Chapter 4 Summary and Analysis

Like the men in the previous chapters, Aleksandr Andreyevich Baranov was known as a ruthless and yet loyal leader who led by example and donated his own time and money to his work. Baranov presided over the west coast of North America from Alaska south to the current Canadian/U.S. border. Brown says that Baranov's treatment of Native Americans and even his own people was illegal on occasion, but he held a monopoly on North American trade in the region.

Baranov was born in Finland in 1747, to a family just above peasants in rank. At fifteen he traveled to Moscow to learn business. He returned home, and married, and in 1780 he traveled to Siberia, abandoning his wife and child. He opened a glass factory, which was highly successful, but he was not invited into the local merchants' guild because of...