Exploring Possibilities of Colonization of Pacific Northwest by Russia, Great Britain and Spain in the 18th Century

The authors consider different assessments of the history of the northwest coast of America, now the territory of the south of Alaska and the west coast of Canada. For a long time, this territory was an arena of struggle between the great powers. In general, in Russian historiography, this issue is poorly studied. The author in their article pays attention to such factors and reasons for the European colonization of the New World and early discoveries of the Pacific coast of North America as climate change, fashion trends, environmental resources, etc. The importance of the fur trade for the process of colonization of the region under study is also shown. The authors conclude that it is appropriate to consider the history of the coast of Alaska and the west coast of Canada through the prism of frontier history, taking into account the regional features of the civilizational model of British colonialism and the broader international relations of the period. The peculiarities of the period under study are the activation of Spain’s policy and its claims to the entire Pacific coast, even when there had been no settlements under Madrid, and in turn attitude of the British to Madrid’s stance. The formation of the western border in the north of America by the British was facilitated by the search for a mythical northern route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, and during this process, important geographical discoveries were made. The work is part of a series of articles by the authors, which are devoted to the history of the struggle for the territory in the northwest of America up to the early 1870s.