Sitka was the Alaskan city that served as the capital of Russian America under the name New Archangel.
Russian settlers established the community after the Battle of Sitka in 1804, naming it New Archangel after Arkhangelsk in northern Russia. It became the headquarters of the Russian-American Company, the trading enterprise that administered much of Russia’s North American colony.
In 1808, Alexander Baranov made New Archangel the informal capital of Russian America. The settlement was a center of administration, trade, shipbuilding, and Russian Orthodox missionary activity. Its position on Baranof Island also made it a crucial maritime base, although Tlingit communities remained central to the region’s history and economy.
The name New Archangel belongs to the Russian colonial period; the city is now known as Sitka. After Russia sold Alaska to the United States in 1867, Russian political authority ended, and Sitka eventually lost its role as Alaska’s governmental center to Juneau in 1906.