18th century
The Matsumae clan holdings were officially confirmed by the Tokugawa shogunate in 1715 and administration of the island came under the Matsumae domain’s regional office location on Kunashir from 1756. Meanwhile, three voyages of Vitus Bering's lieutenant Martin Spanberg in 1738, 1739, and 1742 pointedly failed to find any evidence of Rica de Oro, Rica de Plata, Staten Island, or Company Land in any of the areas claimed for them.
Russian fur traders appeared in the late 18th century, hunting sea otter and seizing foreign ships in the area. There were clashes between the Russians and the Ainu in 1772, and the Russians left for a time, but soon returned. G.F. Muller’s Voyages & Découvertes faites par les Russes (Amsterdam, 1766) contained a list and description of the Kuril Islands, including Urup whose people were said to trade with the Japanese but were not under their control. A small Russian presence was established on Urup by the fur trader Ivan Chernyi in 1768, acting on instructions from the governor of Siberia. During the 1770s it was the base for attempts to establish trade with the Japanese on Yezo (Hokkaido) which came to an end when it was destroyed by a tsunami in June 1780.[11]
19th century
During the decade following 1795, a party of 40 Russian men and women under Zvezdochetov established a colony they called "Slavorossiia" on Urup.[12] In 1801, the Japanese government officially claimed control of the island, incorporating it into Ezo Province (now Hokkaidō Prefecture). This led to a series of clashes with Imperial Russia over Urup and the other Kurils, and sovereignty initially passed to Russia under the terms of the Treaty of Shimoda in 1855. The same year, in an effort to find the Russian fleet in the Pacific Ocean during the Crimean War, a French-British naval force reached the port of Hakodate (open to British ships as a result of the Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty of 1854), and sailing further north, landed on Urup, taking official possession of the island as "l'Isle de l'Alliance" and nominating a local Aleut inhabitant as provisional governor. The Treaty of Paris restituted the island to Russian control.[13]
Three whaleships have been wrecked near or on the island: one in 1853 and two in 1855. On the night of 27–28 April 1853, the ship Susan (349 tons), of Nantucket, was stove by ice and sank in Bussol Strait while attempting to enter the Sea of Okhotsk. Two men were lost, one drowning and the other perishing on the ice. The remaining twenty-five crew members crowded into two whaleboats and reached Urup on the afternoon of 29 April. Here they spent eight days before being rescued by the barque Black Warrior, of New London.[14] On 14 May 1855, the ships King Fisher (425 tons), and Enterprise (291 tons), both of New Bedford, were wrecked on a reef on the northeast end of the island while attempting to pass through Bussol Strait into the Sea of Okhotsk. All hands were saved.[15][16]
Occupation of Urup by Great Britain and France
In 1855, during the Crimean War (1853–56), Britain and France occupied Urup, as part of their aggressive policy against Russian settlements in the Far East.[17]
At the onset of the war, both sides were eager to secure their positions regarding Japan, the Russians sought rights in Japanese ports for their own ships and aimed to delineate the frontier between the two nations in the Kurils. The Treaty of Shimoda, signed on 7 February 1855, achieved this by establishing the boundary between the Japanese island of Iturup and the Russian island of Urup.[18]
Simultaneously, the Anglo-Japanese Friendship Treaty was signed. This agreement, negotiated by Rear-Admiral Sir James Stirling, allowed British ships access to the ports of Nagasaki and Hakodate for repairs, provisions, and other supplies. This strategic advantage enabled the allies to use these ports as bases for launching attacks on Russian settlements in the Far East. This was particularly advantageous, given that the next nearest British base was in Hong Kong.[19] Stirling gathered intelligence on Russian settlements in the Kurils. Consequently, an attack on Urup was initiated, aiming to reduce a reported Russian settlement and establish a naval base more firmly under allied control than those accessible in Japan.
During the Crimean War, the island was inhabited by the Ainu, with a few Russian and Aleut residents working for the Russian-American company. This company, responsible for the Russian territory of Alaska, fur trading activities in the Kurils and the Pacific coast of Siberia, shared a common interest with the British Hudson's Bay Company. A meeting in London led both companies to persuade their respective governments to agree to a neutrality pact concerning their North American settlements, resulting in the British refraining from attacking Alaska during the Crimean War.[20]
The main Russian settlement on the island was Tavano, to which an Anglo-French force arrived in late August 1855, led by the British HMS Pique and the French frigate Sybille. Captain F. W. E. Nicolson was assigned to lead this mission, even after his defeat at the Siege of Petropavlovsk. At Tavano, Allied ships were delayed in making port due to thick fog and changeable winds. Captain Nicolson, anchored outside of the harbor, finding it unsuitable. Nicolson described the village of Tavano as consisting of wooden houses and storehouses used by the few Russians on the island, along with huts used by native. Despite the absence of a Russian garrison, local residents assured Nicolson of their departure before the allies' arrival.[21][22]
On September 2 an "annexation ceremony" occurred on the island. The ceremony included the illegitimate renaming of the island to "l'Isle de l'Alliance" and the raising of the Union Jack and French flag. The capture of Urup marked the conclusion of Allied operations in the Pacific Theatre of the Crimean War, the allies left Urup the next day marking the end the Allied Occupation.[23]
Japanese Annexation of Urup
Under the Treaty of Saint Petersburg of 1875, sovereignty passed to the Empire of Japan along with the rest of the Kuril islands. The island was formerly administered as part of Uruppu District of Nemuro Subprefecture of Hokkaido. The remaining local (mainly Aleut) inhabitants were transferred to Kamchatka, according to their will, and replaced by the Japanese colonists.
20th century
During World War II, all civilian inhabitants of the island were relocated to the Japanese home islands, and towards the end of the war, the Imperial Japanese Army stationed approximately 6,000 troops on Urup, including the IJA 129th Independent Mixed Brigade, 5th Independent Tank Company, 23rd Independent AA Company, 80th Airfield Battalion and 6th Disembarkation Unit. During the Invasion of the Kuril Islands by the Soviet Union after the end of World War II, Japanese forces on Urup surrendered without resistance.
In 1952, upon signing the Treaty of San Francisco, Japan renounced its claim to the island.[24] Soviet Border Troops occupied the former Japanese military facilities. As early as the 1950s, a P-14 radar "Tall King" VHF air defense radar existed on the far northeastern tip of Urup Island.[25] A lighthouse was built on Mys Kastrikum (the easternmost cape) by Soviet authorities, as well as another on the western cape, Mys Chyeryepakha.[26][27][28] The troops were withdrawn upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the co-located airfield was turned into a bombing range.
