Territorial Timeline

Southern boundary of Russian fixed by treaty with Russia

On April 17, 1824, Russia and the United States agreed in a treaty that the boundary between the Russian and U.S. claims would be 54 degrees 40 minutes north, which is now the southern limit of the Alaska panhandle. In 1825 Russia and Great Britain concluded a similar treaty. These treaties eliminated the Russian claims to the Pacific Northwest south of Alaska.

In 1821, Tsar Alexander I of Russia issued a proclamation claiming all of Pacific coast of America north of 51 degrees for Russia and prohibiting non-Russians from entering any waters within 100 miles of the Russian claims. The Russian claims would therefore have prohibited any travel, by sea or overland, in any part of what is now British Columbia and the northern part of western Washington. U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams bluntly informed the Russian ambassador the United States would oppose any Russian claim to any part of North America. In 1823 that policy became part of the famous Monroe Doctrine.