_THE HISTORY OF THE AMUR._
Divisible into three periods.--Period of Cossack
plunder.--Poyarkof.--Khabarof.--Stepanof.--Discovery and
occupation of Shilka.--Chernigovsky.--Period of conflict with
Chinese.--Russo-Chinese treaty of 1686.--Russian mission at
Peking.--Affairs on the Amur during Russian exclusion.--Third
historic period from 1847.--Preparatory operations on Lower
Amur.--Muravieff’s descent of the river, 1854.--Influence of the
Crimean war.--Colonization of Lower Amur.--Further colonization,
1857.--Chinese protests.--Influence of Anglo-Chinese war.--The Sea
Coast erected into a Russian province.--Renewed difficulties with
China.--Treaty of 1860.--Review of Russian occupation.
The history of the Amur, or so much of it as need here be mentioned
in connection with the Russians, may be divided into three periods.
We have first the period of Cossack pillage and plunder of the native
tribes, beginning in 1636, and extending over a period of 50 years to
1682. This was followed in 1683 by a period of warfare with China,
lasting for half-a-dozen years, and succeeded by uninterrupted Chinese
possession for (roughly) 150 years, to 1848; after which comes the
period of Russian annexation, beginning in 1848, completed in 1860, and
continuing to the present day.[1]
I have already stated that, within about 20 years after the founding
of Yeneseisk, the Russians pushed on their conquests to the Sea of
Okhotsk, on the shores of which, in 1639, they built a winter station
for the collection of tribute. It was here first they heard from the
Tunguses of tribes to the south, dwelling along the Zeya and Shilka.[2]
These reports attracted attention in Yakutsk, and an expedition of 132
men, most of them _promyshlenie_, was placed under Poyarkof, who left
Yakutsk in 1643, ascended the river Aldan, and built winter quarters
for 40 of his men, and stores, in the mountains. Pushing on himself
with 92 men, he crossed the Stanovoi range, and, after suffering great
hardships, reached the head waters of the Zeya, where he met the first
reindeer Tunguses. Further on he came to a Daurian village, in which he
was kindly received, but his extortionate conduct provoked the natives
to hostility; and one of his officers, having attacked a village and
been repulsed, Poyarkof, with the loss of many Cossacks through hunger,
retired down the Zeya, descended the Amur to its mouth, and, crossing
the Sea of Okhotsk, reached Yakutsk in 1646.
The next prominent traveller was Khabarof, from 1647 to 1652. A
shorter route to the river had been heard of by way of the Olekma; and
Khabarof, at the head of a band of adventurers, took this route to
the Upper Amur. The natives, having heard of the conduct of Poyarkof,
fled before the Russians; and Khabarof marched on, slaughtering his
opponents, or putting them to flight. Strengthened by reinforcements,
he descended the river to the Lower Amur, wintered at Achansk (which
no longer exists), and was vainly attacked by the natives and the
Manchu. In the following spring he turned back, and ascended the
river to the Zeya, where some of his men mutinied. He sent messengers
to Yakutsk asking for 6,000 men, and, there being no such force in
Siberia, the _voivod_ dispatched the messengers to Moscow, where the
conquest of the Amur had been for some time under consideration.
Khabarof returned in 1652, and thus ended the first nine years of
Russian adventure on the Amur, during which some of the leaders had
shown great perseverance; but the natives had been badly treated,
exposed to all sorts of extortion, and their tilled lands reduced to
deserts.
We come now to Stepanof (1652-1661). Reports of the excesses committed
by the adventurers already mentioned had reached Moscow, and it was
determined to send a force of 3,000 men to occupy the newly-explored
territories. The command was given to Stepanof, and he was accompanied
by hundreds of adventurers, who were attracted by the reported riches
of the country. Stepanof was not able to carry out his instructions
to found settlements, and spent his time in roving along the Amur and
up the Sungari. At Kamarskoi he was besieged, in the spring of 1655
by a large Manchu force; but with a garrison of 500 men he put 10,000
foes to flight. Subsequently he was joined by Feodor Puschkin and
50 Cossacks, by whom he sent the tribute he had extorted to Moscow.
Puschkin’s party lost their way, and 41 of them perished. Stepanof
continued his predatory expeditions till 1658, when, at the mouth of
the Zeya, 180 of his men deserted, and he was met by a Manchu force,
and himself and nearly all his band slain or made prisoners. This for
a time practically cleared the Amur of the Russians, and what few
remained evacuated the district in 1661.
