The Imperial Government required that the chief officer of the company
should be commissioned in the service of the crown, and detailed to
the control of the American Territory. His residence was at Sitka, to
which the principal post was removed from Kodiak. In the early history
of the Company there were many encounters with the natives, the
severest battle taking place on the present site of Sitka. The natives
had a fort there, and were only driven from it after a long and
obstinate fight. The first colony that settled at Sitka was driven
away, and all traces of the Russian occupation were destroyed. After a
few years of conflict, peace was declared, and trade became
prosperous. The Company occupied Russian America and the Aleutian
Islands, and pushed its traffic to the Arctic Ocean. It established
posts on the Kurile Islands, in Kamchatka, and along the coast of the
Ohotsk Sea. It built churches, employed priests, and was quite
successful in converting the natives to Christianity.

Having a monopoly of trade and being the law giver to the natives, the
Company had things in pretty much its own way. The governor at Sitka
was the autocrat of all the American Russians. There was no appeal
from his decision except to the Directory at St. Petersburg, which was
about as accessible as the moon. The natives were reduced to a
condition of slavery; they were compelled to devote the best part of
their time to the company's labor, and the accounts were so managed as
to keep them always in debt.

Alexander Baranoff was the first governor, and continued more than
twenty years in power. He managed affairs to his own taste, paying
little regard to the wishes of the Directory, or even of the Emperor,
when they conflicted with his own. The Russians in the company's