his “cosmopolitan connections” in no way had diminished his regard for his origins or his family.55 Ferdinand, too, remarked in positive terms on the way Creoles had been integrated into the empire by being recognized as Russian citizens and educated by the company. Creoles were now generally considered to be “near-equals to the Russians.” Several of them held positions of responsibility, and the most capable priest in the colony was a Creole. According to Ferdinand, the Creoles’ way of life did not differ from that of the Russians, “their intellectual ability is very good, and they display a particular aptitude for mechanical skills.”56 In contrast, he was very critical of how the Native people had been treated when the Russians first arrived. Still, he argued, the indigenous population in other parts of America suffered in the same way and “[t]he impact of civilization on these wild children of wood and wilderness has taken a frightful toll.” Ferdinand now hoped that the RAC would perceive its noble destiny and would “not hesitate to eradicate the last traces of licentiousness introduced by the first visitors to the Northwest Coast of America.” He urged the company to seek managers willing to promote the good of all men, who constantly strove to ennoble themselves and their surroundings.57 Somewhat paradoxically, it was during Ferdinand’s tenure as governor in Sitka that a wall equipped with two batteries was built to protect the settlement from the Tlingit Indians, who had never accepted the presence of the European colonizers on their land. The high wall of logs enclosed the entire “suburb” where

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most of the white inhabitants lived. This settlement, which had sprung up soon after the founding of Novo-Arkhangel’sk, was exposed to the Tlingits from all sides. According to Ferdinand, the inhabitants were “completely at the mercy of the Indians,” who “committed thefts and all sorts of nasty tricks like polluting our drinking water, paying unwanted visits at night and other such nonsense.” In order to improve relations with the Tlingits, Ferdinand took certain measures, such as lowering the price of goods and eliminating oppressive treatment by managers and foremen.58 The beginning of the rapprochement between the Tlingit and the Russians happened in 1821, before the arrival of the von Wrangells, when Governor Muraviev permitted the Tlingits of the Shee T’iká kwáan (i.e., Sitka tribe) to settle by the walls of the Fort Novo-Arkhangel’sk. The Tlingits gradually became the primary providers of fresh provisions to the Russians in the settlement. The Russian administration saw trade with the Tlingits as an active means of subjecting and culturally assimilating the independent Natives, as well as maintaining peaceful relations with them. Though by the 1830s Russian–Tlingit relations were more stable, friendly relations were not yet established. However, while the main reason for building the wall around “the suburb” was to prevent the Tlingits from robbing the settlement, it also helped the company to control trade in the region, which contributed substantially to neighborly relations between the Russians and the Tlingits. One noticeable example of improved relations was that white inhabitants of Sitka were able to go for walks in the forest without fear of being attacked by Tlingits, something that had been inconceivable a decade earlier.59

Th e Go v e r nor ’s w ife at home As her second winter in Sitka was approaching, Elisabeth gave birth to a son. It was November 25, 1831, and he was given the name Wilhelm. His parents called him Willuta. From the late stages of the pregnancy, the tone of Elisabeth’s letters changes. Possibly suffering from post-natal depression, the remoteness of Russian America was taking its toll. The birth of her second child created a sense of isolation. Elisabeth was now confined to the domestic role of wife and mother. Things had been different when Müs’chen was born, when Ferdinand had been present both physically and mentally. He had shared some of the responsibility



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as well as the whole experience of becoming a parent. Furthermore, Müs’chen had not prevented her from going out into the world, even if things had often been difficult. Now she felt trapped in the Governor’s House. In contrast to Anna Furuhjelm, the home was not a place that gave Elisabeth complete satisfaction. Nor did motherhood fully absorb her. She also wanted other things from life. Already when summer turned to autumn, Elisabeth’s mood had changed. She was no longer as cheerful as before. Perhaps the change of mood was due to the advanced stage of her pregnancy. Perhaps it was due to the fact that she had spent the summer alone at home with Müs’chen, while Ferdinand went on his inspection tour of the colonies. Or possibly the novelty of Sitka and her position as first lady had worn off as her first proper autumn in Russian Alaska drew near. Ferdinand was very busy, and she had no close friend. Her sense of isolation grew stronger when the ship from Okhotsk arrived with the annual harvest of mail and newspapers from Europe. This was a special time in Sitka, remarked upon by several travelers. Zagoskin, for example, talked about “the suspense of nearly 1,000 men waiting for the arrival of the Okhotsk boat on which once a year official papers, newspapers and letters arrive from Europe to the American colonies.”60 When the ship finally arrived, the whole town was in commotion for weeks.61 Although Elisabeth tried to be her usual cheerful self, her unhappiness was now evident in her letters. Her playfulness and irony are gone, replaced by expressions of homesickness. Ferdinand noticed this mood change in his wife. In early 1832, he wrote to his friend Friedrich von Lütke about his concern for her. He worried that she was suffering from the solitude and isolation in Sitka, an affliction that affected most Europeans in Russian America. He tried to spend as much time as possible with her “in order to banish melancholy thoughts and to prevent the solitude of Sitka from depressing her.” However, the governor was a very busy man, and he regretted the fact that Elisabeth did not have a single female friend to spend time with.62 At around the same time, Governor Simpson of the neighboring Hudson’s Bay Company expressed similar concerns for his wife, Frances. “She has no Society, no Friend, no Relative here but myself,” he wrote, “she cannot move about without me on my different Journeys and I cannot leave her in the hands of strangers.”63 It is noteworthy that even though Ferdinand worried about Elisabeth’s frame of mind, she was apparently the one who cheered him up. When they were about to leave Alaska, Ferdinand confessed to Lütke how isolated he had felt during his “exile” in Sitka, cut off from educated and enlightened society. During this difficult time, Elisabeth had been his true guardian angel. “Without

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her my soul would have withered during this period of solitude and I would have returned home a sorry and insensitive misanthrope.”64 As the summer of 1832 arrived, Elisabeth had once more to remain in Sitka while Ferdinand inspected the various parts of the colony. In a letter to her husband, she wrote lovingly about their children. Willuta had hurt his foot and Müs’chen asked for her Papa every morning. Still, Elisabeth could not hide the fact that she was unhappy. It was only at 10 p.m., a full week after he left, that she was finally able to sit down to compose a letter to him. Her letter shows another side of Elisabeth. The brave, independent and animated young woman of the Siberian journal had given way to a person who seems dispirited, listless, and dependent. She was also more sensitive and affectionate. In fact, her feelings and thoughts were now much more in tune with those of Anna Furuhjelm and Margaretha Etholén when they were left alone in the Governor’s House on their husbands’ inspection tours.65 Like these later governor’s wives, Elisabeth desperately missed her husband during his absence and counted the hours to their next meeting. All her usual energy dissipated and her domestic duties suffered as a result. The day Ferdinand left, Elisabeth went to bed in tears, yet could find no rest. The house was empty and sad. “You cannot imagine how depressing and desolate the house is without you,” she told Ferdinand. “I cannot find any peace anywhere and do not feel inclined to do anything.” Elisabeth’s unhappiness and the passivity it entailed gave her a bad conscience. She blamed herself for sleeping late in the mornings and justified her behavior with her difficulties to fall asleep in the evenings. She also carefully pointed out that she continued to perform her domestic chores with or without energy, and she could tell her husband that she had started making a sun hat for Müs’chen and done work in the garden. Loneliness was not Elisabeth’s only problem, however. Like Margaretha Etholén and Anna Furuhjelm, Elisabeth worried that something would happen to her husband, or to her family in Estonia, while Ferdinand was away. She found a few forgotten letters from home which comforted her in her solitude, yet also stirred up feelings of homesickness. “I was touched to see Mother’s handwriting—so precious to me—that of my sister Pauline and Tante Lehnchen. Their greetings seemed to reach out to me and comfort me in my loneliness without you,” she wrote to Ferdinand. In a rare display of her innermost feelings, Elisabeth wrote about her love for her husband, adding the uncharacteristically tender parting words: “I embrace you with all my heart which is filled with unspeakable longing for you, to whom I owe all that is beautiful in my life.”66



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While Margaretha was homesick from the first day she arrived in Sitka, Elisabeth and Anna developed this feeling only later. Both started out with a sense of excited expectation and both ended up feeling isolated and longing intensely for home. Yet, they reacted very differently to their feelings. While Anna turned her back on public life and focused on home and family, Elisabeth did not even consider this option. To her, the role of mother and homemaker was not sufficient to make her feel happy and fulfilled. She loved her children dearly and they certainly brought her joy, but they were not at the center of her existence and identity, in the way Anna’s children were to her. Elisabeth never quite reconciled herself with her role as a mother in Sitka. Partly this was due to the special circumstances in the colonies, but it also had to do with her character and expectations. Motherhood came into conflict with her need for freedom and her craving for interesting company. The private world was far too small and narrow, at least in Sitka, where she felt isolated from the outside world. Whenever it was possible, rather than stay behind in Sitka, she followed Ferdinand on his inspections tours to places like Kenai, Kodiak, and Fort Ross. Elisabeth seems to have epitomized a period of transition between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries in terms of gender roles. The view of woman as biologically determined and the notion of a natural tie between mother and child started to appear in both the Russian core and the Baltic periphery in the beginning of the nineteenth century. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, a number of advice books for young women were translated into Russian and German, Elisabeth’s native language. The ideology of separate spheres, which had already grown strong among white middle- and upper-class women in Britain and North America, began to dominate ideas about gender roles in Russia. As in the West, and with frequent quotations from Western literature, women were instructed to prepare themselves for domestic duties and to shun the corruption resulting from participation in wider society. During the first decades of the nineteenth century, historians have remarked upon an erosion of female authority in the family.67 Elisabeth von Wrangell poorly fits the prescriptive ideal of the nineteenth-­century woman, a woman who worshiped her family and regarded motherly love as the greatest love in a woman’s life.68 She much more resembles eighteenth-century mothers, like Elisabeth Simcoe, who wrote very little about her children during her time in North America, rather than the likes of Lady Dufferin, wife of Lord Dufferin, governor general of Canada, or Anna Furuhjelm—nineteenth-century mothers whose diaries are preoccupied with their children. Needless to say, it would be wrong to infer that Elisabeth’s feelings

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for her children were less strong than those of Dufferin and Furuhjelm. Rather, we are dealing with different concepts of motherhood and womanhood, as well as different practices of diary-writing. In late August 1832, tragedy struck the Governor’s House in Sitka. After a short illness Müs’chen suddenly and unexpectedly died at the age of two. Ferdinand described his grief in a letter to his close friend Lütke, saying that Müs’chen, during her twenty-eight months on this earth, was her parents’ pride and joy. No diary or letters have been found in which Elisabeth talks about her feelings of grief. Nevertheless, this traumatic event must have reinforced her sense of isolation and longing for family and friends in Estonia. According to Ferdinand, Müs’chen was her mother’s joy during the journey across Siberia and her comfort during her first year in Novo Arkhangel’sk.69 The fact that Müs’chen’s death occurred in the distant outpost of Sitka meant that Elisabeth had to face the loss of her firstborn without the support of family and friends. She also had to accept that her daughter would be buried in a remote place in a grave that would be unattended by parents and family, who would never be able to visit her final resting place. In Ferdinand’s words, she found “her eternal peace in this isolated and Godforsaken place.”70 Eighteen months after Müs’chen’s demise, Elisabeth mentioned her daughter’s death in a letter. Her son Wilhelm had recently recovered from a serious illness that had made Elisabeth fear for his life. “I was frightened to death,” she confessed, “and, for a painful moment saw Willuta occupy the place next to Müs’chen’s grave. Leaving two children behind in this hopeless isolation seemed too much a trial for my motherly love.”71 Fortunately, Wilhelm was spared Müs’chen’s fate, but this was the first time Elisabeth spoke openly of her motherly love, at least in the writings that have survived to us. Her love for her children can be glimpsed on other occasions, too. One example is when she was recovering at the Hot Springs close to Sitka, in preparation for the long journey back to Europe in the summer of 1835. In a letter to Ferdinand, she expressed her longing for her son and asked him to “kiss my little Williusha for me a thousand times. I really miss him most dreadfully.”72 When Elisabeth wrote to her mother in mid-January 1834, her attitude to Sitka had undergone considerable change since the first year. The letter was occasioned by her mother’s birthday, which made the distance to family and friends more apparent. “Today my thoughts are with you more than ever, and the separation weighs more heavily on me, too. Oh, that God may preserve you for the happiness of our family and those near to you!” All day she thought about what



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might be going on at home and how they were celebrating this occasion. It was hard to accept that she would have to wait for nine long months at least before she could expect a letter from home. Although the time for her return journey was now approaching, Elisabeth was intermittently overcome by violent homesickness when “my longing for all of you seizes me with such vehemence, that I have no idea how much longer I can bear the separation.” When it was finally possible to say “‘next year we shall be leaving!’” she was overjoyed. “The mere thought of it makes my heart race.”73 In Elisabeth’s final letter from Russian America, her humorous tone had returned and her lively character came to life again. This is evident already in the name she gave to the hot springs, where she rested to be fit for the journey home through Mexico. She named the place Dranishnikopol after the nearby mountain, Dranishnikov, making the place sound like a fashionable European spa resort. The letter was written in August 1835, about one month before they would begin their homeward journey. She was still lonely and longed for both Ferdinand, her “one and only Love,” and little Wilhelm, but she was far more relaxed and no longer desperate. The letter ended in the self-mocking, yet loving, words, “Farewell my Friend. Love me forever and do not forget me despite the fact that I shall always remain your old, foolish and skinny, Lisi.”74 On the verge of leaving Sitka, their luggage already sent ahead on a ship bound for Europe, it seemed that they would not be able to leave after all. The new governor, Ivan Kupreianov, who was to replace Ferdinand, was nowhere to be seen. At that point, they were forced to reconcile themselves to the thought of staying on in Russian America for yet another year and maybe even longer. But then, on October 25, a ship was sighted on the horizon and at last the new governor and his young wife, Iulia, arrived after a record-long voyage from Okhotsk. Happiness replaced disappointment, despair turned into relief. Ferdinand expressed their feelings in his travel journal: “At first, all those hopes we had entertained for so many years in our remote isolation seemed to be dashed and then, all of a sudden, they were actually fulfilled!”75

Ho me wa rd! When time had come for the final farewell, there was place also for nostalgia. Elisabeth and Ferdinand had spent the first years of their marriage in Russian America and left behind their firstborn child in a lonely grave in Sitka. The

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memory of Müs’chen would always be associated with Russian America. There was also the parting from friends with whom they had shared the joys and sorrows of life in the colonies.76 Elisabeth had certain qualities that helped her perform her duties as a governor’s wife in Russian America, but these same qualities worked less well in her role as homemaker. Her enchantment with the free, the wild, and the foreign, her passion for adventure and heroes; her cheerful and lively character; and her interest in other people were traits that helped her deal with the many difficulties and peoples she encountered in the colonies. Yet, her liveliness and gregariousness made it hard to cope with the isolated and lonely life of a governor’s wife in Sitka. The governor’s wife had to possess not only social graces but also the ability to endure solitude, a combination seldom found in the same person. Had Elisabeth been more satisfied with caring for home and family instead of feeling restricted by this task, her life would have been easier. Instead, Elisabeth changed in Russian America. When she arrived, she was a cheerful, bold, and optimistic person, but barely a year later she had turned into a serious, worried, and sensitive woman. However, as the return journey was approaching, a reversal to her former self began. Back in Europe, her melancholy seems to have vanished. Many years later, her son Ferdinand, born in Estonia in 1844, remembered well how his mother, despite suffering from terminal illness “whenever the pain subsided, was the sunny center [of the family] from which happiness and joy radiated to the surroundings.”77 The von Wrangells journeyed home via Mexico and New York and arrived in Kronstad on June 4, 1836. Ferdinand described the journey across Mexico from San Blas to Mexico City and from there to Jalapa, 5,000 feet above sea level, finally reaching Vera Cruz on April 3, 1836. The terrain was rough, the lodgings poor, and the temperatures high. They were constantly warned of thieves and robbers but were spared any serious incident. To Ferdinand, the travails of Mexico were a breeze compared to the Yakutsk-Okhotsk trail, where dangers and difficulties lurked at every step. Elisabeth apparently left no account of the journey, but seems not to have complained to her husband, despite being two month pregnant at the outset. “My wife did not seem at all tired after this long ride,” Ferdinand wrote in his journal, “and our little son was extremely happy throughout.” Ferdinand wrote critical comments about the Mexican Confederacy at considerable length, pinpointing the immorality of the white population as the root of all evil. He accused them of keeping “the colored people” in subservience and described them as greedy, self-centered, and materialistic. The “people of Indian



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background,” in contrast, he described as polite. “[T]heir disposition is gentle and they are certainly no scoundrels. They are easy to get on with, strongly built, and are brave and steadfast—if commanded by a capable officer. . .” Ferdinand did commend the Mexicans for their cleanliness, however, saying of the villagers of Santa Isabella that “the cooking utensils and the meals are always clean and immaculate. This stand in stark contrast to what we saw in some Russian izbas!”78 On June 16, 1836, Elisabeth finally arrived at her family’s summer house in Estonia. Ferdinand had to remain in Saint Petersburg, but Elisabeth was in a hurry. Nine days later she gave birth to a son, Nikolai, who would die in early childhood.79 With this sad event still in the future, Elisabeth spent a happy summer together with family and friends, but eventually settled in Saint Petersburg, where Ferdinand served in the Russian Imperial Navy and as one of the directors of the Russian-American Company. According to Ferdinand, neither he nor Elisabeth enjoyed life in the Russian capital. What was worse, Elisabeth’s health suffered from Saint Petersburg’s poor climate.80 When Ferdinand acquired the estate Ruil, or Roela, from his father-in-law in 1840, they decided to move back to Estonia. In addition to concern for Elisabeth’s declining health and their general discontent with life in the capital, they wished to give their children a solid Baltic German upbringing. Ferdinand continued to work for the navy and the RAC, but in 1848, one year after having been promoted to vice admiral, he tendered his resignation. Released from the wearisome life as an official in Saint Petersburg, he was now able to spend his time in the country with his family. As fate would have it, the same year their two youngest daughters both fell victim to an epidemic of scarlet fever. The couple had nine children, but lost four. Their youngest, Karoline Antoine, was born in 1850. Four years later, at the age of forty-four, Elisabeth passed away, leaving her husband to care for five young children: Wilhelm, Peter, Elisabeth, Ferdinand, and Karoline. Ferdinand survived his wife by sixteen years. He never remarried.81

No t es 1. von Wrangell, letter to her parents. Sitka, October 14, 1830 2. Ibid. 3. Colonial Russian America. Kyrill T. Khlebnikov’s Reports, 1817−1832. Translated with introduction and notes by Basil Dmytryshyn and E. A. P. Crownhart-Vaughan, Oregon Historical Society (Portland, OR, 1976), p. 76; Svetlana G. Fedorova, The

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4. 5.

6. 7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

Married to the Empire Russian Population in Alaska and California Late 18th Century-1867 (Kingston, ON., 1973), p. 161; F. P. Lütke, A Voyage Around the World, 1826–1829 (Kingston, ON., 1987), vol. I, 1987, p. 50. von Wrangell, letter to her parents. Sitka, October 14, 1830. Acta Wrangeliana No. 30, 1968, Dr. Wolf Freiherr von Wrangel, ed., “Brief des A. Chlebnikow an Elisabeth von Wrangell geb. Baronesse Rossillon 1836,” p. 177. Published in Syn Otechestvo, 1838, vol. 2, no. 32, VI, pp. 1−17. English translation in O’Grady, p. 282. Elisabeth Simcoe, Diary entry September 14, 1793, Mrs. Simcoe’s Diary, p. 141. See letter to her parents. Sitka, October 14, 1830, in Dorpater Jahrbücher, vol. II, pp. 179–186. Colonial Russian America: Kyrill T. Khlebnikov’s Reports, 1817−1832, p. 28. See also Richard Pierce and John Winslow eds., H.M.S. Sulphur on the Northwest and California Coasts, 1837 and 1839. The Accounts of Captain Edward Belcher and Midshipman Francis Guillemard Simpkinson (Kingston, ON, 1979), p. 94; Henry N. Michael, ed., Lieutenant Zagoskin’s Travels in Russian America, 1842−1844 (Toronto, 1967), p. 211. von Wrangell, letter to her parents. Sitka, October 14, 1830. Kolosh was the common Russian term for Tlingits. Ibid. Lieutenant Zagoskin’s Travels in Russian America, 1842−1844, p. 69. von Wrangell, letter to her parents, Sitka, October 14, 1830; Elisabeth von Wrangell, letter to her parents, Sitka, May 1831, in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, pp. 161−168. Original letter in Acta Wrangeliana, no. 30, pp. 64−68. von Wrangell, letter to her parents, Sitka, October 14, 1830. Ibid. von Wrangell, letter to her parents, Sitka, May 1831. von Wrangell, letter to her parents, Sitka, October 14, 1830. von Wrangell, letter to her parents, Sitka, May 1831. Ibid. See also von Wrangell, Russian America. Statistical and Etnographic Information, pp. 4−5. von Wrangell, letter to her parents, Sitka, October 14, 1830; letter to her parents, Sitka, May 1831. See Margaret A. McLeod, The Letters of Letitia Hargrave (Toronto, 1947), p. 94. von Wrangell, letter to her parents, Sitka, May 1831. Ibid. Ozerskoi Redoubt was located at the outlet of Redoubt Lake near Sitka. The Russians had fish traps here, and it became the first commercial fishery in Alaska.



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24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34.

35. 36. 37. 38.

39.

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Letter from Kyrill Khlebnikov addressed to Baroness Elisabeth von Wrangell née de Rossillon, Syn Otechestvo, 1838, vol. 2, no. 32, VI, pp. 1−17. English translation in O’Grady, pp. 280−286. von Wrangell, letter to her parents, Sitka, May 1831. Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes. Men and Women of the English middle class, 1780−1850 (London, 1987), p. 400; Kathleen Wilson, “Empire, Gender and Modernity in the Eighteenth Century” in Philippa Levine, ed., Gender and Empire (Oxford, 2004), p. 27; Catherine Hall “Of Gender and Empire: Reflections on the Nineteenth Century,” in ibid., pp. 70−71; Strobel, European Women, p. 9; Hilary Callan and Shirley Ardener, eds., The Incorporated Wife (London, 1984). von Wrangell, letter to her parents, Sitka, May 1831. Ibid. von Wrangell, letter to her parents, Sitka, October 14, 1830. von Wrangell, letter to her parents, Sitka, May 1831. Ibid. Ibid. Letter from Ferdinand von Wrangell to Elisabeth’s parents, in Dorpater Jahrbücher, vol. II, pp. 356−363. Andrei V. Grinev, The Tlingit Indians in Russian America 1741−1867 (Lincoln, NE, 2005), p. 246; Sergei Kan, Memory Eternal: Tlingit Culture and Russian Orthodox Christianity Through Two Centuries (Seattle, 1999), p. 118. Colonial Russian America: Kyrill T. Khlebnikov’s Reports, p. 71; Russian original, “Materialy dlia istorii russkikh zaselenii po beregam vostochnago okeana,” Morskoi sbornik, no. 3, 1861, p. 92; Dr. Romanovskii and Dr. Frankenhaeuser, Five Years of Medical Observations in the Colonies of the Russian-American Company 1843−1848 (Kingston, ON, 1974), pp. 121−122. F. P. Lütke, cited in Grinev, The Tlingit Indians in Russian America, p. 246. Colonial Russian America: Kyrill T. Khlebnikov’s Reports, p. 71; Russian original, p. 92. Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, p. 398; Hall, “Of Gender and Empire,” p. 60. John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (Chicago, 1997), pp. 45, 70, 141−145; Hellerstein et al., Victorian Women, pp. 177−179; Wilson, “Empire, Gender and Modernity in the Eighteenth Century,” p. 27; J. N. Brownfoot, “Memsahibs in Colonial Malaya,” in The Incorporated Wife. Ferdinand von Wrangell, Statistische und ethnographische Nachrichten über die Russischen Besitzungen an der Nordwestküste von Amerika (Saint Petersburg, 1839).

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40. Lydia Black, “The Creole Class in Russian America,” Pacifica, 1990:2:2:142−155, pp. 149−151; Sonja Luehrmann, Alutiiq Villages under Russian and U.S. Rule (Fairbanks, AK, 2008), p. 137. 41. Colonial Russian America: Kyrill T. Khlebnikov’s Reports, pp. 49−50; Russian original, p. 64. 42. See Fedorova, The Russian Population in Alaska and California, p. 207. 43. von Wrangell, Statistische und ethnographische Nachrichten über die russischen Besitzungen an der Nordwestküste von Amerika, pp. 31−32. Author’s translation. 44. Zagoskin, “Notes from Another World,” in Lieutenant Zagoskin’s Travels in Russian America, 1842−1844, p. 69. 45. von Wrangell, letter to her parents, Sitka, May 1831. 46. Acta Wrangeliana, no. 30, 1968, p. 57. My italics. 47. Hall, “Of Gender and Empire,” p. 47; K. Wilson, “Empire, Gender, and Modernity in the Eighteenth Century,” in Gender and Empire, pp. 19−20. 48. Letter from Baron Ferdinand von Wrangell to Elisabeth’s parents, Sitka, November 12, 1830, in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, pp. 147−158. German original in Dorpater Jahrbücher, vol. II, pp. 356−364. See also Lieutenant Zagoskin’s Travels in Russian America, 1842−1844, p. 69. 49. Ferdinand von Wrangell cited in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, p. 160. 50. Ferdinand von Wrangell, Acta Wrangeliana, no. 30, 1968, p. 57. 51. Letter from Khlebnikov to Elisabeth von Wrangell, January 6, 1837. 52. O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, p. 192. For a comparison of the HBC and the RAC, see Roxanne Easley, “Demographic Borderlands: People of Mixed Heritage in the Russian American Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1670−1870,” The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, vol. 99, no. 2 (Spring, 2008). 53. For an unfavorable view of the Russian practice of intermarriages, see Captain Belcher’s account, p. 22. 54. von Wrangell, letter to her parents, Sitka, May 1831. 55. Ibid. 56. von Wrangell, Russian America. Statistical and Etnographic Information, p. 15. 57. Ibid., pp.16−17. 58. P. A. Tikhmenev, A History of the Russian-American Company (Seattle, 1987), p. 502, n. 52; letter from Ferdinand von Wrangell to Elisabeth’s parents, Sitka, November 12, 1830. 59. Grinev, The Tlingit Indians, pp. 162−173; S. G. Fedorova, ed., Russkaia Amerika v “zapiskakh” Kirila Khlebnikova: Novo-Arkhangel’sk (Moscow, 1985), p. 135. 60. Lieutenant Zagoskin’s Travels in Russian America, 1842−1844, p. 67. 61. Lütke, A Voyage Around the World, 1826−1829.



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62. von Wrangell, Ein Kampf um Wahrheit, pp. 75−78, 80. Evidence that Elisabeth was of a happy disposition back in Estonia shows the effect Sitka had on her spirits. See her son Ferdinand’s memoirs, Acta Wrangeliana No. 29, 1965, p. 22. 63. Georg Simpson, cited in Sylvia Van Kirk, Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society in Western Canada 1670−1870 (Winnipeg, 1980), p. 199. For European Women’s difficulties to adjust to fur trade life, see also Jennifer S. H. Brown, Strangers in Blood. Fur Trade Company Families in Indian Country (Vancouver, BC, 1980), pp. 128−129, 214−215. 64. Letter from Ferdinand von Wrangell to Friedrich Lütke, Sitka, January 21, 1835 in von Wrangell, Ein Kampf um Wahrheit, pp. 86−87. 65. This and the following paragraphs are based on Elisabeth von Wrangell, letter to Ferdinand von Wrangell, Sitka, June 7, 1832 in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, pp. 206−209. German original in The Estonian Historical Archives, formerly The Estonian State Central Archives, Eesti NSV Riiklik Ajaloo Kesk Archiv, Fond 2057, Nim I S. –ü.494. 66. Ibid. 67. For Russia see Kelly, Refining Russia, pp. 31, 53, 62−65, 68, 122−123, 128, 181. For the Baltics, see Whelan, Adapting to Modernity. The Baltic-German nobility were above all influenced by German and French literature. 68. Fowler, The Embroidered Tent, pp. 189−90, 195. 69. Ferdinand von Wrangell, Travel Journal of the Journey from Sitka to St Petersburg via Mexico, October 1835 to May 22nd 1836 in L. A. Shur, K beregam Novogo Sveta. Iz neopublikovannykh zapisok puteshestvennikov nachala IX veka (Moscow, 1971). 70. Letter from Ferdinand von Wrangell to Friedrich Lütke, Sitka, August 25, 1832, in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, p. 210. 71. Elisabeth von Wrangell to Natalie de Rossillon, Sitka, January, 16, 1834 in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, pp. 216−217. German original in von Wrangell, Ein Kampf um Wahrheit, pp. 78−79. 72. Elisabeth von Wrangell to Ferdinand von Wrangell, Dranishnikopol, August 10, 1835 in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, pp. 224−226. German original in The Estonian Historical Archives, Fond 2057. 73. Von Wrangell to Natalie de Rossillon, Sitka, January 16, 1834. 74. Elisabeth von Wrangell to Ferdinand von Wrangell, Dranishnikopol, August 10, 1835. 75. von Wrangell, “Travel Journal,” in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, p. 228. 76. Ibid., p. 229. 77. Ferdinand von Wrangell, Acta Wrangeliana, No. 29, 1965, p. 22. Author’s translation.

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78. von Wrangell, Travel Journal, in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, pp. 248−250, 254. 79. von Wrangell, Ein Kampf um Wahrheit, p. 88. 80. Ibid., Ch. 4 81. O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, pp. 275−279.

P a r t II

Margaretha Etholén

Portrait of Margaretha Etholén, in oil by J. E. Lindh, 1839, courtesy of National Board of Antiquities, Helsinki, Finland.

I

t was a chilly Saturday in October 1841 in Sitka, the far-removed outpost of the Russian-American Company in Alaska. The wife of the colony’s governor, Margaretha Etholén, was sitting in the nursery of the Governor’s House at the bedside of her eighteen-month-old son, Edward. Her little boy had been ill for more than a week and showed no signs of recovering. Margaretha was feeling increasingly distraught. With her son slumbering next to her, she sought comfort in the Bible. She came across a passage about how in the moment of anguish you should praise the Lord and take refuge in Him. God wished for the distraught to come to him so that he could help and comfort them. Those who stood firm in their faith would in due course receive comfort. Fear was a futile feeling, a temptation. “Oh, how easily does not hope vanish in the most sorrowful heart! How ready are you not to interpret God’s words and promises in accordance to the wishes of your own weak heart. In these words I thought I could hear the voice of God, telling me that my child, my darling, would not die, would not be taken from me, and which blissful tears I shed at this notion.” But reading on, Margaretha came to a passage saying that salvation was best promoted by learning to endure pain and suffering. The Lord said, “What I have given I may take back when it pleases me. What I have given is mine and when I take it back I will not take what is yours.” Reading these lines Margaretha froze inside. “Then the fear returned that my Eda might die and I cut off a lock of his hair and put it in the Book, by the first paragraph and he, the Angel, still slumbered; then the thought struck me coldly that perhaps this is the last lock you 105

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will ever cut from the living boy’s head and I quickly took another one, but then he woke up because my hand was trembling and perhaps a tear fell on his little head. ‘Mummy,’ he said in a low plaintive voice, and gave me his slender, emaciated hand—and his feeble gaze still expressed tenderness—but soon he closed his eyes . . . as he held my hand. Oh, my God! Then I asked for mercy for the poor little sweetheart!!! My God! My God, Forgive me!”1

Note 1. Margaretha Etholén, Diary, November 21, 1841.

Chapter Three

From Helsinki to Sitka

H

edvig Johanna Margaretha Etholén (1814–1894) was born in Janakkala parish, Tampere, in Finland. She was the daughter of Judge Isaac Sundvall and Margareta Lovisa Gripenberg, who belonged to Finland’s Swedish-speaking nobility. Margaretha spent her youth in Oulu, or Uleåborg, which, though a provincial town, was known for its thriving cultural and intellectual life. Nevertheless, her mother believed Margaretha needed to broaden her horizons. Thus, she frequently brought her to Stockholm, where her aunt, Jeanette von Schoultz, introduced her to the cultural life of the Swedish capital.1 After the death of her father in the summer of 1836, Margaretha moved to Helsinki with her mother. Margaretha, who was now twenty-one years old and worked as a French teacher at her uncle’s school, soon became one of the ladies of letters in Helsinki. She was often seen in the city’s literary circles together with her cousins Sophie and Louise Langenskjöld. In December 1838, she met her husband to be, Adolph Etholén, at a Christmas ball in Helsinki. She turned twenty-four on Christmas Day; he was forty and had recently been appointed governor and chief manager of Russian America.2 Their engagement became the talk of the town. Margaretha’s cousin, Sophie Langenskjöld wrote to Augusta Lundahl, “Molly [Margaretha] Sundvall is engaged to the so-called American, lieutenant Etholén, chief manager of the Russian possessions in North America. The wedding will take place in spring and then they will sail to Sitka to reside there for 5 years!———Soon the ocean will separate her from mother and friends, from everything she holds dear on earth— and to those who remain, it is as if their friend were dead during these five years, since the mail does not arrive from Okhotsk more than once a year.”3 Six months later, on Tuesday, June 18, at 8 p.m., Adolph and Margaretha were married.4 107

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After the wedding ceremony, the couple went straight to Saint Petersburg, where Margaretha was introduced to Elisabeth von Wrangell, now the wife of the president of the board of the RAC. In her capacity as former governor’s wife, she informed Margaretha about the duties she was expected to perform as the company’s first lady in Sitka.5 One of her main tasks was to supervise the school for Creole girls, a task that her education and experience as a teacher at Gripenbergs skola för gossar och flickor (i.e., Gripenberg school for boys and girls) had made her well prepared for.6 The Finnish-built Russian-American ship Nikolai I that would take the Etholéns to Russian Alaska left Kronstadt on August 21, 1839, and arrived in Helsinki’s south harbor on September 2. Twelve days later, on September 14, Nikolai I weighed anchor and set off on her nine-month journey to Sitka. In addition to Margaretha, Adolph, and their servants—Carl Enberg, the valet; Johan Carlson, the errand boy; and Henrika Sahlström, the maid—there were several other Finns on the ship. Among them was Lieutenant Johan Bartram, who had been appointed by the RAC as a skipper and the governor’s second in command. He traveled with his young wife, also named Margaretha, his young sister-in-law, Ulrika Wilhelmina Swartz, their maid Kajsa Lena Ruuth, and manservant Johan Forsten. Another prominent passenger was Reinhold Sahlberg, a young naturalist and physician, who made the voyage in order to collect plants and animals together with his assistant Gustaf Rosenberg. Also on the ship was Mrs. Anna Margareta Öhman, who had been hired to keep house for the Etholéns in Sitka, and her daughter Elise.7 Margaretha Etholén was particularly pleased that Uno Cygnaeus, who would become the first pastor of the Lutheran Church in Sitka, traveled together with the company. He held service for the Lutherans onboard on Sundays and holidays.8 Adolph Etholén had convinced the RAC Board that a Lutheran church was needed in Sitka to cater to its Lutheran population.9 An official request was made and was granted by the tsar in 1839. The Orthodox Church objected at first, but they could not disregard the fact that almost a third of the European workers and artisans who worked for the RAC in the colonies were Lutherans.10 The captain of the ship was Nikolai Konradovich Kadnikov. Other Russians onboard were staff captain Alexander Sergejev; Ilya Gavrilovich Voznesenskii, collector for the Russian Scientific Academy; the midwife, Domna Andreevna; and a surgeon. The ship’s doctor, Dr. Alexander Danilovich Romanovskii, was Polish. He was to serve in the colonies as a physician. However, during the journey many of the travelers lost faith in Dr. Romanovskii’s ability as a doctor, and Sahlberg,



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the young naturalist, had to stand in for him on several occasions. It was Sahlberg, who, presumably with the help of the midwife, assisted Margaretha when she gave birth on board ship.11 The ship traveled via Copenhagen, Portsmouth, Rio de Janeiro, and Valparaiso. In Rio, Adolph bought a brig on behalf of the company, which he sailed to Valparaiso, where Lieutenant Bartram took over the helm and sailed the last stretch to Sitka. Both ships arrived in Sitka in the beginning of May.

Oc e a n c rossi ngs Onboard the Nikolai, Margaretha began to keep a diary. The first thing that strikes a reader of the diary is Margaretha’s lack of excitement about the amazing journey that she was about to undertake across half the globe, a stark contrast to the travel journal of Elisabeth von Wrangell. It was not just that life at sea was monotonous, or that she was seasick all the time. To Margaretha Etholén, the journey to Russian America was associated with a strong sense of insecurity and fear: fear of what she would encounter in the New World as well as fear of what would happen to her loved ones at home while she was gone. She dreaded the long separation from family and friends. Separation from her dear mother was particularly difficult.12 Like many other young women of her class and culture in this period, Margaretha felt very close to her mother. Nineteenthcentury middle- and upper-class girls were expected to have close relationships to their mother, but this does not necessarily make their feelings less real. In letters and diaries, these young women frequently testified to the intensity of motherdaughter relationships. Daughters wrote of their immense need for their mothers and about their fear of being left without motherly advice. The words used to describe mothers were strongly affectionate. Mutual trust and friendship constituted the basis for this special relationship, but mothers often appear to have been idealized.13 In marrying the governor of Russian America, Margaretha knew that she would not see her mother for more than six years. She worried that she wronged her weak mother in leaving her alone. One evening before the wedding, Margaretha told her; “Just say the word and I will stay,” but her mother answered, “God protect me from such madness of the moment.”14 Margaretha’s longing for her mother is vividly expressed in her diary. Out at sea in the beginning of the new year of 1840, she contemplated the year that had ended “with both pain and joy,” because it reminded her of when she was at home with her mother and, at the same time, filled her with unease about the

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future. “The old year was dear to me, because it commenced by Her side, who was my first, dearest and most faithful friend—my everything—my mother!— but it was bitter too—! During the course of it I was separated from her—and many, many years will begin and end before she may open her arms to me—But for each and every year that passes during the separation—my heart will rejoice that yet one has passed and I will thus be one year closer to the reunion;—Yes— the reunion!”15 Having concluded the diary entry, Margaretha wrapped herself in her mother’s shawl and sat down to write to her, but she was too upset to focus. After several failed attempts to put her thoughts in writing, she had to give up. She wrote in her diary how it became impossible for her to handle her strong emotions, knowing that her mother’s gaze would rest on the strokes she made; that her mother’s hand would touch the piece of paper that her own hand rested on in another part of the world. She did not want to write when she was too upset because her letters would then worry her mother rather than bring her joy. Thus, Margaretha’s letters could not express the bitter deep pain she sometimes experienced, and she kept her feelings to herself. It was only in her diary that she could confess “how many feelings of fear and hope arise and are suppressed without ever being formulated into words!”16 In contrast to Elisabeth von Wrangell, who regarded the journey to Russian America as a great adventure and became homesick only after several months in Sitka, Margaretha felt homesick from the very beginning. Already when they sailed past the coast of Gotland in the Baltic Sea, she noted in her diary that “for many years, perhaps forever” she had “bidden farewell of my beloved native soil.”17 Anna Furuhjelm, who would follow in Margaretha’s footsteps as governor’s wife, also missed her mother on leaving for Alaska, but she was overjoyed to be married and excited about the new life that marriage entailed. Margaretha was less adventurous than Elisabeth and less naïve than Anna. Hence, of the three, she was the only one who appears to have been deeply unhappy about the journey to the New World. On November 12, after two months of travel, she still longed for home. It was a clear night and she sent greetings “to my distant homeland” with the stars that shone both on her and on the loved ones at home.18 That the departure was associated with negative feelings—fear, grief, and homesickness—is evident. Margaretha constantly suffered from a guilty conscience for not being more enthusiastic and for not finding complete satisfaction in married life. From the beginning of her marriage, there was a conflict between her critical mind and her understanding of womanhood, which was shaped by prescriptive statements of the patient and submissive housewife. Elisabeth von



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Wrangell analyzed and questioned things too, but this did not conflict with her concept of womanhood. Fortunately for Margaretha, she brought something from home that gave her comfort. Margaretha was deeply religious and she carried her faith with her: a faith that her mother had instilled in her, and which made Margaretha feel connected to her mother across the sea. Every night, she said a prayer that her mother had taught her, and she was grateful that she had learned from her mother how she “would find the path that leads to salvation!”19 In the early nineteenth century, religious education of her children was one of the most important duties of a Protestant mother from the middle and upper classes. Spiritual and moral education was regarded as a holy duty provided by these mothers, especially for daughters, who were commonly educated at home.20 The first Sunday on board Nikolai I, Reverend Cygnaeus performed a church service in the gubernatorial couple’s cabin. Margaretha was very pleased with the sermon, which made a deep impression on her.21 However, what she appreciated most were the private moments of devotion together with Adolph when he read the sermon to her. These “peaceful and private moments of devotion shared with him are of an immeasurable value to my heart,” she wrote. The knowledge that they, as husband and wife, shared the same faith gave her hope and reassurance.22 Similar feelings later helped Anna Furuhjelm in her lonely despair. Even though Margaretha felt most at home in Finland, she also regarded Europe as home. When they docked in Copenhagen, she was struck by the thought that Denmark was the last European country she would see for many years. “What shall we not feel when we see this country again, after having spent so many years in another continent,” she asked herself. On the return, only a few days would remain before they were back in the circle of friends, but “now [it is] in 6 years!”23 Instead of looking forward to everything she was going to experience during the coming years, Margaretha was thinking about the return journey already. To her, this was a journey away from home rather than to new experiences. However, as fate would have it, she did not have to leave Europe just yet. Due to heavy contrary winds, Nikolai I had to anchor between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight on October 10. The same evening, the passengers were informed that a trip between Portsmouth and London could be made in nine hours. Adolph and Margaretha decided that if the wind had not abated the next day, they would take the opportunity to see the British capital. As the wind was still strong the next morning they went ashore by way of Isle of Wight; first by steamboat, then by stagecoach, and finally by rail to London. While waiting for the departure of the stagecoach in Gosport, the Etholéns had breakfast with

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the Russian consul. Margaretha noted with curiosity that all the houses on the street were attached to each other and only separated by a vestibule or a stairway. When she was invited to see the inside of some of these houses, she noticed that the furniture was arranged in the middle of the room and that a great amount of small items, such as books, musical instruments, sewing kits, engravings, medals, and so on, lay on every table. Nevertheless, she concluded that “here reigns the most distinguished neatness and order.” Traveling through the English countryside, Margaretha was impressed by the hedges, the vine-covered walls, the emerald fields, and “the sweet, rural abodes” that “spoke of a blessed prosperity” and a “happy prosperous people.” She found the English people beautiful, especially the children. They fitted well into the enchanting landscape that unfolded on either side of the road.24 The cultivated, rural idyll they traveled through was in stark contrast to the “uncultivated”, “uncivilized” environment they were heading for in the New World. When Margaretha and Adolph arrived in London, they took lodgings at Webb’s Hotel on Piccadilly. Margaretha was fascinated with this great city, “the center for industry and diligence” and “the world’s commercial city.” In the evening, she tasted oysters for the first time and found them delicious enough to have seven. They went to the theatre in Covent Garden, where one of Shakespeare’s early comedies, Love’s Labour’s Lost, was performed. Margaretha was impressed with the theatre, but found the auditorium exceedingly hot. The next day they visited “Somerset Place” (i.e., Somerset House on the Strand), where they watched models of English men-of-war in the admiralty offices. At the Royal Society they looked at a collection of tree samples from the British possessions in the New World, which made a strong impression on Margaretha. She and Adolph decided to start a similar collection of different trees during their voyage.25 This decision gave a new meaning to her journey. By collecting samples of trees, they would take part in the advancement of universal knowledge and the mapping of the New World. From Somerset House they hurried to see the “world’s eighth wonder,” the new tunnel under the Thames then under construction between Rotherhithe and Wapping that was generating enormous interest. Margaretha was completely overwhelmed by this proof of humanity’s capacity to “master nature” in order to move forward. “A surprising tenacity [has] been able to defeat the obstacles nature set up to stop . . . man’s entry into the hidden womb of earth.” Although she found the tunnel truly impressive, she also observed that an admission fee



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was charged just to look at it. This was true of everything in England. “It is almost the case that the very air you breathe must be paid for.”26 The Etholéns next continued to Saint Paul’s Cathedral. Margaretha found the cathedral extraordinary and regretted that their busy schedule prevented her from exploring it properly. In the afternoon they went to look at London’s most beautiful houses and streets, as well as “the large, sparsely planted fields, which are called Parks.”27 The park that Margaretha found most beautiful was Regent’s Park. She enjoyed the fact that there was a zoo inside the park with all sorts of birds, from colorful tropical parrots to Finnish capercailzies and black grouse. She noted in her diary that some of the birds were sitting in “little gardens, surrounded by nets,” while others were swimming in ponds. She would have liked to tarry awhile, throwing bread crumbs to the little birds, but again they had to hurry on in order to see all the other exotic animals from around the world. At dusk, it was time to leave, and Margaretha said a silent goodbye “to everything beautiful and wonderful from several continents that Regent Park held.”28 Back on board Nikolai I, Margaretha began to take an interest in the unknown world they were now entering. Every day, she made a note of the day’s temperature. She also plotted the ship’s course on a map of her own and noted when they passed the Northern tropic on November 15, 1839. She recorded their first whale sighting, as well as the first flying fish. When they went by the Canaries, it was quite breezy, but soon the wind abated. The sea was dead calm, and it began to grow hot. Margaretha reported that Adolph was wearing his tropical outfit for the first time. So did many of the other gentlemen. The women were wearing wide robes, which were supposed to be somewhat more comfortable than their usual outfit.29 On December 11, Margaretha noted in her diary that she had spotted human abodes outside Santa Cruz by the inlet to Rio de Janeiro. These were the first she had seen in the New World. She described the green mountains, the exquisite tall palm trees, and the individual dwellings that lay scattered among the lush green mountains. When night fell, she breathed the air from land for the first time in months. It had a feel and smell completely different from sea air, and she longed to land at the foot of the majestic mountains which, in different fantastic shapes, rose beside each other on the beaches. Unfortunately, the lack of wind prevented them from entering the harbor, and they could only watch the beautiful country from a distance.30 In the spring of 1840, Margaretha was heavily pregnant. Revealing the animosity he would later develop against Margaretha, Cygnaeus felt that too much

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fuss was made of the mother-to-be and her future son, “the little Crown Prince of Sitka.”31 However, Margaretha herself did not write anything about her pregnancy or about impending motherhood. The diary entry from the day before her confinement contains a brief, yet heartfelt description of the horrible event when Johannes (i.e., Johan Carlsson the servant boy), now employed as a ship’s boy, fell overboard.32 Fortunately, Johannes was saved, but it was generally believed that this incident caused the onset of Margaretha’s premature labor.33 Margaretha did not describe the birth of her son in her diary, but Sahlberg noted in his journal that she had a difficult labor. On April 6, Margaretha gave birth to a little boy.34 He was baptized Edward, and nicknamed Eda. According to Sahlberg, when the birth became known, they signaled in all directions and champagne was served, while Adolph sat on deck weeping from joy. Due to the difficult delivery, Margaretha was confined to her bed for eight days. Sahlberg complained that he had to get up every night to give advice because the infant was anxious and suffered from a disorder of the stomach.35 Again Margaretha did not mention any of this in her diary. In fact, she did not write anything about her son until August 24, when Eda had his first tooth and the first Lutheran service in Sitka was held.