All the expeditions above mentioned reached the Amur from the
north-west, striking the river some miles below the confluence of the
Shilka, at what is now Ust-Strelka. We proceed to say a few words
respecting the discovery and occupation of that tributary, 1652-58.
Cossacks from Yeneseisk had pushed their explorations beyond the
Baikal, and, in consequence of their reports, Pashkof the Voivod, in
1652, sent out a party to cross the lake, under command of Beketof,
who, two years later, built a fort on the Nertcha; but the expedition
came to nothing. Other adventurers went out in 1654 and 1655. At length
Pashkof was entrusted with a force of 566 men to found a town on the
Shilka, whence the surrounding territories might be subjugated. He left
Yeneseisk in 1656, and on his way founded Nertchinsk. Whilst so doing,
he sent a number of his men down the Amur to look for Stepanof, but
they were met by his deserters, and robbed of their provisions, after
which, in 1662, Pashkof returned to Yeneseisk, his mission unattained.
What Government troops had failed to effect, however, was soon after
accomplished by a runaway exile--Nikitao Chernigovsky--who, at the head
of a lawless band, murdered the Voivod of Ilimsk, and in 1665 fled to
the banks of the Amur, where he built a fort on the site of Albaza’s
village, opposite the river Albazikha. He was joined by others as
lawless as himself; villages were founded near the fort, and Albazin
became a place of importance. A petition was forwarded to Moscow,
representing what had been done as done for the Tsar, and praying for
Chernigovsky’s pardon, in consideration of his recent services. It
was granted; and Chernigovsky made tributary many of the surrounding
tribes near Albazin. The Chinese complained of Russian encroachments,
and conciliatory embassies proceeded to Peking, in 1670 and 1675. The
people of Albazin, however, determined to do as they pleased, and, in
spite of orders to the contrary, they navigated the Lower Amur, and
founded settlements, so that at the close of 1682 the Russians had
established themselves at Albazin, on the Zeya, and on the Amgun.
This finishes the first period in the history of the Amur--that of
Cossack pillage and plunder.
The oppression of the Russians naturally caused the tribes on the Amur
to apply for help to their neighbours and nominal masters, the Chinese,
who made large preparations to expel the intruders. They destroyed the
Russian settlements on the Zeya and Amgun, took some of the garrisons
prisoners, and advanced upon Albazin in June 1685. After a blockade
of 18 days the garrison surrendered, and were allowed to retire to
Nertchinsk. The Chinese then destroyed the fort, and withdrew down
the river to Aigun; but the Russians followed in the wake of their
conquerors and rebuilt their town. The Chinese, therefore, returned
in July of the following year, again surrounded the fort, where the
Russians held out bravely till November, in which month the siege was
raised, in consequence of orders from the Chinese Government, to whom
the Russians had sent ambassadors desiring conditions of peace.
The ever-recurring complications with the Chinese made the Russian
Government desirous to come to some arrangement regarding the frontier
of the two empires. Venyukoff accordingly was sent on a mission to
Peking to arrange preliminaries, and he brought back with him a letter
in Chinese, Manchu, and Mongol, translated into Latin, which supplies a
good idea of Chinese views on the Amur question.[3]
If this letter be anything like a true statement of the case, which
there seems to be no just cause to doubt, then the moderation and
forbearance of the Chinese stands out in striking contrast to the
conduct of the Russians. I have described (Chapter XXXV.) how the
conference was conducted, and how it ended in a treaty, by which
Albazin and the whole of the Amur were confirmed to the Chinese.[4]
This settlement practically closed the district to Europeans for about
160 years--that is, till 1848. A few encroaching hunters were from
time to time caught and punished. Some convicts also escaped from the
mines of Nertchinsk to Chinese territory, and others went down the
whole length of the Amur, one of them getting away from Nikolaefsk to
America; but very little is known of the Amur basin during these years,
though Russia kept up the supply of priests who crossed the desert to
sustain the Russian mission at Peking.
After the treaty of Nertchinsk, the town of Aigun was removed to the
right or southern bank of the river, and in keeping with the jealous
policy of exclusion peculiar to the celestials, the Chinese were
forbidden to emigrate northward to the thinly-populated Manchuria, and
the Manchu were forbidden to pass northward of the town of San-sin on
the Sungari, whilst the privilege of trading on the Amur was restricted
to ten merchants, who obtained for that purpose a licence at Peking.
