History of Washington

The totem pole in Pioneer Square in Seattle, now replaced by a copy , 1907

The Boeing Everett plant , the largest and most important production facility of the US aerospace company Boeing

The history of Washington state goes back almost 14,000 years in terms of human settlement. The descendants of the first tangible inhabitants, although this is controversial in some of the earliest finds, now belong to the coastal Salish in the northwest, as well as inland Salish , such as the Spokane , and other groups of the hinterland. In total, the competent authority of the Ministry of the Interior today recognizes 29 tribes and reserve groups within the state.

Some places, such as Fort Vancouver , Walla Walla and Spokane , go back to trading posts by the fur trading companies that ruled the region from 1800 until the United States took over. This was especially true for the British Hudson's Bay Company , which prevailed against Russian, American and Spanish competition. The first Europeans brought in smallpox , which brought local cultures to the brink of collapse, especially during the epidemics from 1775 and 1862 .

In 1846 the United States took over the area from the Hudson's Bay Company, but it was not granted state status until 1889. During this time, on the one hand, the internal borders of the USA were contested, on the other hand, expansionist groups tried to annex British and Canadian British Columbia , if not all of Canada . In addition, the administrative units ( counties ) were set up and the now comparatively small Olympia became the capital. The indigenous people in the east ( Colville ) and south ( Yakama ) were forced into reservations at this time, sometimes together with other tribes, which triggered several Indian wars.

At first, in addition to the settlers, gold prospectors came to the region, later the timber industry boomed, which, however, soon reached its natural limits. The transcontinental railroad connections then made for a rapidly growing number of settlers and industrial workers. Economic power and capital concentrated in previously less important places, especially Seattle . The region profited from the world wars, in particular from the fighting in the Pacific during World War II , and Washington became an important location for the air force ( Everett ) and fleet ( Bremerton ). In addition, other industries emerged such as the aircraft industry , the world's first nuclear factory , and companies active in information technology . Tourism , which lives mainly from the national parks , and the casinos of the Indian reservations play an increasingly important role as important employers.

Prehistory, ethnic division

The Ice Age Missoula Lake cleared away many potential prehistoric remains through about 40 floods

15,000 years ago, northern Washington was covered by a thick sheet of ice. At Bellingham it was thought to have been over 1000 m thick, and at Olympia the height of the ice masses is estimated to be more than 300 m. The end of the Ice Age began 14,000 years ago and the glaciers melted. For this reason, considerable parts of south and east Washington towards Montana can contribute little to the archaeological research of the earliest human traces. In addition, a lake at the end of the last ice age (between about 13,000 and 11,000 BC) profoundly changed the lower-lying areas in the drainage area of ​​the lower Columbia and Willamette through multiple dam breaks (cf. Missoula floods ). The water plowed through the affected areas up to 100 times at speeds of up to 130 km / h , accumulated over 300 m high in front of the Columbia Gorge and crashed into the Willamette Valley . In contrast to this destruction of most of the traces of settlement, archeology owes numerous finds that have been preserved there to the caves that were created.

The early history of the area now occupied by Washington State is of unusual complexity for two reasons. On the one hand, the history of the approximately 125 ethnic groups that developed 50 different languages ​​and dialects can only be presented in broad outline . On the other hand, the oldest finds of human remains form a difficult to interpret and controversial building block in the history of the settlement of North America.

The ethnic diversity is partly due to the contrasts in the landscape and the small size, which made completely different ways of life possible. The coastal Salish groups , who lived mainly around the Puget Sound and whose living space stretched far into British Columbia , subsisted mainly on fishing. Most of them were salmon - the best fishing area was the Kettle Falls - and halibut , plus shellfish. Most strains did not go on whale hunt, when speaking of the Makah apart at the extreme north-west coast, to the otherwise only on Vancouver Iceland living Nuu-chah-nulth count. In these regions near the coast, the tree species of the temperate rainforest played an important role, because the fibers of the giant tree of life were used to produce clothing, other tree species for food, and above all building material for houses and canoes. The vital role of these materials was compounded by the lack of metal in the region. The most important tribes here were the Chinook , Quinault , Lummi and Snohomish , in addition there were tribes belonging to other language families such as Makah, Hoh and Quileute , which are the last representatives of their own language family.

The eastern tribes on the plateau lived quite differently, some of them belonging to the (hypothetical) family of the Penuti languages . Some of them were used to living in the mountains of the Cascade Range . Further east there were drier areas with island-like settlement chambers. Here dominated Cayuse , Nez Perce , Okanogan , Palouse , Spokane , Wenatchi and Yakama , on the coast Chinook . When the first Europeans reached the area, many of the tribes in the east had switched to the lifestyle typical of the prairie tribes due to the introduction of the horse.

In 2003, a report found that there were 14,000 archaeological sites, from entire villages to trees that had been modified for cultural reasons ( Culturally Modified Trees ).

The oldest finds

Icing line in the Seattle area

A re-examination of a mastodon find at the Manis Mastodon Site (45CA218) south of Sequim revealed that this American mammoth was injured by a composite weapon made from antlers and mastodon bones 13,800 years ago. Similar old traces have been discovered on the Enumclaw Plateau (45JE14) near Auburn , which are approximately 13,000 years old.

