Timofey Tarakanov

Timofei Nikitich Tarakanov ( 1774after 1834 ), also written Timofey Tarakanov, was born into serfdom near Kursk, Russia. Tarakanov played an important role in the expansion of Russian operations south from Russian Alaska into Spanish California, usually as hunting party leader of indigenous sea otter hunters, mostly Aleut and Alutiiq people working for the RAC. This task often involved US maritime fur trade merchant ships transporting the hunting parties and their kayaks as far south as Baja California. Tarakanov played a key role in the founding of Fort Ross, California, and helped build and run Fort Elizabeth on Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands. He was granted manumission from serfdom and returned to his home near Kursk in 1819.

Very little is known about his early life. He was born into serfdom around 1774. Tarakanov probably became a serf-employee of the Russian-American Company (RAC) around 1800 or 1801. How he traveled from Kursk to Alaska is not known. He probably went to Kodiak on Kodiak Island, the capital of Russian America at the time. RAC records identify him as a promyshlennik, a term that came from the Siberian fur trade and which the RAC used for employees that were lower class Russians, sometimes Alaskan Creole people of mixed Russian and indigenous ancestry.

Baranov supplied O'Cain with twenty baidarkas (Aleutian kayaks) and about forty indigenous sea otter hunters, plus two overseers to manage the hunters and hunting. Afanasii Shvetsov was the senior Russian overseer and Timofei Tarakanov was assigned as the junior overseer. Over the following few years Tarakanov and Ivan Aleksandrovich Kuskov, the first manager of Fort Ross, met with Coast Miwok and Kashaya Pomo leaders multiple times. They gave various gifts, including special medallions made specifically for the purpose. The RAC later wrote reports saying they had acquired land cessions through these meetings, but they almost certainly misrepresented how the indigenous people viewed the gifts, negotiations, and agreements. The RAC and Russia's preparation of documentation showing land rights north of San Francisco Bay was intended for use in potential diplomatic conflicts with Spain, but for various geopolitical reasons it never became consequential. responsible for managing the hunters and any trade with indigenous peoples that may occur. Baranov ordered Bulygin and Tarakanov to make a detailed survey of the coast south of the Strait of Juan de Fuca to the mouth of the Columbia River. At Grays Harbor or the mouth of the Columbia they were to meet Kad'iak, commanded by Navigator Ivan Petrov with the overall leader of the expedition, Ivan Kuskov, on board. Then the two vessels would continue south to California and establish an outpost at Bodega Bay or some other suitable site. During their time there, at least seven RAC workers, including captain Bulygin and his wife, died from injuries, illness, or other consequences of their misadventures. Tarakanov took over as leader of the main group of survivors who became slaves of the Makah.

Accounts of the ordeal, including reports by Tarakanov, portray the Makah as relatively fair and benevolent, despite the enslavement. The Makah leader known as "Yutramaki" promised to try to sell the captives to whatever ship might sail by Makah territory. Many of the survivors willingly chose enslavement by the Makah over any other option they had. partially through making things such as a large kite, various metal tools made from iron nails, carved wooden dishes, a "war rattle", and a large fortified lodge with gunports.

The expedition's second vessel, Kad'iak, with Kushov, waited for Sv. Nikolai at Grays Harbor before eventually sailing to Trinidad Bay, California, then Bodega Bay. Kushov spent the winter at Bodega Bay, making repairs and waiting for Sv. Nikolai. Despite difficulties with deserters, Kushov's hunters worked the coast in various places, including San Francisco Bay. They had almost 2,000 sea otter skins, an impressive and valuable cargo, when they returned to Sitka in October 1809. This financial success, coupled with Kushov's reconnoitering and Tarakanov's earlier exploration of the Bodega Bay area, led to Baranov proposing to the RAC Main Office in St. Petersburg to seek imperial governmental permission to establish a post in California. Count Nikolay Rumyantsev spoke with Emperor Alexander I, who approved the plan in November 1809. the Chirikov left Sitka to found Fort Ross in November 1811, although other sources say it was delayed until mid-March 1812. Tarakanov was either on board or soon arrived in California some other way. Kuskov investigated Bodega Bay and the Russian River valley, but found both wanting in defensive potential and lacking a good supply of timber for construction. Good timber was found along the coast a little north of the Russian River, so Fort Ross was founded there, on a defensible knoll near a stream and a small but serviceable cove for ships.

While Kuskov was looking for the ideal site for Fort Ross, Tarakanov again met with Coast Miwok and Kashaya Pomo indigenous leaders of the Bodega Bay and Fort Ross coast areas, giving lavish gifts. Some historians have described these transactions as a purchase of the land, but others as well as the Miwok and Kashaya peoples, describe it as a more complicated agreement of mutual friendship and cooperation. In 1818 Russia took steps to prepare diplomatic arguments to use with Spain, claiming that indigenous land rights were acquired. But most historians doubt the veracity of the events described in these diplomatic documents. The Il'mena sailed under command of the American captain William Wadsworth, who was working for the RAC.

At one point Tarakanov and eleven indigenous Alaskan hunters were captured by Spanish authorities near San Pedro.

In May 1816, Kaumualiʻi, seeking freedom from Kamehameha's overlordship, agreed to become a protectorate of Russia. A written report of the event was composed by Tarakanov and others. Kaumualiʻi also gave permission for three RAC forts on Kauai. Fort Elizabeth, was built with stone at the mouth of the Waimea River. The other two, Fort Alexander and Fort Barclay-de-Tolly were smaller earthen works. Tarakanov was involved in building and operating Fort Elizabeth. Schäffer also assigned Tarakanov to deliver letters to Kaumualiʻi and engage in diplomatic negotiations.