Besides these particulars of the Amur during the period of the Russian
exclusion, we learn something from the letters of Roman Catholic
missionaries in Manchuria, one of whom, M. De La Brunière, descended
the Amur to the country of the Gilyaks, where he was killed. But I
shall speak of this when I come to the people and place of his murder.
This finishes our second period--that of war with China. It remains to
treat of the recent history of the Amur, and of the annexation of all
its left and part of its right bank by Russia. This will bring before
us the events occurring between 1847 and 1861.
The recent history of the Amur may be said to date from the time that
Count Nicolas Muravieff became Governor of Eastern Siberia in 1847.
The Russians had long seen the desirability of acquiring the right
of navigating the Amur, if only for the purpose of sending down it
provisions for their settlements in Kamchatka, the land carriage of
which annually required 14,000 to 15,000 pack-horses. With a view
to this, they had sent Golovkin to Peking at the beginning of the
present century to treat for the free navigation of the river, or, at
all events, to gain permission to send a few ships once a year with
provisions. But the Chinese were unwilling to make any concession
whatever.
Muravieff became Governor of Eastern Siberia in 1848, and one of his
first acts was to send an officer with four Cossacks down the Amur, who
were never heard of again. Admiral Nevilskoi, in the same year, left
Cronstadt for the Pacific to explore the mouth of the Amur; and, in
1851, founded Nikolaefsk and Mariinsk as trading ports. Two years later
were founded Alexandrovsk, in Castries Bay; and other posts in the
island of Sakhalin at Aniva Bay and Dui.
The next year, 1854-5, was important in the history of the Amur, as
that in which the first Russian military expedition descended the river
from the Trans-Baikal provinces. Russia had at the time three frigates
in or near the Sea of Okhotsk, and, owing to the breaking out of the
Crimean War and the presence of an English fleet in the Pacific, it
was feared that these might be left in want of supplies, and that
the Russian settlements on the Pacific, which at that time depended
on shipments from home, might be seriously straitened. The Black Sea
and the Baltic were blockaded, and the only feasible plan was to send
provisions from Siberia down the Amur. The nearest Chinese authorities
at Kiakhta and Urga professed themselves unable to give permission; but
as no time was to be lost, Muravieff’s necessity knew no law, and he
started down the river.
He had a steamer, 50 barges, and numerous rafts, 1,000 men, and guns.
Several men of science, to whom we owe much of the solid information
given us by Mr. Ravenstein, accompanied him. His journey down the river
to Mariinsk was uneventful, and he returned by way of Ayan to Irkutsk.
The continuation of hostilities between Russia and the English and
French allies naturally made the Russians prepare for an attack on
their eastern settlements,[5] and considerable activity was displayed
by them on the Amur in 1855-6. Three more expeditions left Shilkinsk
in the course of the year, and conveyed down the river 3,000 soldiers
and 500 colonists, with cattle, horses, provisions, agricultural
implements, and military stores.[6] Accordingly, the places founded on
the river grew fast. Villages were built by the colonists at Irkutskoi,
Bogorodskoi, and Mikhailovsk. Great progress also was visible at
Nikolaefsk, which from a village of 10 houses grew to one of 150.
The operations of the allied fleets in the Pacific in 1855 were on a
larger scale than in the preceding year; but the results were equally
insignificant, and the peace of 1856 left the Russians free to carry
on their plans of annexation. General Muravieff now went to Petersburg
to advocate the granting of large means for colonizing the river, and
during his absence the direction of affairs was left in the hands of
General Korsakoff.[7]
But the year 1857-8 will ever be one of the most memorable in the
history of the river. Muravieff had succeeded at Petersburg in securing
large grants of men and money. Troops descended and formed numerous
stations along the left bank, and colonists and provisions were
conveyed to the possessions of the Russo-American Company. A Captain
Furruhelm conducted down the river 100 emigrants and 1,000 tons of
provisions, and with him travelled Mr. Collins, already referred to,
as “commercial agent of the United States for the Amur river.” Count
Putiatin, also bound on a mission to Japan and China, availed himself
of the newly-opened way. Putiatin received orders to induce the
Chinese to come to some definite arrangement regarding the frontier
of the Amur, but he was not successful. This result was felt on the
river; for the mandarins now again protested against the occupation
of the territory, and in some instances molested the Russian traders.
Accordingly, Muravieff hastened to Petersburg for fresh reinforcements,
and more troops were sent east; whilst the territory in dispute,
together with Kamchatka and the coast of the Okhotsk Sea, was erected
into a separate province, called “the Maritime province of Eastern
Siberia.” A squadron of seven screw steamers was dispatched from
Cronstadt in the summer, and two European-built steamers, the _Lena_
and the _Amur_, ascended the river with merchandise and troops.