T h e a r ri va l On May 12, 1840, the Nikolai I finally reached Sitka, and a month later Adolph replaced Ivan Kupreianov as governor and chief manager of Russian America. Unfortunately, Margaretha does not provide any description of her arrival or her impressions of the place where she would spend the first five years of her marriage. However, the governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Sir Georg Simpson, who visited Sitka a little more than a year later, has given us a vivid picture of both the town and the Governor’s House: Governor etholine’s [sic] residence consisted of a suite of apartments com-municating, according to the russian fashion, with each other, all the public rooms being handsomely decorated and richly furnished. it commanded a view of the whole establishment, which was, in fact, a little village; while half way down the rock two batteries on terraces frowned respectively over the land and the water. Behind the bay, which forms the harbor, rise stu-pendous piles of conical mountains with summits of everlasting snow. to seaward, Mount edgecombe, also in the form of a cone, rears its truncated peak, still remembered as the source of smoke and flame, of lava and ashes.36



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Even closer in time is Lieutenant Lavrentii Alekseevich Zagoskin’s description, written only a few days before Margaretha’s arrival in Sitka: The two-story house of the Commander-in-Chief was built on the end of the Cape which terminates in a steep rocky promontory 52 feet above the sea . . . The house he [Baranov] built deteriorated and the present Commander-in-Chief built a new one on a larger scale. In it was accommodated the Company library . . . , a cabinet of nautical maps and instruments, a museum of birds and animals that inhabit the waters and lands of the Russian American colonies, and the costumes of all the savage peoples of the northwest coast of America. Above the roof is a belvedere with glass frames within which there is a light with six reflectors serving as a lighthouse to ships approaching from the sea. The house is surrounded on the ocean side by an embrasured battery of 12 cannon which makes it a sort of citadel.

According to Zagoskin, the view was spectacular: “Right at your feet the swells of the Great Ocean rolling in from the Chinese coast are breaking; farther out are scattered a few small, rocky islands, heavily wooded. A light, impenetrable fog blends the sky with the sea and hampers the enjoyment of the magnificent picture of Sitka Gulf.”37 Many contemporary travelers testified to the terrible weather in Sitka. In fact, Zagoskin’s description of the beautiful scenery starts with a description of the weather: “The rain, snow, and hail make it impossible to step out onto the street, or the courtyard or square, or whatever in heaven’s name you want to call it in Novoarkhangelsk where streets, courtyards, and squares are non-existent.”38 The young Francis Guillemard Simpkinson, serving as midshipman on H.M S. Sulphur that was making a seven-year exploration journey around the world, wrote that there probably did not exist any place in the whole wide world where so much rain fell as in Sitka: “a fine day is really a perfect rarity.”39 The Russian scientist Il’ia Gavrilovich Voznesenskii, who came to Sitka on Nikolai I, noted that particularly during November and December, there were strong winds and almost incessant rain.40 Despite the absence of any first impressions of Sitka in Margaretha’s extant writings, she was obviously affected by both the beauty of Alaska and by its climate. On November 15, 1842, she commented on the spectacular view from the Governor’s House. “How pleasant is it not for my eyes to look into the endless

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distance every morning;—how delightful is it not for my sight to rest on the distant snowcapped mountains with their white peaks so pure, so light against the blue sky!”41 Margaretha’s very first diary entry from Sitka is dated August 23, 1840. It was the day of the first Lutheran church service in the colonies, a very important day for Margaretha. In Etholén’s time, the Lutheran congregation amounted to almost 150 people from different countries, mostly Finns and Baltic Germans, and services were conducted alternately in Swedish, Finnish, and German.42 A room in the Governor’s House served as a Protestant chapel until a separate building was constructed and consecrated in1843. The initial plan had been to build a regular Lutheran church with tower and bells, but the Russian bishop objected to these plans and they had to be abandoned. Instead the church was designed so as not to be distinguished from the surrounding buildings. A library was established in the two rooms facing the street, while the rest of the building contained the church and the pastor’s residence.43 Margaretha was very committed to Sitka’s Lutheran Church, but the church was not her main duty as a governor’s wife. In Saint Petersburg, Elisabeth von Wrangell had told her about her obligations, and in addition to this she had received special instructions from the RAC. Hence, she was well aware that her most important obligation was to uphold some form of European civilization in Sitka. This included teaching Natives how to behave according to European standards, both by setting an example as a good wife and mother and by leading the newly established school for girls in Sitka.44 In addition, she was responsible for entertaining Sitka’s society by maintaining European practices and a civilized social life in the isolated fur trade community.

Th e c iv il iz ing mi ssi on Before the Etholéns left for America, The Russian-American Company had requested that Mrs. Etholén should take charge of the school for girls.45 The level of formal education was low among the Natives, especially among the women. Education was supposed to counteract what the imperialist Europeans considered to be moral depravation, including promiscuity, poor hygiene, and indolence. However, education of Native girls provided an additional advantage to the RAC. It would increase the supply of suitable marriage candidates in Sitka. Marriage was seen by the company as having several advantages. First, male company employees could be persuaded to stay in the colonies beyond



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their contracted five-year period. Additionally, married men would live a more settled life (i.e., refrain from immoral and uncontrolled behavior). According to the plan, if Native women were educated to become European-style housewives embracing Christian values, they would be able to exercise moral influence over their husbands, domesticate their rough masculinity, and moderate their sexual excess.46 Margaretha was particularly suited for this task. Not only was she a woman of social standing, but she had relevant experience working as a teacher in Odert Henrik Gripenberg’s progressive school in Helsinki. She was also familiar with educational issues and modern pedagogical theories.47 Margaretha was not the first woman who was committed to the education of girls in Russian Alaska. Already in the eighteenth century, Natalia Shelikhova taught needlework to young Creole girls and set up a special sewing workshop in her home. But it was another Natalia, Natalia Banner, who in 1805 was instructed by the Russian envoy N. P. Rezanov to establish a school in order to westernize the company employees’ many Creole children.48 In her school for orphan Creole girls, set up on the island of Kodiak, she taught the girls how to manage a home, including gardening skills, according to European standards. However, the school only ran for two years due to Banner’s untimely death.49 There seems to have been no formal education for girls in the colonies from 1807, when the Kodiak school closed, until 1839, when a school for orphans and Creole girls was opened by Governor Kupreianov. Iulia Kupreianov was thus the first governor’s wife to preside over a girl’s school in Sitka.50 When Margaretha arrived in the colonies in 1839, she began work to improve the new school. She established a boarding house and extended the range of subjects offered. When the school opened, it enrolled twenty students between the ages of five and sixteen years. The number of students subsequently grew to about twenty-five girls. The boarding house with fourteen pupils was run by the midwife, Domna Andreevna.51 In addition to needlework and other domestic skills, the pupils learned Russian grammar, history, and geography, as well as European social skills, subjects which were supposed to turn them into eligible marriage partners for the Russian colonizers and Russified Creoles. Dr. Sahlberg taught personal hygiene and sanitation in the home, as well as physical education. Reverend Cygnaeus would also have liked to teach in the girl’s school, but the Russian-Orthodox Church prevented him from doing so. His exclusion from teaching might also have had something to do with the low opinion Margaretha had by now formed

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of him. She told him that what the children learned at home, and the examples they observed there were much more valuable than any religious training Cygnaeus could give them. Whether she actually believed that mothers were better equipped to give their children a religious education, which was her own experience, or whether her attitude had more to do with her questioning of Cygnaeus’s morality, is difficult to know. The thirty-year-old priest did have a reputation as a seducer of young women and was rumored to have sought the position in Sitka to escape responsibility for fathering a child with his housekeeper. Whatever the reason for his exclusion, Cygnaeus was very upset by Margaretha’s attitude and poured out his heart in letters to his sister.52 In addition to being director of the girl’s school in Sitka, Margaretha also participated actively in teaching the girls European middle- and upper-class behavior. Every Saturday, she invited the girls to the Governor’s House, where she taught them European social skills with an emphasis on what was expected of them as “accomplished ladies.” They were taught European-style conversation, dance, social etiquette, dress code, deportment, and behavior, as well as the rudiments of the French language. For some of the girls, these skills provided access to a different life through marriage to Europeans or Creole men of high social standing. One such example is Anna Milovidov, Etholén’s foster daughter. She married the merchant Iona Kostromitinov, manager of the RAC’s Kodiak office. Maria Alexeyeva, von Bartram’s foster daughter, is another example. She married Bishop Innokentii’s godson, Innokentii Shaiashnikov, who had been ordained an Orthodox priest.53 However, the consequences for the continuation of Native culture of this forced assimilation was disastrous. Furthermore, the patriarchal marriages these women entered into drove them into Western gender roles and its system of subordination.54 Ever with an interest in females, Cygnaeus told his sister that due to the education the girls were receiving in Sitka there would be a number of suitable young women for the marriage market, by which he meant the market of young European men.55 Aaron Sjöström, the Finnish-born organist and music teacher in Sitka, was one of the young men who found a wife in this way. On May 16, 1851, several years after Margaretha had left the colony, he wrote to his brother that he had Mrs. Etholén to thank for his wife’s education. He was very grateful that he had found such a “decent, honorable, and industrious wife,” who was so “well versed in all the female endeavors” as a result of attending “Madame Etholén’s school.”56



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Sjöström was not the only one who fondly recalled Mrs. Etholén’s school. When Anna Furuhjelm arrived in Sitka in 1859, she noticed that everyone remembered Margaretha and spoke of the great work she had done for the school.57 The board of the RAC was also very pleased with the progress of the school and with Margaretha’s achievements. When Adolph Etholén sent a request to Saint Petersburg to increase the school’s budget, the main office readily agreed and praised his wife’s efforts.58 Still, Margaretha never received any pay for her work. Instead she would be given “the compensation that her philanthropic education was worth in the prayers of the orphans and in God’s blessing.”59 Nevertheless, the company agreed to hire a teacher for the school. On Adolph’s recommendation, they asked his relative, Justus Etholén, at the National Board of Trade to seek a suitable candidate in Finland. What they were looking for was a woman who could teach Creole girls how to manage a European-style home, who was skilled in sewing, washing, spinning, weaving, and all the work that had to be performed in order to manage a household. In Maria Fri Fredenberg they found someone who fit the description perfectly, and she was duly hired in 1842.60 According to Zagoskin, the whole purpose of the school was to provide white men with good housewives. The girls made their own clothes and washed them, learned housekeeping and thrift. He believed that the sort of training the girls received in school was “the more essential as here just as elsewhere women have the power to be a softening and improving influence.”61 In contemporary European discourse, filth and disorder were regarded as signs of backwardness.62 Thus, underlying the governor’s choice of a Finnish woman as a teacher were prejudiced ideas that Russians were not sufficiently particular about cleanliness and, by extension, were less civilized than Lutheran Finns. It is highly probable that it was Margaretha, who had specifically asked for a Finnish teacher, as she believed that Russian women were less skilled in domestic work than Finnish women.63 In her diary, Margaretha emphasized that the school was proper and tidy and the children clean and well behaved. She was particularly pleased when she visited the school with Adolph at New Year’s Eve. They had set up a Christmas tree decorated with candles, ginger cookies, and small dolls, and there were wrapped Christmas gifts for the girls containing scarves.64 It appears that Margaretha succeeded very well with the school’s imperialist program of teaching Native and Creole girls European manners.65 Even Cygnaeus, who rarely found anything positive to say about Margaretha, was quite taken with her achievements. He told her sister, Johanna, that the Native

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and Creole girls in Sitka now received an entirely different education than previously and that several of them had also been given “moral treatment.” Nowadays, he wrote, there was not a single young Native or Creole girl in Sitka who did not have some knowledge of Russian grammar, history, geography, and needlework.66 In addition to teaching Native and Creole girls in school, Margaretha also raised children at home. To adopt foster children was another and more effective way of assimilating Native children into European values. Other Lutheran families who took foster children were the von Bartrams (three girls); the Frankenhaeusers (two girls and one boy); the Gavrilovs, after Alexander’s marriage to Wilhelmina Swartz (two girls); and Cygnaeus (a boy). By raising Native children in a “civilized” home, they would more easily get accustomed to “civilized” practices and values. Moreover, it was easier to control them at home and prevent them from being exposed to the bad influence of Russian men. Because raising children was women’s responsibility, it was most often women who acted as “civilizers” in relation to foster children. The link between motherhood and morality transferred to imperialist ideology gave white women the right to exercise a quasi-maternal civilizing role in this way.67 Margaretha described her relationship to her foster daughter, Aninka, or Anna Milovidov, in precisely these terms. She clearly felt that Aninka’s upbringing was her duty; that it was her obligation to raise this child to become a “good” Christian woman. However, after the death of her firstborn son, Margaretha became unsure of her ability to convey the knowledge of God in the right way. She bought a prayer book for Milovidov and wrote the first page but felt unable to communicate faith in “living words” instead of “dead letters.”68 Despite Margaretha’s doubts, her contemporaries believed that she was successful in raising her Creole foster daughter to become “a suitable” young woman. In praise that Margaretha would ill have appreciated, Cygnaeus held that Anna Milovidov, together with von Bartram’s foster girls, Mariia Alexeyeva och Alexandra Malakhov, was one of the most promising young girls in Sitka.69 Both Anna and Maria married men of respectable social standing, but they also used their skills in other ways. When Anna’s husband, Iona, died in an accident in 1859, she was offered and accepted a position as midwife in Sitka. Alexandra Malakhov became a teacher when Maria Fri Fredenberg left Sitka in 1849. She became the first Creole teacher at Sitka’s school for girls.70 The gendered character of the civilizing mission is reflected in the diverse colonial pursuits of the governor and his wife.71 Adolph Etholén sent out expeditions in order to map areas that were as yet unknown to the RAC in the colonies.



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He drained land and started a number of building projects.72 He erected buildings, including the Sitka Lutheran Church, the Russian Bishop’s House, a clubhouse, a powder magazine, a warehouse, a flour mill, a laundry, a tannery, and a lodging house for company workers. A new church, a flour mill, and a sawmill were built on Kodiak Island, and a trading post by Norton Sound.73 The governor also launched the construction of Saint Michael’s Cathedral. While Adolph was busy mapping and transforming the land, extracting its resources, and disciplining its Native population, Margaretha devoted herself to transforming the population and the settlement through education, enlightenment, and refined social activities. As we have seen, she was very much involved in the education of Native girls. But just like Elisabeth von Wrangell before her, she also catered to Sitka’s society, arranging balls, banquets, masquerades, concerts, theatrical performances, and dinner parties. Her duties as the first lady required ensuring that established European social and moral norms and conventions were respected. In this way, she resembled colonizing women in other parts of the world, who tried to maintain European practices, rituals, and values in the imperial periphery.74 Here Margaretha followed in the footsteps of previous governor’s wives in Russian America, such as von Wrangell and her successor, Iulia Kupreianov. Captain Belcher, the British explorer and commander of the Sulphur, who visited Sitka during the time of Governor Kupreianov, was impressed by the sophistication of Sitka’s female society. Unaware of Elisabeth von Wrangell’s achievements in this regard, he came to the conclusion that this society was “indebted principally” to Governor Kupreianov’s “elegant and accomplished lady for much of this polish.”75 Margaretha was not the sole lady of Sitka’s society. There were other women who contributed to shaping a sense of European civilization in the small community. Foremost of these was probably Sitka’s second lady, Margareta von Bartram, married to the governor’s second in command. But the two Margareta’s were never close friends. Maintaining European practices also involved the more private rituals of letter-writing, sewing, gardening, and decorating the home. In a letter to her mother, written between August 1840 and May 1841, Margaretha gave a detailed description of the Governor’s House, illustrating the layout of the rooms and its furnishings with a floor plan. The purpose of the floor plan was to show her mother that, although they had moved to the end of the world, her daughter’s family lived in civilized surroundings. The public rooms were located on the second floor. The private quarters on the first floor consisted of a salon, a bedroom, bathroom, nursery, the governor’s study, kitchen, and the servants’ quarter.

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The house had all the furniture that appertained to a cultivated home, including a linen cupboard, a mangle,76 a washing stand, a dressing table, book case, sofas, mirrors, chest of drawers, cupboards, and a pianoforte. It is clear from Margaretha’s account that she had brought family portraits from home. They hung on the walls of the private salon on the first floor of the residence. In the bedroom was a map of her native Finland as well as a silhouette of her cousin, Sophie. Adolph had purchased a reed organ as well as a bathing machine in Saint Petersburg.77 They had also brought a Billiard Chinois, a popular parlor game, and a Voltaire chair with padded wings that supported the head to be put in the nursery for the maid Henrika. A barrel organ, which had been used during von Wrangell’s time, was still in the house.78 Apparently, little Edward liked to listen to it before he went to sleep.79 The floor plan that Margaretha drew for her mother also describes the view from all sides of the house and the outside surroundings. Hence, we learn that there was a small herb garden on the east side of the house, overlooking an inlet of the sea, Fisherman’s Island and, farther away, Mount Werstonaia. On the north side, facing the Kolosh village and the bay, there was a terrace where, Margaretha wrote, “flowers shall be planted.”80 Contemporary European visitors to Sitka remarked how strange it was to find European civilization so far into the wilderness. Alexander Rowand, who visited Sitka together with Sir Georg Simpson from the Hudson’s Bay Company, noted with great surprise that he actually had an impression of being in a civilized place, “whilst sitting in a spacious drawing room, elegantly furnished with European sofas, chairs and musical instruments, and the walls decorated with numerous handsomely framed engravings.” He could hardly believe that he was “in a dreary and savage part of North America, far distant from any scenes of civilization.”81 Lieutenant Zagoskin, who also visited Sitka at this time, agreed. In his view, Sitka seemed nearer to Saint Petersburg than the great majority of Russia’s provincial towns. Here, you were actually “surrounded . . . by a great number of cultivated people.”82 Alexander Frankenhaeuser from Vyborg, who replaced Sahlberg as the company doctor in Sitka, observed that Russian America was not as backward as he had been led to believe. If a European would suddenly be transferred to a ball in Sitka, he would never guess that he found himself at this unfamiliar place, he wrote to his sister. The decorated ballroom with its glittering lamplight compared very well to their hometown, and the costumes people wore at their most recent masquerade were even better than those usually worn at home.83 Cygnaeus made similar observations. Having returned from one of Sitka’s famous balls, he noted



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that, if it were not for “the old-fashioned cut” of the Creole women’s dresses, the event would have been just like one in Europe. He found it remarkable that in every corner of the world “where civilization had penetrated,” champagne banquets were held. Although several ships were at sea, more than fifty people, including twenty women, had attended the ball. People danced European-style dances, including the française, the mazurka, and the cotillion to a ten-man orchestra with Finnish, Russian, and Creole musicians. The orchestra leader was a Baltic German clerk from Reval, or Tallinn, named Andreas Höppner, who was both a pianist and a composer. The presence of a real orchestra was a new phenomenon in Sitka, where people were used to dancing to an organ-grinder. It performed for the first time the winter before the arrival of the Etholéns, in 1838.84 Before San Francisco developed into a city, Sitka was regarded as the most civilized town on the North American Pacific coast.85 George Simpson wrote that “New Archangel, notwithstanding its isolated position, is a very gay place. Much of the time of its inhabitants is devoted to festivity; dinners and balls run a perpetual round, and are managed in a style which, in this part of the world, may be deemed extravagant.” He described a wedding where the ladies were “showily attired in clear muslin dresses, white satin shoes, silk stockings, kid gloves, fans and all other necessary or unnecessary appendages.”86 Sahlberg, too, was struck by this extravagance and wrote in his diary that “there is plenty of luxury in this pitiful corner [of the world].”87 Frankenhaeuser believed that people in Sitka used luxury to kill the monotony of colonial life. But, he argued, the stomach had to suffer for it, as a consequence of too much food and drink. In his opinion, “the reason for this material pleasure seeking was not to be found in the poor spiritual development of Sitka’s aristocracy.” It was an old habit from the time of the founding of the colonies, “from the wild time when there was no question of any spiritual enlightenment.”88 However, extravagance and luxury was only one side of the story. Below the governor’s social circle, there were other aspects of life in Sitka, which were considerably less sophisticated. Visitors to Sitka described colonial life as characterized by drunkenness, endless gambling, and immoral behavior. Simpson portrayed this aspect of the colony most vividly: “of all the drunken . . . places that I had visited,” he wrote, “New Archangel was the worst.” Many of the Native women, “like their lords and masters, are addicted to drunkenness.” Men, women, and even children could “be seen staggering about in all directions” on holidays. Simpson visited Sitka during the celebrations of the Orthodox Easter in 1842. Apparently, he did not approve of the Russian custom of salutations to celebrate

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the resurrection of Christ. “From morning till night we had to run a gauntlet of kisses,” he complained. Many of these salutations, even when performed by ladies, were “too highly flavored for perfect comfort,” as “most of the dames of the village had been more liberal of some other liquids than of clean water.”89 The drinking problem was so severe that many of the company workers ended up so heavily in debt that they were unable to purchase a return ticket home after the end of their contract.90 Visitors to Sitka were also struck by how filthy the place was. “[O]f all the dirty and wretched places that I have ever seen,” Simpson wrote, “Sitka is preeminently the most wretched and most dirty.”91 Captain Belcher gave a similar account a few years earlier, when he described the houses in Sitka as “cheerless, dirty and wretched.”92 Reflecting the common belief that foul air was a threat to good health, Simpson described the houses in Sitka as “nothing but wooden hovels huddled together, without order or design, in nasty alleys, the hot-beds of such odors as are themselves sufficient . . . to breed all sorts of fevers.” Still, Simpson did note that Governor Etholén had introduced a number of improvements which, he believed, would further the welfare and convenience of the lower classes.93 According to some of the accounts by European visitors, it was not only the buildings that were dirty, but the people too. When Simpson and his crew were passing through the city on their way to the house they had been assigned by the governor, “out of every door and window there peeped forth faces of all possible degrees of unwashed dinginess, to take survey of the strangers.” Above all he complained about the Native women, who in his words were “begrimed with dirt.”94 The perceived link between backwardness, filth, and bad smell is all the more evident in European observations of Native dwellings in Russian America. Most such accounts complain about the “unbearable stench,” as well as of the habit of eating raw fish, another sure sign of what the European colonizers saw as backwardness.95

S it k a ’s fir st lady In some depictions of Sitka during this time, Margaretha is presented as a person who exercised total control over Sitka’s social life: she insisted on form and etiquette and watched everyone’s modesty and virtue. “Constraint, etiquette prevails to the greatest extent. In general, you have formed a truly erroneous image



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of Sitka if you think that you may live here as you wish.”96 There is some support for this view. For example, she seems to have watched Frankenhaeuser’s, Sahlberg’s, and Cygnaeus’s association with Margaretha von Bartram, the wife of skipper Johan Bartram, and, above all, with Elise Öhman, her housekeeper’s young daughter, very closely.97 Sahlberg reported that Margaretha “gave him the most bitter gibes” when he had inoculated Elise’s pustules.98 On the other hand, Sahlberg advised Elise against reading with the pastor, ostensibly to prevent her eyes from being damaged.99 Elise was clearly popular with the young gentlemen of Sitka. In the end, she married Alexander Frankenhaeuser. Margaretha’s behavior conformed to the prescribed notion of the pious nineteenth-century European middle- and upper-class woman, constantly on guard against licentiousness and immorality.100 Her “monitoring” was hardly unwarranted in Cygnaeus’s case, considering that he had previously established a reputation as a man who took advantage of young women. Apparently, he had abandoned a girl he had made pregnant while working as assistant pastor in Vyborg.101 Moreover, Sahlberg had told Margaretha that Cygnaeus had a sexual interest in Elise, who was far too young to be the subject of male courtship. Indeed, Cygnaeus appears to have enjoyed pushing the limits of the socially acceptable. The fact that he, a priest, danced at the balls, for example, astonished many people in Sitka. But Cygnaeus seems rather to have liked the attention.102 This reckless attitude was presumably another reason for Margaretha’s low opinion of him, but she was also influenced by his reputation and reports she received about him. The other Finns also broke the rules of etiquette, but in less sexually threatening ways. Alexander Frankenhaeuser once made a bet with the Bartrams that he would receive an invitation to Mrs. Murgin for coffee, even though this was a family event for ladies only. Successful, he arrived at the ladies’ coffee party the next day only to find that Mrs. Etholén was present. Frankenhaeuser wrote to his sister that Margaretha made big eyes when she saw that a man had dared to show up at a ladies only coffee party. Soon the whole of Sitka were talking about this prank.103 The way the “Royal couple” in Sitka maintained etiquette and social hierarchy was particularly difficult to accept for the Finnish party. For instance, why, Cygnaeus wondered, did not Margaretha Etholén go ice skating with the others, but only with her husband and at times when others were not able to come?104 The Finns, some of them thought, should keep together and not concern themselves so much with social class. They failed to realize that class was extremely

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important in the colonies, especially when the governor was not a nobleman. Of course this was a question that concerned the distinction between members of the colonial elite, between the so-called second and first class of Sitka society, only. No one suggested that gentlemen and gentlewomen should associate with laborers and fur traders. But within the elite the question was real enough and the source of resentment. Frankenhaeuser argued that many of the members of the middle class were in fact better educated and cultivated than most of the members of the higher class, and yet they were exposed to the arrogant class attitude of people who earned a little more money.105 Adolph Etholén had a reputation for being tactless and even rude in his dealings with his subordinates.106 Frankenhaeuser described him as an open person in social contexts, but lacking a more refined social education, which meant that he often unintentionally offended people’s feelings, sometimes without even noticing it.107 However, he did improve social life considerably by starting a club for gentlemen that was not only open to people of higher ranks but where members of the second class—accountants, clerks, storekeepers, and civilian masters of vessels—could meet, eat, and even live together. During the previous governor’s administration, the boundary between the first and second classes was impermeable, and people from different classes did not socialize together. Consequently, the gap between the classes had increased. The new gentlemen’s club was therefore of vital importance, and men belonging to Sitka’s society enrolled as members. In order to set a good example, the governor spent two evenings of the week at the club. Every Wednesday and Saturday, there were games of billiards and Boston, a card game resembling whist. At 8 p.m., supper was served and, according to Cygnaeus, “you could get a fairly decent meal for one ruble.” Balls were also arranged in the clubhouse. Voznesenskii mentions one such ball held in October 1844, when no less than eighty-five people were invited and the main street in town was illuminated by lanterns. Access to such an establishment was certainly beneficial to all the young single people in Sitka, who, as Cygnaeus expressed it, did not have “to live as animals” anymore.108 Sometimes cutting across class distinctions, Sitka’s high society was divided into several small groups of like-minded people, often based on language and faith. These groups created a sense of community and belonging, which was particularly important to those Sitka inhabitants who did not speak Russian and therefore felt both geographically and culturally isolated.109 Belonging to such a group made it easier to cope with remoteness, homesickness, and excessive social control.



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Margaretha Etholén was far from the only one to practice social control in Sitka. Gossip and intrigue were common, and a general intolerance prevailed. Constant scrutiny of others was common at the time, but it was even worse in a place like Sitka.110 Sitka’s European community was extremely small and restricted to a tiny geographic space enveloped by the wilderness. People watched each other carefully, and when someone new arrived in town, there was talk of nothing else.111 Frankenhaeuser claimed that worse gossip mongers than in Sitka could probably not be found anywhere else in the world. When Sitka’s inhabitants had made up their mind about a person or a relationship, they refused to change. This, he felt, was the case with him and his relationship to Margareta von Bartram. Yet, despite all the “stupid gossip,” Frankenhaeuser would not renounce his friendship with her.112 Cygnaeus, too, refused to alter his ways, but he felt trapped. In a letter to his sister, he complained that he had not been prepared for Sitka to be full of people who were “utterly overstrung, so shallow, slippery, and small-minded.” As he approached the end of his stay in Russian America, Cygnaeus concluded that people lived a “soulless existence” in Sitka, which was detrimental to their emotional life. “Sitka’s magnificent nature and narrow-minded people have weaned me from both joking and crying.”113 One of the small groups in Sitka was formed around Margareta von Bartram. It was called the Finnish Party, and the language spoken was that of the Finnish elite—Swedish. Finnish culture and its national awakening was a rallying point of the group.114 They met regularly, usually at the home of the von Bartrams, and they often celebrated Finnish national holidays together in accordance with their homeland’s traditions.115 Von Bartram’s sister, Ulrika Wilhelmina Swartz, Cygnaeus, Frankenhaeuser, Anna Margaretha Öhman, and her daughter, Elise Öhman, constituted the core of the group. Mrs. Öhman, a widow, was Etholén’s housekeeper, which meant that the Finnish Party socialized across class boundaries. However, it should be noted that Mrs. Öhman came from a relatively wealthy bookkeeper’s family, which meant that she had received a middle class upbringing.116 Margareta von Bartram’s husband, Johan Joachim, was at sea for long periods at a time. Thus, Mrs. von Bartram was often alone at home. Both Frankenhaeuser and Cygnaeus considered themselves her guardians. She appears to have been a very agreeable person, who made life in Sitka a little easier for her two admirers. Fittingly for a priest, Cygnaeus described her as an angel who saved him from the misery of being relegated to living in Sitka: “To be sure, this place is not good for me, and if Mrs. B had not been, whom the Almighty Father gave to me as a

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comforting angel, then I do not know what would have happened to me.”117 In an early letter to his sister written on Nikolai I, Cygnaeus confessed that in von Bartram, God had let him find “a person of similar thinking here among these, for the most part, material people, and a person to whom I so openly and candidly may communicate.”118 Frankenhaeuser, who would later marry Elise Öhman, was also full of admiration for Margareta von Bartram. He described her as a good woman, profound and of sound judgment, which made it extraordinarily pleasant to converse with her.119 The friendship that developed between Mrs. von Bartram, Cygnaeus, and Frankenhaeuser became an object of a great deal of gossip, and Margaretha Etholén showed her disapproval openly. Another party that met regularly consisted of German-speaking rAC employees. this group attracted not only Baltic-Germans, such as leonard von Harder and Johann samuel lindenberg, but also Baltic-swedes, brothers Martin and Christian klinkowström who spoke fluent swedish, German, and russian. they sometimes met in the quarters of Cygnaeus and frankenhaeuser, smoked cigars, drank liquor, and spoke about things of common interest. in con-trast to his finnish friends, Alexander frankenhaeuser and Johan von Bartram, who had grown up in Germanspeaking homes in vyborg, Cygnaeus did not feel at home in this environment. Accounts from the time suggest that non-elite finns, estonians, and ingrian finns formed yet another group who socialized in their spare time, using sitka lutheran Church as a social platform.120 The fact that both Frankenhaeuser and von Bartram belonged to various social groups suggests that ethnic borders could be bridged in colonial Sitka. Considering the cosmopolitan background of many of the company employees, this is hardly surprising. Group membership filled needs of belonging that were sometimes connected to ethnicity, but sometimes not. The significance of group membership in Sitka became evident when Wilhelmina Swartz, Margaretha von Bartram’s sister, married Alexander Gavrilov, a Russian naval officer. This meant that Wilhelmina would have to remain in Sitka when the rest of the Finnish party, including her sister, went back home. Having realized how lonely she would become, she began increasingly to associate with Russian women instead of with her countrywomen.121 Margaretha Etholén should logically have belonged to the Finnish party, but she did not seem to associate with them other than on certain formal occasions. It was not that she did not like Finns or Finland, or that she felt an obligation to rise above ethnic divisions on account of her position in the colony. On the contrary, although Margaretha represented the Russian empire, she was still



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deeply attached to her own country. In contrast to both Elisabeth and Anna, Margaretha expressed feelings of nationalism and believed it important that her love of the Finnish homeland be passed on to the next generation. This became even more important when her children had to grow up in a different part of the world. She prayed that God would teach them “to love their Fatherland; that they would feel attached to its soil even though it did not carry their cradle.” After all, “it is still their native land.”122 Christmas was important to Margaretha, not only because of its Christian relevance, but also because of its cultural traditions. On Christmas Eve she invited all the Finns to supper and tried to make everything “as Finnish as possible.”123 In contrast to Sahlberg, who was bored, Cygnaeus described this as an unusually pleasant event, largely because the customary formality and etiquette were absent. He particularly mentioned that the house keeper, Mrs. Öhman, joined them at the table together with her daughter Elise, something that had never happened before. Normally, the “Royal couple” was careful to maintain class distinctions.124 While the Etholéns tried to maintain Finnish traditions in the colonies, they seem to have followed Russian customs in their official capacity. Alexander Rowand, who accompanied Sir Georg Simpson on his travels around the world in 1841–1842, described the “characteristic features of a Russian dinner” at the Governor’s House. According to his account, they started with vodka and zakuski (i.e., appetizers) in the Russian manner. The order of the courses then followed Russian tradition. When dinner was over, the guests bowed to the hostess and then to each other, again “according to the custom of Russia.”125 Although Margaretha thought highly of Finnish traditions, she did not socialize with her Finnish compatriots. In fact, she did not have any close friends to confide in. Some of her compatriots seem to have actively disliked her. Sahlberg described Margaretha as arrogant, cold, and disinterested and referred to her ironically as “The Empress of Sitka,” “Her Grace,” or “Her Highness.” He complained that at the dinner table, Margaretha tried to converse with everyone, but seldom listened to what they had to say.126 Cygnaeus, for his part, found it particularly difficult to accept what he described as Margaretha’s “arrogance and capricious temper,” and the fact that sometimes “it pleases ‘her highness’ to talk,” but at other times, when you did not follow etiquette, she kept quiet. Like Sahlberg, Cygnaeus found Margaretha cold and indifferent. She talked to him about the weather and similar subjects, but their conversation very seldom lasted longer than five minutes and rarely moved beyond the trivial. Yet, while he found her superior and meddlesome, he admitted that sometimes she could

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be quite hygglig, a Swedish word meaning decent or nice. Cygnaeus realized that Margaretha’s attitude to him was influenced by his reputation and reports about him by Sahlberg, who, according to Cygnaeus, had convinced Margaretha that he was “a bad person.”127 Frankenhaeuser gave a rather more balanced opinion of Margaretha. He was the only one of her compatriots who noticed that she was very reserved in society, a trait that became more pronounced after her son’s death. Others commonly interpreted her reservation as indifference and arrogance.128 In fact, Margaretha’s emphasis on form and etiquette could well have been a function of her reserved nature too. Margaretha’s education and experience gave her a certain self-confidence and independence in comparison with other women of her time. But, it also led to frustration. Had she been a man, she could have paraded her knowledge, but as a good Christian woman in the 1840s, this was not appropriate behavior. A woman was educated to calmly fulfill her duties, not to excel.129 She should not seek to shine or be admired, but to please. “If, as the phrase goes, an individual happens to have ‘more head than heart,’ she may be a very clever, agreeable personage, but she is not properly a woman,” as one contemporary female educator put it.130 It was believed to be improper for a woman to argue and to retort. A woman should be humble and amiable, obliging toward others, and contented, whatever her portion was. Christianity made it possible to follow this path of self-denial, something Margaretha was very well aware of.131 Frankenhaeuser, who had come to know Margaretha more closely in his capacity as a doctor, was impressed by her education and the humility she showed her husband, who was less educated. He found it admirable that in his presence she did not show off her knowledge of things he did not know about, and only very seldom let it show at all. None of Margaretha’s observers seems to have been even remotely aware of the black despair and emotional storms that raged below her calm and correct behavior.

No t es 1. Jeanette von Schoultz was Anna Furuhjelm’s grandmother, which means that Margaretha Etholén was Anna’s father’s cousin. 2. He entered into the service of the RAC already in 1817 and arrived in Sitka for the first time in 1818 when Baranov was still the chief manager. 3. cited in Annie Furuhjelm, Människor och öden (Helsingfors, 1932), p. 79.



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4. Wedding invitation addressed to Catharina Gripenberg, Etholén Papers, Private Collection. 5. Annie Furuhjelm, Människor och öden, p. 119. 6. A progressive school run by her uncle and aunt. See Maria Enckell and Heikki Hanka, Transfigurations: Finns in Russian America ( Jyväskylä, 2004). 7. Maria Jarlsdotter Enckell, “A Finnish Sawmill Book-Keeper Daughter’s Journey to Alaska,” FEEFHS Journal, X (2002). 8. Toivo Harjunpää, “The Lutherans in Russian Alaska,” The Pacific Historical Review, vol. 37, no. 2 (May, 1968), pp. 123−146, p. 130. 9. Max Engman, “Till ryska Alaska och jorden runt med Reinhold Ferdinand Sahlberg,” in R. F. Sahlberg, En resa kring jorden 1839−1843. Anteckningar från Sydamerika, Alaska och Sibirien (Helsingfors, 2007), p. 29; Harjunpää, “The Lutherans in Russian Alaska,” pp. 130, 123−146; Richard A. Pierce, The Russian Governors: Builders of Alaska 1818−1867 (Kingston, ON, 1986), s. 24; Maria Jarlsdotter Enckell, “Aaron Sjöström’s Letters,” Documenting the Legacy of the Alaska Finns from the Russian Period, Pioneer Series 23, 1996: no. 1, s. 1, 5, 9−10, 14. 10. In 1839, at least 150 Lutherans were employed by the RAC, which meant that a third of the European workforce were non-Russians. Many of these were Finns, employed as artisans, teachers, priests, doctors, geologists, and seamen. Maria Jarlsdotter Enckell, “Scandinavian Immigration to Russian Alaska, 1800–1867,” FEEFHS Journal, vol. IX, 2001, p. 108; Documenting the Legacy of the Alaska Finns from the Russian Period; Harjunpää, “The Lutherans in Russian Alaska”; K-G Olin, Alaska. Del 1. Ryska Tiden ( Jakobstad, 1995); Engman, “Till ryska Alaska,” pp. 26−32. 11. Sahlberg does not mention the midwife, nor does Margaretha. Sahlberg, En resa kring jorden, pp. 156, 158. 12. Margaretha Etholén, Diary, September 29, 1839. Her father had died already in 1836. Maria Jarlsdotter Enckell, “Four North European Female Educators’ Toil in Russian Alaska, 1805−1849,” FEEFHS Journal, vol. XI, 2003, p. 91. 13. Lydia Sigourney, Letters to Mothers (New York, 1839); and Letters of Life (New York, 1867); Caroline C. Briggs, Reminiscences and Letters (Boston, 1847). For secondary literature, see Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes. Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780−1850 (London, 1987), pp. 340−341; Barbara Welter, Dimity Convictions: The American Woman in the Nineteenth Century (Athens, 1976), p. 7; Nancy M. Theriot, Mothers and Daughters in Nineteenth-Century America (Lexington, 1996), p. 64; Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, “The Female World of Love and Ritual: Relations Between Women in Nineteenth Century America,” Signs 1 (1975), p. 15; Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction

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14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34. 35. 36.

