Northwest Of America Research Articles

International Dimension in Colonization of the North-West of America and California at the End of the 17-18 <sup>th</sup> Centuries

The article reviews the initial period of European colonization of the North Pacific Ocean and California within the context of diplomatic relations between Russia and Spain during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. It tries to understand the policies of European powers in the American Northwest and the reasons for pursuing their colonial interests there. It analyses the history of exploration of these territories, expeditions to the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, and historical maps of this region. For the first time in Russian historiography the authors touch upon the exploration of California in the 18th century.The exploration of the North Pacific Ocean, the northwestern American coast, including certain areas of California, Alaska and the Aleutian Islands has long attracted the attention of European powers. It was a process in which government authorities and private merchant companies took part. The expansion of the Spanish Empire into California was made possible in part because of the concerns of the Madrid court about the strengthening of the Russian and British empires in the North Pacific Ocean. The Spanish documents from the archives of Madrid, Seville and Simancas – the article introduces them into research communication the first time - show the validity of the fears of the Madrid court regarding the inevitable development of Russian colonization in the region. The advance of Russia to the shores of America has economic reasons: Cossacks and merchants reached the Pacific Ocean pursuing the desire to profit from the fur trade. As the economic influence expanded, the state interests of annexing territories and bringing the local population into citizenship followed behind. The territorial advance of the Russians to the Pacific Ocean was facilitated by the ambitious, but at the same time balanced diplomacy of Peter I, which managed to ensure the expansion of the borders of the Russian Empire.Spanish consolidation in certain territories in California was aimed at a possible containment of the Russian advance. Russian-Spanish relations in the Northwest Pacific at the end of the 17th – 18th centuries contributed to the nature of the subsequent development of territories in the North Pacific Ocean.

Economy matters: A study of mislabeling in salmon products from two regions, Alaska and Canada (Northwest of America) and Asturias (Northwest of Spain)

Mislabeling of seafood species has negative economic, social and ecological consequences, from consumer losses due to fraudulent exchange, undermining consumer awareness, to hiding illegal and unreported catches. Salmonids are no exception. They are an important part of the culture and economy of many countries in the northern hemisphere, and identifying possible causes of salmon mislabeling is of great interest, even more so where wild species and species from aquaculture are consumed. Here different types of commercial unrecognizable salmonid products (111 in total) from Asturias in Northwest Spain (Atlantic Ocean), and Alaska and Vancouver Island in Northwest America (Pacific Ocean) were analyzed by DNA Barcoding. The Spanish and Northwest American samples were mislabeled 6% and 23.8% respectively. Species substitutions were respectively wild-farmed and wild-wild, substitute species being cheaper. Economic reasons and social preference of wild over farmed products seem to be the main drivers in the exchanges detected in this study. Enhancing controls over the unrecognizable products to prevent this type of fraud is essential and strongly recommended.

Who is in Charge of the Urban Fringe? Neoliberalism, Open Space Preservation and Growth Control

Cities throughout the world continue to physically expand, complicating access to regional open space for the ever-larger share of the world population that lives in cities. As the importance of a green living environment receives increasing attention, the implementation of strategies for controlling where the urban fringe can and cannot move becomes a prominent issue. European governments face the challenge of designing instruments to effectively guide spatial development against the backdrop of neoliberalism. In search of examples of market-based open space preservation, this paper assesses the mechanisms used to steer urban growth in the metropolitan fringe of two multi-million city regions in the Northwest of America—metropoles with populations growing at a staggering rate that control urban expansion in a liberal planning culture, managing to retain a reputation of liveable and green places. Market-based planning appears to be of limited importance. Explanations and relevance for the European debate are discussed.

Genetic variation in characters important for noble fir greenery production

In Europe and North America the cut branches of noble fir (Abies procera Rehd.) are widely used for greenery production for various decorational purposes. In this study, provenance and family variation were evaluated for a set of quality traits related to greenery production as well as to the harvest of cut branches in kg ha–1. The study was based on 11 field trials. Testing showed that Danish second or later generation seed sources had in general a higher greenery quality than imports from the Pacific Northwest of America. Narrow-sense heritabilities estimated for quality traits (colour, coverage and shoot type, and for height growth and branch characteristics) ranged from 0.04 to 0.17. The tested Danish progeny material showed a substantial amount of genetic variation. The estimated gains from backwards selection showed an increase in the quality as well as the quantity of harvestable branches for greenery production. Estimated gain in net income per harvest was, dependent on selection strategy, estimated to vary between ∈600 and 900 compared with unselected.

