Alaska purchase and the price of empire

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Alaska purchase and the price of empire

Published: 30 Mar. 2026, 00:06 Updated: 30 Mar. 2026, 14:20

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Roh Jeong-tae

The author is a writer and senior fellow at the Institute for Social and Economic Research.

On the night of March 29, 1867, in Washington, a late visitor arrived at the home of Secretary of State William H. Seward, who served in the cabinet of President Andrew Johnson, Abraham Lincoln’s successor following his assassination. The guest was Eduard de Stoeckl, the Russian minister to the United States. Seward, who had been playing cards with his family, welcomed him despite the hour. It was time to conclude long-running negotiations over the sale of Alaska, which had begun even before the Civil War.

U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward, seated, and Eduard de Stoeckl, the Russian minister to the United States, standing near a globe. [WIKIPEDIA]

By 4 a.m. the next day, March 30, the two sides reached an agreement. Under a treaty drafted in English and French, Alaska became U.S. territory for $7.2 million, roughly two cents per acre.

At the time, the deal was widely derided in the United States as “Seward’s Folly” or “Seward’s Icebox.” Public opinion was skeptical, and the vast, frozen land appeared to many as a costly mistake. It was not until after 1896, when gold and later oil and other natural resources were discovered in abundance, that ridicule gave way to celebration.

Securing congressional approval proved difficult. Stoeckl reportedly resorted to bribing members of Congress to ensure the treaty’s passage in both chambers.

For Russia, the sale was a matter of strategic necessity. The empire lacked the capacity to defend Alaska, particularly against the threat posed by British-controlled Canada. Losing the territory to Britain without compensation was the worst possible outcome. Selling it to the United States, which was not then a principal rival, offered a way to secure revenue while avoiding that risk.

Had Russia retained Alaska, the course of Cold War history might have unfolded differently. Such speculation, however, remains hypothetical.

The mood at the time is captured in an April 9 edition of the New York Tribune, published on the day of the congressional vote. The paper wrote that maintaining a single naval vessel cost $1 million annually, and that killing one Native American on the Nebraska plains cost $115,000. By comparison, it suggested, each Native person in the newly acquired territory might effectively cost $300,000.

The Alaska Treaty was a product of the age of imperialism, when such chilling calculations could appear in print without controversy. In effect, the United States purchased from Russia what was understood as the right to conquer Alaska.

It is a moment from history that is difficult to imagine repeating today. That is why proposals such as President Donald Trump’s suggestion to annex Greenland are widely criticized as anachronistic.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.