Married to the Empire of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (Berkeley, CA, 1978); Angela Rundquist, Blått blod och liljevita händer. En etnologisk studie av aristokratiska kvinnor 1850–1900 (Stockholm, 2001), p. 68. Helmi Gulin, Louise af Forselles och hennes värld (Helsingfors, 1943), p. 15. Margaretha Etholén, Diary, February 4, 1840. Translations from the Swedish original are made by the author. Ibid. Etholén, Diary, September 14, 1839. Etholén, Diary, November 12, 1839. Etholén, Diary, 31/19 January 1841. Monday afternoon. Margaretha sometimes wrote the dates of her diary entry both according to the Gregorian and the Julian calendar, which was used in Russia. In the nineteenth century, there was a difference of twelve days between the calendars. Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, p. 340; Rundquist, Blått blod och liljevita händer, p. 68; Christina de Bellaigue, “Faith and Religion” in Colin Heywood, ed., A Cultural History of Childhood and Family in the Age of Empire, vol. 5 in A Cultural History of Childhood and Family (Oxford, 2010), p. 151; Colin Heywood, “Introduction” in ibid., p. 3. Etholén, Diary, September 15, 1839. Etholén, Diary, November 17 and 21, 1839. Etholén, Diary, September 29, 1839 Etholén, Diary, November 12, 1839. Ibid. Etholén, Diary, November 17, 1839. Etholén, Diary, November 19, 1839. Etholén, Diary, November 21, 1839. Ibid. Etholén, Diary, December 11 and 12, 1839. Uno Cygnaeus, letter to his sister Johanna, Sitka, May 1840, Finland’s National Archives, Cygnaeus Collection 1839−1845 Outgoing Mail. Etholén, Diary, April 5, 1840. Sahlberg, En resa kring jorden, pp. 155−156. The premature labor could just as well have been caused by seasickness. It was quite common at the time that premature babies were born onboard ships. See also Pat Jalland, Australian Ways of Death. A Social and Cultural History 1840−1918 (Oxford, 2002), pp. 22−23. It was March 25 according to the Julian calendar. Sahlberg, En resa kring jorden, pp. 158, 161. Sir Georg Simpson, Narrative of a Journey Round the World During the Years 1841 and 1842 (Philadelphia, 1847), An Overland Journey, Part I, p. 129.



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37. L. Zagoskin, April 30, 1840, “The port of Novoarkhangelsk,” in Lieutenant Zagoskin’s Travels in Russian America 1842−1844 Henry N. Michael, ed. (Toronto, 1967), pp. 73−74. The Russian original in Puteshestviia i issledovaniia leitenanta Lavrentiia Zagoskina v russkoi Amerike v 1842−1844 gg. (Moscow, 1956), pp. 372−373. 38. Ibid., p. 69. 39. Richard A. Pierce and John H. Winslow, eds., H.M.S. Sulphur on the Northwest and California Coasts, 1837 and 1839: The Accounts of Captain Edward Belcher and Midshipman Francis Guillemard Simpkinson (Fairbanks, AK, 1979), pp. 105−106. 40. A. I. Alekseev, The Odyssey of a Russian Scientist: I. G. Voznosenskii in Alaska, California and Siberia 1839−1849, translated by W. C. Follette, R. A. Pierce, ed. (Kingston, ON, 1987), pp. 57−59. Original in Arkhiv AN SSSR f. 53, op. 1, d. 2/2, 1. 23 and 1. 25 and 1. 10 41. Etholén, Diary, November 15, 1842. Evening 42. Sahlberg, En resa kring jorden, pp. 167−168. 43. Engman, “Till ryska Alaska,” p. 30; Enckell, Documenting the Legacy of the Alaska Finns, p. 25: Till Uno Cygnaeus minne: festpublikation utgiven av Finlands allmänna svenska folkskollärare-­och lärarinneförening (Helsingfors, 1910), 125−135; Harjunpää, “The Lutherans in Russian Alaska.” 44. The school was established in the fall of 1839 by Governor Kupreianov and run by his wife Iulia. 45. These girls came from different settlements in the Company’s possessions. 46. Colonial Russian America. Kyrill T. Khlebnikov’s Reports, 1817−1832. Translated with introduction and notes by Basil Dmytryshyn and E. A. P. CrownhartVaughan (Portland, OR, 1976), pp. 49−50; Ferdinand von Wrangell, Russian America. Statistical and Etnographic Information, R. A. Pierce, ed. (Kingston, ON, 1980), pp. 15−16; L. Zagoskin, Puteshestviia i issledovaniia leitenanta Lavrentiia Zagoskina v Russkoi Ameriki v 1841−1844, gg. (Moscow, 1956), pp. 69, 371−372; for similar views in the British Empire, see Kathleen Wilson, “Empire, Gender and Modernity in the Eighteenth Century” in Gender and Empire, Philippa Levine, ed. (Oxford, 2004), p. 27; Catherine Hall, “Of Gender and Empire: Reflections on the Nineteenth Century,” p. 60 in ibid; Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, pp. 398, 421. 47. Maria Enckell and Heikki Hanka, Transfigurations: Finns in Russian America. 48. Natalia Banner was married to Baranov’s assistant, the Danish mining engineer Johan Banner. 49. K. T. Khlebnikov, Russkaia Amerika v neopublikovannykh zapiskakh K. T. Khlebnikova (Leningrad, 1979), p. 246; G. H. von Langsdorff, Voyages and Travels in Various Parts of the World, During the Years 1803, 1804, 1805, 1806, and

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50.

51.

52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

59. 60. 61. 62.

63. 64. 65.

66.

Married to the Empire 1807 (London, 1813); Enckell, “Four North European Female Educators’ Toil,” pp. 88−103, pp. 89−90; E. A. Okladnikova, “Science and Education in Russian America,” in Frederick Starr, ed., Russia’s American Colony (Durham, 1987). A school for Creole girls and female orphans was opened in 1839; Svetlana G. Fedorova, The Russian Population in Alaska and California (Kingston, ON, 1973), p. 244. Letter from Uno Cygnaeus to his sister Johanna, Sitka, Winter 1840−1841, December 16. See also P. N. Golovin, “Obzor russkikh kolonii severnoi Amerike,” Morskoi sbornik, No. 2, 1862, pp. 64−70; Simpson, Narrative of a Journey, part I, p. 129. Letter from Uno Cygnaeus to his sister Johanna, Sitka, July 13, 1844 and October 1840; Enckell, “Four North European Female Educator’s Toil,” pp. 93−97. Enckell, “Four North European Female Educator’s Toil,” p. 27. For a discussion of cultural assimilation and acculturation, see Joe R. Feagin and Clairece Booher Feagin, Racial and Ethnic Relations (Prentice Hall, 2003). Uno Cygnaeus to his sister, Sitka, October 1840, p. 27. Aaron Sjöström, Letters, in Maria Enckell, Documenting the Legacy of the Alaska Finns. Originals in the Archives of Borgå City Museum. Letter from Anna Furuhjelm to her mother from San Francisco May 18, 1859 in Åbo Academy Library, Manuscript Collections. Dispatch from Sitka to the Main Office of the RAC, no. 257, May 13, 1841, Records of the Russian-American Company, Microfilm of records held at the National Archives, Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley. Dispatch from The Main Office to Sitka, April 3, 1842 in ibid. Ibid., see also T. S. Fedorova, ”Zhenshchiny v Russkoi Amerike,” in Russkaia Amerika i dalnii vostok konets xviii v –1867 r. (Vladivostok, 2001). Zagoskin, Travels in Russian America, p. 73. Yuri Slezkine, “Naturalists versus Nations: Eighteenth-Century Russian Scholars Confront Ethnic Diversity,” in Russia’s Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700–1917, D. R. Brower and E. J. Lazzerini, eds. (Bloomington, IN, 1997), p. 41. For primary material, see Holmberg’s Ethnographic Sketches, Marvin W. Falk, ed. (Fairbanks, AK, 1985), p. 22; originally published 1855−1863 as Ethnographische Skizzen über die Völker des Russischen Amerika. Anna Furuhjelm later expressed similar thoughts about Russian women. Etholén, Diary, 12 January/31 December 1841/42. While stressing Adolph’s efforts to improve the Alaska school system together with Bishop Innokentii, Lydia Black ignores Margaretha’s work in the girl’s school. Lydia Black, Russians in Alaska 1732−1867 (Fairbanks, AK, 2004), p. 204. Uno Cygnaeus, letter to his sister Johanna, Sitka, July 13, 1844.



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67. Catriona Kelly, Refining Russia. Advice Literature, Polite Culture, and Gender from Catherine to Yeltsin (Oxford, 2001), p. 43. 68. Etholén, Diary, 18/6 June 1842. 69. Cygnaeus, letter to his sister Johanna, Sitka, July 13, 1844. 70. Enckell, “Four North European Female Educator’s Toil”; Richard Pierce, Russian America. A Biographical Dictionary (Kingston, ON, 1990), pp. 141, 258; Andrei Grinev, Kto est’ kto v Russkoi Amerike [Who is Who in Russian America] (Moscow, 2009), pp. 258−260; Sergei Kan, “Sergei Ionovich Kostromitinov, or ‘Colonel George Kostrometinoff ’: From a Creole Teenager to the Number-One RussianAmerican Citizen of Sitka,” Ethnohistory 60: 3 (Summer 2013), p. 4. 71. Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, p. 400; Wilson, “Empire, Gender and Modernity,” pp. 19−20; Hall, “Of Gender and Empire,” s. 70−71. 72. Margaretha was particularly interested in his plans to dry out a marsh next to a small creek. She looked forward to having picnics on the banks with little Edward running around in the grass (Diary 7 February/26 January 1841). 73. Pirjo Varjola, The Etholén Collection. The Ethnographic Alaskan Collection of Adolph Etholén and His Contemporaries in the National Museum of Finland (Helsinki, 1990), p. 19. 74. Wilson, “Empire, Gender and Modernity,” pp. 70−71. 75. H.M.S. Sulphur on the Northwest and California Coasts, p. 28. 76. A mangle is a machine for pressing fabrics by means of two heated rollers. It is sometimes called a wringer. 77. Bathing machines were small carriages, which allowed people to change into swimwear and descend into the ocean without being seen. 78. A Barrel organ is a musical instrument in which a pinned barrel turned by a handle raises levers, admitting wind to one or more ranks of organ pipes. The handle simultaneously actuates the bellows. 79. Margaretha’s floor plan and descriptions. In private family archive. 80. Varjola, The Etholén Collection, p. 19. 81. Alexander Rowand, “Notes of a Journey in Russian America and Siberia during the years 1841 and 1842” (Edinburgh, n. d.). 82. Zagoskin, Travels in Russian America, p. 71 83. Alexander Frankenhaeuser, letter to his sister Natchen [Natalie], Sitka, May 8, 1842; Frankenhaeuser, letter to his sister Natchen, Sitka, 15 May 15, 1843. 84. Uno Cygnaeus, letters from Sitka, dated January 6 and June 6, 1840; Harjunpää, “The Lutherans in Russian Alaska,” p. 136. 85. Harjunpää, “The Lutherans in Russian Alaska,” p. 132. 86. Simpson, Narrative of a Journey Round the World, p. 89. 87. Sahlberg, En resa kring jorden, p. 168.

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88. Frankenhaeuser, letter to Natchen, Sitka, May 8, 1842. 89. Simpson, Narrative of a Journey Round the World, pp. 77, 79, 87−88. Adolph Etholén tried, along with Georg Simpson from the Hudson’s Bay Company, to prevent the liquor trade among the Tlingits. 90. Ibid., p. 79. 91. Ibid. 92. H.M.S. Sulphur on the Northwest and California Coasts, pp. 92−3. 93. Simpson, Narrative of a Journey Round the World, Part II, p. 79. 94. Ibid., pp. 74, 79. 95. Slezkine, “Naturalists versus Nations,” p. 32. For contemporary sources, see Simpkinson’s journal, H.M.S. Sulphur on the Northwest and California Coasts, p. 95; Holmberg, Ethnographic Sketches, p. 44; Zagoskin, Travels in Russian America, p. 114. 96. Cygnaeus, letter to his mother, Sitka, July 26, 1840; See also Cygnaeus’s letter to his sister dated September 29, 1843; Cygnaeus, letter to his sister, Sitka, May 8, 1844. 97. Elise was only fourteen years old when she left for Russian America. 98. Vaccination against smallpox. Sahlberg, En resa kring jorden, p. 183. 99. See Cygnaeus, letter to his mother, Sitka, September 1840. 100. Mrs. John Sandford, Woman in Her Social and Domestic Character, 6th American edition (Boston, 1842), p. 7 101. Olin. Alaska. Del 1. Ryska tiden. 102. Cygnaeus, Sitka, January 6, 1840. 103. Frankenhaeuser, letter to his sister Natchen, Sitka, May 8, 1842. 104. Cygnaeus, letter to his sister Johanna, Sitka, Winter 1840−1841, November 16. 105. Frankenhaeuser, letter to his sister Natchen, Sitka, May 8, 1842 106. Cygnaeus, letter to his sister Johanna from Sitka, dated October 13, 1840, section dated April. 3; Johan von Bartram’s letter to Cygnaeus, dated Lehtiniemi November 29, 1856, in Finland’s National Archives, Cygnaeus Collection, letters received; Sahlberg, En resa kring jorden, p. 151. 107. Frankenhaeuser, letter to his sister Natchen, Sitka, May 8, 1842. 108. Cygnaeus, letter to his sister Johanna, Sitka, Winter 1840−1841, December 16; Frankenhaeuser, Letter to Natchen, May 8, 1842; Alekseev, The Odyssey of a Russian Scientist, p. 54; Varjola, The Etholén Collection, p. 19. 109. Frankenhaeuser, letter to Paul, Sitka 17/29 September 1841; May 8, 1842; Cygnaeus, letter from Sitka, June 6, 1840, published in Borgå tidning January, 20, 1841. 110. See for example, John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (Chicago, 1997). 111. Cygnaeus, letter to Johanna, Sitka, September 29, 1843; Cygnaeus, letter to his sister, Sitka, May 8, 1844; Frankenhaeuser, letter to Natchen, Sitka, May 8, 1842; Frankenhaeuser, letter to Natchen, Sitka, May 15, 1843.



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112. Frankenhaeuser, letter to Natchen, Sitka, May 8, 1842. 113. Cygnaeus, letter to Johanna, Sitka, May 8, 1844. 114. Here, it is important to realize that the Finnish national awakening was led by Swedish-speaking intellectuals in Finland. 115. Frankenhaeuser, letter to Natchen, May 15, 1843; letter to Natchen, May 8, 1842; Enckell, “Scandinavian Immigration,” p. 110. 116. Frankenhaeuser, letter to Paul, Sitka, 17/29 September 1841; May 8, 1842. See also Enckell, “A Finnish Sawmill Book-keeper-Daughter’s Journey.” 117. Cygnaeus, letter to Johanna, Sitka, November 18, year unknown. 118. Cygnaeus, letter to Johanna, Rio de Janeiro, 27/12 1839. 119. Frankenhaeuser, letter to Natchen, Sitka, May 8, 1842. 120. Enckell, “Scandinavian Immigration,” p. 110. The Ingrian Finns descended from Lutheran Finnish immigrants who moved to Ingria, i.e., the area along the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland (now part of Russia) in the seventeenth century when Finland and Ingria were both part of Sweden (Ott Kurs, “Ingria. The broken landbridge between Estonia and Finland,” Geojournal, vol. 33, no. 1, May 1994, pp. 117−113). 121. Cygnaeus, letter to Johanna, Sitka, May 8, 1844. 122. Etholén, Diary, May 9, 1844. 123. Sahlberg, En resa kring jorden, p. 201 124. Cygnaeus, Letter to Johanna. Sitka, Winter 1840−1841, January 1. 125. Alexander Rowand, cited in O’Grady, From the Baltic to Russian America, pp. 181−182. 126. R. F. Sahlberg, En resa kring jorden, pp. 178, 197. 127. Cygnaeus, letter to his mother Johanna Fredrika Cygnaeus, Sitka, September 1840; letter to his sister Johanna, Winter 1840−1841, December 16. 128. Frankenhaeuser, letter to Natchen, Sitka, May 8, 1842. 129. Sandford, Woman in Her Social and Domestic Character, pp. 10, 145. 130. Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, “En qvinnas tankar rörande qvinnan,” translated and adapted to Swedish conditions in Tidskrift för Hemmet, 1860: 2, p. 104 from A Woman’s Thoughts About Women (London, 1858), p. 264. 131. Sandford, Woman in Her Social and Domestic Character, pp. 55−56, 61, 63, 72, 76, 82.

Chapter Four

The Inner Life of a Governor’s Wife

F

ew people in Sitka sensed the presence of a deep rift between Margaretha Etholén’s private and public life. To most inhabitants, she appeared as a highly competent governor’s wife, who took her civilizing role seriously, educated Creole girls, and exercised moral leadership. To some she appeared overzealous in these pursuits, and they tended to describe her as bad-tempered, superior, capricious, and controlling.1 However, her diary reveals a highly sensitive, reserved, lonely, and above all, deeply unhappy young woman, whose life fell apart when her little son died, and who struggled with overpowering feelings of guilt toward her husband, her mother, and God. To some extent, this duality in Margaretha’s character was the result of the contrast between the woman she wished to be, or believed she ought to be—a dependent, submissive, modest person—and the woman she actually was—an independent, critical, intellectual, resolute, and strong-minded individual. The crushing demands that Margaretha placed on herself in her private life were the effect of her religious upbringing and were related to her perceptions of what both her mother and her God expected of her as a woman. The guilt she felt toward Adolph Etholén arose from her sense of failing to live up to the role of the good wife. Piety and submission were virtues central to the prescriptive concept of womanhood during the time of Margaretha’s adolescence. These concepts were associated with the evangelical Christian movement, which in the nineteenth century had spread across Europe and America. Margaretha had been raised in this spirit.2 Dependence was at the core of this notion of womanhood, and the new female subject was the godly wife and mother. Her mission was to care for and honor her husband, to raise their children and to arrange and maintain a pleasant and happy home, a loving place of rest, joy, and comfort.3 She was 139

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supposed to act as her husband’s adviser and friend, “who makes it her daily study to lighten his cares, to soothe his sorrows, and to augment his joys . . . and by her pious, assiduous, and attractive deportment, constantly endeavors to render him more virtuous, more useful . . . and more happy.”4 Margaretha found it a constant struggle to meet these demands. Even before she arrived in Sitka, she had difficulty complying with the role of the perfect wife. Three months after her marriage, she told herself how lucky she was to be someone “who loves and is loved.” But she feared that she was not a good enough wife to Adolph.5 She found it hard to be always patient, kind, and forgiving, to always speak in a gentle tone, “evince the same warm heart” in everything she did, “the same tender and graceful hand,” and in general to be of “a humble, happy disposition.”6 Margaretha’s feelings of guilt toward her husband grew stronger during her time in Sitka. When she took communion at her husband’s side for the first time since her arrival in the New World, she felt very happy. Yet, she blamed herself for being “so weak” and prayed to God to give her strength to struggle against “the sinful desire.” She needed strength “to constantly wish for the right thing” and “her heart” was “too wrongful to dare hope to enjoy the peace that a clean conscience provided.” Again and again she relapsed to her former faults and committed new transgressions. Although Margaretha never explained what she meant by her “sinful desire” or her faults, most likely she referred to her weak faith and “bad” character. Could God really forgive such a flawed person, she asked herself: What cherished, holy obligations have you, Heavenly Father! not given me to fulfill. I am a wife. Have I, as you commanded, sweetened the days of the husband You gave me? Have I tenderly and lovingly tried to make his home a quiet place, where he may forget the unpleasantness, the troubles that the outer life necessarily entails; where he may gather strength for his toil and where he may find rest and peace after completing his tasks; have I as you commanded, held on to the word that the melancholy temper of the moment bred and not myself been the cause of this melancholy mood; have I meekly accepted corrections and remained free of suspicion and embitterment? How must I in accordance with my conscience answer these and similar questions?7

On her engagement anniversary, Margaretha again returned to the subject of her failure as a wife. She knew that she ought not to complain and told herself



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how fortunate she was to be married to an honorable man. In contrast to many women who looked back on this special day with bitterness and anger, she could “with grateful joy bless the moment that tied her heart and the welfare of her life with that of a noble beloved husband’s.” Still, she felt unable to show him her love. “Only give me . . . the ability to be to him what I ought to be, what I so fervently prayed for on this day two years ago . . . Oh, if I only would be able to look back with more satisfaction on the past next year when this day returns, conscious of better fulfilled duties.”8 Despite the self-doubt that filled her diary, Margaretha seems in fact to have loved her husband dearly. When Adolph went away on his first inspection tour of the colonies, she sat down at her husband’s desk at 9 p.m. to compose a love letter to him in her diary, in reply to a letter she had received from him the same morning. She started her letter by telling how she had kissed the letter from him, because it was the last thing that his lips had touched. “I want to talk to you,” she wrote. “I want to thank you for every kind, every significant word your letter contained and I am not able to write any letter to you, therefore I have chosen this way of expressing my thoughts;—perhaps you will read these lines some time—perhaps I may not myself—when you return—by your heart—in your arms—thank you, my love, for all the happiness you gave me during these two past years;—let then these inadequate words remind you of how warm, how grateful your wife’s heart beat for you until the last moment.”9 With Adolph gone, Margaretha’s mood plummeted and she felt dreadful. When he departed, she watched his ship through a pair of binoculars as it sailed farther and farther away from her. Dreaming about his return, she wrote in her diary: “How happy would I not be then—if God granted me the joy of bringing you our children, healthy and hearty.” She prayed to the angels to protect him and bring him home happily to wife and children. Her only comfort was the thought that Adolph might be reading his prayers at the very same time she did, and that their prayers, although coming from different places, ascended simultaneously to the same heaven.10 Margaretha’s diary contains another love letter to Adolph dated November 15, 1842. It speaks of her foreboding that she was about to leave this earth and everything and everyone she loved. There is no explanation why she felt like this, if it was due to physical illness or mental frailty. It is noteworthy that the diary entry was close to the anniversary of her son’s death, a year that had been extremely difficult for Margaretha. She wrote: “Adolph! my husband, my friend, my support, my children’s Father—am I leaving You!? . . . much have I loved

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you—just as much will I love You until the last moment. You, who have sweetened my life for such a long time—and better and warmer shall I someday love You up there.”11

Ed wa r d ’s de ath Margaretha’s feeling of inadequacy intensified dramatically after her firstborn child, Edward, or Eda, died unexpectedly in the fall of 1841 after a short period of illness. Margaretha’s distraught account of his last hours is heart-wrenching for any parent to read. By October 25, Eda had been ill for slightly more than a week. Margaretha was sitting by his bed, seeking strength and consolation in the Bible. Torn between hope and despair, she tried to interpret its meaning. Coming upon a passage about the need for complete confidence in God, to hold on to faith and not to be fearful, she felt hopeful. She believed she could hear God’s voice speaking directly to her, telling her that “my child—my darling would not die—would not be taken from me—and which blissful tears I shed at this notion.” At the same time, she noted how ready she was “to interpret God’s words and promises” according to her own “weak heart’s wishes.” Reading on, she came across a passage about how salvation was promoted by the endurance of afflictions, that constant prosperity made people arrogant and turned them from the true faith. In her diary, Margaretha copied “God’s words,” which were to become so central to her: “What I have given, I can take back. What I have given is mine and when I take it back I will not take what is yours.” Reading this passage, she was struck by the terrible realization that her Eda might die, and she cut off a lock of his hair and placed it in the Bible while he continued to slumber. Then “the thought struck me coldly that perhaps this is the last lock of hair you will ever cut from the living boy’s head.” Quickly she cut another one, “but then he woke up because my hand was trembling, and perhaps a tear fell on his little head. ‘Mummy’ he said in a low, plaintive voice, and gave me his slender, emaciated hand—and his feeble gaze still expressed tenderness—but soon he closed his eyes.” Margaretha prayed for God to have mercy on her poor little boy and scribbled the words: “My God! My God, Forgive me!”12 At this stage, Margaretha’s desperation can be read in her handwriting, as she was no longer able to control the shape of her letters and words. As Margaretha’s account of Eda’s death reaches its climactic end, her writing becomes shaky and unrestrained, until her



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despair literally screams out in the shape of sprawling big letters that cover the whole page, overflowing into the margins.13 For a long time Margaretha’s grief over her son’s death overshadowed everything. Still, her grief did not take the form of a public display of emotions, which had become common practice in the nineteenth century.14 She mourned in private and turned inward. Above all, she wrestled with the conflict between her motherly love and the will of God, a conflict that centered on her right to her own child and her right to grieve her loss. Margaretha was brought up to believe that children were merely a loan, that God took them back whenever it pleased him. But when this happened to her, she felt betrayed by God and robbed of her son. Yet, she could hardly bring herself to admit this feeling, even to herself. Since God could not be held responsible, she put all the blame upon herself— blame for Edward’s death and blame for her inability to recover from her loss. She came to think that her weakness, her inability to follow the right path and to live according to her faith, had induced God to punish her. Her own weakness had turned her into a flawed mother and therefore God had removed Eda “from my care to a better one.”15 Her upbringing had led her to believe that her suffering was “a rightful trial.” She was expected to thank God “for the wound of pain and loss from which you have let my heart bleed,” but she could feel neither gratitude nor hope. As a true Christian she did not have the right to be so terribly sad or to feel such intense grief. Therefore, she had no right to ask for help. She had erred in her faith and God was exacting punishment on her. Margaretha turned inward and fell into a severe depression. Since her feelings were socially unacceptable, and because there was no help for her in Sitka, she used her diary as a therapy tool in the same way thousands of other women did at the time.16 Frankenhaeuser, who was the doctor in charge, wrote to his sister that as the treating doctor, he had never experienced such a difficult week as the one when Eda was sick. And he prayed that he would never again have to witness such tragic scenes. During Eda’s final days, Frankenhaeuser had barely been able to leave the house, because Margaretha “was almost put out of her mind.”17 Still, Frankenhaeuser did not provide Margaretha with any kind of help or advice. This was not out of malice or heartlessness. In the 1840s, grief was not considered a medical condition and hence could not be treated as such. Margaretha herself did not ask for help, but she longed for her mother, who could have provided comfort in her difficult time. Yet, in the midst of her deep sorrow Margaretha also felt guilty toward her mother for letting her down. Her

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mother had taught her how to find the path to salvation. Although she had often deviated from this path, “stumbled and grumbled during the way,” she did not need “to look for truth and light in the darkness of unbelief and doubt.” Hence, it was not the fault of the mother if “the daughter is a useless servant of the Lord.” Margaretha’s inability to deal with Eda’s death as a true Christian meant that she went against the will of the Lord and thereby against the will of her mother, who had taught her to love God.18 Her weakening faith thus also weakened the emotional bond to her mother and closed off an important avenue of comfort and support. She was now completely alone. Infant mortality was high in nineteenth-century Europe and middle- and upper-class status was no guarantee against the loss of children. Yet despite being a common occurrence, parents mourned their children no less than parents do today.19 A child’s death was the ultimate test of one’s Christian faith. Religious writings of the time described a child’s death as a spiritual challenge that could clean the souls of the parents and teach them to submit to the will of God. Pat Jalland’s studies of children’s deaths in British middle- and upper-class families during the nineteenth century found that women were better than men at submitting to the will of God and that they accepted the death of a child more quickly than men did.20 It has been suggested that the reason for this difference can be found in the religious and social training that taught women to submit to the will of God as well as to the will of their father and husband.21 Mothers had learned the virtues of pious resignation, patience, obedience, and humility. Fathers, who had not internalized these prescribed “female virtues,” found it much harder to accept their loss and to resign to God’s will. They were also less communicative and tended to repress their grief.22 Catharine Tait embodies the ideal Christian mother of the nineteenth century. When she lost five children to scarlet fever she wrote: “I turned my anguish into prayer,—prayer that God would comfort us in our extreme desolation and strengthen us to bear and suffer all His will.”23 Charlotte Suttor is another example of a woman, who after a short struggle to submit to God’s will, resigned and concluded that “the living demand my care and it would be selfish of me to indulge in a sorrow that would unfit me for my duties.”24 It is important to bear in mind, however, that these writings express an ideal and that women often consciously presented themselves as pious and submissive precisely because it was expected of them to be so. Both Tait’s and Suttor’s accounts were written post factum and were meant to be read by others, albeit only a few relatives and close friends.



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A nineteenth-century Christian woman who bore her grief with humility and submissiveness would find that “the sorrows would come to her attenuating, ameliorating, and transient.”25 In Letter to Mothers, Mrs Sigourney stated that, “to bear the evils and sorrows, which may be appointed us, with a patient smile, should be the continual effort of our sex. It seems, indeed, to be expected of us; since the passive and enduring virtues are more immediately within our province.” In her instructive story, we learn of the bereaved mother who in the middle of her agony over the death of her child heard an inner voice saying, “The Lord loveth the cheerful giver,” whereupon she kissed the ground and declared “Let my will be thine.”26 Many contemporary writers believed that religion helped women face severe tragedies. In the words of Mrs. John Sandford, “religion is truly sublime when she teaches woman in the stillness of a sick chamber to bow her head in patient resignation, and to endure her trial with Christian fortitude and faith.”27 Nevertheless, it was not unusual for deeply religious women, such as Margaretha Etholén, to find it difficult to come to terms with the loss of their children. In letters and diaries that women wrote during this period, a child’s death consistently appears as the most difficult thing for them to bear and the cause of more anguish and rebelliousness than any other event in their lives.28 Like Etholén, they found it difficult to come to terms with the tragedy that had befallen them and struggled with their faith.29 Anne Higgins, for example, questioned God’s purpose in taking her innocent son’s life at the very point of their arrival in Australia when a long and perilous journey was safely behind them. In a letter to her husband, she confessed that she felt as if she “could not praise God.” Another Australian woman, Gertrude Drew, was so upset when her son lay dying that she could not even stay in his room. Leaving him to the nurse, she paced up and down the corridor, crying bitterly.30 Reactions to children’s death in nineteenth century Protestant families were not determined by gender alone, but also by an individual’s level of education, religious socialization, and habit of independent thinking. In a study of children’s death in Australia, many of the men who did not accept that God had the right to take their child were in fact clergymen who had the educational and intellectual ability to question God’s decision. Margaretha had this ability too, and no doubt it was an important reason why she found it so difficult to accept God’s will. Another reason was her loneliness and isolation. The Protestant version of the good death was individualistic and therefore dependent on the support of the family. The lack of family support in Sitka, together with the fact that it was much

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harder to maintain the customs and rituals of death in the distant Russian colony than in her native Finland, certainly affected the mourning process in a negative way.31 It was also particularly difficult to have to leave a small child behind in such a remote region that would never be revisited. Elisabeth and Ferdinand von Wrangell felt this way too, and so did European women in the distant British settlements of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Margaretha’s experience in Sitka can therefore be compared not only to that of the von Wrangells but also to that of British women in the equally remote settlements of the HBC.32 Ellen Barnston, the wife of Chief Factor George Barnston, who served in the Albany District, was so distraught at the death of two of her daughters that her husband feared for her reason.33 Letitia Hargrave, married to Chief Trader James Hargrave, grieved the death of her second child at York Factory in December 1842 for a long time. It took nearly four months before she had recovered enough to write to her mother about the sad event. In her own (or presumably the doctor’s) words, she suffered from “an attack of pains in the nerves” and lay for thirty-six hours without stirring. This continued for a month and wore off gradually, but after four months she was still constantly thinking about the death of her baby.34 Another example is Mrs. Simpson, the wife of Georg Simpson, governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who suffered terribly from the death of her newborn child in the spring of 1832.35 Physical weakness was commonly given as the reason why she never really recovered from the delivery and eventually had to go back to Europe, but her difficulties in coming to terms with her child’s death probably affected this decision as well.36 Nineteenth-century parents who lost their children could turn for comfort to a dedicated Christian literature of consolation that tried to make their loss meaningful and bearable. According to this consolation literature, parents were expected to find comfort in the notion that their child had been saved from a suffering and sinful world by being brought to God and the angels in heaven, where they led a much better life than they would ever have been able to live on earth. Another notion supposed to offer grieving parents consolation was the concept of a heavenly reunion. Fathers and mothers could hope to be reunited with their lost child in heaven. If the parents lived a righteous life on earth, they would be reunited in heaven.37 However, there were elements in Christian teaching that made the mourning process challenging. The difficulty in explaining how a just God could cause such suffering and death troubled many, especially the death of an innocent child. Like Margaretha, some believers were convinced that their child’s death was God’s punishment for their own sins, which added an enormous



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burden of guilt to the intense grief they already felt. So did the common Christian view that feelings of anger and depression constituted rebellion against God’s will. To grieving Christians, who were unable to rejoice in their children’s early departure to heaven, their deep sorrow was a sign of weakness in faith.38 Dinah Maria Mulock, an author of conduct literature whom Margaretha sometimes quoted, and who was widely read by women at the time, wrote that grief was not afflicted on us to be evaded: “It is God’s punishment, not meant to solely sting for a brief moment, but to be part of our innermost self with a purifying, sanctifying and in the beginning consuming force. A woman should meet real misfortune with courage, fight against it as long as resistance is possible; finally, when conquered, patiently submit and wait until the storm is over, and when the clouds disperse, stand up and gaze at the regions of peace and light which never for long remains obscured for the pure-hearted.” She warned against cases where bitterness was generated in the soul which “works against grieving according to God’s mind.” Bitterness caused us to hold on to grief as if it were a treasure.39 Margaretha was well aware of this danger. In fact, she used the exact same words as Mulock.40 She knew that her lasting deep grief was not socially accepted. The demands for female self-denial and quiet and enduring courage, so central to nineteenth-century Christian conduct literature, made the situation worse for Margaretha, who was forced to hide her pain and keep it within herself. She described it as “an evil that no medication, no cold baths could remove .  . . it lives in there hidden for everyone—except for Him, whose eye ‘searches hearts.’” What she feared the most was that “perhaps He watches this pain with discontent!”41 Margaretha’s need to keep her grief private might seem at odds with the image of the Romantic emotional nineteenth century, when people were encouraged to give full scope to their feelings, and warmer emotional relationships developed within the family. Scholars have shown that it was now acceptable for middleclass European families to show strong emotions at the death of a child. Even Evangelists were encouraged to cry openly and to mourn together without feeling ashamed.42 Yet, this does not mean that prolonged grief was acceptable, especially not if it implied an accusation against God. In her diary, Margaretha made it clear that there was no help for her other than faith. She was completely alone with her grief and did not share it with anyone except her husband. Not even Adolph knew the full extent of her despair. Only God fully knew. The fact that Margaretha was so far away from home and family naturally affected her negatively. Above all, she suffered from not having her mother by her side. Adolph does not appear to have been of much help,

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and he was often away on prolonged journeys of inspection. The idea of heavenly reunion offered slight comfort. Such a reunion was too distant. Moreover, Margaretha doubted that she could live as a good Christian on earth now that Eda had been taken from her, and thus she could not be sure that she would ever join him in heaven. Not even the thought that he was now with Jesus, enjoying eternal blessing, gave her comfort.43

Li fe aft e r Ed a ’s death After the death of her son, Margaretha felt that nothing in life was safe anymore. She no longer felt in control of her own life. The colony seemed even more alien and isolated to her than before. She was constantly anxious that something would happen to her remaining child, or to Adolph when he was at sea, or to her family back in Finland. The diary entry for New Year’s Eve 1841 reflects the anxiety Margaretha felt for the coming year. Now, when the worst thing she could ever imagine had occurred, anything could happen. She was not even sure of her own reactions and what would become of her. What moments of pain and joy will the new year bring, she wrote in her diary: “What will remain for me at its end, of everything which now is dear to my heart, near and far away!? What and how will I be [like] myself then!?”44 The anxiety and insecurity that Margaretha felt affected the weaning of her youngest son, Alexander, who was only six months old at the time of Eda’s death in October 1841. When Alexander was nine months old, it was time for him to be weaned from breastfeeding according to white middle- and upper-class conventions of the time. But Margaretha found it hard to lose these moments of intimacy with her son. It was a difficult time, she wrote in her diary, “for both of us, you precious little child!” She missed not being able to see his fair little head at her breast. “O my Darling! Your pain is perhaps louder and your tears flow more abundantly—but God only knows who of us both suffers the most.” Margaretha had to fight both Alexander’s wishes and her own longing. Only her conviction that she would hurt “yet another innocent being” could restrain her from giving in to Alexander’s tears and her own desire. Here, her feelings of guilt came to the fore again, as they constantly do throughout the diary. She feared that it was her fault that Edward had died; that she, by giving him too much love, or through selfishness and weakness, had hurt him and that God had therefore taken him back from her. Only her fear of hurting Alexander in the same way made her give



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up breastfeeding. To her, breastfeeding was much more than “a desire.” It was a powerful feeling hard to express in words, “because words cannot accurately express the language of the mother’s heart.”45 At the end of June 1842, Adolph was going on another inspection tour of the colonies and Margaretha was miserable. She did not want to be left alone in Sitka. Adolph tried to comfort her and showed himself at his most romantic. The day before his departure, he and Margaretha went for a walk. Adolph picked some flowers, which he gave her as a token of his love. In the evening, they went to his room and prayed together, but there was not much Adolph could do to comfort Margaretha. She was lonely and frightened and suffered immensely from religious guilt. She feared for what could happen during Adolph’s absence, which made her long even more strongly for his return. She was terrified of being alone with her fear and unhappiness. With her husband gone, her young son, Alexander, was the only person she felt close to. But whenever she looked at him, she was reminded that like Edward, he might be taken from her at any time. And if God took him, she would not have the right to complain, because she had not improved despite the severe punishment he had given her, from which her heart “was still bleeding.” She still did not accept Edward’s death and therefore could not “receive God.” Her faith was still weak. Prayer gave her no more than momentary relief before worldly thoughts crowded in. She knew which path she had to take, but she could not force herself to follow it. Thus, it was not as if she was doubtfully searching for the light. God had let her see the light of the world, and through her dark depression she held on to her faith. This made her doubly guilty: “I can see the good path that leads to the light and salvation,” she wrote, “and . . . yet do not walk it.”46 Margaretha spent the day of Adolph’s departure in the garden with fourteen-month-old Alexander, who was a very kind and agreeable child. Spending time with him provided comfort. She could even share her longing with him, for he missed his father just as she missed her husband. Every night they kissed Adolph’s skull-cap together and bade him goodnight. Then Alexander sighed and said “Daddy.” Despite such pleasant moments, all was not well in the Governor’s House. Adolph’s absence and the time Margaretha spent alone with her son reminded her of the previous summer when she was alone with Eda, who was then about the same age as Alexander was now. Every movement, every syllable that Alexander uttered, evoked the memory of “the departed Angel.” Once again, she felt that her maternal love was in conflict with God’s will. “If my grief was in accordance with God’s mind,” she wrote in her diary, the memory of Eda would

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not be so painful.47 She asked for forgiveness for this sin but could not stop herself from adding: “Eda! My Eda! How sweet had it not been to see his sparkling eyes, to hear his beloved voice!” Having written this, she immediately suffered from feelings of guilt. She reproached herself for being selfish, for loving herself only and for seeking her own joy. After all, what was her care and tenderness “compared to what he now enjoys by the heart of the Redeemer.”48 This diary entry also demonstrates that the idea of heavenly reunion did not give Margaretha any comfort. Reading the Bible, she came upon the story of Joseph’s reunion with his father and brothers. This made her think of Edward, but not their happy reunion in heaven. Instead, she thought about the fact that she “never again on this earth” would take her son in her arms, “him, whom I have seen being lowered into the dark womb of earth; the son who first taught me feel motherly bliss—this, the very highest, the purest God gave to man.” Margaretha could not understand how motherly love could be the highest and purest form of love and yet something sinful.49 Having herself become a mother, Margaretha’s thoughts went increasingly to her own mother, whom she missed so badly. Yet, she found herself incapable of writing one word to her mother during the whole summer. She was afraid that she would not be able to cope with her homesickness and her grief, because “an inexplicable sadness takes hold of me as soon as I mean to begin these dear letters—and thoughts, feelings, innumerable and bitter, overwhelm me—I cannot!”50 She also worried that God would call her mother to Him before she returned to Finland. Despite what appears to have been a loving marital relationship, Margaretha did not fully share her grief with her husband. Available sources do not make clear to what extent he understood what she went through. Margaretha was an intensely private person, but she also knew that her feelings were sinful in the eyes of God and that they expressed a failure to fulfill her duty as a wife. Nevertheless, Adolph did try to comfort her. On the anniversary of Edward’s death, they went together to visit their son’s grave. Margaretha had brought immortelles—Eda’s favorite flowers. But Adolph showed her that much healthier, more beautiful flowers were growing on his grave and said: “Do you see, he does not need our flowers, he has much more beautiful flowers himself and gives you these.”51 Adolph apparently realized Margaretha’s need to feel connected to Eda, and the idea that their child extended comfort from the other side of the grave was an attempt to establish that link. Although Adolph could not make Margaretha happy, she was extremely relieved when he unexpectedly returned home after a mere five weeks’ absence



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in the summer of 1842. To Margaretha, it had been five very long weeks of rain and cold. Weighed down by anxiety and fear that she would encounter more misfortunes, illness, and death, she was relieved that the family was together again safe and sound.52 Nevertheless, her grief and the accompanying feelings of guilt stayed with her during the whole autumn and shaped her life in Sitka. A year after her son’s death, Margaretha still remained disappointed in herself for not having learned from God’s punishment how to be a better person. Why had not the chalice of suffering that God had given her made her more patient, more loving, or more contented? The prayer she had said in tears and anguish had not helped her heart. God had not listened, but as always, and as a good Finnish Lutheran, she blamed herself for this. She had not been on her guard against evil thoughts and her weak heart. She was unable to submit to God’s grace and find consolation in the words “Your sins are forgiven. Have courage.” As a result, she felt separated from God’s true, eternal love. Instead, she turned to Jesus, “for he says that everything you ask the Father in my name he shall give to you.” Christ was more forgiving and it was “by his loving heart” her child, her firstborn, rested and enjoyed “eternal bliss.” But she could not be sure even of the forgiveness of Christ and finally appealed to her son: “O my darling! My sweet, dear child— pray for your mother!!!”53 Only for brief moments did “the heavenly consolation penetrate” her heart. Her soul “could barely rise above the earthly pain, the loss and grief,” until it weighed her down and “imprisoned her in the gravel.”54 Well aware that “the grim notion that God in his wrath had punished me” was a false one and that God’s true purpose was to purify and sanctify her soul, she could still find little comfort in her religion. The problem was that she did not really trust God, his ability, or willingness to provide comfort. In her diary she notes, “O God, do I doubt your omnipotence, or your mercy, when I in the deep bitter pain feel that there is no peace for my heart?”55 But, to a certain extent, she did not want to let go of her grief and loss. She was not yet ready to accept that she had lost her child. At the same time, she was afraid that she would not be worthy of resting by his side when her time came.56 The fact that she had failed to become a better person (i.e., more patient, loving, and contented) affected Margaretha’s relationship with people in Sitka. Above all, she felt guilty toward her husband. Women of her time, especially Lutheran women, were socialized into thinking about themselves as unworthy of their husbands. Margaretha had always felt that she was not a good enough wife for Adolph, but those feelings became much stronger after Eda’s death. In 1842, she confessed to her diary that although she had truly loved him and

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would continue to do so until the last moment, she had not shown him enough love. Previously, she had urged herself to become a more worthy wife. Now, she felt unable to do anything about it. She could only promise to love him better and warmer when they were in heaven.57 Her difficulty to show love and affection remained for many years. Every wedding day, remorse seized her for not being the woman her husband married. On New Year’s Day 1845, she was still not satisfied with her behavior as Adolph’s wife and prayed to God to help her be a worthy spouse to him. “Why must I feel that I still am not,” she asked herself. “How well did he not deserve a wife whose heart without pain and reproach completely belonged to him—whose conscience was without wounds? Now, it was not my lot in life to be able to fulfill a wife’s duties.” Margaretha’s opinion of herself was so low that she did not think herself worthy of any domestic bliss: “I am not worth such happiness,” she wrote in her diary. She knew her husband was right when he told her that he could give her everything but one thing—“and this sole thing is—that which would bring happiness to us both—peace with myself.”58 Contrary to what Margaretha believed at the time, she did eventually attain such peace. The correspondence between her and Adolph in later years shows that they developed a loving relationship and that Margaretha was finally able to feel that she was “a worthy wife.”59 But in Sitka in 1842, Margaretha’s feelings of guilt had begun to affect her social life. In her diary entry from June 1842, she declared for the first time that she wished “to provide everyone that surrounded her with happiness.”60 The following year, she reprimanded herself for losing her temper: “My heart, consumed by a profound, incurable pain is still so easily wounded—my spirits, embittered for the most insignificant, pitiful causes—this I often confess with shame and sorrow.”61 Despite Margaretha’s efforts, the Governor’s House was not a happy, pleasant home. Social events were often seen as stiff and boring.62 Voznesenskii was not the only one who “[d]ined at the governor’s and came home from boredom.”63 When ice was formed on the little lake in the winter of 1842–1843, many therefore took the opportunity to avoid going to the Governor’s House on Sunday evenings and instead spent the time ice skating.64 The atmosphere in the residence was often tense. Cygnaeus described one evening when fourteen to fifteen women were sitting in the parlor. It was so quiet that one could hear a mouse scurry across the floor. They sat like this from five o’clock to half past eight. “The guests blame the haughty hostess, she presumably blames the stupid guests.” Cygnaeus held that,“Her Highness’ personality, marked by etiquette and



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propriety, her teacher-like watching and spying,” had aroused discontent among all, both men and women and, in his opinion, “not without reason.”65 A few weeks after this unhappy evening, Midsummer’s Eve was celebrated at the Governor’s House. The guests were playing games in the garden, and to all outward appearances it looked like a pleasant enough evening. But Cygnaeus wrote to his sister that this evening, like other amusement in Sitka, was characterized by a feigned joyfulness. Everyone tried to look happy and satisfied, but he could only think of automatons when he watched Sitka’s society entertain themselves. “The spirit of true joy is missing.”66 Hence, the atmosphere had changed considerably since they celebrated their first Christmas in the New World.

