Thread by @TheCivilWarDoc1

OTD in 1889, President Harrison declared Washington the 42nd state in the Union. (Image, LOC)

#Twitterstorians #WA #OTD #HistoryFacts #OregonTerritory #LOC #Archives

According to the LOC, "In 1844, presidential candidate James K. Polk urged an aggressive stance with regard to ownership of the land below the 54th parallel. The slogan “Fifty-four Forty or Fight” became a rallying cry of the Polk campaign..."

"... Two years later, the U.S. and Great Britain signed the Oregon Treaty setting the Canadian-American border at the 49th parallel and granting the United States territory that included present-day ID, OR, and WA. In 1848, Congress designated this...the “OR Territory.” (LOC)

Racial exclusion laws pushed the first settlers to the area. In 1844, George W. Bush was among the early pioneers to OR Country. He and his family, along w/ other families, left MO, a slave state, which forbid nonwhites from possessing land and becoming citizens.

Bush and those with him learned that the Oregon Provisional Government also prohibited black people from owning property. They headed North and away from other American land. Instead, they chose land controlled by Britain’s Hudson’s Bay Company.

Restrictive laws were not actively enforced in this area. This land was later named Tumwater, of which Olympia, the state capital of present-day Washington, traces its settlement. The 1846 Treaty of OR however, brought this land under the Oregon Territory’s discriminatory laws.

Before European settlement, the site of Olympia was was home to Lushootseed-speaking peoples. The resources of this area were shared by many of the local tribes.
#IndigenousPeoples #Twitterstorians #PNW