As the alliance between Kaumualiʻi and Schäffer grew stronger over 1816, Kaumualiʻi and other Kauai nobility made many land grants and other gifts to RAC, Schäffer, Tarakanov, and others. Among other gifts, Tarakanov was granted a village with eleven Native Hawaiian families on the left bank of the Hanapēpē River. The various grants were voided when the Schäffer affair fell apart. Nevertheless, for a short period, Tarakanov had been granted status akin to Hawaiian nobility while still being a Russian serf.

For various complicated reasons, Kaumualiʻi turned against Schäffer and the RAC. Schäffer tried to make a stand at Fort Elizabeth but was forced to flee to Honolulu, Oahu. Tarakanov and others on Kauai joined him on board Kad'iak, which barely made it to Honolulu and became stuck in the harbor. Native Hawaiians and Americans in Honolulu would not allow the Russians to disembark unless Schäffer surrendered for arrest. He refused and a standoff ensued.

In July 1817 the American Isaiah Lewis, captain of the Panther, offered to take Schäffer away from Hawaii. This would end the "affair" but allow Schäffer to avoid arrest and escape to Europe. Schäffer put the question to his men on Kad'iak. Tarakanov and others urged him to take the deal and leave. On 7 July 1817 Schäffer left for China, then Europe, on Panther. He left behind a committee, headed by Tarakanov, to look after Kad'iak and the many remaining RAC employees and goods on Kauai, Oahu, and other Hawaiian islands. Also on 7 July, just before Schäffer departed, a letter asking for reinforcements and military aid was written. It was signed by Schäffer, Tarakanov, Captain Lewis, and others.

After Schäffer left and those on Kad'iak were freed, Tarakanov took charge of salvaging the situation. He prepared an inventory of RAC property, including the land grants on Kauai. Still having a cordial relation with most American shipmasters in Hawaii, Tarakanov was able to make a deal with Captain Myrick of the Cossack to take two Russians and 41 indigenous Alaskan hunters from Oahu to Sitka. Payment for the trip was secured by stopping in California and hunting sea otters for the American shipmaster. Tarakanov himself returned to Sitka in December 1817 on board the American ship Eagle, under William Heath Davis Sr.

In January 1818 the RAC officer and Russian Naval officer Ludwig von Hagemeister, who had arrived in Sitka in early 1817, took over as the RAC's Chief Manager and governor of Russian America. Baranov was dismissed and left Alaska, but died on the voyage. When Tarakanov arrived in Sitka in December 1817, Hagemeister had already replaced Baranov. Tarakanov had had a good relationship with Baranov, but the much more elitist and autocratic Hagermeister found fault with Tarakanov. Hagermeister believed Tarakanov had not had the authority to make deals with American captains that involving hunting sea otters for them, and reprimanded him for acting "contrary to instructions from superiors". But Hagermeister needed Tarakanov to help repair the situation in Hawaii. In February 1818, on Hagermeister's orders, Tarakanov accompanied Fleet Lieutenant I.A. Podushkin, captain of Otkrytie, to the Hawaiian Islands with the goal of reestablishing friendly relations with Kamehameha, and to recover as much RAC property as they could. Hagermeister's instructions to Podushkin make it clear he did not trust Tarakanov and thought him careless and unreliable. The results of his voyage were reported by Hagermeister in August 1818. All RAC personnel apart from a few deserters were returned to Sitka, but none of the property was recovered. The land grants were void. The Kad'iak was abandoned to slowly rot in Honolulu's harbor. A few small items, like the rigging of Kad'iak were recovered. But the overall financial loss of the Schäffer Affair was calculated at over 200,000 rubles, an enormous sum for that time.

Later life In 1817, when Tarakanov was in Hawaii a ship arrived with the news that the Russian government had approved Tarakanov's manumission from serfdom. A few years earlier he had petitioned for emancipation, probably with Baranov's support. The official ceremony that released him from serfdom had to wait until 1818 when Tarakanov was back in Sitka.

After the Schäffer Affair and Baranov's dismissal, documentation about Tarakanov is sparse. Like many in the RAC, including Baranov himself, Tarakanov married an indigenous woman. She was a Koniag Alutiiq woman. Her Russian baptismal name was Alexandra. They were married in Sitka in 1818. Tarakanov's son Aleksey (also transliterated Alexei) was born in Sitka on 27 February 1819.

Tarakanov continued to work for the RAC through 1819. One of his last jobs in North America was leading a hunting party of about 80 kayaks in the Cross Sound and Glacier Bay areas, assisted by the vessel Finlandiia. Since the Alexander Archipelago had been overhunted for decades, the results were poor, less than 300 otter skins. Whether Tarakanov decided to retire after this, or Hagermeister wanted to get rid of him, or possibly both, is not known. Whatever the case, after the 1819 hunt, Hagermeister sent Tarakanov to Saint Petersburg to report to the RAC directors about the Schäffer affair in Hawaii. The official dispatch noted "[Tarakanov] is of no use to us here".

Very little is known about Tarakanov after this, except that he returned to Russia from Alaska in 1819–1820, and settled in Kursk, his original home.

Little is known about his life after his return to Russia. Archives in Kursk show that he was ranked in the Kursk middle class society, no longer a serf. Kursk records also suggest he left Kursk sometime before 1834, without any indication of where he might have gone, how long, or why.