Search

Begin New Search Topic History Author Jonathan Tiemann

1. The Alaskan fur rush and the Russian-American Company

Author:
Jonathan Tiemann and Christopher McKenna
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
On 18 July 18031 , Russian Navy Lieutenant Nikolai Aleksandrovich Khvostov, commander of the Sv Elizaveta, faced a critical peril, threatening shipwreck. Having left Kodiak Island in what is now Alaska, bound for the port of Okhotsk, the Elizaveta carried for the Russian-American Company (the Company) an enormous cargo comprising more than 16,000 sea otter skins, some 10,000 fox skins, 8,000 sables, and a small number of other furs, a cargo that was worth about 1.5 million roubles.
Topic:
Capitalism, History, Trade, and Fur Trade
Political Geography:
Russia, North America, and United States of America

2. Discounting Gold: Money and Banking in Gold Rush California

Author:
Jonathan Tiemann and Christopher McKenna
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
Two momentous events early in 1848 completely and abruptly transformed California. On 24 January, James Marshall found gold in a millrace he was building for John Sutter at Coloma, on the South Fork of the American River. Nine days later, on 2 February, the United States and Mexico concluded the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending nearly two years of hostilities. Under the Treaty, Mexico ceded much of the present south-western United States to the US for monetary consideration. An American occupation government had ruled most of California since mid-1846, but neither the American military governor nor the earlier Mexican governors had held firm political control over the remote, sparsely populated territory. 1 Now, the problem was fully in the hands of the Americans.
Topic:
Economics, History, Monetary Policy, Capitalism, Currency, and Banking
Political Geography:
United States

3. Money, Cattle Hides and William A Leidesdorff: California before the Gold Rush

Author:
Jonathan Tiemann, Oenone Kubie, and Christopher McKenna
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Oxford Centre for Global History
Abstract:
The discovery of gold in January 1848, at Nueva Helvetia, John Sutter’s property in the Sacramento Valley, changed the course of Californian history. By the end of March, San Francisco had emptied as its population swarmed to the gold fields that had opened up around Sutter’s lumbermills and by August, the East Coast newspapers were reporting the discovery of Californian gold. In December of that year, President James K Polk confirmed the find in front of Congress and in 1849, one of America’s largest migrations ever took place as hundreds of thousands of gold prospectors, the ‘Forty-niners’, descended on ‘Gold Country’.
Topic:
Agriculture, Economics, History, Natural Resources, Capitalism, Economic Development, Cattle, and Farming
Political Geography:
United States