Could California buy Alaska?

[carturo222]

And on a related note, did California (assuming it didn't get absorbed by the US) have enough gold to buy Alaska?

 

[Von Callay]

And on a related note, did California (assuming it didn't get absorbed by the US) have enough gold to buy Alaska?

This is a question that depends on a lot of moving parts as to what the situation would be and why it would happen and so on, but just from a material perspective, yes there is enough gold in California to pay the 1867 $7 million price, many times over. Tens of millions of dollars in gold was coming out of California every year in the 1850s.

Whether or not the California government would have that gold, or would want to spend it on Alaska, or anything else, that depends on the particular scenario.

 

[frittering]

[monkey's paw curls] Russia expands outwards from Fort Ross and conquers much of the OTL Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo territory while keeping Alaska and sends colonists to both, and the combined territories declare independence and balkanize during the Russian Civil War

 

[Ricardolindo]

This is a question that depends on a lot of moving parts as to what the situation would be and why it would happen and so on, but just from a material perspective, yes there is enough gold in California to pay the 1867 $7 million price, many times over. Tens of millions of dollars in gold was coming out of California every year in the 1850s.

Whether or not the California government would have that gold, or would want to spend it on Alaska, or anything else, that depends on the particular scenario.

My favorite scenario for an independent California is one in which Henry Clay wins in 1844, the Mexican-American War doesn't happen and California breaks away from Mexico as a British protectorate.