Siberia and North America: parallel histories of exploration, conquest and settlement

Alexander Dolinin, author of Against Destiny

(print ISBN 9781601641731, Adobe ebook ISBN 9781601643261, Kindle ISBN 9781601643278, Sony ISBN 9781601643285)

The exploration, conquest and settlement of Siberia by Russians from the late 16th century on was in many respects similar to the exploration, conquest and settlement of North America by West Europeans (Dutch, English, French, Spanish).

Siberia too was explored and conquered by people moving, exploring and settling of their own free will, in search of a better life. Most settlers in Siberia were fleeing from serfdom, which was established in European Russia in the 16th and 17th centuries. In much the same way, the British American colonies were settled largely by English ex-peasants who had been dispossessed by the Enclosures.

Like European settlers in North America, Russian settlers in Siberia within a century or so outnumbered the local aboriginal population. As in North America, the progress of Russian colonization meant eventual conquest, subjugation and to a great extent displacement of the aboriginals by various means: outright conquest through warfare, treaties signed by aboriginal chiefs or elders under the strong effects of alcohol, forcing chiefs, elders and their tribes and communities into heavy debts. But colonization also meant coexistence, trade and integration with the aboriginals, including a considerable number of mixed marriages and liaisons, with mixed-race offspring as a result.

In both Siberia and North America, the process of colonization brought about the decline of aboriginal society through wars, European diseases, alcoholism and other causes. At the same time many aboriginals managed to take advantage of such products of the settlers’ civilization as iron tools and firearms. For the settlers, colonization of the new frontiers brought significant improvement in their quality of life, freedom from feudal or bureaucratic oppression, and material prosperity that they could not dream of in their mother country. Siberians even tended to be bigger, stronger and healthier than the peasants of European Russia, who lived in bondage.

In short, the process of colonization of Siberia and North America followed roughly the same pattern: the European settlers built for themselves a better, freer and more prosperous life at the expense of the subjugated aboriginals, who were territorially as well as culturally displaced.

There was however one exception in Siberia to this general pattern. I will talk about this exception in my next posting.