The Purchase of Alaska

Purchase of Alaska

     This cartoon is about the purchase of Alaska. This was where William Seward, the Secretary of State to Lincoln and Johnson, bought the territory of Alaska, which was owned by Russia, for 7 million dollars. The cartoonist saw this purchase as a mistake and a waste of money. This is shown due to the fact that two Americans, one being Seward, is pulling away a giant chunk of ice while Russia is taking away 7 million dollars. If this was seen by maybe a Russian citizen, it could go two ways, depending on the fact if they knew of the riches in resources that Alaska had. If they did know, they would have thought that we were ignorant of the riches we could potentially have. Another scenario could be if they didn't know about the resources. They would have been happy that they got such a useless chunk of ice off their hands. One technique that the cartoonist used was labeling. This can be shown by the fact that he/she labeled the chunk of ice as "Russian America" and the wheel-barrow being labeled as "treaty." Another technique being used is an analogy. This can be shown by the comparison being made between the ice being Alaska and the wheel-barrow as the treaty, letting America carry away Alaska. This cartoon doesn't exactly support my opinions due to the fact that I know that there are valuable resources, while the people at the time did not know. However, the way we annexed our 50th state was a bit more...forceful.

Citation: "Political Cartoon - Alaska 1867." Political Cartoon - Alaska 1867. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2016. <https://sites.google.com/site/alaska1867turnup/olitical-cartoon-3>.