When Muravieff got back to the Amur, in 1858, the Chinese were in a
very different humour, for they were then at war with the English and
French, and Russia found no difficulty in concluding an amicable treaty
at Aigun on 28th of May. China ceded to Russia the left bank of the
Amur down to the Ussuri, and both banks below that river, and opened
the Sungari and Ussuri to Russian merchants and travellers.
On the 21st May, Muravieff laid the foundation of Blagovestchensk,
at the mouth of the Zeya; he then descended the Amur, and founded
Khabarofka, at the mouth of the Ussuri, and subsequently selected the
site of Sophiisk; after which, in August, he was created “Count of
the Amur.” On the last day of the year this territory received a new
organization, and was divided into the “Maritime province of Eastern
Siberia,” and the “Amur province,” the latter denoting a district along
the river, above the mouth of the Ussuri.[8]
We now come to 1859-60, during which time several measures were taken
to favour colonization. Political exiles were to have passports granted
them for three years, to enable them to proceed to the east; and if
deserving, their term was to be extended permanently. The sailors
stationed at the Lower Amur were allowed to retire after 15 years’
service, received a plot of ground, and might send for their families
to come to them at the Government expense. The colonists, too, were
to be maintained by Government for two years, after which time they
were to provide for themselves. Government also renounced its monopoly
of the mineral treasures of Siberia; and in future any one, except
convicts, was to be allowed to search for precious stones or metals.
This attracted many emigrants, and on the arrival from Western Siberia
of 10,000 of them at Irkutsk, Cossack stations were founded along the
banks of the Ussuri and the Sungacha, with a view to the settlement of
the frontier.
Difficulties, however, with China again arose. The Chinese had repelled
the advance of the allied French and English forces in 1859, and, being
elated for the moment with the power of their arms, imagined that it
was no longer necessary to conciliate the Russians, and told them that
China had never ceded the Amur, that they had no right there, and
must immediately quit. Things, therefore, looked gloomy towards the
south;[9] but the relative positions of China and Russia were suddenly
transposed by the successes of the English and French, who thoroughly
humbled China; and Russia, availing herself of the opportunity, was
able to conclude, on the 14th of November, 1860, a most advantageous
treaty, much more comprehensive than any ever concluded by China with
a foreign power, which gave Russia a right to the country north of
the Amur and east of the Ussuri, together with the entire coast of
Manchuria, down to the frontiers of Corea.
I have thus traced the history of the Amur from the time that the
Russians first heard of the river, in 1639, down to 1860, when they
obtained possession of it.[10] It remains for me now to give the
reader, as best I can, an idea of the condition of things as I found
them at the time of my visit.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] I am specially indebted to Mr. Ravenstein’s excellent work, “The
Russians on the Amur,” for the substance of the following pages.
[2] This report, so far as the Shilka is concerned, was confirmed in
the same year by what a party of Cossacks heard, who had been sent from
Yeneseisk to the Vitim, about a prince of the Daurians named Lavkai,
who inhabited a stronghold at the mouth of the Urka rivulet, and whose
people kept cattle and tilled the soil.
[3] It was dated 20th November, 1686, and ran in part thus: “The
officers to whom I have entrusted the supervision of the sable hunt,
have frequently complained of the injury which the people of Siberia
do to our hunters on the Amur. My subjects have never provoked yours,
nor done them any injury; yet the people at Albazin, armed with cannon,
guns, and other firearms, have frequently attacked my people, who had
no firearms, and were peaceably hunting.
“They also roved about the Lower Amur, and troubled and injured the
small town of Genquen and other places. As soon as I heard of this I
ordered my officers to take up arms, and act as occasion might require.
They accordingly made prisoners some of the Russians who were roving
about the Lower Amur; no one was put to death, but all were provided
with food.
“When our people arrived before Albazin, and called upon it to
surrender, Alexei and others, without deigning a reply, treated us in
a hostile manner, and fired off muskets and cannon. We therefore took
possession of Albazin by force; but even then we did not put any one to
death. We liberated our prisoners, but more than 40 Russians, of their
own free choice, preferred remaining amongst my people. The others were
exhorted earnestly to return to their own side of the frontier, where
they might hunt at pleasure. My officers, however, had scarcely left,
when 460 Russians returned, rebuilt Albazin, killed our hunters, and
laid waste their fields; thus compelling my officers to have recourse
to arms again.