Race and Restriction: Anti‐Asian Immigration Pressures in the Pacific North‐west of America during the Progressive Era, 1885–1924

AbstractThis article explores the role that the north‐western states of Washington and Oregon played in the anti‐Chinese and anti‐Japanese movements of the Progressive Era. In extending the investigation to include the agitation led by the Knights of Labor during the 1880s and the final exclusion of the Japanese in 1924, it will demonstrate that, although the methods employed by the two exclusionist movements may have varied, the sentiments were virtually interchangeable – a fact of which the Japanese became increasingly aware. By examining the anti‐Chinese violence of the mid‐1880s, and contrasting it with the relative quiet of the next decade, this study questions the view that such responses were purely based on the pressures of the labour market. It sets out to challenge the assumption that Oregon and Washington were simply adjuncts to California and that their pressures for restriction were little more than the result of the opportunistic demagoguery of a few local politicians.

Istoriia Russkoi Ameriki, 1732-1867 by N. N. s> Bolkhovitinov (review)

REVIEWS 345 Chechens led to soil erosion, siltation, and the spread of malaria; and its efforts to provision the cossack settlements with grain from the lower Volga were inadequate.This forcedthe TerekCossackstojoin in the more developed economy of their ostensible enemies, the Muslim mountain peoples, for their grain, lumber, livestock, cloth, and even their horses and guns, which they obtained throughlegal tradeaswell asthroughsmugglingand raiding.Barrett shows how such exchange 'drewthe Cossacksinto the world of the mountain people, nativized their materialculture, and occasionally led them to subvert state policy', as when cossack trade and smuggling undermined the government 's effortsto tame the mountain people by making them dependent upon the state saltmonopoly (p. II4). Barrett'saccount turnsespeciallypoignant when it describesthe change in Russian military strategy on the North Caucasus frontier in the early nineteenth century. The traditional mode of mountain warfarepractised by the Terek Cossacksagainstthe mountain peoples had been waged for limited objectives containment, retribution, booty, and ransoms. By contrast the war of conquest waged by General Ermolov's army denied mountain communities the opportunity to choose neutrality or mediation and it employed increasingly savage tactics against an ever-widening range of enemies united in defense of theirfaithand culture. Department ofHistory BRIAN DAVIES University ofTexas atSanAntonio Bolkhovitinov, N. N. (ed.) IstoriiaRusskoiAmeriki,I732-I867. Mezhdunarodnyeotnosheniia ,Moscow,3 vols. 1997, 1999, I999. 479, 470, 558 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Price unknown. ACADEMICIAN Nikolai Nikolaevich Bolkhovitinov, the doyen of historians of Russian America, acts as general editor for this large-scalecoverage of a vast theme as well as introducing all three volumes and writingsome of the text in all three. All the contributors,includingJames R. Gibson from Canada and Lydia Black from Alaska in addition to several Russians, observe Bolkhovitinov 's own high standards of scholarship with an impressive use of archival sources and full bibliographies.With a colourfulrepresentationof the flag of the Russian-American Company superimposed upon appropriate nautical scenes on each of the dust-covers,thisisvery nearlyas evocative and thorough a treatmentof its subjectas anybody could wish for. While the epic tale of the activitiesof a motley host of seafarers,merchants and promyshlenniki began with the expeditions of Vitus Bering first commissioned by Peterthe Great in I 725, therewas a prologue compounded of myth and legend concerning the 'stone barrier',the 'impassablenose' and the 'big land' beyond before the Dutchman N. C. Witsen (thoroughly investigated elsewhere by Bruno Naarden) stood out among those igniting Peter'sinterest in the subjectof linksbetween the continents of Eurasiaand North America. Alaskawas 'discovered'by Gvozdev and Fedorovin 1732 and the Northwest of America by Bering in his second expedition along with Chirikov in 174.I But the foundation of the firstpermanent settlementsacrossthe waterwas not 346 SEER, 8o, 2, 2002 made by the Shelikhovbrothersuntil I783-86, afterwhich consolidation was achieved under Baranov. An especially significant feature of eighteenthcentury activity was contact with the indigenous peoples which took on two main forms: trade for their furs;and negotiations for their souls. Under the latter heading, scholarly analysis of missionary operations was virtuallynonexistent throughout the Soviet period. Now, the route to New Valaam can be more completely charted before, during and afterthe firstsubstantialmission of I793-94. (In fact, the projected monasterywas never built, but the smaller settlementof St Herman became known as New Valaam in its stead.) A central part in the story, the rise and fall of the Russian-American Company, is given full coverage here. Activitiesin Californiaas well as in the North-West are scrutinized afresh by his colleagues, while Bolkhovitinov himself examines in detail Russian contacts with Hawaii, with renewed focus on the adventures of Dr Georg Anton Schaffer. Full due is also given to pertinent international relations, the Nootka Sound crisis, the conventions with the USA and Great Britain of I824 and I825 respectively, and remote ramificationsof the Crimean Warleading towardsthe sale of Alaska. Instead of a conclusion, Academician Bolkhovitinov rightly itemizes the distortionsin many of the Soviet publications on Russian America as well as the enormous difficultiesthat he himself encountered in publishing some of his own workbefore I99I, inparticularconcerning the saleof Alaska.He then goes on to dismisspost-I99I ultra-nationalistdemandsforthe returnofAlaska while patriotically defending the renewal made in i990 by the...