The first African American to settle in the Northwest was one who had paid his dues, fought with Andrew Jackson when the British kept a-comin in New Orleans, and was honored by all who knew him. In 1845 George Bush settled on a farm near the Hudson’s Bay Company’s post at the mouth of the Nisqually River (just north of Olympia). The area today
is called Bush Prairie. As seen, it took an Act of Congress before he was allowed to own land. He died before he could see his son, William, serve in the State’s legislature in 1889. William, in turn, helped found Washington State University (1893). George befriended Nathaniel Crosby from Maine, who would one day see a grandson (Tacoma in 1901) Bing Crosby. Census reports show a low African American headcount in Cascadia, less than 1% before the Civil War. But George’s family in 1845 was one of the first to settle north of Vancouver, WA. Might we say that with George and his family, it might initially have been 25%? The Bush’s 1st home in the Territory was constructed with sawmill lumber brough north from Vancouver. After hand sawing logs for 2 years, the Hudson’s Bay Co. Chief Factor John McLoughlin ordered equipment delivered by a ship from the East. 50 years later, Scandinavians were building axe-hewn cabins in this area, while to the south part of the State, homes rivaled those in the East (visit Officers’ Row in Vancouver with its mansions). Bush Prairie looked to Portland and Vancouver for support, materials, and supplies – not to the uncivilized North where it took until 1853 for Yesler to construct his sawmill in Seattle when that city was smaller in size than Olympia or Walla Walla.
https://www.historylink.org/file/760
https://www.historylink.org/File/9466
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqPs2OjGrYY
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/civic/article/516558
https://www.plc215.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/African-Americans.pdf
https://visitseattle.org/things-to-do/arts-culture/cultural-heritage/african-american/
https://www.visitvancouverwa.com/things-to-do/historic-sites-and-museums/officers-row/
https://revisitwa.org/heritage_tour/african-american-heritage/
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/charles-mitchell-slavery-and-washington-territory-1860/
https://crosscut.com/2019/09/yes-there-were-black-slaves-pacific-northwest-historians-are-making-our-region-confront-it
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