Anot h e r de ath In the fall of 1843, Margaretha suffered from yet another terrible blow, which added to her misery. She learned that her beloved mother had died from consumption over a year earlier on June 24, 1842, at the age of fifty-seven. One of Margaretha’s greatest fears during the difficult past year had now come true. She would never again see her mother, and her mother would never meet her grandchildren. Margaretha was devastated. “Three long years of longing!—and when I break up these years into days, hours . . .!” Her mother’s death also added to her feelings of guilt. It made the past “irrevocable.” Now, she would never have the chance to atone for the crime of turning against God that she had committed to “[h]er—the sweetest, the most noble mother.” She could never hope to regain her peace.67 April 27, 1844, was Alexander’s third birthday. It should have been a happy occasion. Instead, Margaretha was reminded of the previous year when, “I still believed that Her eye would behold my children, that Her blessed hand would rest on their heads!”68 This understandable disappointment led Margaretha once more to reproach herself for not concentrating on her duties as a woman—to be loving, patient, and contented; to spread joy around her to near and dear; and to make her home into a haven of peace and joy. It seemed to Margaretha that her mother had been much more successful at this, radiating love all around her. In contrast, Margaretha felt her heart was “so withered and desolate” and she wondered if she could ever love anyone anymore. She most certainly felt no love for

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herself. “O no!” she cried. How could she when she was so very deficient both as wife, mother, and daughter?69 Every night, before Alexander went to bed, she read evening prayers to him. At one point, she realized that the prayer was the first one she herself had learned from her own mother. This memory caused a wave of sadness, because neither Alexander nor his younger brother Carl Wilhelm, born in December 1842, would ever pronounce their grandmother’s dear name in their prayers.70 What is more, had he lived, this would have been the very first prayer she had taught Eda. Now, “his defective mother” would never get the chance to teach him “to praise God in secular language.” Every night Margaretha read the prayer her mother had taught her, and each time she was overwhelmed by emotions and her eyes were bathed in tears.71 During these difficult times, Adolph tried to give his wife solace, but he does not seem to have been fully aware of the extent of her grief, her difficult struggle and inner anxiety. In a letter to Sophie and Louise Langenskjöld, Adolph told them that he often comforted Margaretha in the stillness of the night with loving words and heartfelt prayers. But he also praised his wife’s humility and restraint before the harsh blow of her mother’s death.72 With both her mother and firstborn son dead, Margaretha worried incessantly about the dear ones who remained. She prayed to God to take everything from her that she still loved on earth if she could not “own it without the danger of losing it to eternity.”73 She was constantly reminded of her family’s mortality. On Alexander’s birthday, for example, they planted an immortelle together, and Alexander watered it from a little cup. At first, Margaretha looked on happily and thought about how nice it would be for him to pick its flowers when it bloomed, but she was then suddenly struck by the thought that perhaps these flowers would instead adorn his grave.74 In the beginning of July 1844, Adolph went on yet another inspection tour of the colonies. He wrote a consoling letter to his wife, which shows that he was well aware of Margaretha’s worries and anxieties. In an effort to reassure her, he wrote: “Yearn! but do not grieve; have confidence in the All-Bountiful God . . . I now leave you and our dear little boys in His care and hope with His help to return safe and sound into your arms.”75 Whatever consolation this letter provided was soon gone. One August evening, sitting by her desk in the Governor’s House, writing in her diary, Margaretha was suddenly overcome by fear that some misfortune would befall Alexander and Carl and that she would not be able to greet them again in the morning. She went hastily into their room and watched her sleeping children, whose “light breath was dearer to me than the



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sweetest music.” “If God is merciful I may hope to see you again tomorrow,” she wrote in her diary, “but Adolph—but Sophie, when will that morning come that will bring you back to me and me to You!? . . .”76 As the reference to her cousin, Sophie Langenskjöld makes clear, Margaretha also worried about relatives and friends back in Finland. She had horrible nightmares about Sophie, in which her cousin was seriously ill and suffered badly while Margaretha was unable to help. She also dreamed that she received a letter telling her that Sophie was dead. When she woke up, she could not help thinking that the dream could in fact be true.77 During Adolph’s absence, Margaretha taught Alexander, or Alle as he was called by family members, to pray by his bed every evening, saying “[m]ay God protect and bless my good darling Father.” Hearing this, his younger brother Carl, or Wille, who was twenty-three months old and could only say a few words, placed his hands across his chest and cooed: “gu goa pappa,” which roughly means “God dear Daddy.” However, as always, Margaretha doubted that God would protect Adolph. In fact, she was not sure that he would listen to any of her worries. Hence, she asked her mother in heaven to invoke God’s mercy for them all.78 Once again, it is evident how little she felt in control of her life in the colonies. She tried to make herself feel better by telling herself that no matter what God chose to do, she had no right to complain. She believed that whatever happened, it happened according to His will and would always be for her own good.79 Later in the summer of 1844, Margaretha listened to the servant boy, Johannes, reading from Robinson about the benefits of being trained to wait and be patient. The passage exhibited a strong Puritan voice that affected Anna to the degree that her eyes filled with tears. The moral was that all humans ought to become accustomed from childhood to forgo a long-awaited pleasure without impatience or grumbling. Only in this way could people manage to bear the many deprivations that were part of every person’s life and patiently await the moment when the Lord saw fit to hear their fervent prayers and dispel the doubts and fears that threatened to darken their souls.80 These words made Margaretha’s tears flow. She felt that he was speaking directly to her. She had been struggling with feelings of guilt for so long and had doubted that God would ever listen to her prayers. The difficulty in accepting the loss of her most precious treasure and the unwillingness to receive deliverance lay at the center of her conflict with God. Guilt, duty, and self-denial were constantly on Margaretha’s mind at this time, and everything she read or heard became related to this theme. In a diary entry from August 16, 1844, she recounted the day’s sermon, which she found very instructive. Cygnaeus had told the congregation that to embody humility

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was tantamount to placing God’s will above your own; “to patiently and faithfully follow Jesus on the path of suffering; to carry the cross that God had laid upon us without complaining; and always to live according to the saying, Let not my but Thy will be done.”81 This was the motto that Margaretha found so hard to live by. According to the diary entry, the sermon made her realize that it was her own strong will that opposed submission. A major part of her problem had to do with her inability, or unwillingness, to humiliate herself. To submit to God’s will would be tantamount to humiliating herself, because it would mean that she would go against her own will and, above all, against what she felt was right. Yet, at this point, three years after Eda’s death, she had started to see a glimmer of hope. If she could only get home to her mother, that is, to her grave, there was a chance that she could be saved. “O! if I could soon kneel at Your grave— sweet, heavenly Mother!—Would I not there be purified from some of the flaws which now give me so much and so bitter pain?”82

M a r g a r e t ha ’s r eflecti on s o n h e r fa ults and sh or t c oming s a s a w oman Three years after Edward’s death, Margaretha made an entry in her diary which again reveals her deep sense of inadequacy and failure. The entry concerned a book Margaretha had read. The anonymously published The Peace of the Soul and Collected Thoughts on Spiritual Matters for Educated Women, a German publication that Margaretha read in a Swedish translation, explained that the path to a peaceful soul was self-denial. Inherent qualities such as modesty, meekness, submissiveness, and a propensity for gentle and quiet joy made women well equipped to achieve peace through self-denial.83 However, the book said, some women could experience obstacles in their path, which arose from their temperaments and dispositions. Margaretha found this book fascinating, as it gave her the terminology to analyze the many shortcomings she perceived in her own self. Margaretha’s discussion of Peace of the Soul offers a gripping glimpse of the internal life of a deeply religious nineteenth-century woman who was extremely critical of herself. The diary entry also reveals much about what it meant to be a white upper-class woman and how women were expected to lead their lives during this time period.



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Peace of the Soul referred to a major type of female character called “the lively disposition.” Although Margaretha did not regard herself as a lively person, she was nevertheless convinced that she had all the faults associated with this character, including vanity, light-mindedness, a desire for recreation, and impatience. Judging by her diary, Margaretha was as far removed from a light-minded person desiring recreation as could be. However, she felt she lacked perseverance, which was seen as a sign of light-mindedness in her day. Moreover, recreation meant not only balls and dinner parties but any and every neglect of duty in favor of pleasure, such as pleasure in reading for example. And of course, there were many authors of conduct literature who were critical of women’s excessive reading. To Margaretha, who read incessantly to escape the reality of her lonely life in faraway Sitka, this struck a chord. She now became convinced that reading books led her to neglect her domestic duties. The innocent pleasure of reading now became a sin, preventing her from performing her duties as wife, mother, and hostess in the Governor’s House.84 The “the quick-tempered disposition,” another female type listed in Peace of the Soul, also rang a bell. Margaretha knew she had a bad temper and felt she grew angry and irritable far too easily. Quite in character, Margaretha could not see that she possessed any of the positive qualities of the quick-tempered woman, such as a firm and strong will, or “a persistent force.” As always, she could see only her failure to live up to prescribed ideals, her inability to be patient and restrained and her penchant to allow her anger to flare up or to argue. Given that Margaretha thought her mind “was easily brought into excessive motion,” she ought not to have recognized in herself any of the faults that accompanied the female type of “the slow disposition,” such as inactivity and the pursuit of comfort. But, of course, she found she possessed both these negative traits. In fact, the author’s critical discussion of women who withdrew from the world seemed directed at herself. The concept of “the false delusion” made particular sense. This was the notion that it would be better to devote your life to “inner reflection and devotion” than to “outer activity.” But, as the author made clear, the false delusion was only a pretext for withdrawing from the world and neglecting womanly duties. The outer activities were part of God’s will even though this work diverted attention from him; “for we then sacrifice everything to the obedience of his will, even the sweet pleasure of collecting our thoughts in God.” Thus, religious reflection was considered as an escape from reality and as such a wrongful path. The author made Margaretha realize that she often suffered from

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“false delusion.” In moments of anxiety and remorse, she retreated into an inner world, where she sought communion with God and the answer to her questions about loss and despair, rather than concentrating on the practical obligations in her life. The author had now made clear that this was a false avenue and a deviation from the true path to God.85 In fact, Margaretha reasoned, “we are always joined with God in our heart even when we perform various tasks in our outer life, as long as we stay on the path of duty.” The final character discussed in the book was the woman of the “gloomy disposition.” Margaretha knew well that this was the type she resembled the most, and she readily recognized the list of negative character traits pertaining to this kind of woman. Above all, she found that she suffered from “the difficulty to acquire true comfort” but also from feeling too much “concern for the outcomes of outer life and for its spiritual meaning.” Ever since Edward’s death, she had been aware that her hopes and her faith, despite her fervent belief, had not been what they should be and still were not. “I don’t know when and how the true light will rise in my soul; when and how the doubts will dispel, which now so often cast dark shadows on the present and the future.” Her long list of shortcomings completed, Margaretha drew up rules that would from now on serve to guide her future conduct. These rules would eradicate her faults and deficiencies in the best possible way and make her able to live up to the stipulated ideal of womanhood: The first rule was to overcome her lack of perseverance and inability to meet her obligations. This she would do by imposing on herself more difficult and burdensome tasks, spend more time and attention on them, and apply herself more to them than she had done in the past. The second rule was to learn to master her impatience. This could be done by forcing herself not to hurry and to perform her tasks in a state of peace and tranquility. Daily reading of serious and religious material would help her to stay on course. But she had to be observant of her obligations and remember that each moment had its duties. She must also be careful with her time and use it in the right way. “Do not sleep long, do not eat long or excessively, leave all weak conveniences aside,” she admonished herself. Yet, working more and harder was not enough. She would also need to practice self-control by denying herself a pleasure, even such innocent ones that were acceptable for a Christian and upright woman. The third rule was to learn to master her temper. Anger, at the time commonly associated with pride, was seen as a harmful passion that was very disagreeable in a woman.86 Remembering Cygnaeus’s sermon about humility, Margaretha decided that what she needed above all was to practice humility. Humility and



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meekness would come naturally from spending more time reflecting on her own weakness and imperfection, something a reader of her diary can scarcely think possible. She should try to mitigate the most righteous vexations by remaining silent whenever she felt provoked. If she could not collect herself, the best solution would be to escape. Furthermore, she should be wary of the delusion that indulgence and forgiveness are signs of weakness. To make it easier to forgive and to overcome her irritation, she should strive to suppress her dissatisfaction by thinking of how little it behooved her to entertain such thoughts. However, it was important not only to forgive but also to forget in order to be saved from “the comparison, so flattering to your pride, between your own magnanimous forgiveness and other people’s weaknesses and faults.”87 If someone offended her, she would not retaliate with unkindness, reticence, and indifference, the kind of treatment that some of the Finnish gentlemen complained that they too often received from her. Such behavior, Margaretha told herself, originated from selflove, from thinking too much of the injustice you have suffered. In fact, she concluded, her feelings of reluctance, indifference, and lovelessness derived from “the evil nature” of her own character. “It is easy for others to offend and hurt us because of carelessness, but often our own unkindness is the reason for their [unkindness], since heart affects heart.” Thus, “if the faults of our fellow humans made us indifferent, dissatisfied and resentful, particularly if any discomfort or annoyance was inflicted on us, we should consider this as an outbreak of our indomitable nature.”88 Margaretha’s analysis of her own character and the rules she set up for her future conduct influenced her approach to her various social roles. In her role as the leading lady of Sitka society, she advised herself to be as open as possible when associating with other people. Bitterness, Margaretha wrote, is a sign of self-love. “Rather than, for fear of displeasing our neighbors, put ourselves in a state of worry, and adopt something forced in our manners, we should openly say what we think and feel, because our silence would then only serve to make ourselves discontented, which would inevitably lead to the discontent of others. You should therefore strive to be open-hearted, happy and peaceful without willfulness and excessive sensitivity. Then you will be able to socialize more easily with others.”89 The combination of a reserved nature, high standards, and a fair amount of pride made life in the colonies very difficult for Margaretha. Looking back at her years in the Governor’s House, she realized that the fear of making mistakes had paralyzed her soul and prevented her from loving other people. “[We should] not despair about our faults and deficiencies,” she wrote. Instead

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we should “humiliate ourselves before God and join with him, who alone has the ability to restore and comfort us.” Self-love made us wish for perfection in ourselves and we became disappointed in ourselves when we failed to achieve it. Unhappy with ourselves, we became impatient and displeased with others too. Here, Margaretha appears to have realized something important about herself: that she had difficulties being friendly to other people and that the cause of this was her disappointment in herself, which made her impatient with others. But this insight did not mean that the problem was now solved. A new attitude demanded constant work. Margaretha wrote about the danger of allowing bitterness to get a foothold in our hearts when we were met by indifference and ungratefulness in places where we had expected love, sympathy, and appreciation. “Our zeal for the welfare of other people may not be allowed to grow cold, and to forestall this we should strive to look for everything that is good and noble in our fellow beings and which constitute the better side of their personality.”90 In later years Margaretha seems to have mastered this ability. In Saint Petersburg and at Hämeenkylä Manor, she became known for her hospitality and kindness. Her door was always open to relatives and friends, especially to those who suffered in one way or another. Erik Rudbeck, her son Alexander’s teacher, wrote about her that she “has an unusually clear mind which easily comprehends everything, and also much knowledge.” Furthermore, he continued, “she is a particularly good lady, kind and considerate to every man.”91 However, Margaretha’s contemporaries in Sitka who complained about her coldness and unfriendliness were perhaps not so far off the mark. What they did not realize was the struggle that went on inside her and that Margaretha’s unfriendliness was a symptom of her inability to like herself. In the fall of 1844, Margaretha seems also to have come to terms with her feelings toward her deceased mother. Ever since Edward’s death, she had been feeling guilty toward her mother for not living according to the faith she had been raised in. So bad did she feel about this that she covered her mother’s portrait with a piece of cloth as a form of punishment. She did not consider herself worthy of beholding her mother’s beloved features. In this time of sorrow, when she needed her mother most, she denied herself the comfort of her love. Every day, Margaretha prayed to God that she would once more be worthy to meet her mother’s gaze. On November 3, 1844, three years after her son’s death, she finally removed the cloth, not because she now felt worthy of her mother but because her prayers were no longer followed by despair. “I have . . . felt a growing trust in the grace and mercy of my Savior invigorate my previously disheartened soul,”



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she wrote in her diary.92 She was beginning to see that she had an important role in her life to fulfill—to teach her children “to truly fear and honor the name of the Lord and to teach them his will.”93 Her willingness to identify and assume such an important task shows that Margaretha began to regain her confidence. Previously, she had not felt capable of managing such a task because of her weakness and conflict with God. Now, she felt not only capable of raising her children in the “true faith” but truly desirous of doing so. In assuming the role of religious educator, Margaretha followed in her own mother’s footsteps. This fostered a sense of connectedness that was especially important now that her mother no longer lived and would never see her grandchildren.94 In one of Margaretha’s last diary entries from Sitka, she wrote about the celebration of little Wilhelm’s birthday. It was December 3, 1844, and Mrs. Öhman and Henrika had prepared the table in the nursery for a coffee-party and had decorated it with a small Christmas tree with candles. Margaretha watched the little boy as he with apparent pleasure served coffee to his guests and treated himself to gingerbread biscuits, “even though [his older brother] Alexander, knew better how to enjoy the party.” She could not believe that two years had passed since Wille was born: “How had my heart not aged during this time!”95

Th e l ong jo u rney home Five months later, in May 1845, the Etholén family left Sitka. The first leg of their homeward journey was by ship to Okhotsk, and from there they traveled across Siberia all the way back to Saint Petersburg. In Okhotsk, the family suffered from yet another terrible blow. Two-year-old Wilhelm was taken ill and died on August 2 after three weeks of illness. On August 14 in a tent by a forest stream 200 miles from Okhotsk, Margaretha wrote to her cousins, the Langenskjölds: “Our little darling Wille was taken ill the day after our arrival here . . . After three year-long weeks of suffering his innocent eyes were closed to the light of the earth. On the second of August he folded his slender hands in prayer for the last time.” Wille’s remains were taken to a Greek-Orthodox chapel in Okhotsk, where a room was prepared for the child’s final rest. In the absence of a Lutheran priest, the funeral was conducted by a Russian-Orthodox priest, Father Michael. Margaretha had wished for Wille to be buried in Sitka next to Edward, but the authorities rejected her wish. This grieved her immensely. But, according to her

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own account, the pain she felt was not as strong as when Edward died. Partly, this was due to the submissiveness she now felt before God, and partly because her pain was mitigated by the knowledge that her child’s spirit was now joined with her mother’s.96 Wilhelm’s death meant that Margaretha and Adolph lost two beloved children far away in foreign lands that they were almost certain never to revisit. They returned to Russia and Finland with their one remaining son, Alexander. In early1846, the family finally arrived in Saint Petersburg, where they settled in a townhouse on the fashionable Moika Street. Soon after their return, Adolph bought Hämeenkylä, or Tavastby, Manor in Elimäki, where the family spent their summers.97 Here, Margaretha continued her educational and charity work. On the property, they established an elementary school and a home for orphans and for children who for various reasons could not live with their parents. After graduation, these children were usually offered a position at the manor or were referred to other suitable places.98 In Saint Petersburg, Margaretha also pursued charitable and educational prospects. The Etholéns became members of the Swedish-speaking Lutheran congregation of Saint Katarina. Margaretha tried to get parish members to open their homes to orphans and poor Finnish children who were in need of shelter, education, and care. This work led to the construction of a parish house with a school for orphans just outside of the city. She formed a charity together with women from Saint Mary’s parish and was also involved in the schools of the parish. She was particularly dedicated to the improvement of female education.99 Margaretha transferred her desire to do good to her daughters, who both grew up to be devout Christians. Karin joined the Salvation Army and Louise the YWCA. She thereby fulfilled what she set out to do before she left Sitka. Meanwhile, Adolph became a member of the board of directors of the Russian-American Company and remained there until 1859. He was knighted in 1856. When Adolph retired, the family moved back to Finland and settled at Hämeenkylä Manor.100 After her return to Saint Petersburg and Finland, Margaretha gave birth to four more children, two boys and two girls, but misfortune continued to pursue the family. Karl Adolph died in 1848 at the age of eighteen months. Next were two girls, Katarina Margaretha Sofia, called Karin, and Hedvig Maria Lovisa, called Louise. Both lived to old age. In the fall of 1852, Margaretha gave birth to her last child, a boy called Edvard, who died when he was two. Thus, out of seven children, Margaretha and Adolph were only allowed to keep three. Did Margaretha ever overcome her grief over the loss of Eda? There are indications that she did



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not. She seems to have been very close to her only remaining son throughout her life. Alexander became a naval officer, serving with the Russian Pacific fleet, and Margaretha corresponded with him regularly.101 Her youngest daughter, Louise, remembered how her mother refused to celebrate her name day because her brother was at sea. This occurred in 1866 when Alexander was twenty-five years old, which gives us a sense of her deep attachment to him.102 Furthermore, when Louise later lost her child, Ingrid, it became clear that Margaretha never completely came to terms with the death of her children, especially not her firstborn. In a letter of comfort sent to Louise from Menton, in Provence, where she stayed with her older daughter Karin, Margaretha wrote: “My own darling, my heart is bleeding for you, that you would have to go through this ordeal of pain which has also wounded my heart so that I can still feel it after almost half a century.”103

No t es 1. See for example Uno Cygnaeus’s letters from Sitka, Finland’s National Archives, Cygnaeus Collection 1839−1845 and Reinhold Ferdinand Sahlberg, En resa kring jorden. 2. English advice books were read in the original, but they were also quickly translated into Swedish. 3. Welter, Dimity Convictions, pp. 37−38; Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, p. 114; for the Swedish context, see Marie Steinrud, Den dolda offentligheten. Kvinnlighetens sfärer i 1800-talets svenska högreståndskultur (Stockholm, 2008), pp. 139−140, 154; Rundquist, Blått blod och liljevita händer; Eva Helen Ulvros, Fruar och mamseller. Kvinnor inom sydsvensk borgerlighet 1790−1870 (Lund, 1996); Eva Lis Bjurman, Uppfostran till äktenskap. Om borgerliga flickors fostran på 1830talet (Lund, 1933). For contemporary sources, see Sandford, Woman in Her Social and Domestic Character; Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, A Woman’s Thoughts about Women (London, 1858). 4. Samuel Miller, “The Appropriate Duty and Ornament of the Female Sex” in Nathan Elliot, ed., The Columbian Preacher or a Collection of Original Sermons from Preachers of Eminence in the United States, Embracing the Distinguishing Doctrines of Grace, Vol. I (Catskill, 1808), p. 255. 5. Etholén, Diary, September 29, 1839. 6. Sandford, Woman in Her Social and Domestic Character, pp. 56−61. 7. Etholén, Diary, August 30, 1840. 8. Etholén, Diary, 31/19 January 1841.

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9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

Married to the Empire Etholén, Diary, 18/6 June 1841. “Friday at 9 in the evening at my husband’s desk.” Ibid. Etholén, Diary, November 15, 1842. Etholén, Diary, 21/7 November 1841. Ibid. Peter N. Stearns, Childhood in World History (London and New York, 2006), p. 58. Etholén, Diary, 31/19 January 1842. See the Introduction above for a discussion of diary writing. Frankenhaeuser, letter to Natchen, Sitka, May 8, 1842, but written in stages during the spring. Etholén, Diary, 31/19 January 1842. Jose Harris, Private Lives Public Spirit: A Social History of Britain 1870−1914 (Oxford, 1993), p. 54. Pat Jalland, Australian Ways of Death. A Social and Cultural History 1840−1918 (Oxford, 2002), p. 71. Pat Jalland, Death in the Victorian Family (Oxford, 1996), pp. 13, 119−142. Pat Jalland, Australian Ways of Death, pp. 71, 138−139; See also Welter, Dimity Convictions, for expectations on mothers to bear their suffering with patience. Catherine Tait’s account, cited in Pat Jalland, Australian Ways of Death, p. 137. Charlotte Suttor’s diary, cited in ibid., p. 78. Mulock Craik, “En qvinnas tankar rörande qvinnan,” pp. 107, 112. In the original: “naturally and wholesomely, and passing over,” p. 284. Mrs. Sigourney, Letters to Mothers, 6th edition (New York 1945), pp. 252, 273. Sandford, Woman in Her Social and Domestic Character, p. 42. Welter, Dimity Convictions, p. 30, n. 53. Jalland, Death in the Victorian Family, pp. 119–142, 265–283, 318–338. Jalland, Australian Ways of Death, pp. 25, 26, 80–81. Ibid., p. 68; Rundquist, Blått blod och liljevita händer, p. 134. Sylvia Van Kirk, Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society in Western Canada 1670–1870 (Winnipeg, 1980), p. 198. Ibid., p. 138. The Letters of Letitia Hargrave, ed. by Margaret A. Macleod (Toronto, 1947), pp. 136–37. Van Kirk, Many Tender Ties, pp. 198–99. “Journey for Frances,” ed. by Grace Lee Nute, The Beaver, December 1953–June 1954. Ibid., pp. 122–124. See also Ulvros, Fruar och mamseller, p. 168. Jalland, Death in the Victorian Family, pp. 265–66, 278–79. Mulock Craik, Tidskrift för Hemmet, pp. 102–3, 110. Original: p. 279.



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40. Several of Mulock’s books were translated into Swedish. 41. Etholén, Diary, 11/29 July 1842. Monday, Petri Pauli Day. 42. Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500–1800 (Harmondsworth, 1979), s. 149; Jalland, Australian Ways of Death, p. 4; David Newsome, Godliness and Good Learning. Four Studies on a Victorian Ideal (London, 1961). 43. Etholén, Diary, 25/13 October 1842. 44. Etholén, Diary, 12 January/31 December 1841/42. 45. Etholén, Diary, 4 February/23 January 1842. 46. Etholén, Diary, 3/11 July 1842. 47. Here, Margaretha uses the same phrase as Dinah Maria Mulock. 48. Etholén, Diary, 11/29 July 1842. 49. Ibid. 50. Etholén, Diary, 18/6 August 1842. 51. Etholén, Diary, 27 October 1842. 52. Ibid, 18/6 August 1842. 53. Ibid., 25/13 October 1842. 54. Ibid., 27 October 1842. 55. Ibid., 1 November 1843. 56. Ibid., 27 October 1842. 57. Ibid., 15 November 1842. 58. Ibid., 9 January 1845. 59. Letters in private collection. 60. Etholén, Diary, 18/6 June 1842. 61. Ibid., 1 November 1843. 62. Sahlberg, En resa kring jorden, pp. 177, 197; Cygnaeus, letter to Johanna, Sitka, May 8, 1844; Frankenhaeuser, Letter to Natchen, Sitka, 8 May 1842; Letter to Natchen, Sitka, May 15, 1843. 63. Voznesenskii, Journal, February 25, 1845, cited in Alekseev, The Odyssey of a Russian Scientist, p. 60. 64. Frankenhaeuser, letter to Natchen, Sitka, May 15, 1843. See also Sahlberg, En resa kring jorden, p. 197. 65. Cygnaeus, letter to Johanna, May 8, 1844. 66. Cygnaeus letter to Johanna, Sitka, July 13, 1844. 67. Etholén, Diary, November 1, 1843. It was actually four years since Margaretha saw her mother. 68. Ibid., May 9, 1844. 69. Ibid. 70. According to Lutheran practice, only living persons were named in evening prayers.

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71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83.

84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103.

Married to the Empire Etholén, Diary, May 9, 1844. Gulin, Louise af Forselles och hennes värld, p. 27. Etholén, Diary, October 13, 1843. Ibid., May 9, 1844. Letter from Adolph to Margaretha July 4, 1844, in the possession of relatives. Etholén, Diary, 13/1 August 1844. Sophie probably alluded to Sophie Langenskjöld, her best friend and cousin. Ibid. Ibid., November 3, 1844. Ibid., 13/1 August 1844. Etholén, Diary, 13/1 August 1844. Ibid., August 16, 1844. Ibid. Om själens frid, jemte en samling af tankar i andeliga ämnen. För bildade fruntimmer, af ett fruntimmer, translated from the German original, 3rd edition by Johan Albert Butsch (Stockholm, 1833). See also the Finnish review in Ecclesiastikt intelligensblad till Åbo tidningar no 6, 1839. Etholén, Diary, October 30, 1844. Ibid. Davidoff and Hall, Family Fortunes, p. 414 Etholén, Diary, October 31, 1844. Ibid., November 1, 1844. Ibid. Ibid. Gulin, Louise af Forselles och hennes värld, p. 44. Etholén, Diary, November 3, 1844 Ibid., December 15, 1844. Ibid. Ibid. Gulin, Louise af Forselles och hennes värld, pp. 27–28. Varjola, The Etholén Collection, p. 24. Gulin, Louise af Forselles och hennes värld, pp. 37–38. Enckell, “Four North European Female Educators,” s. 97. Varjola, The Etholén Collection, p. 24. Correspondence in the possession of relatives. Gulin, Louise af Forselles och hennes värld, p. 1. Ibid., p. 108.

P a r t III

Anna Furuhjelm

Image of Anna Furuhjelm and Hampus Furuhjelm in Dresden 1859, courtesy of Annie Constance Christensen.

W

hen Anna Furuhjelm, the young bride of Russian-American Company Governor Hampus Furuhjelm, arrived in Sitka, she was shocked by “the immorality” she encountered. “It was indeed a painful pulling open of the eyes, to come straight from a happy innocent Home, where nothing impure or unclean entered, nor of which very existence I never knew, to this place, where it is impossible not to see, hear & know much that must both shock & pain.” She came to see that sin was everywhere, “but still you will see a striving after what is right . . . & can never come so closely in contact with Badness as in a small place like Sitka, & especially in a colony.” In a letter to her cousin Wilhelmina, Anna wrote that “[t]here is so much evil here, so much that is sad, so very little fear of God, or understanding of right and wrong and so little ability to help. It is horrible to live among people who often lack any concept of honesty and decency.”1 “O Mama!,” she exclaimed in a letter to her mother, “the life these men & women lead would shock you . . . it affects your heart & soul.”2

No t es 1. Anna Furuhjelm, letter to Wilhelmina Gripenberg from Sitka, dated 28 September/10 October, 1861 in Åbo Academy Library, Manuscript Collections. Anna sometimes used both the Julian and the Gregorian calendars. 2. Anna Furuhjelm, letter to her mother from Sitka, February 2, 1860; 24/12 July 1860. 169

Chapter Five

The Perfect Wife in the Wilderness

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hen she set off on her journey to Sitka, Anna Furuhjelm (1836–1894) was at the same time an extremely cosmopolitan and yet a surprisingly naïve young lady. She spoke English, German, French, and Swedish. Her mother, Anne Cordelia von Schoultz, née Campbell, was born in Calcutta to Scottish parents but had been sent back to Britain at the age of five to attend school. Her separation from her family did not last long, however. When Anne’s father, who was employed by the East India Company, died in 1821, her mother, Mary, returned to Britain with her youngest daughter, also named Mary. They all settled in Edinburgh. When Anne was thirteen years old, the family traveled to the continent to polish the girls’ education and possibly also in order to economize. They stayed in Ghent for two years and then continued south, ending up in Florence when Anne was eighteen years old. There she met Nils Gustaf von Schoultz, Anna’s father. Nils belonged to the Swedish-speaking Finnish nobility, although his branch of the family had moved to Sweden when Finland became a Russian province in 1809. Von Schoultz became an officer in the Swedish Army, but resigned his commission after a few years, probably due to gambling debts. According to family lore, he went to Poland in 1831 to fight in the rebellion against the Russians. He was captured but managed to escape to France, where he joined the Foreign Legion and served in North Africa. Discouraged by his experiences, he soon left the Legion and went to Florence to see his family. They had settled in Tuscany in order for his sister Johanna to pursue a career as a singer. It was Johanna who introduced her brother to Anne Campbell, whom she had met at Madame de Valabrègue’s musical soirées. Nils and Anne married and settled in Karlskrona, a naval port in southern Sweden. Their first child, Florence, was named after the 171

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romantic city where they had first met. A little more than a year later their second child, Anna, was born. When Anna was only a few months old, her father abandoned his family, never to return. Nils had invented a red dye and went to England to find investors willing to develop the product. When the dye proved unstable and his business scheme failed, he was offered a passage to America by a fellow Swede. He accepted the offer without informing his wife, or her relatives in England. A year after his departure to America, Nils wrote a letter to Anne telling her that he would soon send her a large amount of money. Apparently, he had devised an improved process for extracting salt and waited for his patent to be granted. This was the last the family heard of him before his untimely death. During his stay in America, Nils had become involved in the Canadian revolt against the British and took part in an attack against Prescott in Upper Canada. Due to a series of mishaps, the rebels were outnumbered by the British and had to succumb after holding on for five days. Nils von Schoultz was sentenced to death and hanged at Fort Henry on December 8, 1838, aged thirty-one years. Anne von Schoultz remained in Sweden with her daughters for four years before moving to Germany. Here they lived in Heidelberg for three years and then settled in Darmstadt. Thus, the children received a German education but spoke English at home. Eventually, the story about Nils and his family reached their Finnish relatives, and Nils’s cousin, Constantin, invited them to the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland. Anne accepted and went to Finland with her daughters for the first time in 1856. The warm reception they received probably influenced her decision to move her family to Finland permanently a year later after recovering from a serious illness. Her daughters were now in their early twenties, and Anne worried about their future. The von Schoultz family moved into a five-room apartment at 27 Mikael Street in central Helsinki.1 Not long afterward, Anna, who had just turned twenty-one, was selected by the family as a suitable wife for Hampus Furuhjelm, a naval officer fifteen years her senior. He had recently been appointed governor of Russian America. Because the regulations of the Russian-American Company proscribed that the governor had to be married before he left Europe, Hampus was in a hurry to find a wife.2 At the time of his appointment, Hampus was employed as harbor master in the port of Aian, on the Eastern coast of Siberia. Describing social life in this gloomy place, he wrote that “apart from three married book keepers, one ditto priest and one ditto junior commissioned officer, Aian is inhabited only by workers with their wives. Nevertheless, I have from time to time arranged a dance for



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the local fops. They dance vigorously with their own and each other’s wives—the only ladies in Aian.”3 In other words, Aian was hardly the place to find a woman to marry, especially not a Finnish wife, which Hampus preferred. He therefore asked relatives and friends in Helsinki to find him a suitable marriage partner so he could marry when he returned from Siberia to receive his instructions from the company’s main office in Saint Petersburg. Anna von Schoultz was related to Hampus’s benefactor, the former governor of Alaska, Adolph Etholén, through his wife, Margaretha, who was a cousin of Anna’s father. This relationship probably contributed to her becoming the spouse chosen for Hampus. During the summer of 1858, Anna spent some time at Etholén’s Hämeenkylä estate. Here, she was told stories about Russian America, but also about Adolph’s protégé, Hampus Furuhjelm. Hence, when Hampus arrived in Helsinki shortly before Christmas he was already on her mind.4 Since the new governor had to be installed in America with his wife before the end of June, there was not much time. A Christmas ball was hastily arranged at the house of another relative of Anna’s father. There the two met for the first time and seemed to be happy in each other’s company. On January 10, they were engaged. Three weeks later, they were married. The fact that they had feelings for each other was important, as nineteenth-century marriages were supposed to be based on mutual affection and young ladies were supposed to choose their husbands based on their feelings.5 Starting on her wedding night, Anna wrote continuously to her mother until the sad news of her mother’s death reached her in Sitka. She also kept a diary and wrote letters to friends and relatives.6 These writings are filled with emotional reflections and thoughts about life as a married woman and as a governor’s wife. Anna had great expectations on this life, but also high expectations on herself. She dearly hoped that she would live up to the demands that her new role as wife, mother, and governor’s wife posed. These demands were shaped by prescriptive notions of true womanhood associated with the contemporary cult of domesticity, discussed earlier. Notions of women as domestic, modest, pious, and pure shaped Anna’s outlook on marriage and motherhood and made sense of her experiences in Russian America. One of the most striking things about Anna’s letters is what she left out. A latter-day reader expects that a journey across half the world would be cause for excitement and long and detailed descriptions of exotic places and peoples. But Anna wrote very little about her encounters with peoples, cultures, and places. Nor did she write much about Sitka or Russian America in general. Her letters

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were primarily concerned with her reflections on marriage, motherhood, and her relationship to her own mother. During the first part of the journey, Anna relied on her sister to provide their mother with descriptions of the scenery and the places they visited. “I leave all description to Florence, who is such a good hand at such like,” she wrote from Warsaw.7 But if truth be told, she does not seem to have been particularly interested in the world around her, either in the colonies or in the wide-stretched empire she represented as a governor’s wife. Her lack of interest in the surrounding world is in marked contrast to both Margaretha Etholén and Elisabeth von Wrangell, who took a greater interest in the empire and its colonies. Whereas Elisabeth is the most obvious example of an “incorporated wife,” who regarded the running of the colonies as a family business, Anna seems to have had no such sense of what it meant to be a governor’s wife.8 What Anna wrote in her diary was very similar to what she wrote in her letters. The only real difference is that she sometimes expressed feelings of dissatisfaction in the diary that never made it into her letters, although she always felt guilty about these feelings. She also spoke more of her personal deficiencies in the diary than in the letters to her mother. This might be an indication that the image of the perfect wife and mother that Anna conveyed in her letters did not always conform to her real experiences.

The t ies b e twee n mother a n d d a u ghter Anna and Hampus celebrated their wedding with a luncheon for sixty guests at the home of Marie and Fabian Langenskiöld, relatives of Anna’s father. Immediately after the lunch, Anna and Hampus embarked on the long journey to Sitka, which went via Saint Petersburg, Dresden, London, Panama, and San Francisco. The new route to Russian America via Panama was much more comfortable than sailing via Rio de Janeiro and then around the Cape Horn, but it was also more expensive. On the first leg of the journey the couple was joined by Anna’s older sister, Florence, who had been invited to accompany them to London. Thus, Anna’s mother was left behind on her own in Helsinki. Fortunately, she had the company of her German maid, Babette Fischer, and her nephew, Ormelie, whose parents lived in India. Amidst all the anticipation and joy, Anna felt a deep sadness at having to be separated from her mother, who meant so much to her. In the middle of the



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nineteenth century, strong ties between white middle- and upper-class mothers and daughters were the norm. The mother-daughter relationship was portrayed as one in which the daughter always confided in her mother, who in return was her guide in all matters. Girls in middle- and upper-class families were raised and educated at home under their mother’s supervision and often with her as their teacher. The intimate relationship they formed in this way meant that daughters often identified with their mother and embraced their mother’s views and values.9 The religious education that mothers provided to their daughters also contributed to shaping strong ties between them.10 It was not uncommon for young middle- and upper-class women in the nineteenth century to experience a period of intense religiosity. For many of these women, the most important experience before marriage was to become a Christian.11 This was an experience they shared with their mother, who had provided them with their first religious encounter. In Anna’s case, their common faith had established a special bond between her and Anne, just as faith formed a strong bond between Margaretha Etholén and her mother. However, their close relationship was also due to Anna growing up with an absent father. When Nils Gustaf disappeared, the children became Anne’s whole life, and she regarded their education as her foremost duty. Judging from Anna’s letters to her mother, it is clear that she was well aware of her mother’s commitment to her children.12 The close bond that developed between mothers and daughters made the separation resulting from marriage difficult.13 For Anna Furuhjelm, as for Margaretha Etholén, this moment was particularly difficult. Marriage meant parting from her dear mother for six long years, without knowing if they would ever meet again; it also meant parting from friends and family and, in fact, from a whole continent. Marrying Hampus meant that she had to travel to the other side of the world, to a place she knew nothing about and where nobody knew her, with a man she barely knew. It also meant taking on the duties of a governor’s wife in Russian America. In the brief note Anna wrote her mother on her wedding night, she tried to convince both herself and her mother that they would not be separated for long. “I can never forget your look at me . . . when we parted,” she wrote. But, “not for ever—only for a short time—O Mama!”14 The joy of marriage was thus mixed with the sadness of the separation from her beloved mother. Two years later, when in Sitka, she was reminded of this moment of separation and the conflicting emotions it entailed. Anna had been invited to Sophie Klinkowström’s engagement reception and noticed that both the bride and her mother looked exceptionally

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sad. “I remember well how it was with me,” she wrote to her mother, “but that was only when we were alone, before Hampus I did not look sad . . . It would have made him miserable to see me cry.” “Besides,” she confessed, “I did feel joy in my heart & such deep gratitude.” “Was it wrong of me my mother,” she now asked anxiously, “or did it hurt or grieve you?”15 Anna’s letters expressed her attachment to her mother in different ways. Her first letters were full of longing and lengthy accounts of how much she missed her. She knew her place was now with Hampus and she felt very fortunate to be his wife. But she also wished her mother to be with her to witness her happiness. It was as if Anna’s happiness was not complete unless shared with her mother. “I am inexpressibly happy,” she wrote at the inn on her wedding night, “and hope to make you so too.”16 In a letter from Saint Petersburg, written a few days later, she again expressed her desire to share her marital bliss with her mother. “Indeed, my own Mother! I wish you could see your child’s perfect happiness.”17 Hampus had rented a private apartment on the fashionable Great Morskaia Street. Beautiful flowers from Margaretha Etholén greeted them when they arrived, and Wickström, the manservant from Helsinki who would accompany them to Sitka, was already there.18 Anna was delighted that they would now have a home of their own, albeit only for three weeks. She strongly wished her mother could see her new home and how happy she was. “You cannot think what a delightful feeling it was to come here, into your own home,” she told her. “How I wish you could see us and our dear little home.”19 Anna seemed almost desperate to convince her mother that her marital bliss was truly real. “I only wish you could see us and judge for yourself of our happiness,” she wrote later from San Francisco.20 Anna’s letters make clear that this desire to share her happiness with her mother expressed a need for approval of her new life and a desire to enter a new stage of their relationship. From now on they would be equals. Before she married and became a mother, a woman remained a daughter, not yet recognized as a grown woman.21 Anna now wanted her mother to know that she had matured and that she realized that she had often been thoughtless and ungrateful in the past. “O Mama! I can never never be sufficiently thankful for God’s untold mercy in having given me such a Mother!—how undeserving I have been—& how much sorrow I have often given you. Forgive me—forgive me, my own Mother—.”22 Separated from her mother and entering married life, Anna could for the first time truly appreciate and understand the value of all that her mother had taught her. Real life had now begun, and it was for this, married life, that her mother had prepared her so well. “O Mama! now I feel so deeply, how much I owe you—now



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that I am away from you, and married to one, whom it is my greatest wish and desire to make as happy as it is possible for human beings to be. I feel so thankful to you, for having taught me what Life is . . . and what our aim and object is as inhabitants of this world. A whole new world is now opening itself before my soul—Life’s earnest seems to have begun and I can only . . . pray God . . . that He would graciously teach me to do my duty.” The religious training Anna had received from her mother had constituted an important part of this preparation for married life. Anna now truly appreciated that Anne had showed her the right path and taught her to serve God. Because, “with true and living Faith, even dark and painful days when they come, can become light and peaceful.”23 Anna’s strong attachment to her mother was also expressed in her religious and cultural identity. During the long journey and during the whole time in Alaska, religion constituted an important link between Anna and her mother. In Saint Petersburg, Anna went with Hampus to the English Church. When she entered and heard the well-known sound of an English hymn, her heart swelled with delight. “How I thought of you my own Mother,” she wrote afterward.24 A visit to the Presbyterian Church in San Francisco also triggered memories of her mother. Though Anna made it clear that she preferred “no other form of worship, to the one of the Church of England,” she liked the preacher, Reverend Mr. Scott, and found comfort and enlightenment in his sermon. It made her think of her family back home, and her eyes filled with tears when she remembered “the strange, distant country” they were in. But then she realized that “we were all united in one Faith one Hope—one Love” and she felt sublimely happy. “I seemed to be nearer you. We were all together!”25 It would be two years before she visited an English church again. This time she was on a 1,460 mile journey from Sitka to San Francisco to see a dentist. Alone, without her dear husband, she felt miserable. But, she told her mother, to receive the Holy Sacrament in an English church and from English clergymen comforted her and warmed her heart.26 Anna had not merely adopted her mother’s religious identity. She also embraced her cultural identity. Although she had never lived in England and despite her mother’s Scottish ancestry, Anna always spoke of England, not Britain, and felt that this was where she really belonged. Hence, she was extremely pleased when the English officers, who visited Sitka, told her that she looked “quite English.” Even more flattering was their opinion about her accent, or rather lack of an accent.27 To Anna, England represented the best, most progressive, most civilized country in the world, an opinion she readily expressed on different occasions. What impressed her most was that religion played such

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an important role in England. Nowhere in the whole wide world could you find a place where people were as pious and studied the Bible as diligently as in England, she opined. England “has ever, more than any other nation striven to follow Her maker & adhere to His Commandments.” That is why England was the “favoured & chosen country.”28 Hence, England—Englishmen, English culture, English institutions, and the English language—constituted another link between Anna and her mother. The English Church in Saint Petersburg and San Francisco were not only important to Anna because of her faith but also because of their cultural significance.