“Albazin consequently was beleagured a second time; but orders were
nevertheless given to spare the prisoners and restore them to their
own country. Since then, Venyukoff and others have arrived at Peking
to announce the approach of an ambassador, and to propose a friendly
conference to settle the boundary question, and induce the Chinese
to raise the siege of Albazin. On this a courier was sent at once to
Albazin to put a stop to further hostilities.”
[4] The treaty began as follows:--“In order to suppress the insolence
of certain scoundrels, who cross the frontier to hunt, plunder, and
kill, and who give rise to much trouble and disturbance, to determine
clearly and distinctly the boundaries between the empires of China and
Russia, and lastly to re-establish peace and good understanding for
the future, the following articles are by mutual consent agreed upon.”
After defining the boundaries, the treaty went on to provide that
hunters of either empire should under no pretence cross the frontier.
Also that neither party should receive fugitives or deserters; and the
third article states, “Everything which has occurred hitherto is to be
buried in eternal oblivion.”
[5] Their strength on the Amur at the time was very inconsiderable,
and the allies, having mustered their forces on the American coast,
came down upon a comparatively feeble folk in Siberia. Petropavlovsk in
Kamchatka was attacked, but the Russians managed to hold their own till
orders arrived from Petersburg to abandon the place, which they did
on 17th April, 1855, taking with them the inhabitants, with whom they
safely reached Castries Bay.
[6] The Chinese were either unwilling or unable to oppose the passage.
Up to this time no attempt had been made to found any settlement on
the Upper or Middle Amur, and the presence of the allied fleets in the
Pacific ostensibly justified the assembling of a force on the Lower
Amur. The Chinese did send to Nikolaefsk certain mandarins to treat;
but these not being of sufficient rank, Muravieff refused to receive
them.
[7] In the course of the 12 months 697 barges and rafts descended the
river, conveying 1,500 head of cattle, and the provisions required
by the forces on the Lower Amur. Cossack stations were built on the
Upper and Middle Amur, and another settlement made on the lower part
of the river. Postal communication by horses was established between
Nikolaefsk and Mariinsk, which until then had been carried on by dog
sledges. The Russian colonists agreed to supply the necessary horses
during winter at the rate of £22 a “pair,” and during the summer they
were to supply the steamers on the river with the requisite fuel.
[8] Admiral Kazakevich remained military governor of the Maritime
province, and resided at Nikolaefsk; and General Busse was appointed
military governor of the Amur, with a salary of £1000 a year, and
a residence at Blagovestchensk. Shortly after the ukase of the
31st December, the Cossack forces on the Amur received a separate
organization. Up to the end of 1858, 20,000 persons of both sexes had
been settled along the river, and these were to furnish two regiments
of cavalry and two battalions of infantry, as well as two battalions
of Ussuri infantry from the Maritime province. Commercial enterprise
was promised a fresh impulse by the foundation of the Amur Company, the
object of which was the development of trade on the river. It started
with a capital of £150,000, and was privileged to open establishments
on the Amur and Shilka, but proved unsuccessful, and after a few years
was dissolved.
[9] The newly-acquired territory, moreover, was not fulfilling the
anticipations of those who thought to find at once the country
turned into the granary of Siberia, and supplying with its produce
and manufactures the navies of the world. The Amur was a source of
continual expenditure, and the Cossacks were not proving the best of
colonists. To remedy this, German colonists had been sent for. My
old host, with whom I stayed at Vladivostock, Captain De Vries, was
to bring 40 German families from California, who were to be settled
at the mouth of the Bureya; but, as he told me, he found the thing
impracticable.
[10] At that date they had brought to the region about 40,000
colonists, most of them from the Trans-Baikal and Irkutsk governments,
who walked with their cattle to the Shilka, and then proceeded on huge
rafts, like floating farm-yards. The cattle were turned on shore to
feed at night, and marched back in the morning to travel by day. By
these means the banks of the river became populated, though scantily,
this region covering an area of 361,000 square miles, or twice as large
as that of Spain. The Russians, by 1861, had established military posts
along the whole course of the Amur, on the Ussuri, and at various
harbours on the sea-coast, the whole military force, up to 1859, being
about 15,000 men. Simultaneously while strengthening her forces on the
Amur, Russia reinforced her navy in the Pacific; and in 1860 she had
there 19 steamers, mounting 380 guns, and manned by between 4,000 and
5,000 sailors and marines. There were also, in 1861, 12 steamers on the
river, nine of which belonged to the Government.