Ma r r ie d lif e Although marriage signified the moment of separation between mother and daughter, it also led to the formation of a different but strong bond between them. Marriage was an experience mother and daughter shared and could talk about as adult women. Anna clearly wanted to share her views about marriage with her mother from the very start, even when her personal experience of this institution was limited. Her conception of marriage was influenced by prescriptive ideas of the perfect wife, but also by notions of Romantic love. Conduct books from the eighteenth century often warned its readers of the dangers of passion. Sense and reason were idealized, while undisciplined feelings and passion led people astray. This view had changed in the nineteenth century.29 Sympathy and affection were still the most important foundations for marriage, but gradually love was becoming a respectable basis for the choice of marriage partner, encouraging a new view of marriage in which the affections between husband and wife were as important as their economic and reproductive obligations to each other. This development was related to a reduction of fertility and an internalization of sexual regulation among married couples. Romantic love was now considered as the best unifying feeling, the safest foundation on which to build domestic happiness.30 This change is reflected in Anna’s writings. Not only is love more prominent than in the writings of the previous governors’ wives studied in this book. Anna writes more passionately and is much more openly emotional than Margaretha and, in particular, Elisabeth. Anna’s descriptions confirm recent scholarship demonstrating that middle- and upper-class Victorian marriages were not as stiff and constricted as prevalent stereotypes make out. Private life was seen as a place devoid of conventional etiquette and restraint, and women expected



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more than kindness and duty from her husband. Most couples now recognized that the mutual rights and obligations of spouses included emotional and sexual pleasure. Both love and intimacy became increasingly important. Expressions of marital satisfaction, love, and happiness after several years of marriage confound the association of nineteenth-century marriage with formality and distance. We should not ignore the fact that the affectionate marriage was a prescriptive ideal. Even so, evidence suggests that many marriages were warm, open, and loving.31 Anna embraced the typical Romantic view of marriage, reflected for example in her argument for early matrimony. She believed that young men should marry when their feelings were still warm and before they had had too many “heart friends,” making them blasé in matters of the heart. Naturally, a young man should have sufficient income to support a family but, she argued, riches could come with age.32 As a newly married woman, Anna was obviously very interested in the institution of marriage, and she expressed strong opinions about it. Central to her concept of marriage was her belief that it constituted a sacred bond between husband and wife that united them forever. Furthermore, as marriage was sacred, it was happier if based on a common faith. Anna was confident that she had not been as happy had not the same faith united her soul with that of Hampus. It is interesting to note here that Anna apparently did not make much of the differences between her own Anglican inclinations and Hampus’s Lutheranism.33 To Anna, faith thus constituted a vital bond between husband and wife, just as it did between mother and daughter. But she also believed that sharing a similar background in terms of class, education, and culture was important. This view later led her to argue against marriages between Russians and Creoles in Sitka. Anna also embraced the Romantic ideal of men and women in love as being two persons united into one being.34 She seems convinced that she and Hampus had actually “become one” through marriage. Why else would they feel as if they had known each other their whole life? As husband and wife they had simply become so close-knit that neither of them could even imagine that there had been a time when they had not belonged to each other.35 In a letter to her friend and relative Wilhelmina Gripenberg, or Mina, Anna wrote that she felt as if she had always been Hampus’s wife and could not imagine not knowing and not belonging to him. “So Mina, husband and wife becomes one. It is a wonderfully beautiful, incomprehensible, sacred bond; no one except God may seal it and no one except God may dissolve it. And when God calls us home, we still belong together and forever.”36

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A letter from Hampus’s sister Ludmila to her younger sister Constance, who came to stay with the Furuhjelms in Sitka, gave Anna an opportunity to vent her opinion on marriage to her mother. Listening to Constance reading the letter aloud, Anna was appalled that Ludmila, only two months after getting married, complained about being lonely, because “there are so many things one can tell a sister, but not a husband.” Anna, who believed that there was no one a wife could speak to so openly as to her husband, took Ludmila’s words to be proof that her sister-in-law was unhappily married. A wife should feel that she could tell her husband everything, she argued. “To feel that you have the whole and entire confidence of y[ou]r husband, as he has of you, is such happiness—such Joy, to be deprived of it, would be to be deprived of the foundation on which happiness in married life is built.”37 Anna expressed her views on marriage on another occasion when reporting a conversation she had had in Sitka with a Russian state councilor and a young man from Poland. The conversation revolved around an elderly couple who did not wish to be apart. Both men found this silly and amusing. The woman in question was old and in poor health. The state councilor claimed that any wife would find it degrading if her husband was always in love with her, and that women loved transition and change. Listening to these men, Anna became very upset by the minister’s immorality and absence of pure and noble feelings. She later regretted not intervening but listening in silence. What offended her most was that the state councilor did not realize that marriage was a sacred bond. To him, a wife was only of interest when she was young and healthy. Turning old, “she was worth nothing and could be thrown away like an old dusty book, although she was the mother of his children.”38 Fortunately, in Anna’s eyes, Hampus was the state councilor’s very opposite. He was the best of husbands. He had a pure and noble character and a tender heart. He was honorable, humble, and unassuming. The image of Hampus that Anna depicted fitted perfectly with her romantic view of a marriage based on love. Her description of Hampus was in fact strikingly reminiscent of images of the ideal husband presented in contemporary literature to the point where it could have been lifted chapter and verse from one of Mrs. Sandford’s epistles.39 The image of Hampus as the perfect husband is a recurrent theme in Anna’s letters. Nowhere was this as evident as in the letter Anna wrote to her mother when Hampus had left her alone for the first time. “O Mama!,” she wrote, “if you knew what a husband Hampus is! What a Jewel, a gem his heart—That big, pure, noble heart—that loving, gentle affectionate heart—! Truly & gratefully I say it, I am



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blessed in being his Wife.”40 But already in her very first letters to her mother, Anna wrote: “He is so very good—O! how happy I am to be his wife.”41 A month later she declared: “God has been merciful beyond measure, in giving me such a husband! . . . His principles, his views and thoughts are the most upright and honest & noble.”42 She valued his noble heart the most, followed by his compassion and consideration.43 Anna continued to describe Hampus in this manner throughout her correspondence with her mother. Whether she really believed that Hampus was as wonderful as she asserted is of course impossible to know. What is interesting here is how she presented him to her mother. Anna’s persistent praise of her husband shows how important her mother’s approval of Hampus was to her. Judging from her letters, Anna thus had a perfect marriage and a perfect husband. What she wished for the most was to play her part by becoming the perfect wife. But a perfect wife needed a home in which to perform her duties, and Anna had to wait long before she could assume her domestic roles. Already in London, when they were still at the start of their journey, she began to grow heartily sick of the constant packing and unpacking and longed to be in Sitka. “[Ou]r stay here and everywhere else has been exceedingly pleasant, but still we both wish for our own home & long for the day when we have no more packing and unpacking to do.”44 Onboard the ship bound for Saint Thomas in the Leeward Islands, the longing for Sitka and a home became even stronger. After little more than a week on the Atlantic, Anna wrote: “I am growing so impatient to reach Sitka, and long to settle down into all my Hausfrau duties.” Picturing their arrival in the colonies she referred to Sitka as home for the first time: “How delightful it will be to come home—to Sitka I mean. I cannot say how I long for that day.”45 Then, during their stay in San Francisco, she yet again expressed this “homesickness.” “I am only longing for Sitka! for our own, own home,” she wrote to her mother, telling her that she no longer cared for balls and parties, the way she used to. This life had lost all its former charm. “It is wonderful how being married, changes many of your former tastes. I no more care for Balls and parties now, than if they never existed—though as a young girl I liked them often too much.”46 If this account aimed at gaining her mother’s appreciation or if it expressed a genuine feeling is of course hard to tell. But it was certainly not a passing phase. Anna would make these assertions even more persistently after she became a mother. Although Anna constantly told her mother how lovely it was to be married and how happy she was, she worried about not being able to live up to her

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expectations of being the perfect wife. This concern about her role as a wife is another recurrent theme in Anna’s writing. Her worst fear was that Hampus would be disappointed in her. “O I hope he may be very happy—and trust God will give me the strength, the will and the desire, ever gladly and cheerfully to fulfil my duties towards him as his wife . . . I am so happy, so thankful, to be the one chosen by him, and have but one wish, one desire, that he may never, never find himself disappointed in me.”47 Anna feared that Hampus had been given a too positive image of her; that he had “heard me praised & lauded to a perfectly unmerited degree;—how painful for him, to find out the mistake—which sooner or later, he must, knowing full well, how many, many ugly faults I have, and how they will and must make themselves perceived ere long. Of course he never expected to find perfection in me . . . but still, I see he thinks too highly of me—O! how happy I would be, to be such a one he now thinks me.”48 The fact that Hampus was the ideal husband placed high demands on Anna to be worthy of him as his wife.49 She often repeated her fear that she did not deserve him. “O! such a precious, darling husband as my own Hampus is! I never deserved to get him.”50 This fear made her all the more concerned for his happiness. She longed to be his everything and to make him completely happy. “I can only say that each day finds me more deeply grateful towards Him, who had given me such a husband, and each day I pray more fervently, to be able to be all and all to him, who is, and ever will be, all and all to me—.”51 This desire is present in almost every letter she wrote in the beginning of her marriage, and it remained a constant several years later. Anna never doubted that Hampus deserved to be happy, but was not sure that she really deserved such a good husband. “O! that I may ever be a dear, loving Wife to him—a comfort and a Joy.”52 She was delighted to see him smile and to hear him speak of his happiness, yet found it hard to believe that she was the reason for it. At least in her letters home, Anna’s life seems to revolve completely around Hampus and his needs to the point where her own happiness can only be a reflection of his. “To watch the happiness of the one you love—What can be more beautiful,” Anna wondered, “and truly, I think I may humbly say ‘Hampus is happy’—his eyes and his smile are so bright, so sweet, it fills my whole heart with inward Joy and gratitude.”53 From what Anna wrote about her role as a wife, she seems to have been well acquainted with contemporary ideas of femininity and female roles. Indeed, her letters sometimes read as advertisements for the cult of domesticity. Presenting the husband’s happiness as the sole purpose and aim of his wife is just one example of this thinking. As one manual put it, a wife’s smile should be “the happy



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influence to gladden his heart and to disperse the cloud that gathers on his brow.”54 Associated with this idea is the notion expressed earlier that a woman’s love should take the form of gratitude; that she should love, because she was already loved by one deserving her regard. In the middle of the nineteenth century, ideas like these were available in several languages. We know that Anna read about child-rearing and marriage in both English and French. However, as she mainly read in English and was more familiar with British Protestant culture, we can assume that she acquired most of her ideas about marriage from British novels, sermons, and conduct literature.

A g o v e r nor’s wif e While Anna worried about living up to the ideals of being the perfect spouse to Hampus, she was not as concerned with her role as a governor’s wife, at least not in the beginning of her married life. Margaretha Etholén had informed her of her duties when they met in Saint Petersburg, and it made her somewhat worried about the future. But mostly she found the idea of being a governor’s wife in Alaska exciting and unreal. She was well aware of her moral obligation to “improve” the lives of the Natives and in particular of Native women, but she could not see herself doing this. Neither did she harbor any particular desire to improve the world, as missionary wives often did. In fact, it was not until she had the conversation with Margaretha that she actually thought about her own role in the colonies. “I was very glad to be able to speak with Tante M about Sitka, and many things of importance, and feel more and more what great responsibility will lie upon me, and how I ought in everything to set a good example, seeing that all I do, say or have done, will be remarked and most likely followed. My most earnest wish and desire is, with God’s help, to be able to do good to those with whom I come in contact, and in all things to act according to my words— But I feel so weak and full of faults, and am afraid of not doing what I ought to do.”55 Anna clearly did not like this responsibility and feared that Hampus would become disappointed in her. But for the most part she brushed these thoughts aside and merely enjoyed the idea of being the governor’s wife. In Anna’s letters, meeting Hampus turned her whole life into a fairytale. Even though she sometimes worried about making him disappointed, being married, and being married to the governor of Russian America at that, was above all very exciting. When reading Anna’s accounts of their first weeks as husband

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and wife, she sounds almost like a child playing at being a wife dressed up as a married woman. When she tried on a married woman’s cap that Hampus had bought for her in Saint Petersburg, she felt she “looked a perfect little wife.”56 The same thing occurred when Adolph and Margaretha Etholén came for tea. Anna put on her black dress and pink cap, not to be the hostess, but “in order to look like a hostess.” Even though she did not feel like a married woman, she enjoyed her new role. “You can’t think how nice it was to be hostess—and how strange it sounded in my ears to be thanked for the pleasant evening, and to have my hands kissed by the children.”57 While her marriage felt unexpected and wonderful, being a governor’s wife and traveling across half the globe was like a fantastic dream. When a flattering article about her marriage and imminent journey appeared in Helsingfors Tidningar (Helsinki News) Anna was amazed but also very satisfied. With pride she acknowledged that “it is not every day that an Hampus Furuhjelm, a man of such good reputation . . . comes to H[elsing]f[or]s to be married in the forenoon, and in the evening of the same day, commence a journey half round the world!— it was an événement for Helsingfors.”58 Anna apparently enjoyed the thought that everyone in Saint Petersburg knew who they were; that they were received in a stately manner and given special treatment. One evening, the board of the RAC treated them to a luxurious dinner. The company had even invited her sister Florence. Anna was impressed with the amount of money they spent on them: “15 R[oubles] S[ilver] a cover, without wines!” The company also allowed them to travel in style. On leaving Saint Petersburg, Anna proudly told her mother, the RAC had made a stagecoach with six horses, conductor, and coachman available to them. As the only passengers, they were able to stop whenever and wherever they wished.59 They were also given the nicest cabins available on the ships that took them across the Atlantic via Saint Thomas and Panama to San Francisco. And they had the best places at the captain’s table.

Th e jo u rne y On the morning of February 25, 1859, Anna wrote a farewell letter to her mother before leaving the Russian capital. “I have been so happy here. My own Darling! Goodbye—Farewell! And [may] God in His mercy ever bless and keep you, and accompany us with His Blessing on this our long, long journey!”60 Their first stop was Dresden, but the journey there took longer than Anna had expected.



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They often had to wait for horses, and the snow lay deep on the ground. Hence, progress was slow and the journey was rather uncomfortable. They often traveled through the night, or arrived late at an inn, rising early to continue the next day. Once in Dresden, however, everyone was in high spirits. Anna met her old friend Mrs. Hawthorne and Florence met her fiancé Carl von Schoultz. Hampus bought Florence a silk dress for the occasion. His thoughtfulness impressed Anna greatly, which is hardly a surprise. In Dresden they hired a cook and a maid, “who understands housekeeping and everything about a lady.” It was more expensive to hire servants in England, where they were heading next, and Anna did not have much regard for Russian servants. They also stocked up on the famous Dresden linen for their house in Sitka, buying towels, sheets, table cloths, napkins, as well as some clothes. The rest of their supplies were procured in London. Anna listed every item they bought and how much it had cost so that her mother could approve of her purchases.61 After a stormy nine-hour boat ride across the English Channel, when even Hampus, an experienced sailor and general superman, was seasick, they finally reached Anna’s beloved England. Already on the train to London, they met what she referred to as a proper English gentleman. Apparently, he helped them sort out a misunderstanding of some kind. Hampus and Anna stayed at Edwards Hotel on Hanover Square, where they paid one guinea a day for three very comfortable rooms. Florence stayed with relatives. In London they made their final purchases and preparations for the long journey to Russian America. They bought cutlery, a teapot and coffeepot, two sugar bowls, a cream jug, sugar spoons, a mustard bowl, salt cellars, spoons, fish knifes, and a bread basket, all in silver. They also bought two dozen forks and spoons in plated silver. Hampus presented Anna with a special gift—a dressing case with engraved silver top, which she took as yet another proof of his kind and noble heart. Anna was overwhelmed and asked herself “[h]ow did I ever deserve such a husband—He is so noble minded, so very sweet and gentle. O Mama! I love him with all my heart, and hope I may make him very very happy.”62 One of the most important purchases in London was a piano. With the help of Mary Cautley, one of her mother’s relatives, Anna selected a semi-grand piano for £100. It was packed in a tin case and sent by boat to Sitka, arriving there during Anna’s first confinement nine months later. In the evening, they all had dinner together: Anna, Hampus, Mary, her husband, and Florence. The dinner was delightful with plenty of champagne. It was like a fairytale, a starry-eyed Anna wrote to her mother. “Is it not a fairytale to think of your daughter living

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comfortably at an [sic] hotel in London, and being able to see her friends, and rejoice with them?” But this was not all. In the same letter Anna told her mother about the cool lightweight dresses that were being sewn up for her for the journey through the Tropics. Then, it suddenly struck her that in a few days she would actually be leaving. Again, she wanted her mother to be proud of her daughter’s good fortune: “Fancy your Annie going to the West Indies?”63 A few days later, Anna wrote a final farewell to her mother before leaving Europe. She was in her cabin on board ship outside Southampton and again marveled at how well things had turned out. Thinking back, she remembered visiting one of the great East Indian steamships together with her mother and how much she had admired it. “Who would then have thought I should so soon be on a similar one, not only as a gazer on but a passenger to St Thomas—Changes! Strange changes!”64 Anna’s light-hearted fairytale of married bliss contained its serious moments. Already in Dresden when she was bidding farewell to her dear Mrs. Hawthorne, Anna felt the seriousness of the moment. The night before they left Dresden, Anna and Mrs. Hawthorne prayed together that God would be with them on their long journey. The purpose of the prayer was to make Anna feel better, but instead she was reminded of her mother and the last time they all prayed together there in the same house. “Please God, it may not have been the last time,” she pleaded. About to leave Europe, these feelings of apprehension were much stronger. She had already been forced to separate from her mother; now she would have to separate from her sister too. A few days before their scheduled departure from Southampton, Anna and Hampus escorted Florence to the village of Nettleden in Hertfordshire, where she would stay with Mary Cautley. Anna had not realized how difficult it would be to part with her sister. She had been too preoccupied with her marriage and the impending journey. Now, she felt as if Florence was her only remaining connection to her mother, her home, and her childhood. Parting from her also meant parting from her old carefree life. “[M]y heart feels quite heavy when I look at her and think of you, and my old home and all the happy days of my childhood and the earnest Life opening itself to me now.”65 Leaving Europe was a step into the unknown. Even though Anna was “so perfectly, perfectly happy,” she could not help feeling a twinge of sadness as she parted from everyone and everything she knew and loved: “Fare well Europe!,” she exclaimed melodramatically, “Fare well thou dear country where my precious Mother is—O God! protect it and her, for ever & ever Amen.”66 Three weeks had passed since her mother’s last letter. As the time of their departure drew nearer,



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Anna worried that she would have to leave England without a single word from her mother. It could then take months before she received a letter from Finland. All of a sudden she was struck by the thought that she would never see her mother or Florence again; a concern that would prove justified. Nevertheless, she put her trust in God and hoped that it was God’s will that the family would be reunited in a few years’ time.67 Four months after her marriage, on board the Magdalena bound for Saint Thomas, Anna realized that she was pregnant. While she saw her marriage as an occasion for shared joy, she hoped that her pregnancy would make her mother even happier. When she became a mother, they could share this very special experience. Moreover, Anna could give something back to her mother, something that would make her supremely happy: a grandchild, the greatest gift a daughter could give her mother. Anna’s pregnancy transformed her even more than marriage had. She was both happy and grateful, but most of all filled with the seriousness it entailed. She felt unprepared and prayed to God that he would prepare her for this great responsibility. Confiding in her mother would have been a great support. Announcing the news to her, Anna wrote: “Mother! I think I have every reason to believe a great, great Blessing is in prospect for us! And O! my Mother! how much I have thought of you—how much I have longed to have you to speak to about it.” Apparently, she told her mother about the pregnancy early to give Anne time to send all kinds of instructions and advice, “such as only a loving Mother can give, from whom it is so beautiful for me to receive them.”68 But as she would find out, her mother was not nearly as excited as Anna had hoped she would be. Physically, Anna was not much affected by her pregnancy. It was only during the first weeks of the sea voyage that she complained about not being well, whether because of seasickness or morning sickness. However, when they reached the tropics she was feeling much better and was able to enjoy its incredible beauty. The soft warm nights, when the golden moon rose high into the sky and its light was reflected on the dark surface of the ocean, enthralled her. “To me, it seems all like a wonderful dream!,” she wrote to her mother in Helsinki. “In the tropics! Why I never thought I should see them.”69 The sense of living in a dream came to her again when she went ashore on the island of Saint Thomas and came face to face with the exotic. “I could scarcely realize to myself that it really was I, who was landing in an [sic] West Indian Island, where Negroes and Negresses swarmed around us, and the large leaf of the Cocoa nut tree waved over our heads.”70

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Judging from her letter from Saint Thomas, Anna admired everything she saw on the island but did not seem particularly interested in learning anything about the place, its culture, or its people. In any case, with the exception of the sentence quoted above, she wrote nothing about the island and made no reflection about the conditions of the island’s black population. She merely provided a description of their hotel and commented on the insignificance of the Governor’s House. Compared to images she had seen of the Governor’s House in Sitka, this house was small and unimpressive. “Our’s at Sitka is much larger and handsomer,” she concluded contentedly, “though the place itself is smaller.” The remainder of the letter was devoted to gossip about a certain Miss Coghill from England and a young American, who traveled with them on the ship.71 On Saint Thomas they boarded another steamer that took them to Colón in present-day Panama via Cartagena in Colombia. From Colón, they went by train across the Isthmus to Panama City, a journey of about five hours. In Panama, Anna wrote a few lines about the city, but again not very much. She was fascinated by the tropical nature and the beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean from the city walls and from the public gardens. The city itself, she described as a miserable looking place with narrow dirty streets and high buildings.72 Only nine years earlier when the Englishman Frank Marryat traveled to San Francisco by way of Panama, things were very different. The railway had not yet been built and travelers crossed the Peninsula on mules. Marryat’s account was written during the California gold rush years, and the first thing he saw when he reached Panama City was a large American encampment outside the town gates, where people who wanted to avoid the commotion in town lived in tents. In town, all the beds were taken. The streets were crowded day and night with several thousand emigrants waiting a passage to California. It was a dangerous place to linger at night. There were huge billboards in the streets, and on every house hang an American flag. When Anna and Hampus arrived in 1859, Panama was no longer the halfway resting-place of California emigrants. One thing that had not changed, however, was the sound of the church bells that woke up visitors every morning at sunrise with “a concert of tin-pots and saucepans.”73 Although Frank Marryat seems to have experienced a different Panama than Anna, he made similar observations about its poverty. Like Anna, he attributed the poverty of Panama to the laziness of the indigenous population, stating that “the Central Americans are an inert race,” and that “the inhabitants of New Granada, of Spanish blood . . . are too indolent to make money when it can be done with great rapidity and very little trouble.” “Consequently,” he continued,



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“the advantages of the Californian emigration are entirely reaped by foreigners.”74 When Anna was on a tour of the public gardens, she had been told that “the lazy inhabitants” were the reason why the country was so poor, despite the favorable climate that created ideal conditions for fruit and vegetables. She embraced the racial prejudices of her time and thus attributed the poverty she saw around her in Panama to the indolence of the Natives.75 Hampus and Anna only stayed in Panama for a few days before they boarded a ship to San Francisco. The Golden Age was a highly elegant four-story ship that could accommodate 1,300 passengers. Anna was very impressed with the amount of food consumed by the passengers. Five breakfasts, five luncheons, and five dinners were served every day, and this was only for the cabin passengers. Three bullocks, three sheep, and three dozen fowls were killed daily; 1,600 pounds of potatoes were used. Although the governor and his wife were offered the nicest cabin, located in the coolest part of the ship, for the first week the heat was unbearable. “[I]f you lifted your little finger, you were covered with perspiration.” The only part of the day that was comfortable was during dinner. Seated beside the captain at the head of the table, Anna caught the breeze coming down the wind sail. Yet, when the change of weather came, they were not prepared. The last five days of the journey were quite chilly, the change so sudden that Anna caught a severe cold.76 On May 16, 1859, they arrived in San Francisco, a city that had changed remarkably fast during the previous ten years. Theatres had sprung up everywhere. There were concerts and balls, fancy fairs, picnics, country villas and inns, libraries and debating societies, women and children, and pleasant society.77 No wonder Anna immediately fell in love with the city. However, like many other European travelers at the time, she found it difficult to like the Americans. Already in Panama, she described Americans as vulgar and coarse. Onboard the Golden Age she developed her disapproval further, writing “I cannot say much in praise of the Americans. I can’t bear them—they are the most ungentlemanly, vulgar & it appeared to me uneducated people I know as for chewing & spitting!—I never saw anything like it—they beat the Swedes, Finlanders & Germans hollow.”78 She found their English awful and complained that they said “was” instead of “were” and “is” instead of “are.” Women wore diamond rings, but ate chicken and pork chops with their fingers; put their knives in their mouths, and rested their elbows on the table at dinner. Anna simply could not understand them. What she was most curious about was whether these “vulgar” and “coarse” women were regarded as ladies in America or not (i.e., if Americans used different criteria

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from Europeans when dividing people into social classes.79) An invitation to a ball in San Francisco gave Anna more ground for criticism of American vulgarity. Uncertain of many things, Anna had a sure sense of good taste and what was appropriate in different circumstances. She had no doubt that her own outfit was the most tasteful in the ball room, because “the Americans have no taste—they overladen themselves from top to toe, and think that splendid.”80 In San Francisco, Anna and Hampus stayed in the house of the Russian vice consul, Peter Stepanovich Kostromitinov, who was an old friend of Hampus and, more importantly, whose wife spoke English. This made Anna feel at home. Another aspect of life in San Francisco that made her feel at home was the widespread religiosity. As mentioned, Anna’s visit to the Presbyterian church made her feel closer to her mother and sister.81 This sense of proximity to those at home was reinforced by the fact that in San Francisco, Sitka no longer felt so very distant. Everybody there knew about Sitka—what it was and where it was. Mrs. Kostromitinov, for example, had a sister in Sitka, to whom she sent things from time to time. She promised to do the same for Anna if needed. In San Francisco, Anna again felt how fantastic and surreal life was. She remembered that exactly one year ago she had been in Hämeenkylä talking to Margaretha Etholén about her life in Russian America. “O! how wonderfully wonderful! Who could have supposed, that the anniversary of that time, would find me there?”82

T h e Ar r iva l : Exp e ctati ons a nd t he e ncounter wit h t he coloni es After a long and arduous journey, the Furuhjelms arrived in Sitka on July 2, 1859, exactly five months after their marriage and their separation from family and friends. At 8 a.m., Anna came up on deck and saw the high snow-capped mountains, the numerous scattered islands, “all more or less obscured by fog . . . But still it was splendid—far surpassing any of my expectations . . . The sea was like one large sheet of glass, and for the first time, I saw a back of a whale.” Anna went downstairs to have breakfast and get dressed so that she would be ready to go on shore as soon as the steamboat came for them. As they were to be received “in state,” she dressed in her black silk dress, ditto cloak, and pink bonnet, looking “like a lady walking the boulevards of Paris, instead of being at the end of the



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world.” But appearances were vital in the colonies, as Anna well knew. Hampus also looked his very best, wearing a gold embroidered coat, cocked hat, and sword. The deck was scrubbed, all the brass ornaments polished, and the Imperial flag, announcing that the governor was aboard, was hoisted.83 When the steamboat arrived, they discovered to their utmost surprise that Hampus’s brother Hjalmar was on board. Hjalmar Furuhjelm had been working as a mining engineer in the service of the RAC since 1854. He developed a coal mine at English Bay on the Kenai Peninsula until 1862. Unfortunately for Hjalmar, the attempt to market the coal was not successful. The quality was poor, markets were too distant, and there was stiff competition from coal mines closer to California.84 Hampus had not seen his brother for eight years, and the reunion was as happy as it was unexpected. They drank each other’s health and Anna felt that “it was so nice to meet him in this strange world.” She was pleased to hear that whereas Hampus found Hjalmar looking old and ill, Hjalmar found Hampus looking fatter, younger, and happier. No doubt this was all her doing.85 When Sitka finally appeared out of the fog, Anna was quite taken aback. “I cannot express my astonishment at the Beauty of the scenery, which nobody had described to me as being so great as it really is.” She looked anxiously for the Governor’s House which would be their home for the next five years, their first real home as husband and wife. It was not difficult to spot, located high on a cliff above the town: a yellow two-storey building with large windows overlooking the sea. The house was enclosed by a wooden wall with several embrasures for cannons ready to use in case the Tlingits should attack.86 By this time, Sitka had a population of 2,500 people, of which 400 were “Russians,” people who were Russian citizens but not necessarily ethnic Russians. The town consisted of small wooden houses, an Orthodox cathedral, a Bishop’s House, a church for the Natives, a Lutheran chapel, the clubhouse established by Adolph Etholén with a billiards room and a salon for dancing, a hospital, and four schools. Along the narrow main street lay a straggle of one- and two-storey houses. Sitka had no streetlights, and on winter evenings the inhabitants went about with lanterns. When raining, which was the case at least three-quarters of the year, the streets became impassable because of the mud. For this reason, boards had been laid out along the middle of the street.87 There was also a shipyard, warehouses, and workshops. On one side along the shore were buildings for company employees. A stockade with blockhouses separated the Russian settlement from the adjacent Tlingit village, and cannons were constantly trained on the village. Because of troubles just four years earlier in 1855, the “Russian”

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residents generally kept themselves within the settlement. The Tlingits were not allowed inside Sitka but had permission to trade each morning in a special compound under strict supervision. The gubernatorial couple received a grand reception. The outgoing governor, Stepan Vasil’evich Voevodskii, met them on the steps leading up from the quay in full uniform. As they came up the steps, the whole assembly pulled off their caps. The three of them walked through the crowd, the two governors bowing to right and left. The regiment stationed in Sitka since the Crimean war was drawn up in a straight line, officers and men presenting arms as they passed. The day was fine and Anna felt happy, thankful, and very special. She longed to see their new home, but they passed the house and went on to where the Voevodskii’s now lived and where they had been invited for dinner. As they approached the house, they were met by the current governor’s wife, Anna Vasil’evna, who came running down the path and greeted them in the most affectionate manner, kissing and embracing Anna as if she were a close friend. This warm greeting from a perfect stranger long remained in Anna’s memory, although she found Mrs. Voevodskii’s behavior somewhat exaggerated. After dinner, Anna and Hampus became increasingly impatient to see their new home and left as soon as they possibly could. When Anna arrived in Sitka, she was thrilled and filled with great expectations. However, she was not primarily excited about the New World she encountered there. Rather, her excitement was caused by anticipation of the new home she would now be able to arrange for her Hampus after many months of travel; hence, her eagerness to investigate the Governor’s House. When they finally moved in, she found the mansion very agreeable, and she was of course especially pleased to see how much Hampus seemed to enjoy it. “It was such a delightful feeling when he came home last night, and I went to meet him at his door—he said ‘Oh, how lovely it is to come home to your wife,’” Anna wrote, quoting Hampus in Swedish. However, Anna was far from satisfied with how the residence had been maintained by the previous hostess and accused Mrs. Voevodskii of being a sloppy housewife who could not keep a tidy and orderly home. “Everything bears token of no lady, no Hausfrau having looked after her house before us—and you know, even our experience of Russian servants in Finland was, that they were no lovers of cleanliness.”88 Anna was raised to believe that an unkempt and untidy home was a sign of poor housekeeping and that this was the consequence of the house wife’s laziness. Mrs. Voevodskii consequently fell in her esteem.89 She made no attempt to hide her prejudices against Russians,



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declaring that “the former Governor’s lady seems to have been a real russian [sic], neither loving nor appreciating cleanliness, nor what essentially contributes to its maintenance, fresh air!” Like many of her contemporaries, Anna was obsessed with fresh air and believed it to be the foundation for good health. Thus, she was upset when she noticed that all the windows had been hermetically sealed, “as if we were living in the Arctic regions, instead of in a place, where everyone tells me, there is scarcely any winter.”90 As she would soon find out, what everyone had told her was not entirely true. Apart from the state of the Governor’s House, Anna was initially enthusiastic about everything she encountered: She loved her new home with its fantastic views in different directions. In one of her early letters, she gave a description of the house, both inside and outside. Downstairs to the left was the governor’s study with four windows, then Anna’s room, also with four windows, a long and narrow dining room with two windows, after which came a passage room with the maid Ida’s room, a bathroom, another passage and then a large kitchen and the manservant’s room. Opposite Ida’s room was a large nursery. Upstairs were four large reception rooms. To the left, a billiard’s room with four windows and scarlet merino furniture, the card room with four windows, large green plants, tables, chairs and musical clocks round the walls, the ballroom with puce furniture, five large windows, two musical clocks and a huge barrel organ, a chandelier, and branches all round the wall. Off the ball room were a buffet and a serving room. There was a full-length portrait of the current emperor, Alexander II, between two folding doors, leading to Anna’s reception room, which was beautifully furnished with French blue furniture, many flowers, a musical clock, sofa and divans, and looking glass tables. Attached to the residence were a number of outhouses: a bath house; washing and mangling room; pigeon-, fowl-, and pig houses; and an ice cellar. There were cannons on three sides of the house and towers on four, and a walk shaded by trees on two sides. Finally, there was a little green garden, benches, tables, and pretty pavilions, much appreciated by Anna. “The garden is really a great pleasure; everything that grows there has the brightest, freshest green color, reminding you of tropical plants,” she wrote to her mother.91 It was summer, and the weather was warm. There were hummingbirds sucking nectar from every flower. The double windows of the bed- and sitting room, which Anna used as her own room, had been removed and there was “fresh air everywhere.” Hampus had given her three velvet carpets, which made her room look very comfortable. The writing table stood by the window. It looked very

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pretty with the family Bible and the prayer book on one side, a carved folding book holder on the other, a handsome inkstand in the middle, and candle sticks on either side. “[T]hough you are lonely here, and have to make a sacrifice in many respects in coming here,” Anna wrote her mother, “you can be perfectly happy—Your wishes are in every way attended to as if you were a king or queen.”92 The best of everything was reserved for the governor. There was the most excellent fish in any quantity, milk in plenty, as many servants as you wished to have, “paying them only so and so much per month for coffee, sugar, and tea,” two washerwomen, wood, wax candles, a gardener, black bread for the servants, and many other things. In Anna’s opinion, Hampus was sometimes too righteous in refusing to take advantage of his position. As governor, she later wrote in her diary, he had every right to employ men on his own account. For example, he should have no scruples about using his men as messengers of his private correspondence when he was traveling.93 To Anna, the dreamlike existence that had begun with her unexpected engagement now continued in Sitka as the governor’s wife. She could not get used to the fact that Hampus, chief manager and governor of Russian America, and such a good man besides, had chosen her to be his wife. She, who until recently was “a little obscure Fröken [young lady]” was now “such a grand Lady in all eyes” and treated with such distinction. People were bowing to her and making room for her when she passed. In fact, Anna proudly told her mother, she was “la reigne [sic] des Colonies.”94 Nevertheless, despite living the life of a queen in the stately Governor’s House on the hill, Anna had begun to be concerned about her role as governor’s wife, particularly in relation to the Tlingits. She was well aware it was not only the governor’s role to “civilize” the Natives but that the “obligation” was also hers. Every day she and Hampus prayed that God would give them enlightenment and a willingness “to fulfill our several duties righteously, that we may be a blessing unto the people—and may help those that stand in need of it—That we may be kind and charitable and that if it be His Will, their hearts may also be turned to do right . . . that these poor wild Indians may still be taught, and brought to the knowledge of Christ and His Kingdom.” Anna was appalled to learn that so few of the Tlingits had been converted to Christianity, that they continued their traditional practice of burning their dead, and that the missionaries had not learned their language.95 Captain Pavel N. Golovin and State Councillor Sergei A. Kostlivtsov, who arrived in Sitka the following year to inspect the colonies, also commented on the missionaries’ failure to convert the Tlingits. Golovin agreed with Anna to a certain extent, saying that more could have been done to teach



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them Russian ways. This would not be too difficult, he argued, because they lived a settled life and did not move from place to place.96 Kostlivtsov was less critical than Anna, however, claiming that backwardness and superstition prevented the conversion of Natives. Nevertheless, in his report, he acknowledged that the lack of knowledge about local dialects, lack of training for missionary work, and of Tlingit priests were additional obstacles to conversion.97 While Golovin was fascinated by what he referred to as the wild and dangerous, yet intelligent Tlingits, Anna seemed terrified of them, especially after she was told that the town had only recently been attacked.98 The Tlingits had never accepted the Russian colonizers’ encroachment of their land and their appropriation of native resources. Golovin was impressed by their strength, energy, and pride, which he contrasted to the “meek and dispirited” Aleuts. Anna appreciated the peacefulness and gentleness of the Aleuts, “quite unlike the Kolosches, who are as savage now as ever.”99 Golovin admired the Tlingits’ bronze faces, black eyes, broad shoulders, and muscular limbs, which indicated energy and strength.100 Anna feared their “hideously painted faces,” their “fierce physiognomies” and “cunning look,” as well as the lack of respect they showed the governor and his wife. “They will not show any homage to the Governor—they will not acknowledge him as their Superior—and while every man & child stands up & pulls off his cap as you pass, and the women courtsey, the Galoshes [Koloshes] remained crouched on the ground, looking perfectly frightful, & laugh & make remarks as you pass—I would not walk alone where they are for anything in the world.”101 According to Hampus’s brother Hjalmar, the former Russian governor was to blame for this situation. Voevodskii had indulged the Tlingits because he was afraid of them. He had given them more freedom than Hjalmar thought appropriate, and as a consequence of his weakness, Europeans could not feel safe in Sitka. Anna constantly worried about these “savage Indians,” who were “great warriors.” The only beautiful walk in Sitka was ruined because of the Tlingits, Anna wrote to her mother. Previously, they had not been allowed to come near, but the former governor had been too afraid to drive them away. “We have a battery, and cannons and a watchman outside the wall which divides their village and wood from Sitka—but still they are so to say our next door neighbours.”102 Like Anna, Golovin thought that some of the previous governors had been fearful of the Tlingits, which had given them confidence. If the Russians had been stricter, they would have been brought into “complete obedience” long ago. But all the measures taken thus far were insufficient and hence “New Arkhangel is

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constantly in a state of siege.”103 Needless to say, Hampus had no fear. Anna wrote to her mother that he knew far better than the former governor how the Tlingits should be dealt with. Above all, she wrote, Europeans could not let Tlingit people know they were afraid of them. The key was to show them clearly who was in charge. Here, both Anna and Golovin expressed racist views that were widely shared among Europeans of their time. The real reason for the tense relationship between the Tlingits and the Russians was not the lenience of previous governors but the way the Russian colonizers tried to subjugate the Tlingits, destroying their culture and traditions in the process. In Anna’s eyes, Hampus was not only the best husband in the world but also the most perfect governor. Even though he himself worried, Anna was convinced that everything would be better in the colonies with Hampus as chief manager. As governor, Furuhjelm did indeed improve the relationship between Tlingits and Russians, which had been strained during Voevodskii’s tenure as governor, even though Sitka was never really under siege. He received the Tlingit chieftains at the Governor’s House, and he went on inspection tours accompanied by only an interpreter and Native oarsmen.

Th e r o l e of a g ov e rnor’s wi fe As discussed, the governor’s wife had a special obligation to bring European civilization and Christianity to Native girls. In this respect, her role was not that different from that of the wives of nineteenth-century missionaries, who were expected to help their husbands with the civilizing mission by educating females and by instilling Christian moral and religious culture in them both through instruction and example. The reform of the family was considered to be the key to civilizing Native society, and it was the Native wife and mother, at the center of a well-ordered family, who was targeted as the agent of regeneration. Having learned the European meaning of marriage, housewife, and motherhood, she would then influence her husband and children, and finally the whole community.104 But Anna had a more difficult task than the missionary wives. She did not have the religious zeal that kept many of these women going despite the arduous task they set themselves of doing both domestic and missionary work. Neither did she have the teaching experience that many of them had. Another difficulty was the Orthodox church, which did not allow her, as a Protestant, any influence in religious matters.



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Her role model as a governor’s wife was Margaretha Etholén, who had managed to gain considerable influence in the education of females despite her Lutheran faith. When they had met in Finland, Anna had been deeply impressed by Margaretha. And when she arrived in San Francisco, she was told many good things about her and her time in Sitka. Anna hoped to be as well liked as Margaretha was. Interestingly, none of the negative opinions of Margaretha held by some of her Finnish contemporaries seem to have filtered through to Anna. “How I wish I could make myself equally beloved as Aunt Margeret,” Anna wrote to her mother. “Everybody remembers her with the greatest love & affection. She did so much good, and was so kind towards everybody. I pray God I may do all I can to make myself loved by those with whom I will come in contact and that I may be able to set them a good example.”105 Margaretha had told her about the work she did in the school for girls. Hence, Anna also wanted to “do good” there. However, judging by what she told her mother, she had no idea how to do so. She envisioned visiting the school as a kind of observer, imagining how pleasant it would be “to visit the school and look to the progress the children make.” She also looked forward “to distribute bibles and good books amongst them,” without realizing that the Orthodox priests might not allow her to do so.106 Another “civilizing” act she hoped to perform was to teach her Creole servant girls Christian morality. It was of course something of a problem that she did not speak the language. “[I]f I only once knew the Russian language,” she complained, “but that will be a hard task I fear, though I understand a great many words already.”107 In fact, by November she was able to make herself understood to the servants. However, as she would come to notice, authority did not necessarily follow language skills.108 Anna’s role as a governor’s wife did not only focus on Native girls. She was also the first lady of Sitka’s society, a role in which she was never really comfortable. She hosted a number of social events, both large and small. On the upper floor of the Governor’s House was the large reception room where certain service personnel, officers, and officials came to dine with the governor on a daily basis. This room had moveable walls and could be transformed into a ballroom. Balls were held at regular intervals at the Governor’s House. Male guests included company officials and clerks, commanders and mates on company ships, the two doctors, the teachers, priests, officers of the garrison, and a couple of retired officers. Female guests included the wives of company officers and shipmasters, local women, midwives, and the teacher of the local school for girls.109 Anna’s first reception as a governor’s wife was held on July 6. She had invited Sitka’s finest

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ladies and felt terribly nervous and shy. Once again, her desire to be liked came to the forefront, but also the expectations she felt on herself to do good. “O! How I pray God for strength and His divine guidance, that I may do all the good I can, whilst I am among them and that I may be liked by them.”110 The four ladies who had been invited admired Anna’s room, which she had arranged herself. They also noted the fresh air in the house. This pleased Anna, and she was sympathetically inclined to them all. She found the wife of the Russian priest particularly pleasant. But she even appreciated the compliments she received from Mrs. Voevodskii for her good taste, despite her earlier disdain for her as a housewife, and Anna proudly told her mother about it. All the same, it felt strange for her, the youngest of them all, to receive “their low courteseys and homages.” But she hoped that she made a good impression on them. Everyone remembered Margaretha Etholén with love and friendship and told Anna how good Margaretha had been to the poor and how she had done everything she could to make the people comfortable. The constant comparison to the more experienced, educated, and confident Margaretha must have been hard on Anna. She tried to imitate Margaretha in different ways, as for example when they celebrated her absent mother’s birthday. After breakfast, Anna summoned the servants one by one and offered them cake and chocolate, which reminded her of Hämeenkylä Manor, and “the loveable hostess there, whom I wish I was like.”111 Within a few months, Anna’s initial optimism began to wane, and it was evident that things were not altogether well. She was not at all prepared for the foreign world that she encountered in Sitka. Everything was strange to her: the Tlingits, the Creoles, the Russians, the Orthodox church, the landscape, the climate, and the wilderness. Difficulties increased when Hampus’s sister Constance unexpectedly came to live with them. She had been staying with her older sister, Ludmila, in the Eastern Siberian town of Aian, but when Ludmila married, she sent Constance together with their Siberian foster child to Hampus in Sitka. Constance suffered from epilepsy, a condition Anna knew very little about. She was terrified that she might have to witness one of the strange attacks Hampus had told her that Constance suffered from.112 But, above all, she was disappointed that she and Hampus would no longer be on their own. They had had their own home for such a short time and now Constance would live with them “forever.” Most likely, this was the reason why she was constantly annoyed with Constance and all her “little faults,” such as when she repeated and forgot things, as she often did, or when she had her “childish ways.” Anna did not admit, even to herself, that



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she felt this way about Constance until much later, by which time she had grown to like her sister-in-law. When Constance died in 1861, Anna was devastated. In September, Anna experienced her first real setback as a governor’s wife. It was the Emperor’s name day, and she was organizing her first official dinner party with thirty-six invited gentlemen. She was not attending the dinner herself, as she was feeling unwell. Thus, she was unable to monitor the event properly. Apparently, the Russian chef had stolen and drunk all the cooking wine and in his drunken state had forgotten parts of the dinner. When he realized that he had not made enough soup, he served seven guests “coloured water.”113 The chef who Anna had been so pleased with in the beginning of July was now “a terrible thief ” and “the personification of dirt and disorder.” Anna was very upset by his lack of moral standards and even avoided to go into the kitchen afterward because she did not wish to see “his sin.” Now, she was glad that they had hired a cook in Germany. The disastrous dinner coincided with a change of weather, and Anna realized that the climate might not be as pleasant as she was first led to believe. Autumn had arrived in Sitka and the well-ventilated house was no longer so comfortable. “This is a most tempestuous, terrible day,” Anna wrote. She felt sorry for “the poor workmen—for the rain has been pelting all day, and ‘the wind is never weary’— I felt such a draft over my head in bed last night—This morning I put up my red shawl round the corner near the window, and round the top of the bed . . . As soon as the weather improves I must have the double windows put in.”114 Like so many visitors to Sitka, Anna found it difficult to get used to the climate, especially the constant rain. By October, the bad weather had started to affect her spirits. She realized that it would not improve. It would only continue to rain and rain and there was “no end to this dreadful weather.”115 By this time she had visited the school for girls several times and heard the superintendent complain about the students. But she doubted her ability to do anything about it. Everyone she met praised Mrs. Etholén and remembered how much better things were with her as a supervisor. Since Etholén’s time, the school had lost half the number of students enrolled. There were now twenty students, all young. Anna would really have liked to make some changes in the school, but she felt too young and inexperienced. “I should like it to be put again on the best possible footing,” she told her mother, “but how? I am young, ignorant & unexperienced [sic].” She prayed to God that he would help her, “for it is my most ardent desire to be of use—to do some good.” But she could not even

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get the students to like her even though she hoped that she eventually would “learn the art of being loved by them.”116 In the summer, she wrote a long letter to Margaretha Etholén asking for her advice. However, Margaretha’s reply appears not to have been of much help, because a year later Anna repeated to Mina her wish to make changes in school, but that she knew so little, “so how could this be accomplished?”117 Anna felt helpless in the face of the “moral depravity” around her, yet hindered by the Orthodox priest in her wish to do good. Why was she prevented from handing out Bibles and getting involved in religious education, when the Russian church had failed so utterly, she pondered.118 “Over & over again I ask myself, can nothing be done to ‘turn them from unrighteousness’—but here the great obstacle arises—the intolerancy of the Greek [sic] Church.”119 Although Anna was upset that the Tlingits had not been converted, her most urgent concern was “the immoral behavior” of the Creoles, and above all the Creole women, whom she saw as her particular responsibility. She held a much lower opinion of these women than Elisabeth and Margaretha did in their writings. In Anna’s view, the Creole women knew nothing about proper female behavior. Rather than striving to be modest, pious, and diligent housewives, which in her view were markers of proper womanhood, young Creole women were indolent and promiscuous. Again, she felt obliged to do something but had no idea how to improve things. “I wish I knew how these people here could be brought to hate sin, and to fear offending the Almighty.”120 Unfortunately, Anna did not feel more confident in her role as Sitka’s first lady. On the contrary, she felt young and inexperienced in the company of Sitka’s ladies. In a letter to her mother, she complained about the receptions she was obliged to hold for them and the courtesy visits she had to make. From reading Anna’s letters and diary it is clear that she was not particularly sociable. In contrast to Elisabeth von Wrangell, Anna found all her social duties cumbersome and dreary. On holidays when she had many social obligations, she yearned to be alone with her Hampus. In addition, she did not like to spend large amounts of money on what she saw as meaningless events. Because everything was extremely expensive in Sitka, the cost for social events, dinners, and balls was very high and Anna would have preferred to save the money. As her spirits faded, Anna began to feel abandoned by her mother. She had not heard from her in months. Each time a ship arrived she expected a letter, but each time she was disappointed. As time passed, she started to think that her



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mother had forgotten about her daughter in America.121 It was no longer sufficient for Anna to show her mother that she was happy. She wanted something in return. She wanted her mother to demonstrate that she cared for her, even though she had married and moved to the end of the world. She wanted proof that the bond between them had not been broken, and that their connectedness could be transferred to the next generation. “I hope always to have for myself and my children, something from my Home. Something of yours,” she wrote.122 Anna needed her mother to be part of her new life because she was part of who Anna was. Moreover, the fact that she was pregnant and would soon become a mother herself made her feel closer to her own mother and she wished her to be as excited about the pregnancy as Anna was herself. She also wanted answers to all her questions about pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood. When a letter finally arrived, Anne had not answered Anna’s questions properly. In fact, she did not seem very interested in her daughter’s pregnancy, or at least that was what Anna felt as she was reading her mother’s words far away in the Governor’s House at the end of the world. Communications between Russian America and Europe had improved since Elisabeth von Wrangell’s time. Nevertheless, it took many months for letters and news from Europe to reach Sitka. It was still a big event when a ship arrived. All of a sudden, the entire town was on the move, but for the unfortunates who did not receive any letters, the ship’s arrival was a huge disappointment. Anna described how she could hardly hold back her tears when she was the only one who did not receive any message from home. “O! That such miles and miles of sea should lie between us, & hinder our correspondence.”123 Over time, this feeling of isolation grew stronger and Anna became frustrated when her mother did not seem to understand her need for letters. She urged Anne to write more often, telling her “you cannot imagine what a bitter disappointment it is here, locked up from the rest of the world as we are, & when the advent of a vessel is already hailed with delight & curiosity by all inhabitants, & sets everyone on qui vive, even whilst it is only to be discerned on the horizon. Judge then, my own Mother, what sorrow you will be causing me.”124 Golovin described similar feelings in his letters from Sitka written only a couple of months later. He complained that he did not know what was going on in the world, and above all that he did not receive news about his family. Bad weather made everything worse. When the day of his return journey approached, he noted that the urge to return home was very strong. “Here it is just as if we were in some desert where the voice of educated persons is rarely

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heard.” Nevertheless, he came to the conclusion that if it were not for the isolation and the harsh climate, it would actually be possible to live in Sitka. “All the same, thank God I do not have to . . . .”125 Anna’s feeling of isolation and abandonment became overwhelming when she learned that Hampus had to go to San Francisco on business and would not be back until after the birth of their first child. She would thus be on her own when giving birth, “[d]uring the hours of danger and pain—an hour which may at the same time be my last, he, my hearts Beloved, will be absent from me, and I shall be alone, in a strange and distant Country, amongst a people, whose language is not my own!”126 “O Mama! I cannot think of it without tears,” she wrote. “The whole wide, vast tempestuous ocean will separate me from him.”127 At first, she pleaded with Hampus to let her come with him, but he told her that it would be a sin, that she had no right to put herself and the baby at risk. And she knew he was right, that it would be foolish to travel so late in her pregnancy. She knew her reasons for wishing to go were selfish, but she did not know how to get by without him. At a time when she really needed his love, he would not be there. The idea of Hampus exposed to the wild elements in the worst part of the year made her heart heavy and anxious. This was really her first trial as a married woman, and she felt awfully weak and miserable. However, she tried to be strong for Hampus’s sake, so as not to make it even more difficult for him “to do his duty.” Anna had been raised to believe that a woman should be amiable and contented whatever was her fate. But the fact that she had no right to complain did not make her trial any easier. She prayed to God that she would be able to bear the terrible parting and the great loneliness afterward.128 The fact that Hampus would not be with her when she gave birth made the separation from her family and especially from her mother much more difficult to bear. “If I could but have you to nurse me my own Mother!” she wrote in despair.129 In nineteenth-century middle- and upper-class families, mothers were usually present when their daughters gave birth, providing advice and support, often together with other female relatives. Although Anna would not actually be alone when giving birth, she would not have the support of relatives or friends. In fact, from the moment she realized that she was pregnant, she grieved that her mother would not be present at her confinement. Thus, right from the start, the joy of impending motherhood was mixed with feelings of abandonment and apprehension, feelings that only grew stronger with time. “O! I hope all may go well”, she wrote already in July.130



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As the day of Hampus’s departure drew nearer, Anna grew increasingly concerned. In a letter to her best friend composed the day before he left, she could not hold back her despair any longer: “Oh Mina! My Hampus leaves tomorrow! I am left alone! Oh my God! It is hard!” Later, the same day, she wrote to her mother, “I can’t believe he is going! God give me strength.” She prayed to God that he would preserve her husband and that they would be able to see each other again. “O! that He of His infinite mercy will protect my own husband and let us meet soon, soon again. I am so stupid, I cannot write more—I have no thought but one.”131 The next day, it was time for Hampus to leave. When he put on his coat, Anna was overwhelmed by feelings of despair. Hampus, who could not leave her in such a state, came back inside and they prayed together in the bedroom. Finally, he left, and Anna felt as if all life and joy left with him. Her days lay long and sad before her.132 She was twenty-three years old, far away from her family and friends, in a strange place, among strange people, surrounded by what she saw as evil-minded people and an endless wilderness. On top of everything else, she was pregnant with her first child and her husband was out at sea during the worst storm season. No wonder she was deeply unhappy. She did not have anyone to talk to. The only thing she could do was to write letters. Hence, she wrote to her mother about her loneliness, about missing her family, about her anxiety that something would happen to Hampus, and about her fear of childbirth. Young women in the middle of the nineteenth century had little knowledge of pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. They had often heard stories, but they were usually more frightening than informative. What most young women did know was that it was very dangerous to give birth. Virtually every first-time mother knew a woman who had died in childbirth. Anna relied on Dr. Bull’s Hints to Mothers for the Management of Health during the Period of Pregnancy and in the Lying-in Room with an Exposure of Popular Errors in Connexion with those Subjects and Hints upon Nursing. But his advice did not calm her fears. She had no idea what would happen to her body during labor, except that it would be painful and dangerous. She referred to it as “the hours of danger and pain,” and “the coming trial.” “Sometimes, it is true, my heart fails me, at the thought of suffering I cannot escape,” she told her mother.133 As the time of her confinement approached, Anna was overwhelmed by evil forebodings. In a letter to her mother she was no longer able to hold back her feelings, and in a sudden outburst of despair, she exclaimed: “O my husband! my Beloved! why are you not here—I

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feel my spirits sinking, why are you not at my side to comfort & encourage your Annie?—Why? Why?”134 At this point she started to worry about what would happen if she died and thus felt a need to instruct her mother: “Mama! if I am not to live . . . write to my most precious Hampus! . . . comfort him . . . and our little angel! Be a Mother to it—and teach it to love & fear God—and to think of its Mother, who will incessantly pray for her precious Child in heaven.” She then said goodbye and thanked her mother for everything she had done. “Goodbye beloved Mother! you have been the very best & fondest of Mothers—forgive me all the sorrow I have caused you unwillingly it is true.”135

No t es 1. Annie Furuhjelm, Människor och öden (Helsingfors, 1932), p. 115. 2. Ella Pipping, En orons legionär. Nils Gustaf von Schoultz 1807–1838 (Helsingfors, 1967). 3. Quoted in Annie Constance Christensen, Letters from the Governor’s Wife. A View of Russian Alaska 1859–1862 (Århus, 2005), p. 10. 4. Ibid., p. 12. 5. Jennifer Phegley, Courtship and Marriage in Victorian England (Santa Barbara, CA, 2012), pp. 9–10. 6. The letters and the diary are both found at Åbo Academy Library, Manuscript Collections, Åbo, Finland. The majority of Anna’s letters to her mother are published in Letters From the Governor’s Wife. A View of Russian Alaska 1859–1862, ed. by Annie Constance Christensen (Århus, 2006). 7. Letter from Anna Furuhjelm to her mother, Warsaw, March 4, 1859. 8. See H. Callan and S. Ardener, eds., The Incorporated Wife (London, 1984); D. Langmore “The Object Lesson of a Civilised Christian Home,” in Family and Gender in the Pacific. Domestic Contradictions and the Colonial Impact (Cambridge, 1989), p. 85. 9. Deborah Gorham, The Victorian Girl and the Feminine Ideal (London, 1982), p. 48. 10. Eva Helen Ulvros, Fruar och mamseller. Kvinnor inom sydsvensk borgerlighet 1790– 1870 (Lund, 1996), p. 86; Eva Lis Bjurman, Uppfostran till äktenskap. Om borgerliga flickors fostran på 1830–talet (Lund, 1993). 11. Barbara Welter, Dimity Convictions. The American Woman in the Nineteenth Century (Athens, 1976), pp. 17–18; Ulvros, Fruar och mamseller; Bjurman, Uppfostran till äktenskap; Angela Rundquist, Blått blod och liljevita händer. En etnologisk studie av aristokratiska kvinnor 1850–1900 (Stockholm, 2001).



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12. It is interesting to note here that Anna’s mother contributed to the translation of Fredrika Bremer’s Hemmet or The Home, published at Harper’s. 13. Rundquist, Blått blod och liljevita händer. 14. Furuhjelm to her mother, Henriksdal, February 2, 1859. 15. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, New Years Day 1861. 16. Furuhjelm to her mother, Henriksdal, February 2, 1859. 17. Furuhjelm to her mother, Saint Petersburg, February 9, 1859. 18. Furuhjelm, Människor och öden, p. 119. 19. Furuhjelm to her mother, Saint Petersburg, February 6, 1859. 20. Furuhjelm to her mother, San Francisco, May 18, 1859. 21. Signe Hammer, Daughters and Mothers: Mothers and Daughters (London, 1976), p. 4. 22. Furuhjelm to her mother, Saint Petersburg, February 6, 1859. 23. Furuhjelm to her mother, Warsaw, March 4, 1859. 24. Furuhjelm to her mother, Saint Petersburg, February 6, 1859. 25. Furuhjelm to her mother, San Francisco, May 29, 1859. 26. Furuhjelm to her mother, San Francisco, February 2, 1862. 27. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, September 18, 1860. 28. Government House. Sitka, 13/25 September 1861. 29. See Marion Fowler, The Embroidered Tent. Five Gentlewomen in Early Canada (Toronto, 1982), pp. 23–24; Laetitia Hawkins, Letters on the Female Mind (London, 1793). 30. Mrs. John Sandford, Woman in Her Social and Domestic Character, 6th American edition (Boston, 1842), p. 120; Karen Lystra, Searching the Heart. Women, Men, and Romantic Love in Ninteenth-Century America (New York and Oxford, 1989); John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (Chicago, 1997), pp. 41, 73. 31. Lystra, Searching the Heart, pp. 38, 42–3, 205, 214; D’Emilio and Freedman, Intimate Matters, pp. 41, 56. 32. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, September 25, 1861. 33. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, December 4, 1859. 34. Lystra, Searching the Heart, pp. 43–44. 35. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, January 1, 1861. 36. Letter from Anna Furuhjelm to Wilhelmina Gripenberg, Sitka, February 3, January 22, 1861. [Letters written in Swedish. Author’s translation]. 37. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, May 5, 1860. 38. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, December 7, 1860. 39. See Mrs. John Sandford, cited in Welter, Dimity Convictions, p. 28; Michael Gordon, “The Ideal Husband as Depicted in the Nineteenth Century Marriage Manual,” The Family Coordinator, vol. 18, no. 3 ( Jul., 1960), pp. 226–231.

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40. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, December 4, November 22, 1859; Furuhjelm to Wilhelmina, Sitka, May 30, 1860. 41. Furuhjelm to her mother, Saint Petersburg, February 9, 1859. 42. Furuhjelm to her mother, London, March 19, 1859. Edward’s private Hotel No. 12, Georg St., Hann Sq. 43. Furuhjelm to her mother, Cheltenham, March 21, 1859. 44. Furuhjelm to her mother, London, March 27, 1859, 10 pm. Edward’s Hotel. 45. Furuhjelm to her mother, onboard the Magdalen, April 13, 1859. 46. Furuhjelm to her mother, San Francisco, May 29, 1859. Sunday afternoon. 47. Furuhjelm to her mother, Saint Petersburg. February 6, 1859. 48. Furuhjelm to her mother, Saint Petersburg February 13, 1859. 49. Furuhjelm to her mother, Saint Petersburg, February 6, 1859. 50. Anna Furuhjelm, Diary, Sunday, July 24, 1860. 51. Furuhjelm to her mother, Saint Petersburg, February 9, 1859. See also onboard the Magdalen, April 13, 1859. 52. Furuhjelm to her mother, Dresden, March 7, 1859. 53. Furuhjelm to her mother, London, March 19, 1859. 54. Sandford, Woman in Her Social and Domestic Character, p. 6. 55. Furuhjelm to her mother, Saint Petersburg, February 13, 1859. 56. Furuhjelm to her mother, Saint Petersburg, February 11, 1859. Friday evening. 57. Furuhjelm to her mother, Saint Petersburg, February 21, 1859. 58. Furuhjelm to her mother, Saint Petersburg, February 11, 1859. 59. Furuhjelm to her mother, Saint Petersburg, February 19, 1859. 60. Furuhjelm to her mother, Saint Petersburg February 25, 1859. Friday morning. 61. Furuhjelm to her mother, Dresden, Sunday, March 13, 1859. 62. Furuhjelm to her mother, Cheltenham, March 21, 1859. 63. Furuhjelm to her mother, London, March 27, 1859. Sunday 10 pm. Edward’s Hotel. 64. Furuhjelm to her mother, outside Southampton, Saturday afternoon, April 2, 1859. 65. Furuhjelm to her mother, London, March 27, 1859. 66. Ibid. 67. Furuhjelm to her mother, London, March 27, 1850; Woodside, April 1, 1859. 68. Furuhjelm to her mother, onboard the Magdalen, April 13, 1859. 69. Ibid. 70. Furuhjelm to her mother, onboard HM Ship Trent, April 25, 1859. 71. Ibid. 72. Furuhjelm to her mother, Panama, Aspinwall House, April 29, 1859, Friday. Latitude 10. 73. Frank Marryat, Mountains and Molehills or Recollections of a Burnt Journal (New York, 1855). Reprinted Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA and Heyday Books (Berkeley CA, 2009), pp. 8–9.



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74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84.

85. 86. 87. 88. 89.

90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99.

100. 101. 102. 103.

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Ibid., p. 9. Furuhjelm to mother, Panama, April 29, 1859. Furuhjelm to mother, San Francisco, Wednesday, May 18, 1859. Marryat, Mountains and Molehills, pp. 229–230. Furuhjelm to mother, San Francisco, Wednesday, May 18, 1859. Ibid. Furuhjelm to mother, San Francisco, May 29, 1859. Sunday afternoon. Ibid. Ibid. Furuhjelm to mother, Sitka, Sunday, July 3, 1859. In 1859 at Sitka, Hjalmar had released a 5-year-old Tlingit girl, Tsamo, from slavery by paying a considerable sum of money. She was placed in a family in Sitka, but when he went back to Finland in 1862 he took her with him and placed her in a school in Helsinki. She died in 1868. Furuhjelm to mother, Sitka, Sunday, July 3, 1859. Ibid. Pavel N. Golovin, Civil and Savage Encounters. The Wordly Travel Letters of an Imperial Russian Navy Officer 1860–1861 (Portland, OR, 1983), pp. 81–83. Furuhjelm to mother, 9/21 September, 1859. For the notion that a good housewife kept a tidy home, see Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, “En qvinnas tankar rörande qvinnan,” translated and adapted to Swedish conditions from A Woman’s Thoughts about Women (London, 1858), in Tidskrift för Hemmet, 1860: 2, p. 109. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, July 5, 1859. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, July 3, 1859. Ibid. Furuhjelm, Diary, June 29, 1860. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 20/4 October, 1859. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, July 3, 1859. Golovin, Civil and Savage Encounters, p. 90. Petr A. Tikhmenev, A History of the Russian-American Company (Seattle, 1978), vol. 1, p. 384. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, July 3, 1859. This attack took place in 1855. Furuhjelm to her mother, Codiac, 8/20 June, 1860. The common Russian name for the Tlingit Indians was “Koloshes.” The Alutiiq people of Kodiak were called Aleuts. Golovin, Civil and Savage Encounters, pp. 84–5, 96, 99, 106–107. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, July 3, 1859. Ibid. Golovin, Civil and Savage Encounters, pp. 84–85.

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104. See Patricia Grimshaw, “Faith, Missionary Life, and the Family,” in Philippa Levine, ed., Gender and Empire (Oxford, 2004), p. 264; Patricia Grimshaw, Paths of Duty. American Missionary Wives in Nineteenth-Century Hawaii (Honolulu, 1989), pp. 160–161. 105. Furuhjelm to her mother, San Francisco, May 18, 1859. 106. Ibid. 107. Ibid. 108. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 20/4 October, 1859. 109. Richard A. Pierce, Builders of Alaska. The Russian Governors 1818–1867 (Kingston, ON, 1986); Golovin, Civil and Savage Encounters, p. 82. 110. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, July 3, 1859. 111. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka 9/21 September 1859. 112. Hampus feared that she would be so frightened if she saw an epileptic attack that she would have a miscarriage. 113. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 9/21 September 1859. 114. Ibid. 115. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, October 16, 1860. For the weather, see Colonial Russian America. Kyrill T. Khlebnikov’s Reports, 1817–1832. Translated with introduction and notes by Basil Dmytryshyn and E. A. P. Crownhart-Vaughan (Portland, OR, 1976), s. 24; Russian original: “Materialy dlia istorii russkikh zaselenii po beregam vostochnago okeana,” Morskoi sbornik, No. 3, 1861, s. 30; Letter from Hampus Furuhjelm to his Father, Sitka, May 25, 1852 in the Archives of the Museum of Cultures, Helsinki; Golovin, Civil and Savage Encounters, pp. 81, 110–111. 116. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 9/21 September, 1859. 117. Furuhjelm to Wilhelmina, Sitka, 28 September/10 October, 1861. 118. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, October 4/16, 1860; Furuhjelm to Wilhelmina, Sitka, September 28/October 10, 1861. 119. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 4/16 October, 1860. 120. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 9/21 September, 1859. 121. Ibid.; Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 20/4 October, 1859. 122. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 6 August/25 July 1859. 123. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, December 7, 1860. 124. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, April 6, 1860. 125. Golovin, Civil and Savage Encounters, pp. 93, 119, 130. 126. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, July 3, 1859. 127. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, July 5, 1859. 128. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, July 3, 1859. 129. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 6 August/25 July, 1859. In the middle and upper classes, young women were commonly assisted by their mother and sometimes by an older sister during childbirth. See for example Rundquist, Blått blod och



130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135.

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liljevita händer. Sylvia Van Kirk writes that it is during pregnancy and childbirth that European women in North America miss their female relatives and familiar surroundings the most. Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society in Western Canada 1670–1870 (Winnipeg, 1980), p. 198. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 6 Aug/25 July 1859. Furuhjelm to her mother, Government House, 20/4 October, 1859; Furuhjelm to Wilhelmina, Sitka 20/4 October, 1859 [author’s translation]. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, December 4, 1859. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, Sunday, July 3, 1859; Government House. 20/4 October, 1859. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 4 December/22 November, 1859. Ibid.

C h a p t e r Si x

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n December 12, 1859, Anna’s labor started. It was a difficult confinement. Ignorance of the physical procedure, fear of childbirth, concern for Hampus, and alien surroundings created a tremendous strain, which naturally affected the delivery. She was assisted by her German maid, Ida Höerle, Evgeniia Klinkowström, the wife of the RAC agent Martin Klinkowström, and a Creole midwife. But these were not people she knew, and they could not replace the comfort of having her mother by her side. The contractions started shortly before noon, and at 4 p.m. they became stronger. Anna walked up and down the floor until 7:30 p.m., when she could not bear it any longer. Afterwards, she blamed the midwife for making her walk too much. “I was on my feet from 10–7 ½ in the ev[ening] & consequently the labour was protracted; at least so it seems to me.”1 Ida, who took it upon herself to inform Anna’s mother about the birth of her grandchild, afterwards wrote that “her Ladyship was in terrible agony and prayed to God for help, and God helped.”2 When the clock struck midnight, a baby girl was born. Anna heard every strike except the last one, “never, never can I express the feeling which I had then—I folded my hands in mute & humble prayer . . . . I heard and felt the little Being at my feet—it was a surprisingly beautiful feeling . . . it is indeed wonderful how all, all pain is gone as soon as the Child is born.”3 Anna was overjoyed and almost ecstatic. She felt regenerated. It was as if she had gone into hibernation during pregnancy, preparing herself for a severe illness, or even death. Now, she could start living again, but the life she was returning to had changed. In becoming a mother, she had transformed into a mature woman. This new status gave her confidence. As a mother she had a new task to perform, a task that was entirely her own and, above all, a task that in contrast to her public duties did not make her feel inadequate and incompetent. In public life, she was 211

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a failure. At home, she felt useful and appreciated. She was Hampus’s constant support and joy. By giving birth to their child she had provided him with the greatest of all gifts, and he reciprocated by expressing the gratitude he felt toward her and the high regard he held her in now that she had become a mother. This knowledge boosted her self-esteem and made her confident in her new identity. Marriage had already transformed her image of herself, but motherhood completed this change. It made her feel special and needed. The baby was called Annie, and she was nothing less than a miracle in her mother’s eyes. Anna described to Wilhelmina Gripenberg how delightful it was to have a little helpless creature “who developed in mind and body” every day.4 A child, she wrote, was a blessing, a gift from God. They were angelic, pure, innocent creatures. Through them, you could glimpse the kingdom of God. Consequently, motherhood brought women closer to God. For Anna, to give birth meant both to be the recipient of the baby’s unconditional love and to be embraced by God’s eternal love. No wonder Anna loved children. “Babies are indeed ‘lovely blossoms,’” she wrote when her second child was born, “nothing on earth can be sweeter than a Baby . . . even though they cause sorrow, much care and anxiety, & give pain to bring into the world, you would not wish to be without them for anything in the world.”5 Furthermore, as Anna pointed out, a baby consolidated marriages and constituted a holy bond between husband and wife. That such a bond now existed between her and Hampus made her feel safe, and safety was something she constantly craved for. The baby tied Hampus to her and to their home. She knew that the next time he went away, he would not only long for her, but also for their baby. This special bond between husband and wife was illustrated in the moment of parting when the couple prayed for God’s protection.6 “We went to the nursery . . . kneeling down on either side of the cradle with our hands joined across her, we prayed God to protect us.”7 Motherhood transformed Anna into a mature and responsible woman, or so she felt. Now, she wished her mother to appreciate this change, to know that in becoming a mother she not only understood her duties as a woman but treasured them as well. “[W]hat Blessings the Almighty has showered upon me this one year!? a husband! a Home! a Child! truly, nothing what my heart can wish for, is wanting—it is complete, perfect happiness.”8 She was no longer the superficial young woman who enjoyed society balls and sleeping late in the morning as she had before she married. This shallow life no longer appealed to her. In fact, she was no longer interested in the social world. Her world—her sphere and



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mission—was now her home, her husband, and her children. “When you have entered upon marriage . .  . & have felt in the depth of your heart, that your whole heart’s love will ever be your husband’s, the world, which before bore so bright an image . . . is indeed changed & you feel, you have your own World, your husband’s heart! Your Home! Your children! [T]here is your new world; your real world!”9 To go out dancing when you are a wife and a mother gives you more trouble than pleasure, she told her mother. Now, she only lived for her husband and her children: “To live for my Hampus, he, who is my all in all, who is the most perfect & noble in my eyes, & for our children, is not that already so overpoweringly lovely . . .?”10 Anna had not realized “the beauty of a woman’s mission & sphere” before, because she had not known true love. To live for your husband, home, and children was an act of love which made this life beautiful. Hence, to Anna true love implied female submissiveness and love made the wifely duties beautiful. This notion of wifely submissiveness was widespread among middle- and upper-class European women in the nineteenth century. It was related to the separate spheres ideology, which prescribed different roles to men and women. This ideology dictated that the “natural” sphere of men was that of the public world of business and work, politics, commerce, and law, while women’s “proper sphere” was the private realm of domestic life, child-rearing, and housekeeping. Since men were created to support women and children, the complementary role of a woman was that of a “helpmeet” in the domestic sphere of “the home.” At first sight, this ideology appears incompatible with the idea of companionate marriage based on love that had replaced eighteenth-century ideas of marriage based on social status and wealth. The romantic ideal, in which love bound a couple together, encouraged expectations that marriage would involve a new level of personal intimacy, along with requiring the traditional duty between spouses. Historians have indeed argued that dreams of love and mutual companionship were constantly challenged by the increasing importance of the ideologies of separate spheres, and the contrast between the ideal and the reality of domestic life.11 However, by the 1860s, few white middle- and upper-class women expected marriage to be based on equality. The prescribed view among Victorian writers was that men and women needed each other for completion, because the sexes possessed different but complementary characteristics. A man needed the more intuitive woman to inspire him and evoke his potential. A woman needed the strength of a man she could admire to complement and evoke her maternal qualities. A man needed the moral correction of “woman’s way” as the more aesthetic, intuitive woman needed the mental correction of a

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man’s force and logic.12 Anna certainly did not see any contradiction between wifely submissiveness and love. To her, mutual companionship did not have anything to do with gender equality. It had to do with respect, affection, openness, honesty, and equality in spirit. Anna had internalized the prescribed ideal of gender-based roles in marriage. To her, wifely duties became fulfilling and satisfactory because she gained something in return. Hampus provided her with love, gratitude, appreciation, and security in exchange for her domestic duties.13 Because this was exactly what she yearned for, their marriage was a happy one, despite its inherent inequality. Even though happily married, Anna was in constant need of her mother’s approval and reassurance. Like so many daughters of her time and class, she saw her mother as a role model for how to live as a married woman.14 Thus her mother’s opinion of how she led her new life was invaluable to her. During her pregnancy she wanted her mother to know that she was doing well, that she felt healthy and strong and that she rose early in the morning and worked diligently throughout the day. She never spent her days on the sofa, like she used to. In a letter from October 1859, she recounted all the baby linen she had bought and everything she was sewing in preparation for the baby’s arrival. But no sooner had she finished her list than she became insecure and felt the urge to ask: “Do you like & approve of my things sweet Mother?”15 Even if the ties to her mother had to some extent been replaced by the ties to her husband after marriage, Anne remained an important part of Anna’s life. As we have seen, nineteenth-century daughters often maintained strong bonds to their mothers even after they had married. The ideal nineteenth-century mother was her daughter’s moral, spiritual, and practical guide, as well as her bosom friend. Anna had a very close relationship to her mother, who had raised her all on her own. In becoming a mother, Anna felt a strong connection to her own mother. She felt that they shared a unique female experience that made her understand her mother better. Hence, she was very disappointed when Anne did not respond to the news of her pregnancy. To begin with, Anne did not write to her pregnant daughter right away. When she finally did write she was not nearly as delighted as Anna had wished her to be. Instead, the letter was full of admonitions regarding her impending motherhood. “But I thought,” Anna replied, “this coming event, would have filled you with more happiness, than it seems to have done! I expected you would have said more about it.”16 Her disappointment was even greater following her confinement when her mother did not seem interested in either her daughter’s happiness or her first grandchild. Of course the fact that



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motherhood made Anna feel closer to her mother than ever before meant that her sense of being let down became so much stronger. The first letter Anna wrote to her mother after her daughter’s birth was overflowing with expressions of motherly love. She could not imagine that her own mother would not feel as much for her daughter and rejoice in her happiness. But, alas, in her reply, Anne wrote very little about the new baby or of her delight at becoming a grandmother. She did not even mention that Hampus, and Anna asked her to be Godmother. “I thought such an event, the 1st Grandchild in both families, would have been more fully dwelt upon by my own Mother.”17 Rather than expressing her delight at being a grandmother, Anne was concerned that life as a governor’s wife would make her daughter extravagant. Her mother’s lack of interest made Anna jealous of her sister Florence, who was pregnant and would be able to give birth with their mother present. Perhaps Florence would now get all of Anne’s attention, while Anna, far away in Alaska, would be forgotten? This fear was confirmed when Anne began to give away household items to Florence. Hence, when Anna wrote her next letter to her mother, she emphasized that Annie was her first grandchild and prayed her not to forget this unseen baby in favor of Florence’s new child. Her disappointment in her mother made it very hard to take her criticism. Although she was careful to point out that nothing her mother wrote could annoy her because she loved her deeply and was grateful for all advice, it is evident that she resented her warnings about the danger of becoming extravagant. Thus she stressed that Hampus was very satisfied with her as a housewife and had told her how prudent she was and how little she bought for herself.18

Op t ing o u t of the imp e r ia l p roject Elisabeth and Margaretha took pride in their involvement in the colonies, educating local girls, working with charity, and upholding European practices, but Anna chose to opt out of the whole imperial project. She took refuge in the private sphere—her home and family. Her new sphere and mission allowed her to close the door on the world outside that scared her, where the moral rules that she had been taught did not apply, and where she felt like a failure. Her home provided her with an identity and a mission, but it also became a refuge. It was a place where the moral decay of the colonies did not reach, a place that held the

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wild, strange, and sinful at bay, a restricted and safe place. But to Anna’s dismay, immorality sometimes slipped through the door, as seen, for example, in the drunkenness of the Russian cook or the impiety of her Siberian foster child, who had accompanied Constance to Sitka. Anna felt the girl lacked respect and worried that she could not get her to obey or show remorse. Neither kindness, nor punishment worked: “[S]he remains the same, & laughs at me behind my back, & is ten times worse. It has really grieved me to see her want of heart & appreciation of the goodness she has met with. I want no thanks, no! it is not for that I have tried to keep her these 2 years, but because she was a poor orphan . . . & it was pleasant to do good.”19 Even potential sin made Anna upset. The sheer possibility that the Creole servant girl would do something improper, and thus bring sin into her home, haunted her.20 Distancing herself from the world outside, Anna formed an image of her private life—her home and family—as an antipode to the depraved frontier life. She was the pious, domestic wife; Hampus, the noble, caring husband; Annie the pure, innocent child; their marriage virtuous and respectful; their home tidy, diligent, and well ordered. Outside of the Governor’s House was the most horrible sin. During her time in Sitka, Anna was confronted with sin of a kind and extent she had never imagined. She saw and learned things she knew nothing about before. “It was indeed a painful pulling open of the eyes, to come straight from a happy innocent Home, where nothing impure or unclean entered, nor of which very existence I never knew, to this place, where it is impossible not to see, hear & know much that must both shock & pain.” Now, she realized that sin was everywhere, “but still you will see a striving after what is right . . . & can never come so closely in contact with Badness as in a small place like Sitka, & especially in a colony.”21 Anna rarely spoke explicitly of the kind of sin she saw in Sitka, but it is evident that she referred to drunkenness, non-marital sexual relations, indolence, and failure to carry out wifely duties as prescribed by the colonizers. She told Wilhelmina that “[t]here is so much evil here, so much that is sad, so very little fear of God, or understanding of right and wrong and so little ability to help. It is horrible to live among people who often lack any concept of honesty and decency.”22 Anna regarded the Creoles as “a people without principles” and told her mother so when she asked about them in a letter. “O Mama!,” she wrote, “the life these men & women lead would shock you . . . it affects your heart & soul.”23 The immoral behavior of Creole men upset her, but it was what she considered the sinfulness of the women that really shocked her.



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To her mother, Anna described Sitka as the most immoral little place, where neither age nor marriage prevented anyone from committing sinful acts.24 Even the young Creole girls were “lost” and it was almost impossible to keep them “pure and innocent.” Anna tried to keep her young servant girl under strict supervision so that she would not “be lost” like most girls at her age. At first she asked Ida to keep an eye on her. Later on she decided that more drastic measures were called for and locked the girl up during the night. But Anna had little hope. The only thing you could hope for, she wrote, was that the girl herself would understand her own good and would not do anything that was “degrading to her honor & self respect.”25 One of the main problems, as Anna saw it, was that after school, Creole girls rejoiced to be “at liberty.” They “care for nothing, know of nothing, have no shame, nor feeling of modesty, & will do anything [implying sexual services] in order to be able to buy fine clothes. For they receive no wages.” The company paid for them in school, and then their salary was paid to the main office to be given to them when they married. In order to illustrate this “dreadful state of affairs,” Anna told her mother about a twelve-year-old girl she had selected to serve in a European family. What was so upsetting was that Hampus had felt obliged to tell the girl that if she dared to “dawdle about the doors or speak with soldiers, she would receive such a flogging as she never would forget!—12 years old, is but a mere child! By this, you can judge in general, what insight I have got into ‘Life’ & the ‘way of the world’ since I am married.”26 Anna was not the only Protestant woman who saw children’s sexuality as the utmost example of depravation. Sexual behavior among Native children, and especially among girls who according to Victorian sexual standards were supposed to be moral beings, shocked many missionary wives.27 Although some of the Russian officers took sexual advantage of Native girls, they seem to have felt a need to demonstrate how much more civilized they were than the early Russian fur traders and merchants from Siberia.28 Hence, Captain Golovin criticized Creole women for not caring about chastity even if they were married. He claimed that their “lack of activity” as well as their “wild blood” was the reason for this behavior. They liked to dance and to dress up but were otherwise idle, which in his view explained why so few of them were able to read. According to Golovin this was not a behavior limited to Creole women. He held that neither Tlingit nor Alutiiq women were known for their chastity. But, he wrote, the Russians are much to blame “since they had convinced them that chastity is a vice.” He was also under the impression that their husbands “did not

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seem to care much about their wives’ unfaithfulness, especially not during the winter when they were often weak due to lack of nutrition.”29 The promiscuity and open sexuality of Creole girls were seen as their greatest sin by the colonizers, but they were also accused of committing the sin of indolence, as well as that of drunkenness. Anna believed that they simply did not care to work because they could always get hold of money by other means (i.e., through sexual services). She often complained that her Creole servants failed to get things done. “The women do not work here, as they do in Europe. My own washing is washed every 4. weeks. Three women can not finish it sooner than in a fortnight.”30 She also criticized them as unreliable. Thus she did not dare to leave her Creole maid alone with little Annie for one minute. “These Creoles have no sense of duty, conscientiousness, or common sense and are prepared to all sorts of naughtiness.”31 “Not even 100 eyes are sufficient to watch over them.”32 Yet, Anna maintained, you could not really be surprised by “the sinful behavior” of the Creoles. What could you expect from them, she argued, when their Russian superiors were hardly better and not even the priests behaved in an appropriate manner? These were the people who should have acted as role models but instead they were drinking and seducing Creole girls. Anna was particularly upset with the behavior of the former Russian governor, who had not strictly forbidden the young officers and “men of the town” to pay nightly, “shameful visits” to the school for girls. “Only fancy what a crying sin!” This time she did not think the “poor girls” were the real sinners. They were so young and inexperienced, but nonetheless they were the ones who suffered. “I cannot conceive anything more shocking, more mournful than the depraved state of these poor young girls.” Here, Anna proudly presented Hampus as the former governor’s contrast. He did not doubt his moral duty, but gave strict orders that no men were allowed to come near the school and if anything like that ever occurred again the man would be flogged.33 Had she read Golovin’s letters, Anna would have agreed with his conclusion that the Russians were partly to blame for the sinfulness of Native women. However, she did not make any distinctions between Europeanized and Siberian Russians, or between aristocrats and merchants. In her view, all Russians had a low sense of morality. Furthermore, she argued that the low morality of the Russians was to blame for the failure to convert the Tlingits. “O when will those poor heathens be converted,” she asked. Based on her low opinions of Russians, she provided her own answer: “Never, I am afraid, as long as they are under Russian power! & therefore it would be already much to be wished that England



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or America had been the possessors of our Colonies.”34 Had that been the case, she argued, the Tlingits would have been Christianized much faster.35 The general sense of sinfulness that Anna felt in the colonies was reflected in the failure of the Orthodox church to convert the Tlingits. It hurt her soul that “the colonies had belonged to the Company for 60 years and the Indians were still heathens.”36 Not only had the Russian priests failed to convert the Tlingits, but those who were converted were converted in name only. They did not understand what it meant to live according to God’s commands. But then, according to Anna, “many a Russian does not know why he prays . . ., why he believes in this or that thing.”37 It was the same with the Creoles, she argued. They went to communion pro forma once a year and afterwards they celebrated with plenty of food and drink.38 Anna’s reflections do in fact correspond to those of the Russian Archbishop Innokentii (formerly Father Ioann Veniaminov), who in his report to the Holy Synod a few years earlier wrote that the conversion of Tlingits started late and progressed slowly.39 In 1843, about one hundred Tlingits had been converted but, like Anna, the Archbishop doubted whether they really held a true religious conviction. Their actions during the revolt against the Russians in 1855 made him doubt their faith. One example was when they occupied the Orthodox Church built for services in their language. According to Innokentii, this showed that the Tlingits did not show reverence for holy things and above all that they could not be trusted. Russian priests in general appear to have been suspicious of the Tlingits. Innokentii argued that they required the constant wariness and attention of the missionaries.40 The suspicion with which both missionaries and Tlingits regarded each other presumably contributed to the slow progress the missionaries made. However, while the Bishop blamed the slow progress of conversion on the Tlingits, Anna and Hampus blamed the Russian church, for “who can stand in their own strength? who can resist the devil & his temptations? . . . what we are, we are by God’s mercy alone who has graciously permitted us to know the difference between right & wrong.”41 Anna argued that the reason for the failure of the Orthodox church was that the Russian clergy were not filled by their holy mission and thus could not convert anyone. Hampus shared his wife’s negative view of the Russian missionaries and referred to them as “uneducated monks with no warmth for the cause.”42 He was especially critical toward the Archbishop, whom he regarded as a sly and power-hungry man, who exercised great influence in the colonies.43 In the end, however, Anna argued that the RAC, or rather the priests, would have to answer before God because they did not do enough

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to enlighten the indigenous people.44 Here, Anna expressed the utopian belief common among Protestant missionaries that a few dedicated people could and should create great changes to the life of heathens around the world. Since all people regardless of race belonged to God’s family, indigenous people who lived in different stages of “barbarism” could be improved and civilized even though they might still be considered alien.45

Th e p e r fe c t w ife a nd mother Although Anna usually depicted her domestic role in bright colors, especially when compared to the darkness of colonial life around her, it was not entirely unproblematic. While she certainly felt more secure in this role, she nevertheless doubted her ability to be the perfect wife and mother. Now, when she knew what and who she wanted to be, she realized that she had major flaws and wished that she was a different person. She did not confess these doubts to her mother, only to her best friend Wilhelmina, to whom she wrote, “God help me never to be satisfied with myself, or think that I have nothing more to learn, or to improve in myself.”46 As we have seen, Anna had worried about her ability to be the best wife to Hampus from the very first day of their marriage, and these feelings did not subside after the first months. Instead, her sense of inadequacy remained, even though Hampus never appears to have complained about anything she did. When she was left alone at Kodiak during her second summer in the colonies, she had plenty of time to reflect on her flaws. In fact, she regarded the separation from her husband as a test and a possibility to improve herself so that she would become a better person. In her diary, she scolded herself for her bad temper and for not being composed and content. “Day by day I reproach myself for hastily spoken words and a discontented spirit which I have so often exhibited.” May God help me govern my tongue and keep my temper in subjection, she prayed. May God “help me to correct this great fault.”47 Almost two years later, in 1862, when she had been married for three years, neither her love nor her concerns had subsided. She wrote to Wilhelmina that she did not deserve such a loving and good man as Hampus was. What if she did not make him sufficiently happy and someone else might have made him happier? The thought was unbearable. She still wanted to be everything to him, “his dearest, and very best wife on earth.”48



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One of the main reasons why she reproached herself and wanted to improve was that she needed Hampus’s love. “O! how I love to hear him tell me how deeply he loves me,” she wrote during their first summer on Kodiak Island.49 One month later she confessed to her diary that she “could not live without his love.”50 In this way, her happiness was linked to his happiness. Thus, Anna tried hard to be the perfect wife, to support and comfort her husband and make their home a sanctuary where he could relax. She prayed to God that she would be able to “make his home after his heart, so happy and bright as he deserves.”51 Everything she did, she did for him. She no longer played the piano for her own sake, but to please Hampus, who loved to listen to her play.52 And his love for her seems to have been returned. In the summer of 1860, she confessed to her diary that “[t]o be truly, fondly, dearly loved, is such [. . .] bliss,” but “to return that pure, holy love in the same ardent way is complete happiness.”53 Although founded on rigid gender roles, Anna’s and Hampus’s relationship seems to have been based on strong affectionate bonds and a special intimacy. Such intimate relationships were not uncommon among nineteenth-century couples living in similar circumstances, isolated from friends and family and from regular society.54 Although Hampus was delighted with his home and family, the burden of his work lay heavily on his shoulders. He was a conscientious man, and as governor of Russian America, he faced many problems. Moreover, these were uncertain times for the RAC. In the early 1860s the renewal of the charter, which was due to expire in 1862, and the future of the colonies were widely discussed and debated in Saint Petersburg. The company was criticized on the pages of the popular Morskoi Sbornik, supervised by the Grand Duke Konstantin, who took the lead in advocating the sale of Russian America.55 As we have learned, the government sent two inspectors to the colonies, Captain Pavel N. Golovin and State Councilor Sergei A. Kostlivtsev, with orders to give advice on the state and future of the colonies. They arrived in Sitka on November 25, 1860, and were accommodated on the upper floor of the Governor’s House. Their presence had a very negative impact on Hampus, who worried that they would write an unfavorable report that would lead to the end of the colonies and of his position. Fortunately, the inspector liked the governor. Golovin described him as “a splendid man, straightforward and honest, who never speaks unkindly to anyone.” He did everything he could to prevent them from being bored, but “the means to avoid boredom are inadequate.”56 In the end, Golovin and Kostlivtsev recommended against the liquidation of the company, promoting reforms instead.

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They highlighted the colonies’ vulnerability to a British or American attack and the Tlingit threat to the security of the colonial capital. They criticized the timeconsuming and irregular communications, and the fact that Sitka’s inhabitants to a great extent were dependent on the Tlingits for food.57 Nevertheless, as a result of all this uncertainty, Hampus feared that every mishap that occurred was noted and would lead to a negative view of the colonies. To make matters worse, he received a letter from Adolph Etholén telling him that the company was in a very difficult and precarious position. As a consequence, he worried constantly and frequently suffered from severe headaches, which he treated by taking cold baths and rubbing his head with ice. Anna feared that he worried too much and was too pessimistic. She felt that he took his duties and obligations too much to heart and always fancied evil would come of everything.58 It was not easy for her to lighten his cares and soothe his sorrows when he constantly worried about not doing a good enough job and felt personally responsible for every misadventure. It was as if he carried a heavy burden. The governor, Anna wrote, “has really without exaggeration no quiet or peaceful moment. His head is always full of anxiety & trouble & responsibility.”59 In one of her last letters to her mother, she reported that Hampus had resorted to “immoderate & injudicious use of ice” to get relief from his “severe nervous headache.” Anna was convinced that rubbing the head with ice five or six times a day was increasing the evil and beseeched him to stop, which he did, resorting to cold baths morning and evening. The cause of the headaches, in Anna’s opinion, was “plainly to be traced to all the bad luck and anxiety” he had experienced during the past three years. In addition to the stress of having the inspectors present, two ships had been lost and two others seriously damaged. Although none of this was Hampus’s fault, he was convinced that the company would blame him all the same. On top of everything else, Admiral Popov, a favorite with Grand Duke Konstantin, who had written a negative report about the colonies, was coming to Sitka. Anna looked forward to the day they would leave Sitka, “mostly for the reason, that this weighing responsibility will be removed from my Hampus.”60 If Anna questioned her ability to be the perfect wife, it was a small worry compared to her concern about her abilities as a mother. Like many of her contemporaries, Anna had been raised to believe that it was the mother’s role to inject religion into a child and to form the infant mind.61 She did not share the Puritan view of children as evil enemies of God. The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment encouraged a growing belief among Western philosophers that children were not corrupted at birth, as Christians and particularly Protestant



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doctrines of original sin had insisted. John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau rejected both the traditional view of child wickedness and the idea that a child’s character was the product of certain innate traits with which a baby was born. Locke argued that children were blank slates at birth, open to learning and essentially good, unless corrupted by outside influence. A child could be shaped by creating an environment that instilled appropriate values and behavior. These ideas spread widely and inspired Western societies to make child rearing the middleclass family’s most important function. Prior to the nineteenth century, fathers played important roles in decisions regarding the education of their children. However, when the home became a purely domestic area, mothers took a more prominent role in the upbringing of children. In the ideal Christian family, it was the particular duty of mothers to ensure that children were brought up as Christians.62 Anna was very much aware of her duties as a mother, and she wanted her own mother to appreciate her willingness to take them seriously. Motherhood is a sacred duty, she told Anne, because children are a gift from above and it is a mother’s obligation to teach them everything that is good before God. Mothers must never forget this, because if they neglect to teach their children God’s ways, shame and guilt would fall upon them.63 This was a great responsibility and a heavy burden to carry for a young inexperienced mother. It must have been especially hard for Anna without her own mother there to advise her. She worried that she would not manage to fulfill her obligation—to care for and educate her children not only “to become . . . useful members of this world, but to educate them for Eternity!” She would so have wanted to have her mother to speak to about it. “O, it is so much,” she told her, “I tremble to think of it.”64 Anna’s anxiety was only natural, for if she failed, she would be held accountable not only to her child and her husband but also to her own mother and, above all, to God. One day, she wrote, all women would have to answer before God for how they had fulfilled their ascribed lot.65 How, then, did Anna prepare herself for this vital task? Firstly, she asked God to help her teach her children to love him and to raise them well and wisely. Secondly, she read important books on education as L’Éducation progressive ou étude du cours de la vie (two volumes) by Madame Necker de Saussure, Letters on the Elementary Principles of Education by Elizabeth Hamilton, and Loose Hints upon Education, Chiefly Concerning the Culture of the Heart by Henry Home, Lord Kames.66 Finally, she consulted her memory as to her own upbringing and the way her mother had educated her. When it came to child rearing, Anna

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regarded her own mother as the primary role model. She had been such a wonderful educator, and Anna held her judgment in such high regard. Hence, she wished to teach her children what her mother had taught her. For the same reason, she wanted her mother to send her lectures about education. She also wanted “true religion” to be the basis of her children’s education, in the same way that it had been when she grew up, and she hoped Hampus was of the same opinion.67 Although Anna was very concerned about the great responsibility of educating her children, she did not dare to suggest to her mother that this responsibility should be shared. However, in her diary she argued that both parents had holy duties toward their children and thus both mothers and fathers ought to be responsible for their education. “Must we not both take part in the education of our children,” she asked. For this reason she wanted Hampus to read L’education progressive and tell her what he thought about it. If both parents were responsible for bringing up their children, both would be held accountable. In a diary entry from the summer of 1860, this view is clearly expressed. “What a responsibility a child throws upon its parents! May we never forget that this infant is a gift from above and at the same time a loan and that we shall have to give account of how we have spent the talents committed to our charge.”68 Anna and Hampus did discuss child rearing in relation to little Annie. For instance, they seem to have agreed upon the necessity to punish her when she, at age two, repeatedly refused to use the chamber pot and wet her trousers over and over again. They felt compelled “to punish her once properly so that she might remember it, rather than several times slightly & ineffectually.” But it was Hampus who handed out the punishment using a rod. Anna could not bring herself to do it. She cried and hoped “it may have been the first & last chastisement of that kind, it may ever be necessary to administer to her.”69 Potty training through punishment was widespread in middle- and upper-class families at the time and was often used to encourage children to exercise self-control.70 Whether Anna herself had been subject to corporal punishment is not clear. Perhaps the fact that she grew up without a father meant that she got away with more lenient forms of punishment even though her mother was very strict. Anna had a very high regard for her mother’s way of raising her children, except in one area. She did not agree with Anne that children should be raised to feel passionate about music, art, and literature. That would only lead to unhappiness. Children should be taught good taste. Otherwise, they could never be happy in places where people neither appreciated nor understood such things. It is quite obvious that Anna spoke from her own experience in this case. We cannot



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always be “in the society of artists or artistic minds,” she wrote, and continued by stating “nor is it desirable we should, for we have more to live for than that.”71 By this time, Anna had realized that one of the things that made her unhappy in Sitka was her passion for music, as it was impossible to find anyone in Alaska with whom she could share this passion. In her opinion, Russians had a superficial understanding of music, which was why they were so fond of operettas. Germans were the only people who had a genuine feeling for music.72 Thus, to have what she called “a quiet liking & taste for such things” instead of a passion would make life easier. Moreover, it was difficult to combine a life in the society of artists with the role of wife and mother. One reason for Anna’s feeling of inadequacy as a mother-educator was that she often felt uneducated and ignorant of things that she supposed educated people should know about. But she did not despair. Instead, she hoped that with a little help from Hampus she would be able to improve. It was only by continuing her own education that she would be capable of educating her children. Hence, she tried to teach herself by reading works on history, theology, literature, politics, and even geology, as well as poetry, travel literature and books on education, domestic economy, and housekeeping.73 She liked such diverse authors as Washington Irving and Fredrika Bremer, but she preferred English authors, like William Thackeray and Charles Dickens.74 Hampus encouraged her intellectual development and liked to provide her “with such books as must improve and instruct her mind.” Anna provided her mother with a list of books Hampus had bought for her at an auction and told Anne that nowadays she never vegetated on the coach reading novels, or spent time in indolence. Instead, she was full of desire to improve her mind, overcome her sins, and educate her children.75 According to the advice literature of the day, women were dangerously dependent on novels. These had to be avoided at all cost since they interfered with serious piety and were regarded as useless.76 Anne von Schoultz appears to have raised her daughters in the spirit of pioneer feminist writers Mary Wollstonecraft and the more contemporary Harriet Martineau, who wrote about the importance of female education: “Let women be taught that her powers of mind were given her to be improved. Let her be taught that she is to be a rational companion to those of the other sex among whom her lot in life is cast.” Furthermore, considering women’s vital role as guardians and instructors of young children, the cultivation of their mind was urgent. “It is evident,” wrote Martineau, “that if the soul of the teacher is narrow and contracted, that of the pupil cannot be enlarged.”77 Anna was aware that she had not

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always heeded her mother’s advice to improve her mind. But she had changed, and she wanted her mother to realize this and to be pleased about her willingness to improve. She had even come to appreciate her self-education. In the summer, when she was alone with Annie on Kodiak, she wrote in her diary: “I am glad to have read so much here. It would be dreadful to spend your days without ever opening a book.”78

T h e in a b il it y t o breastfeed Anna’s greatest failure as a mother was not her inability to educate her children but her inability to nurse her newborn baby. When her long and difficult labor was finally over, she was overjoyed. Having survived such an ordeal, she felt like nothing bad could happen to her. She was exhausted, but relieved and unbelievably happy. Then, on the third day, “the precious moment” arrived, the moment she had been looking forward to, when she was to feed her newborn baby. She put the little one to her breast, but there was no milk. The same thing happened on the fourth and fifth day. There was no milk and the baby cried. After nine days Anna suffered from high fever and stomach ache. She now put the baby to her breast regularly, hoping that the sucking would make the milk flow and she prayed frantically to God that he would allow her to feed the child she had brought into the world. But no matter how hard she prayed and hoped, no milk would come. This was a huge disappointment. She had failed utterly with the most basic of tasks—to feed her newborn child. She knew that it was a sign of weakness, that a mother who could not feed her baby was not a real mother.79 Anna was devastated by her failure. How could this happen to her, a strong and healthy young woman who had felt so great throughout her pregnancy? Why did she not have any milk when she had made all the precautions and followed all the modern regulations? Her room was always well ventilated and she never spent her days tucked up in bed. Yet there had to be something wrong with her. Why else did she not have any milk, and fever on three occasions? These questions absorbed her completely for a long time afterward and were repeated again and again in both her letters and her diary. When she learned that her older sister Florence had given birth, the first thing she wanted to know was whether she fed her baby herself.80 Anna had to know what had gone wrong. She needed to find an explanation for her inability to be a good mother. Previously, she had been able to blame her



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inexperience and ignorance for her failure, but this was different. Breastfeeding was supposed to come natural for a mother. It did not require education or experience. Anna searched for an excuse that would help her deal with her inadequacy. Perhaps this was an inherited affliction and thus something she could not help. She knew that as a baby she was only nursed for three months. Perhaps the reason for this short period was her mother’s lack of milk. Or perhaps there was a medical explanation, which there was, although she did not find that out until much later. Anna asked Hampus to write to a doctor with whom he was acquainted and ask him whether there was a medical explanation for her lack of milk. Some of the blame could be placed on Sitka’s bad doctors, who were always “young men straight from College, who have never had the slightest practice.” She criticized Dr. Berent in particular. He does not know anything, she told her mother. “It is quite painful to ask him anything, for he never knows what to say.” The midwife received a more favorable judgment. She was excellent, but if anything out of the ordinary happened to the mother, she had no idea what to do and “knew no help.”81 When Anna became pregnant with her second baby, breastfeeding was naturally on her mind from the very beginning. She had only one ardent prayer; that she would be able to nurse this child, and she fervently hoped that her prayer would be heard. It was. When she put her new baby to the breast her ultimate wish was fulfilled. Although not plentiful, her milk was enough to feed her son, and she was exceedingly grateful and happy. In a letter to her mother, she wrote how God now allowed her to perform “that sweetest of a Mother’s duties.”82 Breastfeeding was hard in the beginning because Anna’s nipples were sore, which made nursing extremely painful. Hampus, who saw that she was in pain, tried to talk her into giving up breastfeeding altogether, but Anna did not want to hear of this and stood firm. For once, she was the one who made the decisions. Presumably for the first time in their marriage, she knew what she wanted and made sure that she got it her way. Considering the tremendous satisfaction she received from breastfeeding, it is hardly surprising that she stood her ground. In her own words it was “exquisitely sweet to feel your own child drawing its nourishment from yourself, and to see how all tears & troubles cease as soon as it comes to its mother’s breast.”83 Virtually everything Anna knew about pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare she had learned from Dr. Bull’s Hints to Mothers for the Management of Health during the period of pregnancy and in the Lying-in Room and his Maternal Management of Children in Health and Disease.84 Without her mother, or any

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female relative or friend, this book was her constant companion, and she often referred to it in her letters. Many of her ideas about breastfeeding and motherhood can be found in these works. Her sense of guilt for not being able to feed her child and her concern that it would lead to poor health emanated from Dr. Bull’s assertions. Breastfeeding was natural for women, he argued. It created a special bond between mother and child and provided the best nourishment. Nothing was better suited to a child’s constitution than its mother’s milk. Only morally deficient and unhealthy mothers could not or did not want to nurse their children. A proper woman would never leave her baby to a wet-nurse. Doing this was a violation of her nature. To breastfeed was a mother’s privilege, not something a stranger could do in your stead. Even the basest animal looked after their offspring and raised them on mother’s milk. “Woman . . . must not manifest a love below that of the brute creature.”85 On the other hand, Bull argued, certain women were not suited to breastfeeding, for example those with a nervous temperament. Milk from such women was not suitable as nourishment and they should refrain from nursing, as their milk was either insufficient in quantity or of inferior quality.86 Obviously, such an understanding of breastfeeding imposed guilt on mothers who did not or could not breastfeed their children. Many mothers who for some reason were not able to feed their children felt guilty. To Bull, it was the mother’s fault if the baby did not receive enough or sufficiently nutritious milk. Moreover, according to Dr. Bull, a mother who did not want to devote herself completely to her duties as a mother and give up everything that could be detrimental to her health and thereby to her milk and to regular breastfeeding was not fit to nurse at all. No doubt, this is why Anna underlined the fact that she had been extraordinarily healthy throughout her pregnancy. She had not done anything that could have been detrimental to her health. Hence, she found no rational reason why she was not able to nurse. Yet, there had to be something wrong with her. Why else did she not have any milk? Dr. Bull’s assertion that you could not always tell if a baby suffered from the mother’s inability to breastfeed made things worse. If the child was not taken ill, the doctor said, disease was likely to be generated in its constitution and appear in the future.87 In this way disease that affected older children could be linked to the mother’s inability to breastfeed. Anna took this to heart and wrote to her mother that children who had not been breastfed were weaker and late in their development. Hence, she was very pleased when little Annie’s third tooth emerged when she was only seven



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months old. “It speaks well for a child, artificially fed from its birth,” she wrote happily.88 In the autumn of 1861, Anna told her mother that Annie had grown into a tall and plump little girl, but rather pale, which she ascribed to the fact that she was not breastfed. Her second child, Eddie, had a very different complexion.89

De p e n d e nc e a nd lack of se lf-c on fi dence Anna’s lack of confidence and need for approval and appreciation permeates her letters and diary from Sitka. When she first came to Russian America she was an extremely insecure and immature young woman, almost completely dependent on her husband. She rarely took any initiative or expressed any drive of her own. She had difficulties with her Native servants and found it hard to get them to obey her. She also found it “disagreeable” to instruct her German maid “who is old enough to be my mother,” although she realized that this was “foolish and weak” Luckily she seldom needed to complain about anything Ida did.90 Her dependence on Hampus made life difficult when he went away, or when she had to travel without him. Hampus’s long inspection tours were especially trying, and Anna felt terribly lonely every time he left her. In April 1862 she told her mother that “[o]f all people in Sitka, a Gouverneurskan [Governor’s wife] is the most lonely, for nobody comes to her nor has she any she could associate with.”91 Had Anna been more self-assured and more experienced, she might have found something to occupy herself with when Hampus was gone, but she was not and had no idea what to do. With a Tlingit settlement she believed to be hostile practically at her doorstep, she could not even go for a walk by herself, or rather she did not dare to.92 Without Hampus, she went into hibernation. Things improved a little when they had children. Annie and Eddie kept her busy and helped Anna endure the long periods of loneliness. But even in the company of her children, she felt awful.93 The intimate relationship she and Hampus had formed in Sitka did not make their partings easier. I have described the sense of devastation she felt when he left her the first time to go to San Francisco. The second time he left was just as bad as the first one. The whole family had gone to the island of Kodiak to spend the summer. Anna was aware that Hampus needed to go on his inspection tour sometime in the middle of the summer, but when the departure day approached and she realized that he would be gone for

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two months, she was beside herself: “[T]o be torn away from your hearts dearest treasure—& especially when one must remain without the slightest means of communication” was total agony.94 Anna described the moment of farewell with the deepest emotion. When the time came and Hampus was about to walk out the door she felt as if she could “never, never give him up! But it was so.” She did not follow him to the ship, because such occasions when man and wife had to part were sacred and not for others to see: “the last kiss, the last embrace, the last words, not meant for other ears.” Love was a private matter, sacred feelings not to be put on display.95 Instead, she went to the window, watching as the boat with Hampus, the Bishop, and four rowers in red flannel shirts passed by. When the boat could not be seen any longer, she put on hood and cloak and hurried to the battery, arriving just in time to watch the stately ship Konstantin pick up steam in all its glory. Faster and faster the ship went until she suddenly disappeared behind the mountains. “God bless you my own Hampus! my Joy my all!”96 When Hampus had left, Anna no longer enjoyed her summer at Kodiak. She arranged a picnic on a slope behind their house, but it was just sad and melancholic. Nothing was the same without her husband.97 A couple of days after Hampus left, Anna took an evening stroll across the flowering meadows and sat down on a rock protruding into the ocean. Looking out at sea she thought about where Hampus might be and suddenly her loneliness overwhelmed her. “If I could but be with him,” she thought, “but I must not make myself sad by wishing for him, though I do, do, do wish for him so!”98 Five days later she wrote the next entry in her diary, but had to stop before long, “feeling so out of spirits and lonely.” She feared that nothing would come of her journal, “for I am always equally sad without my Hampus. I cannot say how I miss him, no moment all day is he out of my thoughts.”99 She fought hard not to let the feeling of sadness prevail, because she was raised to believe that to give way to sorrow “would be wrong and not agreeable in our Maker’s eyes, who wishes us to be strong in suffering, and patient under whatever trial He sees fit to put upon us,” but only two days later she wrote that “[m]y own precious husband has been gone three weeks and a half, and it is with a beating heart I still count the weeks which will separate us.”10 The entry for August 11 reads, “My eyes are directed towards the direction from whence he would come and please, please God it will now be very soon, and then, please God, he will not go away again so soon!”101 Almost two years later, she took up her pen to write in similar circumstances. Alone again, in Sitka this time, she was just as devastated as when Hampus had



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left her on Kodiak. “O! These everlasting separations are so painful, so unpleasant,” she wrote in her diary. “And there is not the slightest chance of receiving a letter from him which makes it still sadder. Sometimes my spirits are so low, I cannot help myself, and 4 months seems like an eternity.”102 There is no doubt that it was a terrible ordeal for Anna to be left alone without Hampus, but this did not mean that she could not deal with the situation. Lacking confidence and seeing herself as dependent on her husband prevented Anna from realizing that she in fact managed quite well, given the circumstances. For example, when she could not nurse Annie and there was no suitable wet nurse available, she obtained cow’s milk. But this milk was very poor due to the animals’ meager diet. Anna then longed for Hampus to come home, “that he might contrive some way to get pure milk.” Adding to her misery, a catarrhal epidemic, which took the life of many children, broke out and little Annie got a cough too.103 When Hampus finally returned, Anna’s happiness knew no limits. She had gone to the window, as she did twenty times a day, and there was nothing but thick fog. Ten minutes later she looked again and saw a steamer approaching rapidly. In a state of rapture, she dressed the baby prettily and waited. From the window, she saw her beloved Hampus coming up the long, outside staircase, “the gate opened, then the glass door in the passage, and I rushed into his arms. What inexpressible Joy!” All the sadness, loneliness, and emptiness she had felt for so long were gone and happiness and gratefulness reigned in their stead. Anna also rejoiced in the fact that Hampus was so obviously delighted to be back with her again. “Oh Mama,” she wrote, “what Joy, to see his Joy at coming home & seeing me again—oh so fond and loving—it fills me with unbounded feelings of happiness, to be so loved by him.”104 Although she now had a baby to take care of, Hampus was still the center of attention and the person who gave her life purpose and meaning. And, just as she had predicted, he immediately took command and set things right, at least this was how she presented it. As soon as Hampus noticed how thin Annie was, he asked if she nursed her herself, and when he heard the whole story, he simply declared that a wet nurse must be found immediately. After consulting with the nurse, he sent for an Alutiiq woman, but she had very little milk. Then Anna came to think of a woman “clean and respectable” whom she knew had a “tremendously fat and healthy looking child.” They sent for her and she was willing to become wet nurse and had plenty of milk. Despite Anna’s depiction of Hampus as the key figure in the story, she actually

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solved the problem herself without taking any credit for it. She was also the one who treated little Annie when she got a cough, rubbing her chest with oil and tallow, keeping her bowels open and her stomach unloaded.105 Thus, she was far from as helpless as she herself thought. Among the three governors’ wives Anna was the one who had most clearly internalized the contemporary cult of domesticity and the virtues of true womanhood, according to which a woman’s place was in the home and her mission in life was to care for and honor her husband, to raise their children and arrange a comfortable home.106 Feminist thinking started to gain influence among middleand upper-class women of the time, but Anna seems to have been indifferent to or unaware of these ideas. Presumably, Anna acquired her ideas of true womanhood from her British mother via English literature, although Anne von Schoulz herself seems to have been somewhat more radical and independent than her daughter. Particularly among British propagators, dependence was at the core of womanhood.107 One contemporary writer held that “dependence upon one we love” is perhaps “the sweetest thing in the world.” To resign one’s self totally and contentedly into the hands of another, to cease thinking about one’s self and rest assured that “in great things and small we shall be guided and cherished, guarded and helped—in fact thoroughly ‘taken care of ’—how delicious is all this!”108 Another writer held that there was nothing that evoked the affection of men like the sense of a woman’s dependence, and that she looked to them for support and guidance. “There is, indeed, something unfeminine in independence,” she argued. “It is contrary to nature, and therefore it offends.”109 Anna’s sense of self-identity was weakened both by these prescriptive ideals of true womanhood and by her difficulty to separate from her mother.110 As Signe Hammer has argued, if women are seen as wives and mothers, and daughters as potential wives and mothers, it is hard for mothers and daughters to see themselves or each other as separate people, as individuals.111 Furthermore, if a woman has not developed a strong sense of personal identity, it will be much easier for her to attribute selfhood to her husband (and to behave as if he were her mother). And because she has not separated from her mother, she becomes dependent on the man, needing from him all the reassurance of her own worth that she craved from her mother and perhaps never received.112 Although separation from mothers was not seen as pathological until Sigmund Freud wrote about it in the 1930s, it was a huge problem for young women much earlier. Hence, although Hammer’s analysis was developed in a later era, and there are several



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problems with it from a feminist point of view, I believe it may to some extent explain why Anna felt so insecure and constantly sought her mother’s approval and her husband’s reassurance. The way Anna kept postponing her journey to San Francisco in order to see a dentist is yet another example of her sense of dependence. For a long time she had had problems with her teeth, and the closest dentist was in San Francisco. But Anna did not want to go there on her own. However, in December 1861, she finally made up her mind to go, claiming that she would never have come to this decision if it had not been for her new friend, Princess Maksutova, who was going to San Francisco with her husband. In telling her mother about this event, Anna did not hide her indecisiveness. On the contrary, she emphasized her dependence: “You know how timorous I have always been, and how dependent upon others, so that this journey would never have come to anything, had not circumstances turned out so favorable. In the princess I have a real friend, & a companion, & she will comfort me in my solitude.”113 As it turned out the princess was not her only companion. Little Annie came along too. Anna had clearly stated that she could never go away without any of her dear family members, “but O! it is so hard to part from my beloved Hampus, & darling angel Baby boy.”114 She worried about Hampus, that he would feel lonely and unhappy at home without her. He had managed quite well without a wife for many years, but from Anna’s point of view she was now responsible for his happiness and, considering his severe headaches and melancholic mood, her concern was not without foundation. Before she left, she asked the Reverend Winter to look in on him. Nevertheless, on the very first night on board the ship to San Francisco, she regretted leaving her dear “Puxti.” During the long nights when the rolling of the waves and the howling of the wind prevented her from sleeping, she felt so miserable without him, so very sad and lonely. Fortunately, the voyage went exceptionally fast and they arrived in San Francisco after barely two weeks instead of the usual three to four. Anna was glad to leave the ship, but she felt so out of spirits and missed Hampus “so very much” that she was unable to write to her mother for a whole week. One evening, they were invited to the Kostromitinovs. This visit was particularly difficult for Anna, because she could only think of the last time she saw them when Hampus was with her. “It was so strange to be there without my husband. Everything made me think of him, & the happy, happy time I spent there 3 years ago . . . How is he? What is he doing? O! I am so far away from him.”115

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S it k a as home Anna’s first journey without her husband made her aware of how important her home in Sitka had become to her. As mentioned before, it was a refuge from the alien colonial world, but it also gave her a sense of identity. It was a place where she felt safe but also appreciated. It symbolized her achievement as a wife and mother and was the center for her marital happiness. Although home to Anna was primarily where her husband and children were, thus not necessarily linked to a place, she now for the first time saw Sitka as her real home. In a letter from San Francisco, she spoke of the Governor’s House as “my dear, dear Home,” “my dear and happy Home,” and “my own dear Home.”116 When she finally arrived back in Sitka, after having been away for more than two months, her happiness knew no limits. It was already the middle of the night when the Kamtschatka entered Sitka’s harbor and laid anchor. Anna prepared to disembark, leaving Annie in the care of Madame Maksutov. A boat was sent out to take her and Prince Maksutov ashore, and ten minutes later Anna was in Hampus’s arms. Her heart was full, but she could not put her most intimate feelings on display. “Here, she wrote, “before the eyes of strangers, was not the place for greeting; we hurried home, to my own, comfortable blessed Sitka home, where every room was lighted up, & every stove sparkling & cracking with bright fires, & it just looked like Heaven. My darling Puxti, was looking well, though grown thinner. O Mama! I was so exceedingly happy to see him again. Now I flew to the nursery, & there was my lovely Boy . . . I did not mean to wake him, but kissed his face, his hands, his feet over & over again, my heart running over for Joy. He opened his large blue eyes, looked at me steadily and smiled.”117 Although Anna felt a constant need for approval and was a very timid woman, there are signs that she began to develop some independence in Sitka. She went to communion by herself, something she had not done in her whole life and had been afraid to do; she made her own decision about breastfeeding; and she developed an interest in issues of health. Anna took her caring role very seriously, and since the doctors that came to Sitka were generally poor, she had to find treatments for her family members’ ailments herself. Thus, she read Dr. Bull carefully and followed his advice, but she also relied on various home remedies, homemade mixtures, and pills. On several occasions she asked her mother for advice and recipes. She rubbed Annie with rhubarb against stomach ache, with oil and tallow against coughs, and gave her cold baths, which was supposed to



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increase general healthiness.118 In contrast to Anna, Hampus was not particularly interested in health issues. He did not even take simple precautions like wearing warm clothes to prevent himself from catching a cold. Consequently, Anna often worried about him. When she was not with him, he did all sorts of “thoughtless things,” like “swallow smoke” when smoking. Consequently, Hampus needed her to look after him.119 Usually, Anna avoided Sitka’s doctors due to their ignorance, but when little Annie caught a bad cough she finally asked the doctor for advice. However, the reply she received was not very helpful. The doctor simply asked: “what do you think, you are the best doctor.”120 Another tentative sign of independence was Anna’s realization that even married women needed a true friend.121 She found such a friend in Adelaide Maksutov. They started to socialize regularly from the end of 1860.122 Every other week they met at the princess’s or at the Governor’s House. They brought their work to each other’s house, had tea, talked, and played four-handed on the piano. On occasion, they even played in public. At a ball Golovin and Kostlivtsev arranged, the piano was moved to the hall so that the two ladies could play in between dances.123 Yet, their friendship seems not to have grown out of a shared musical experience. Anna acknowledged that Adelaide was able to play difficult pieces on the piano but complained that she did not play with any feeling, whereas she herself often became overheated with emotion when she played. Their friendship was based on shared experiences, upbringing, and values. They both came from a West European Lutheran background. While Anna had a British mother and a Scandinavian father, Adelaide had a British father and a German mother. Both had strong ties to their British parent. Furthermore, Anna, who had little knowledge of her new home country, liked to listen to Adelaide’s stories of Russian life. Both women shared negative ideas about the lack of morality among Russians. Unfortunately, the princess was in poor health after giving birth to two children in quick succession. On their journey to San Francisco Anna suspected that she was pregnant again and started to worry about her health. The princess looked pale and thin, and Anna was confident that a good doctor would have ordered separation from her husband for one year, but, as she told her mother, that was not easy to arrange in Sitka.124 Alas, Anna’s assessment of Adelaide’s health was all too correct. Shortly after the birth of the princess’s third child, she died of consumption.125 She was buried next to Constance Furuhjelm in the small Lutheran cemetery in Sitka.126 Princess Maksutov’s death happened only two months after Anna had received news of another tragedy. Her mother had died in May 1862, “hundreds

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of thousands of miles away.” This was a difficult blow. The thought that she would see her mother again, who was “so indescribably good” and “inexpressibly loving,” had kept Anna going during their long separation, and she had rejoiced at the thought of showing Anne her children. In her last letter from Sitka, which was written four months after her mother’s death, she wrote: “O darling Mama! how I revel in the thought of soon seeing you again; our fondest love & attention will make you happy; it is one of my sweetest & happiest hopes, that our Love can still make up to you for all the sorrow & disappointment Life has given you.”127 The whole time in Sitka, she had believed that her mother’s suffering would be repaid when she saw her own daughter’s happiness and held her grandchildren in her arms. Now, Anne would never see how well her daughter had done for herself, the good life she had formed with Hampus and the children. And Anna would never get to watch when her mother blessed her grandchildren. Soon after she received the sad news of her mother’s death, Anna gave birth to yet another boy. This was her easiest delivery so far, largely due to Hampus’s presence at her side. Anna told her friend, Mina, that she gained more strength to endure the pain when she felt his presence at her side. But the joy she had felt after her two previous childbirths was somewhat dampened when she thought of “the one who was no longer among them.”128 When Elis Furuhjelm was only one week old, Anna and Hampus decided to take care of the Maksutovs’ baby. The prince was called to Saint Petersburg, where he was appointed the next (and last) governor of Russian America. In the beginning of 1864, he remarried and returned to Sitka with his new wife, Maria. The couple arrived in Sitka on May 26. Five days later, they arranged a farewell banquet for Anna and Hampus that lasted from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. Hampus was presented with a silver bowl full of champagne. The bowl was made in Saint Petersburg and inscribed with a picture of the Governor’s House, land and sea animals typical of the colonies, and portraits of three chieftains, representing the best known Tlingit tribes. The ball ended with a procession that accompanied Hampus and Anna back to the Governor’s House. First came the musicians, then Anna and the prince; after them came Hampus and the new princess, and then all the other guests in pairs. The next day, which was June 1, 1864, the Furuhjelms boarded the corvette Bogatyr with their three American children and started the journey back home via San Francisco and Panama.129 In April 1865, after having spent less than a year in Finland, Hampus was promoted to the rank of rear admiral and appointed military governor of the new Russian maritime province in Eastern Siberia. Once again the family had



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to embark on a long journey, this time overland across Siberia. At the end of May, they set out by train to Vladimir, where Anna’s sister Florence lived with her husband, Carl von Schoultz, a railway engineer. After spending some time with Florence and Carl, they continued by boat on the Volga to Kazan’. Here, Hampus bought three tarantasses, four-wheeled horse-drawn carriages.130 One was for Anna and himself, one for the children and their nanny, and one for the servants.131 These vehicles took them as far as the river Amur, where they went by boat to Nikolaevsk na Amur, a small town founded in 1850. They arrived in September 1865, after almost four months of traveling. The Furuhjelms spent five years in this remote town. Hampus’s term of office ended in 1870, but his successor was not able to replace him until November 1871. Anna and Hampus then decided that Anna would return on her own with the children, including Mary Constance, who was born October 10, 1869, two servants, and two nannies. This meant that Anna would make a long, difficult journey in charge of a large company. It was something she could never have imagined doing during the early years of her marriage in Sitka. She settled in Dresden, where she could enjoy the company of her sister, who spent a year in the city while her husband was looking for work in Russia. By the spring of 1872, Hampus had returned to Saint Petersburg and the family was reunited. They settled in Finland on the large estate of Hongola, which Hampus had bought from relatives. Anna was now in charge of a large household as well as her children’s education. She often had to manage by herself, since Hampus, who was still in active service, had to spend much of his time in Saint Petersburg. The three older children were educated at home, Annie by a German governess and Otto and Elis by a tutor. On March 24, 1874, Anna gave birth to another son. He was named Johan Wladimir, but the family called him Johnny. He was her last child. In 1874, Hampus was promoted to the rank of vice admiral and appointed governor of Taganrog on the Sea of Azov. He served there for two years but spent most of this time in the province alone. Anna only joined him during the winter of 1874–1875, together with their two youngest children.132 In 1878– 1880 Hampus served as commander of the port of Reval (Tallinn). This was his last posting. From 1880–1886, he was at the disposal of the commander of the port of Saint Petersburg without occupying any specific post. Anna died in 1894 at the age of fifty-eight. Hampus lived for fifteen more years. His practice of taking cold baths seems not to have prevented him from reaching the respectable age of eighty-eight, but then he did not have to carry and

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give birth to five children. Annie was the only one of Anna’s children who lived to old age.133 Contrary to her mother, who was happiest at home, Annie spent most of her life in the public sphere. She became a suffragist and was elected to the Finnish Parliament several times.

No t es 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

Furuhjelm to her mother, Government House. Sitka, February 2, 1860. Ida Höerle to Anne Furuhjelm, Sitka, December 13, 1859, 2 a.m. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, February 2, 1860. Furuhjelm to Wilhelmina, Sitka, May 30, 1860. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, July 7, 1861. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, July 20, 1860. Furuhjelm, Diary, Sitka, Wednesday, June 22, 1860. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, February 2, 1860. The corollary to marriage was motherhood, which further increased the prestige of a woman (Welter, Dimity Convictions, pp. 9–10, 38). Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 24/12 July, 1860. Ibid.; September 25, 1861. Phegley, Courtship and Marriage in Victorian England, pp. 1–3, 27–28; D’Emilio and Freedman, Intimate Matters, p. 73. See also Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy or How Love Conquered Marriage (New York, 2005). Janet F. Fishburn, The Fatherhood of God and the Victorian Family (Philadelphia, 1981), chapters two and three. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka 24/12 July, 1860. Rundquist, Blått blod och liljevita händer; Deborah Gorham, The Victorian Girl and the Feminine Ideal (London, 1982), p. 48. See also Nini Herman, Too Long a Child. The Mother-Daughter Dyad (London, 1989). Furuhjelm to her mother, Government House. 20/4 October, 1859. Ibid. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, October 16, 1860. Ibid. In the end the girl was sent to the boarding school. Anna Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, April 21, May 3, 1861, Good Friday. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, September 21, 1859; 26 April 1860. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, January 1, 1861.



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22. Furuhjelm to Wilhelmina, Sitka, September 28, October 10, 1861 [author’s translation]. 23. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 4/16 October, 1860. 24. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 9/21 September 1859. 25. Ibid.; 14/26 April 1860. 26. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 14/26 April 1860. 27. Patricia Grimshaw, Paths of Duty. On women as moral beings, see Miss Mulock. A Woman’s Thoughts about Women (New York, 1858), pp. 263–265. 28. See Ilya Vinkovetsky, Russian America. An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire 1804–1867 (Oxford, 2011) for the difference between the early colonizers from Siberia and the Europeanized Russians that began to arrive in Russian America with the circumnavigations. 29. Golovin, Civil and Savage Encounters, pp. 89, 107–108, 116, 136. 30. Furuhjelm to her mother, 12 o’clock at night, Government House. Sitka, 4/16 October 1860. 31. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, April 26, 1860; June 20, 1860; October 16, 1860. 32. Furuhjelm to Wilhelmina, 5/17 January 1863 [author’s translation]. 33. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 14/26 April 1860. 34. Ibid. 35. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, January, 1, 1861. 36. Furuhjelm to Wilhelmina, September 28, October 10, 1861 [author’s translation]. 37. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 13/25 September, 1861. 38. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, October 16, 1860; September, 25, 1861; Furuhjelm to Wilhelmina, September 28, October, 10, 1861. 39. Tikhmenev, A History of the Russian-American Company, pp. 195–96. 40. Letter from Veniaminov to Filaret 1856–1857 in ibid. 41. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 14/26 April, 1860. 42. Hampus Furuhjelm, cited in Annie Furuhjelm, Människor och öden (Helsingfors, 1932), p. 100 [author’s translation]. 43. Letter from Hampus Furuhjelm to his father, Sitka, 1851 in the Archives of the Museum of Cultures, Helsinki. 44. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, September 25, 1861. 45. See Catherine Hall, “Of Gender and Empire: Reflections of the Nineteenth Century,” in Gender and Empire, pp. 58–59. Sonja Luehrmann argues that this kind of civilizing discourse was in fact similar to racialized thinking. Sonja Luehrmann, Alutiiq Villages under Russian and U.S. Rule (Fairbanks, AK, 2008), pp. 120–122. 46. Furuhjelm to Wilhelmina 8/20 January 1861. [author’s translation]. 47. Furuhjelm, Diary, July 17; July 20; August 11, 1860. 48. Ibid., Sunday July 24, 1860; Furuhjelm to Wilhelmina, Sitka, February 2, 1862.

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49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57.

58. 59. 60.

61. 62.

63. 64. 65. 66.

67. 68.

Married to the Empire Furuhjelm, Diary, Thursday, June 23, 1860. Ibid., Sunday, July 24, 1860. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, December 4, 1859. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, February 2, 1860. Furuhjelm, Diary, Sunday, July 24, 1860. See Grimshaw, Paths of Duty, pp. 50–73. Vinkovetsky, Russian America, pp. 184–185. Golovin, Civil and Savage Encounters, pp. 93, 103. The End of Russian America: Captain P. N. Golovin’s Last Report, 1862, translated by Basil Dmytryshyn and E. A. P. Crownhart-Vaughan (Portland, OR, 1979). When RAC’s privileges ended in 1862, they were only temporarily extended. Alaska was sold to the United States in 1867. Vinkovetsky, Russian America, pp. 87–88; James R. Gibson, “Russian Dependence upon the Natives of Alaska,” in Frederick Starr, ed., Russia’s American Colony (Durham, 1987), pp. 77–104; Gibson, “The Sale of Russian America to the United States” in ibid., pp. 271–294; Lydia T. Black, Russians in Alaska, 1732–1867 (Fairbanks, AK, 2004), p. 281. Furuhjelm to her mother, Government House. Sitka, 13/25 September, 1861; Sitka, 14/26 March, 1862. Furuhjelm to her mother, Government House. Sitka, April 28, 1862. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 14/26 March 1862; Good Friday, April 21, May 3, 1861; Government House. Sitka. 13/25 September 1861; Furuhjelm to Wilhelmina 8/20 January, 1861. Sandford, Woman in Her Social and Domestic Character, pp. 147, 171–172; Welter, Dimity Convictions, p. 39. Peter N. Stearns, Childhood in World History (London and New York, 2006), p. 57; James Marten, “Family Relationships,” in Colin Heywood, ed., A Cultural History of Childhood and Family in the Age of Empire (Oxford, 2010), pp. 23, 27; Colin Heywood, “Introduction,” in ibid., p. 3; Christina de Bellaigue, “Faith and Religion,” in ibid., p. 151; Hugh Cunningham, Children and Childhood in Western Society Since 1500 (New York and London, 2005), p. 58. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, October 20, 1859. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, July 24, 1860. Ibid. It is highly probable that this last book was the one Anna referred to when she thanked her mother for sending her “Hints on education,” but we cannot be completely sure. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, May 5, 1860; July 24, 1860; Furuhjelm to Wilhelmina, Sitka, September 28, October 10, 1861. Furuhjelm, Diary, Sunday, June 26, 1860. Ibid., Wednesday, July 20, 1860; Sunday, June 26, 1860. Author’s italics.



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69. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 14/26 March 1862. 70. Marten, “Family Relationships,” in A Cultural History of Childhood and Family, pp. 31–33. 71. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, October 16, 1860. 72. Furuhjelm to her mother, onboard the Kamtschatka, 1/13 January 1862. San Francisco. 73. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, May 5, 1860; January 1, 1861. 74. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, January 1, 1861; September 25, 1861. 75. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, May 5, 1860. 76. See for ex Sandford, Woman in Her Social and Domestic Character, p. 164. 77. Harriet Martineau, “On Female Education,” Monthly Repository, 20, 1823, pp. 77–81, pp. 79–81. 78. Furuhjelm, Diary, Thursday, August 11, 1860. 79. See Ulvros, Fruar och mamseller, pp. 169–170. 80. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, June 20, 1860. 81. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, February 2, 1860. 82. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, July 24, 1860; January 1, 1861. 83. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, January 1, 1861; Furuhjelm to Wilhelmina, Sitka March 24, April 5, 1861. 84. Hints to Mothers was first published in 1833 and was reprinted 14 times by midcentury. Maternal Management of Children in Health and Disease was published in London 1840. 85. Thomas Bull, Hints to Mothers for the Management of Health During the Period of Pregnancy and in the Lying-in Room: With an Exposure of Popular Errors in Connexion with Those Subjects and Hints upon Nursing, 19th edition (London, 1877), p. 220–221. 86. Ibid., p. 224. 87. Ibid., 225. 88. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, June 20, 1860. 89. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, September 25, 1861. 90. Furuhjelm, Diary, Sunday, June 26, 1860. 91. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, April 28, 1862. 92. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, December 7, 1860. 93. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, June 20, 1860. 94. Furuhjelm to her mother, Kodiak, 8/20 June, 1860. 95. Western families increasingly emphasized privacy in their personal and family lives (Marten, “Family Relationships,” p. 21). 96. Furuhjelm, Diary, Wednesday, June 22, 1860. 97. Ibid., Wednesday, June 29, 1860.

242

98. 99. 100. 101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111.

112.

113. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121.

122. 123. 124. 125.

Married to the Empire Ibid., Thursday, June 30, 1860. Ibid, Tuesday, July 5, 1860. Ibid., Sunday, July 17, 1860; Tuesday, July 5, 1860. Ibid., Thursday, August 11, 1860. Ibid., Monday, 11/23 June, Sitka, 1862. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, February 2, 1860. Ibid. Ibid. Welter, Dimity Convictions. L. Davidoff and C. Hall, Family Fortunes. Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780–1850 (London, 1987), p. 114. Dinah Maria Mulock Craick, A Woman’s Thoughts About Women (London, 1858), pp. 23–24. Sandford, Woman in Her Social and Domestic Character, p. 15. See Fowler, The Embroidered Tent, p. 195, for similar difficulties among middleand upper-class women in 19th-century Canada. Hammer, Daughters and Mothers. Mothers and Daughters, p. XIII. See also Nancy Chodorow, “Family Structure and Feminine Personality,” in Women, Culture, and Society, Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere, eds. (Stanford, CA, 1974). Hammer, Daughters and Mothers. Mothers and Daughters, p. 132. This theory was first mentioned by Sigmund Freud in 1931. See his “Female Sexuality” in Collected Papers, vol. 5 (London, 1950). Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 17/29 December 1861. Ibid. Furuhjelm to her mother, onboard the Kamtschatka, 1/13 January 1862. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 14/26 March 1862. Ibid. Ibid., June 20, 1860. Ibid., July 3, 1859. Ibid., February 2, 1860; September 25, 1861. Lillian Faderman argues that married women were in special need of women’s friendship. Surpassing the Love of Men: Romantic Friendship and Love Between Women from the Renaissance to the Present (New York, 1981). Furuhjelm to her mother, November 25, December 7, 1860; New Years Day, 1861. Golovin, Civil and Savage Encounters, p. 114. Furuhjelm to her mother, onboard the Kamtschatka. 1/13 January 1862. San Francisco. Apparently, Anna had better sense than her husband.



126. 127. 128. 129. 130.

131. 132. 133.

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Christensen, Letters from the Governor’s Wife, p. 250. Furuhjelm to her mother, Sitka, 9/21 September 1862. Furuhjelm to Wilhelmina, 5/17 January, 1863. Christensen, Letters from the Governor’s Wife, pp. 250–251; Pierce, Builders of Alaska, p. 43. The tarantass has been described as two long poles serving as parallel axles supporting a large basket forming a cup or bowl. It was not suspended on springs and generally had no benches. The vehicle was accessed by an external ladder. The interior was generally covered by straw, changed at intervals for cleanliness, upon which the passengers rested. It was supposed to reduce road jolting on long-distance travel. Ida Höerle who had been Anna’s maid in Sitka had come from Dresden to rejoin the family. Annie Furuhjelm, Människor och öden, pp. 161–162. Johnny died from an operation in 1904. Mary died in 1911 from pneumonia. Otto and Elis were shot in the Finnish civil war in 1918. See Christensen, Letters from the Governor’s Wife, pp. 256–257.

Epilogue

E

lisabeth von Wrangell, Margaretha Etholén, and Anna Furuhjelm were three courageous young women who married men they barely knew and accompanied them across half the world to an isolated outpost of the Russian empire. The narratives they left behind of their experiences as governor’s wives in Russian America are unique in several ways. Very few European women had the opportunity to travel to Alaska, and fewer still recorded their experiences as extensively as these women did. Their letters and diaries clearly reflect the way gender roles and ideals of womanhood were played out in the only Russian overseas colony. Two of these accounts, by Margaretha and Anna, are unusually intimate and reveal the women’s inner lives and emotions in an unusually detailed way. No doubt this was due to their situation of relative isolation. In the absence of their regular network of family relations and friends that allowed for conversation on intimate matters, these women turned to diaries and correspondence to express their inner lives and emotions. This book has strived to recreate this intimacy, because the feelings and emotions of Margaretha and Anna are vital to our understanding of the motivations and expectations of these women, and by extension of the motivations and expectations of nineteenth-century women of their social and ethnic background. The inner life of these women was of course also closely linked to how they experienced the colony of Russian America, experiences that in many ways differ from those of contemporary European males in the colony. In contrast to Margaretha’s and Anna’s writings, Elisabeth’s letters contain very few passages that relate to her inner life. Her private feelings are concealed behind a veil of irony that was undoubtedly a consciously adopted style of writing. Literary scholars have argued that women travelers often used irony to handle the fact that traveling involved activities that were considered unfeminine. Elisabeth used irony to convey an image of herself as free-spirited, strong-willed, and brave 245

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and to make her stories amusing to the reader. Unlike Margaretha and Anna, Elisabeth only rarely displayed her emotions in her text. If this had to do with her personality, her upbringing, her Baltic-German background, her less intense religiosity, or the fact that she grew up in the early nineteenth century influenced by different norms and ideals than were Margaretha and Anna is impossible to say. In many ways her writings come across as belonging more properly in the eighteenth century than in the nineteenth century. Even though the accounts of Margaretha and Anna are very personal and intimate, they are both concerned with the general issue of women’s experiences and gender roles in the framework of empire. All three women were affected by prescriptive gender roles and ideals of womanhood in one way or another. As we have seen, Anna was the one who had most clearly internalized the cult of domesticity and the virtues of true womanhood. Her letters and diaries are characterized by a heartfelt desire to fulfill these ideals to become the perfect wife and mother. The virtues of true womanhood were central to Margaretha as well, and she never questioned them. To her, they were unavoidable, yet unattainable, demands that constantly made her suffer from a sense of personal failure. In Elisabeth’s journal and letters, the virtues of womanhood are not present at all. But it would be wrong to conclude that she was not affected by the dominant gender roles of her time, which confined her to the home and restricted her freedom. Prescriptive gender roles informed these women’s experiences of their encounter with Russian America and their role as governor’s wife. Like their counterparts in the colonies of Western empires, they felt obliged to establish and uphold European values and practices, including Christian morality, domestic virtues, and gender roles. And, like elite women in other European colonies, they tried to fulfill this role to the best of their abilities in their various capacities as chatelaines, role models, educators, and foster mothers. Hence, the Russian empire was far from unique in the role it prescribed to women in its civilizing mission. However, contemporary ideals of middle- and upper-class womanhood were ill suited to frontier society. This is evident both in Russian America and in the neighboring provinces of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Marion Fowler has argued that there was a tension between masculine and feminine attributes among the British women who encountered the North American wilderness. They had been raised to be delicate, dependent, and passive. Yet, on the frontier they had to be brave, strong, and resourceful. Sylvia Van Kirk agrees, arguing that the very

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qualities for which these women were extolled made it almost impossible for them to adapt to the rigors of fur trade society. Hence, while the fur traders admired the delicate mold in which a woman such as Frances Simpson, the wife of Governor Simpson, had been cast, it was precisely her frail disposition that jeopardized her ability to accept life in the colonies.1 Anna Furuhjelm was the governor’s wife whose experience most clearly expressed this tension, and she had the hardest time accepting life in the colonies. The clash between the immorality she encountered in Sitka and the virtues of womanhood that she had been taught to believe in was for Anna difficult and truly disturbing. What is more, the “feminine” virtues that she had internalized (i.e., her submissiveness and dependence) made her incapable of acting to change matters and to assert her female moral superiority. Adapting to life in the colonies was difficult for Margaretha too. However, in her case, this had more to do with isolation and loneliness than with a conflict between frontier society and prescriptive ideals of womanhood. Had she not suffered the loss of her son, Margaretha would probably have managed rather well in Sitka. She had an important task to perform in the colonies as an educator, a task that she both excelled in and enjoyed. It is also likely that she would have made friends among her Finnish compatriots had she not been so depressed and withdrawn. Nevertheless, even Elisabeth, who appears to have been the least affected by prescriptive gender roles, as well as the most outgoing of the three women, had difficulties adapting to life in the colonies. The “masculine” attributes that she expressed when recounting her travels across Siberia did not help her to cope with the isolation of the colonial outpost. Ironically, of the three women, it was actually Anna who felt most at home in Sitka in the end. There are several likely reasons for this. First, there is evidence suggesting that she was a much stronger person in real life than the woman who inhabits her diary and letters from Sitka. Moreover, the very fact that she decided to devote herself to home and family made life in the colonies less painful. It was much easier to cope with the loneliness of life as a governor’s wife in Russian America if you enjoyed staying in, something Anna certainly did. Julie Roy Jeffrey came to similar conclusions when studying women in the American West. She found that western women were committed to the virtues of domesticity, and that prescribed ideals of womanhood helped them retain a sense of self and offered hope of an ever-improving life.2 When Anna Furuhjelm went back to Russia in 1864, she was replaced by the last governor’s wife in Russian America, the eighteen-year-old Maria Vladimirovna Maksutova, daughter of a former governor-general of Irkutsk. She

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had married Prince Maksutov, Hampus Furuhjelm’s former assistant, who had been appointed chief manager of the Russian-American colonies in December 1863. She arrived in Sitka with her husband, his two daughters from a previous marriage, Anna and Elena, and a nurse on May 26, 1864. Anna Furuhjelm received her ceremoniously and presented her to her stepson, Alexander, who Anna had looked after during the prince’s absence. According to relatives, the princess was never a caring mother to the children from her husband’s first marriage, but she seems to have been a popular first lady—exceptionally intelligent, elegant, and accomplished, “speaking English with ease and singular accuracy.”3 A contemporary visitor reported that “society here is very agreeable” and, much to her surprise, had “really been cosmopolitan.” Princess Maksutova “is greatly beloved by all who have the pleasure of her acquaintance and the poor among the people here revere her as an angel of mercy,” another visitor wrote.4 However, her time as the leader of Sitka’s society was to be cut short. The sale of Alaska to the United States, which had been delayed due to the Civil War, was now executed. On March 30, 1867, Secretary of State William H. Seward agreed to purchase Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million, and on October 1867 the territory was formally transferred to the United States. The future of Russia on the Pacific now lay in the fertile Amur Valley. The reasons behind Russia’s decision to sell its remote outpost in America were a combination of geographical, economic, political, and military considerations. One significant reason was Russia’s acquisition of the Amur region in the Far East. Both the Russian imperial state and the RAC had always been interested in gaining influence in the Far East and access to the Chinese and Japanese markets. With the acquisition of the northern part of the Amur region in 1858 and the Maritime region east of the Ussuri River in 1860, the colony in America became less important and more peripheral. This new region provided better access to the Pacific Ocean and the markets of East Asia. Powerful state officials argued that Russia needed to focus its resources on the strategically more important Asian Far East and thus had to let Russian America go.5 In this context, it is interesting to note that only one year after his return to Russia, Hampus Furuhjelm, one of RAC’s most competent administrators, was appointed military governor of the Maritime Provinces in Eastern Siberia and stationed in Nikolaevsk at the mouth of the Amur River. Maria Maksutova watched the ceremony of the transfer of sovereignty over Alaska together with Marietta Davis, the wife of General Jefferson C. Davis,

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who was to replace her as Sitka’s first lady. Two hundred and fifty American and eighty Russian soldiers waited on the parade ground in front of the Governor’s House. As the Russian flag was lowered, it was caught by the wind and entangled around the flagpole. After several attempts to tug it loose, a Russian soldier was ordered to climb up and disentangle it. It took three attempts before the flag was finally brought down, and when it was, it landed on the bayonets of the soldiers below. The whole event was a nerve-wrecking affair for the Russians present, and the princess was in tears.6 After a brief declaration by Captain Peshchurov, whereby the territory of Russian America was transferred to the United States, a dual cannon salute from the Russian batteries and the American warships was fired. General Lovell Rousseau accepted the delivery of the territory on behalf of the United States government. The American flag was hoisted and a second salute fired. The American army, led by General Davis, now took over the administration of Alaska. All the property of the Russian colony with the exception of the property belonging to the Orthodox church was turned over to the American government. American troops occupied the barracks, and General and Mrs. Davis moved into the Governor’s House. In January 1868, Maria Maksutova left Sitka with the children, while her husband Dmitrii stayed on to assist with the transfer and the emigration of Russian subjects. Marietta Davis, the new first lady in Sitka, was very impressed with the grandeur and splendor of the residence. “It was magnificent,” she wrote to her sister. “All about the walls were cedar panels and mirrors from Russia that doubled the hundreds of candles in the brass chandeliers.” She was also struck by “[t]he silken red draperies, the heavy carved furniture that came all the way from St Petersburg.”7 The Governor’s House continued to serve as the focal point of Sitka’s social life. In a scrapbook that Marietta Davis kept, there are several dance cards and invitations to dances and receptions held in her new home. She organized a surprise party every week, as well as 4th of July celebrations and children’s egg hunts at Easter, which according to the reports of the Alaska Times proved to be popular occasions.8 While Marietta’s role in Alaska appears to have been similar to that of the Russian governors’ wives, life in Sitka changed after 1867. Job opportunities were few, land was expensive, and commodities were costly and scarce. The town had no civil government, and it was populated by rowdy troops and armed pioneers. Russians and Creoles had difficulties finding their place among the white Americans.9 The Russian population, including Finns and Balts, had a choice of

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staying in Alaska and becoming American citizens or accepting a free passage to Russia within three years. A number of Russian subjects chose to remain after the transfer, but soon most of them left. Some returned to Russia; others migrated to California or British Columbia.10 Three years after the transfer, only about fifteen Russians were left in Sitka. Suffering badly from poverty, members of the Russian community were given rations from the Army’s commissary department during the winter months to keep them from starvation.11 Contrary to what some Americans had expected, the Russians were not replaced by a flood of American settlers. At the time of the purchase, Sitka had 968 inhabitants, but within a year the population began to decline. Many persons arrived only to decide to leave again. In 1870, there were no more than ten officers in Sitka, all of them bachelors. Major John C. Tidball, commander of the Department of Alaska 1870–1871, reported that the only female company was “four or five Russian ladies, belonging to the priests’ families and that of the former chief of the counting house of the Fur Company.” Socializing was made difficult as “they do not speak English and we do not speak Russian.”12 Apart from these officers, within five years after the transfer there were only a handful of American soldiers and civilians left, as well as a few Creoles, Aleuts, and Tlingits.13 Whereas the RAC and the Russian state left Alaska in order to concentrate its resources on its newly acquired territory in the Asian Far East, the Russian Orthodox church remained and continued to be actively involved in the Department of Alaska. All church personnel returned to Russia after the transfer. However, a new group of missionaries arrived who regarded Alaska and its population as essentially Russian and who had a cultural ambition as well as a religious mission.14 The Orthodox church now had an almost exclusively Native and Creole following. Disappointment with the local Presbyterian church and with the American administration led large numbers of Tlingits to convert to Orthodox Christianity in the 1880s and 1890s.15 Hence, contrary to what Anna Furuhjelm would have expected, it was not the Protestant, but the Russian Orthodox church that eventually “converted” the Tlingits to Christianity. Even though the three governor’s wives in this book may not have played a significant role in the colonization of Russian America, the colony certainly made a lasting impression on them. Their stay in the colony transformed and developed them as individuals and turned them into strong women. None of them would ever forget their first home in the Governor’s House high up on a cliff above the Pacific Ocean.

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No t es 1. Van Kirk presents this “delicate mold” or “ideal of womanhood” as impossible to liberate oneself from. If the background of these women had not prepared them for hardship, they could not adapt to frontier society. Fowler, in contrast, claims that the wilderness these women encountered encouraged them to develop “masculine” attributes and allowed them to get away from “the shackles of gender-stereotyping.” Sylvia Van Kirk, Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society in Western Canada 1670−1870 (Winnipeg, 1980), pp. 7, 193, 199; Marion Fowler, The Embroidered Tent. Five Gentlewomen in Early Canada (Toronto, 1982), pp. 10−11. 2. Julie Roy Jeffrey, Frontier Women: “Civilizing” the West? 1840–1880 (New York, 1979), p. 6. 3. Vladimir Rokot, Kniaz Russkoi Ameriki D. P. Maksutov (Moscow, 2007), p. 216. Maria Maksutova gave birth to two children of her own, Alexandra and Vladimir, before the colony was sold to the United States in October 1867. 4. Richard A. Pierce, Builders of Alaska. The Russian Governors (Kingston, ON, 1986), p. 49; Russian America, 1741–1867: A Biographical Dictionary (Kingston, ON, 1990), p. 335. 5. Ilya Vinkovetsky, Russian America. An Overseas Colony of a Continental Empire 1804–1867 (Oxford, 2011), p. 186. 6. Vladimir Rokot, Kniaz Russkoi Ameriki, p. 216. 7. Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes, Jr. & Gordon D. Whitney, Jefferson Davis in Blue: The Life of Sherman’s Relentless Warrior (Baton Rouge, LA, 2002), p. 373. See also Stephen W. Haycox, “The Frontier Letters of a Post Commander’s Wife: Marietta Davis at Sitka, 1867,” Alaska History 1 (Fall/Winter 1985). 8. See Sitka, Alaska Times. June 25, 1869; Cheairs Hughes, Jr. and Whitney, Jefferson Davies in Blue, p. 373. 9. Sergei Kan, Memory Eternal: Tlingit Culture and Russian Orthodox Christianity Through Two Centuries (Seattle, 1999). For the Alutiiq people under U.S. rule, see Sonja Luehrmann, Alutiiq Villages under Russian and U.S. Rule (Fairbanks, AK 2008). 10. Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Alaska 1730–1885 (San Francisco, 1886), pp. 602–603; T. Ahllund, “From the Memoirs of a Finnish Workman,” translated by Panu Hallamaa, Richard Pierce, ed., Alaska History 21 (Fall 2006), pp. 1−25. 11. Eugene C. Tidball, No Disgrace to My Country: The Life of John C. Tidball (Kent, OH, 2002), pp. 392–393. 12. Ibid., p. 385.

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13. Jefferson Davis in Blue, p. 385; Bancroft, pp. 602−603; Alaska Herald, May 18, 1871. 14. Jesse D. Murray, “Together and Apart: The Russian Orthodox Church, the Russian Empire and Orthodox Missionaries in Alaska, 1794–1917,” in Russian History 40, no. 1, 2013, pp. 91–110, p. 105. 15. Vinkovetsky, Russian America, p. 156; Kan, Memory Eternal, pp. 245–277. See also Andrei Znamenski, Shamanism and Christianity: Native Encounters with Russian Orthodox Missions in Siberia and Alaska, 1820–1917 (Westport, CT, 1999), pp. 95–137.

B ibli o graphy

Unp u b l ish ed source s Johan von Bartram’s letter to Uno Cygnaeus dated Lehtiniemi November 29, 1856 in Finland’s National Archives, Cygnaeus Collection, letters received. Uno Cygnaeus, Letters, Finland’s National Archives, Cygnaeus Collection 1839–1845, outgoing mail. Margaretha Etholén, Diary, Åbo Academy Library, Manuscript Collections. Etholén Papers, Private Collection. Alexander Frankenhaeuser, Letters from Sitka 1841–1843 in appendix to Jarl Enckell, Finländare i Sitka under 1840-talet, unpublished manuscript, Åbo Academy Library, Manuscript Collections. Anna Furuhjelm, Letters from Sitka, Åbo Academy Library, Manuscript Collections. Hampus Furuhjelm, Letters from Sitka to his father, Otto Wilhelm Furuhjelm (1850– 1853), Archives of The Museum of Cultures, Helsinki. Records of the Russian-American Company, 1802, 1817–1867, microfilm of records held at the National Archives, Washington D.C., Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley. Elisabeth von Wrangell, Letters from Sitka, The Estonian Historical Archives, formerly The Estonian State Central Archives, Eesti NSV Riiklik Ajaloo Kesk Archiv, Fond 2057, Nim I S. –ü.494.

Pu b l ish e d sources Ahllund, T., “From the Memoirs of a Finnish Workman,” transl. by Panu Hallamaa, ed. by Richard Pierce, Alaska History 21 (Fall 2006), pp. 1–25.

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I n d ex

Alaska Orthodox Church in, 250 purchase of, 248–49 Alcohol abuse, 218 Aleuts, 19, 195 Alexei Mikhailovich, Tsar, 79 Alutiiq, 7, 12, 17, 19, 81 cruelty toward, 17 women, 217 Animal husbandry, 20 Banner, Natalia, 7, 117 Baranov, Alexander, 4, 5, 6, 7 Barnston, Ellen, 145 Barnston, George, 145 Barter, 53 Bartram, Johan, 108, 125, 127 Battle of Sitka, 2 Beau monde, 49 Breastfeeding, 54–55 Etholén, Margaretha and, 149 Furuhjelm, Anna and, 226–29 infant mortality and, 54 lack of knowledge about, 203 Bremer, Fredrika, 225 Campbell, Anne, 171 Canada, wilderness of, 44 Cautley, Mary, 185, 186 Chateaubriand, François-René de, 46 Chekov, Anton, 47

Child rearing, 223 Children breastfeeding, 54–55 death of, 143–48 flogging and, 217 infant mortality and, 144 sea voyages and, 68 travel on trail with, 63–64, 65 von Wrangell, Elisabeth and, 52–56 China customs in, 51 dance in, 51 food in, 50 trade with, 47 von Wrangell’s visit to, 46–52 Chistiakov, Peter Egorovich, 5, 12, 77, 79, 81 Christianity, 17 conversion attempts in Sitka, 219 conversion of Tlingits, 250 death of child, as test of faith, 144– 46 Furuhjelm, Anna and, 196 missionaries, 4 morality and, 246 in Sitka, 219 spread of, 2 Yakuts and, 67 Circumnavigation, Russian, 3 Civilization, of Russian America, 8 Civilization, of Sitka, 16

269

270

Colonization Lutherans and, 13–14 Orthodox Church and, 13–14 women’s roles in, 10 Communication improvements in, 201 with Russian America, 15 Cooper, James Fenimore, 46, 61 Cossacks, 1 Creoles, 18, 81, 200 civilization of, 19 dress, 123 education of, 117 perception of, by Furuhjelm, Anna, 216 promiscuity of, 218 use of term, 5 Crimean War, 2, 192 Cult of domesticity, 8, 182, 247 Furuhjelm, Anna and, 232 Cultural arrogance, from imperialism, 45 Cultural identity, 177 in Russian America, 16–21 Customs, 55 Chinese, 51 in New World, 78 Cygnaeus, Uno, 14, 18, 19, 21, 108, 113, 117, 118, 119, 120, 122, 125, 127, 128, 130, 152 disatisfaction with Sitka, 127 Dance Chinese, 51 customs, 81 Davis, Jefferson C., 248, 249 Davis, Marietta, 248, 249 Decembrists, 62 Dependence, of women, 229–33 Diaries of Etholén, Margaretha, 24 of Furuhjelm, Anna, 230 Dickens, Charles, 225 Disease migration, 17 Dobell, Peter, 55

Index

Domesticity, cult of, 8 Dress Creole, 123 for travel on Okhotsk trail, 56–57 Drew, Gertrude, 144 Dryden, John, 46 Education for girls, 7 importance of, 223 for Native Americans, 199 of women, 116–17, 225 Enberg, Carl, 108 English Church, 177 Enlightenment, 222 motherhood and, 223 Entitlement, class, 16 Equality, in marriage, 213 Estonia, 63, 97 Ethnic groups, in Sitka, 128 Etholén, Adolph, 12, 107, 119, 120 achievements of, 12–13, 124 improvements for lower classes, 124 personality of, 126 Sitka Lutheran Church and, 121 Etholén, Edward, death of, 143–48 Etholén, Julian, 119 Etholén, Margaretha, 7, 12, 88, 103–63 arrival in Sitka, 114–16 behavior of, 125 breastfeeding and, 149 conflict between public and private life, 139–63 death of mother and, 153–56 death of son, 143–48 diary of, 105–6, 109, 141–42, 148–49, 152, 157 early history of, 107 education and, 116–17 etiquette and, 118 failure as wife and, 140 Finnish traditions and, 129 as first lady, 124–30 foster daughter and, 120

Index

friendship with Furuhjelm, Anna, 183, 197 Governor’s House and, 121–22, 152 homesickness and, 110 life after death of child, 148–53 life story of, 21–27 marriage and, 108, 140 missionary work of, 116–24 motherhood and, 14, 109–10 ocean voyages of, 109–14 perception of Sitka, 116 portrait of, 104 reflections on her faults and shortcomings, 156–61 return to Russia, 161–63 Royal Society and, 112 self-doubt and, 141 Sitka’s social life and, 124–25 von Wrangell versus, 110 Etiquette Etholén, Margaretha and, 118 in Sitka, 84 Europe communication with Russian America, 201 infant mortality in, 144 map of, viii women’s role in, 10 Europeans, Native Americans versus, 81–82 Evangelicalism, 22 Evangelical Protestants, 9 Fallen women, 9 Fedorova, Matrena, 5 Female education, 7 Female purity, 22 Feminine virtues, 247 Feminist point of view, 233 Fischer, Babette, 174 Flogging, of children, 217 Food Chinese, 50 Russian, 50

271

Fowler, Marion, 246 Frankenhaeuser, Alexander, 17, 18, 19, 21, 122, 123, 125, 126, 127, 128, 130, 143 Freud, Sigmund, 232 Fur rush, 1 Fur trade, 1, 86 Native Americans and, 4 Furuhjelm, Anna, 7, 12, 88, 167–238 arrival in Sitka, 168, 190–96 birth of first child, 211–12 bond with mother, 174–78, 214–15 breastfeeding and, 226–29 childhood of, 172 cult of domesticity and, 232 cultural identity of, 177 death of mother, 173, 235–36 dependence and lack of self-confidence, 229–33 diary of, 230 disappointment in mother, 215 education and, 223 English Church and, 177 fear of failure, as wife, 182 friendship with Etholén, Margaretha, 183, 197 Furuhjelm, Constance and, 198–99 Governor’s House and, 192–93 as governor’s wife, 183–84 homesickness, 202 isolation from society, 216 lack of music in Sitka and, 225 lack of self-confidence, 200 letters from, 173–74 life story of, 21–27 marriage and, 178–83, 213 moral depravity of Sitka and, 200 motherhood and, 14, 201, 212–13, 228 Native Americans and, 197 opting out of imperial project, 215–20 perception of San Francisco, 189 perception of West Indian Island, 187–88 as perfect wife and mother, 220–26

272

Index

Furuhjelm, Anna (Cont.) portrait of, 168 role as governor’s wife, 196–204 role as wife, 182 self-identity of, 232 separation from Hampus, 202–3 setback, as governor’s wife, 199 Sitka as home for, 234–38 travel to Sitka, 171, 181, 184–90 von Wrangell versus, 45, 58 Furuhjelm, Constance, 198–99, 235 Furuhjelm, Elis, 236 Furuhjelm, Hampus, 12, 14, 172, 192, 222, 231 as ideal husband, 182 promotion of, 236–37 relationship with Tlingits, 195–96 separation from Anna, 202–3 Furuhjelm, Hjalmar, 191, 195 Fusa. See Trading house Gender roles, 246 social roles and, 18 von Wrangell, Elisabeth and, 247 Gibson, James, 1 Gideon, Hiermonk, 5, 6 Golovin, Pavel N., 194, 195, 201, 217, 218, 221 writings on Russians and Native American girls, 218 Governor’s House as center of social life, 249 Etholén, Margaretha and, 121–22, 152 Furuhjelm, Anna and, 192–93 von Wrangell, Elisabeth in, 79 Great Northern War, 13 Grigorievna, Anna, 4 Hagemeister, Ludwig A., 7 Hargrave, Letitia, 145 Higgins, Anne, 144 H.M.S. Sulphur, 21 Hoffman, E.T.A., 67 Holmberg, Henrik Johan, 17

Höppner, Andreas, 123 Horseback riding, women and, 55 Hudson Bay Company, 44, 55, 81, 83, 89, 91, 114, 122, 145, 246 Immorality, in Sitka, 216 Imperialism, cultural arrogance from, 45 Infant mortality breastfeeding and, 54 in Europe, 144 Iosaf, Archimandrite, 4 Irkutsk, 42, 43, 46, 47, 52, 53 as center of culture, 47 distance from Lake Baikal, 48 Irving, Washington, 225 Isolation in Russian America, 15 in Sitka, 245 Jeffrey, Julie Roy, 247 Kachka, 60, 63 Kachuga Landing, 53 Kadnikov, Nikolai Konradovich, 108 Kekur, 77 Khlebnikov, Kirill, 78, 79, 82, 86, 87, 88 Kiakha, 43, 48, 49 social class in, 49 klinkowström, Christian, 128 klinkowström, Martin, 128, 211 klinkowström, sophie, 175 kodiak, 117, 221, 226, 231 konstantin, Grand Duke, 221, 222 kostlivtsov, sergei A., 194, 195, 221 kronstadt, 89, 108 kumyss, 59 kupreianov, iulia, 19, 121 kupreianov, ivan, 114, 115 Lake Baikal, 47 distance from Irkutsk, 48 Langenskjöld, Sophie, 107 Lena River, 53, 56 Lindenberg, Johann Samuel, 128

Index

Literature, influence of, 46 Locke, John, 223 Love, romantic, 178 Lundahl, Augusta, 107 Lutherans, 10, 108 colonization and, 13–14 education and, 120 in Russian Empire, 12–14 Maimachen, 48 Maksutov, Adelaide, 235 Maksutova, Maria Vladimirovna, 247, 248, 249 Malakhov, Alexandra, 120 Maps Europe, viii North America, ix Pacific Empire, vii Russian Empire, vi South America, ix Marriage, 87 equality and, 213 Etholén, Margaretha and, 140 Furuhjelm, Anna and, 178–83, 213 Romantic view of, 179 Victorian, 178 Marryat, Frank, 188 Martineau, Harriet, 225 Masculinity, 10 Migration by barge, 53 disease, 17 to North America, 1 of von Wrangell, Elisabeth, 39, 41– 68 Milovidov, Anna, 120 Missionaries, 4 von Wrangell as, 83–90 Mission civilisatrice, 2 Moodie, Susanna, 44 Moral treatment, 120 Motherhood, 203 burdens of, 58 changes due to, 14

273

death of child and, 143–48 Enlightenment idea of, 223 Etholén, Margaretha and, 109–10 Furuhjelm, Anna and, 201, 212–13, 228 morality and, 120 Muraviev, Matvei Ivanovich, 5 Music, 84, 122 lack of, in Sitka, 225 Nasar, 66–67 Nationalism, 129 Native Americans dance customs, 81 Europeans versus, 81–82 fur trade and, 4 Furuhjelm, Anna and, 197 images of, 61 in Novo Arkhangelsk, 123 reforms for, 6 romanticization of, 46 sexual behavior among, 217 virtues, of women, 79 Nedomolvin, Vasilii, 5 Nerchinsk, 47 New World customs in, 78 travel to, 67–68 von Wrangell and, 77–97 Nicholas I, Tsar, 42 Nikolai I, 26, 108, 109, 111, 113, 114, 128 Norms, 11, 45 North America map of, ix migration to, 1 Novo Arkhangelsk, 2, 39, 42, 77, 94. See also Sitka fouding of, 90 Native Americans in, 123 Ogden, Peter, 81, 83 Öhman, Elise, 125, 128, 129, 161 Okhotsk, 42, 63, 161

274

Okhotsk trail, 46, 55 animals on, 57 difficulties on, 59 state of, 60 travel on, 56–63 Olekminsk, 54 Orthodox Church, 4, 117 in Alaska, 250 colonization and, 13–14 Furuhjelm, Anna and, 197 Pacific Empire, map of, vii Paul I, Tsar, 2 Peace of the Soul, 157 Peter the Great, 13 Pidgin Russian, 52 Pietism, 22 Portraits of Etholén, Margaretha, 38 of Furuhjelm, Anna, 168 of von Wrangell, Elisabeth, 38 Protestants, evangelical, 9 Purity, female, 22 Racism, 18 Reforms, for Native Americans, 6 Responsibility, of governor’s wife, 183 Rezanov, Nikolai, 3, 6, 7, 86 Romanovskii, Alexander Danilovich, 108 Romanticism, 46 Romantic love, 178 Rosenberg, Gustaf, 108 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 223 Rousseau, Lovell, 249 Rowand, Alexander, 129 Royal Society, Etholén and, 112 Russian America. See also Sitka boundaries of, 1 communication in, 15 communication with Europe, 201 cultural identity in, 16–21 European women in, 14–16 experiences of three women, 245–50 isolation in, 15

Index

lack of European women in, 86–87 lawlessness in, 10 Native American girls, sexual advantage of, 216–17 sale of, 248–49 social class in, 11 social status in, 16–21 von Wrangell on, 95 Russian-American Company (RAC), 2, 10, 17, 86, 89, 97, 116, 120, 184, 211, 248 departure of, 250 families and, 5, 7 office of, 47 supervision over, 3 uncertain times for, 221 von Wrangell, Ferdinand and, 41 Russian Americans, rapprochement with Tlingits, 90 Russian Empire Lutherans in, 12–14 map of, vi women in, 8 Russians, in Sitka, 191 Russification, 13 Ruuth, Kajsa Lena, 108 Sahlberg, Reinhold, 17, 108, 109, 114, 117, 122, 125, 129 Sahlström, Henry, 108 Saint Michael’s Redoubt, 88 Saint Petersburg, 3, 44, 46, 162, 236 Sandford, John, 144 San Francisco, 189–90, 233, 234 Schools founding of, 13 for girls, 199 Scientific Revolution, 222 Self-identity, of Furuhjelm, Anna, 232 Seward, William H., 248 Sexism, 18 Sexual standards, Victorian, 217 Shakespeare, William, 112 Sharina, Catherine, 42

Index

Shee T’iká kwáan, 90 Shelikhov, Grigorii, 2, 4 Shelikhova, Natalia, 2, 42, 117 Siberia, 42, 43, 54 perceptions of, 46 Silver mines, of Nerchinsk, 47 Simcoe, Elizabeth, 44, 93 Simpkinson, Francis Guillemard, 115 Simpson, Georg, 44, 114, 122, 124, 129, 145, 247 Sitka, 10, 13, 15, 63, 64, 77, 80, 92. See also Novo Arkhangelsk Christianity, spread of, 219 civilizing mission in, 20 civilization of, 16 as developed city, 123 ethnic groups in, 128 etholén, Margaretha, arrival in, 114–16 etiquette of, 84 filth of, 124 as frontier community, 85–86 furujhelm, Anna, travel to, 184–90 gentlemen’s club in, 126 gossip in, 127, 128 Governor’s House, as center of social life, 249 as home for Furuhjelm, Anna, 234–38 immorality in, 216 imperial project in, 215–20 isolation in, 245 luxury in, 123 moral depravity of, 200 music in, 84 population of, 191 school for girls in, 199 social class in, 20, 126 society, 80 Sitka Lutheran Church, 121 Social class, 11 balls and, 21 entitlement, 16 in Kiakha, 49 in Sitka, 20, 126 womanhood and, 246

275

Social hierarchy, in Sitka, 125 Social roles, gender and, 18 Social status, in Russian America, 16–21 Somerset House, 112 South America, map of, ix Spheres, for men and women, 8–9 Swartz, Ulrika Wilhelmina, 108, 120, 127 Tait, Catharine, 144 Thackeray, William, 225 Tidball, John C., 250 Tlingits, 192, 217 conversion to Christianity, 250 death of, 2 European attitudes toward, 17 idealization of, 17 markets for, 13 rapprochement with Russian Americans, 90 von Wrangell and, 78 Toyons, 78 Trade, with China, 47 Trading house, 50 Troitsko-Savsk, 48 Tsars Alexei Mikhailovich, 79 Nicholas I, 42 Paul I, 2 Peter the Great, 13 Upper Canada, 44 Van Kirk, Sylvia, 246 Verkhne-Udinsk, 48 Victorian age, 213 sexual standards of, 217 Victorian ideals, 178 Victorian society, 45 Virtues, feminine, 247 Virtues, of women, 22, 79, 246 Voevodskii, Stepan Vasilevich, 13, 192 von Bartram, Margaretha, 125, 127, 128 von Bartram, Mariia Alexeyeva, 120 von Behm, Eva, 42

276

von Harder, Leonard, 128 von Kügelgen, Sally, 44 von Romberg, Friedrich, 41 von Romberg, Julie, 41 von Schoultz, Anne Cordelia, 171, 172, 173, 232 education by, 225–26 von Schoultz, Carl, 185 von Schoultz, Nils Gustaf, 171, 172 disappearance of, 175 von Wrangell, Elisabeth, 7, 12, 37–97 adventurous nature of, 53 arrival at Okhotsk, 63–67 civilization of Creoles and, 19 dress, 56–57 encounter with New World, 77–97 as fashionista, 83 Furujhelm versus, 45 in Governor’s House, 79 at home, 90–95 homesickness and, 80, 93 life story of, 21–27 loneliness of, 92 loss of child, 94 marriage of, 42 migration of, 39, 41–68 missionary work of, 83–90 motherhood and, 14, 52–56 Okhotsk trail, travel on, 56–63 poor health of, 97 portrait of, 38 return to Russia, 95–97 in role as governor’s wife, 85 romantic nature of, 62 on Russian America, 95 second child and, 90–91 in Sitka, 80 social duties of, 84–85 Tlingits and, 78

Index

travel to New World, 67–68 visit to China, 46–52 von Wrangell, Ferdinand, 12, 39 account of travel, 64 in protector role, 64 Russian-American Company (RAC) and, 41 Wet-nurse, 228 Wifely submissiveness, in nineteenth century, 213 Wilkes, Charles, 21 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 225 Womanhood, ideal of, 245 Women change in roles, 93 dependence, idea of, 139, 229–33 education for, 7 education of, 225 European, in Russian America, 14–16 fallen, 9 horseback riding and, 55 moral superiority of, 9 role of, 8 roles in colonization, 10 in Russian Empire, 8 social class and, 246 travelers, 43–46 treatment of, 21 “true,” 8 virtues of, 246 Yakuts, 66 Christianity and, 67 Yakutsk, 54, 55, 56, 62 Yanovskii, Semyon Ivanovich, 5 Zagoskin, Lavrentii Alekseevich, 17, 87, 91, 115, 119, 122