Excavations at the Marmes Rockshelter (45-FR-50), a cave near Lyons Ferry in Franklin County , uncovered artifacts in Washington that are currently (2011) considered to be the oldest human traces. They show as early as 9200 BC. A wide range of prey animals in southeast Washington, but also of food plants and those that served more medicinal or ritual purposes. Mussels were also found here, which show that there was already a lively trade exchange with the coastal inhabitants living far more than 300 km away (Olivella). However, the oldest shell middens in this region , dating back over 10,000 years in British Columbia , are only 4,000 to 5,000 years old. This can be explained by the sea level that has risen by 120 m, so that more emphasis is placed on underwater archeology.

Skeleton of an extinct species of bison from the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles

The remains of the Kennewick man were found on June 26, 1996 , an almost complete skeleton dating from about 7200 BC. Has been dated. The deceased has genetic and other characteristics that may rule out that he is an ancestor of the Indians living in the area today. In contrast, the find of the woman known as Buhl Woman , who has since been buried again, was similar to today's residents. She is a good 1,300 years older and lived in what is now Idaho . The young woman ate less fish than meat, albeit seasonally unsecured, and she was given an obsidian needle specially made for her burial . The Kennewick Man is alive from a bullet tip type Clovis been taken, he was still wearing the body. Even these few finds indicate different living conditions, probably also to not yet reconstructable migrations.

By 1987, barely a dozen Clovis- type tools were known in Washington . This year over 60 points of this type were found in East Wenatchee , which indicates that there was a hunting ground here where they met regularly and where they wanted to save themselves carrying by "storing" finished projectile points. Proteins from human blood, but also from deer , rabbits and possibly from an extinct species of bison (Bison b. Antiquus) were found at the tips . At Lind Coulee, not far from Moses Lake , remains of bison were also found, but also finely crafted needles that were probably suitable for the production of leather clothing. Ocher pigments were also found, which indicate the coloring of clothing or body painting.

Coastal dwellers

Members of the Klallam belonging to the coastal Salish on the duck hunt, in the background Mount Rainier, which is almost 4400 m high

Archaeological sites such as Avey's Orchard in Douglas County and the 5 Mile Rapids Site on the south bank of the Columbia, whose findings date back to around 8300 and 7900 BC respectively. Chr., Show that by this time people had got used to the way of life on rivers for a very long time, with remnants of salmon and some seals being found there.

Blueberries ( Vaccinium membranaceum )

The first large villages arose on the west coast, although the diet was largely based on the huge spawning migrations of the salmon and no extensive agriculture developed. They were mainly inhabited in winter, while the warmer season gave rise to circular hikes. The goals were well-known gathering places and the occasional harvest (e.g. Camassia quamash, which is common near the coast ) and often ritual sites. Each group migrated in annually recurring cycles, which explains the huge number of sites and their diversity. This created traditional territories that corresponded to these migration areas. There is also a special feature: the people living on the coast did not know any clay pots, but they cooked in watertight wooden containers or recesses in the ground, in which glowing stones were placed to heat the water. Stones blown by the heat are therefore a common group of finds. Dried berries, such as blueberries or Vaccinium occidentale , known as (Western) Huckleberries , as well as occasionally blueberries ( Vaccinium membranaceum ), were carried in sacks by numerous collecting groups from the mountains to the valley, whereby this collecting activity was women's work. It is assumed that during these circular hikes the coastal groups met those of the hinterland.

Backland

Laterally notched projectile point from Wilson Butte Cave in Idaho. It is attributed to the Desert Archaic tradition .

In the hinterland it was probably at least until 9000 BC. Settlement dating back to BC was superimposed by the early plateau culture . On the eastern slope of the coastal chain, the traces reach at least 6700 BC. BC back. The high mountains that run through Washington have been in existence since 6000 BC at the latest. Visited regularly for hunting, collecting and for cultic reasons. The traces of storage found there by archaeologists often show only a few finds, but some camps have been visited again and again for an extremely long time. It could be shown that the Chester Mores Reservoir was built between 6500 BC. BC and 1300 AD was used over and over again. It is similar with the sites where stone tools were made. The Desolation Chert Quarry in Whatcom County was visited from about 7640 to 290 BP , i.e. until the 17th century. These camps must not be confused with the stone piles that mark burial sites.

In contrast to the camps, the villages were mostly in valleys, on rivers and lakes, which were also used and populated later. Accordingly, most of the artifacts have been destroyed by later uses. Drying places for American blueberries (huckleberries) can be found even more rarely, as they are only recognizable as rectangular depressions in the ground. Eleven of them were found in the Indian Heaven Wilderness in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest at an altitude of over 1000 m.

Just as unclear as the ways in which the first inhabitants came to the region is the linguistic assignment of the tribes far from the coast. Yakama , Umatilla and Walla Walla , for example, are relatively closely related languages, but Hoh and Quileute form their own, very small language family. These groups, in turn, are usually composed of several closely related but often not living together groups. The concept of permanent membership of a tribe was rather alien to all of these groups until the arrival of the Europeans and their power of definition. The same applies to the idea of ​​a fixed chieftainship , which was more in use among the coastal Salish in the form of traditional chieftains.

Coastal Salish and more southern tribes

Reconstructed Chinook plank house in southwest Washington, in what is now the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge

A tree worked by Indians, one of the so-called Culturally Modified Trees in the Goat Rocks Wilderness , part of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest

Artifacts can be assigned to the ancestors of later tribes early on. The coastal salish around Puget Sound conducted seasonal migrations depending on salmon, game, and vegetation cycles. Therefore, permanent houses known as plank houses were only moved into in winter. They traded their canoes in Puget Sound and as far as the Fraser River in the north, but rarely as far as California in the south. Similar to some tribes on Vancouver Island, they collected camas , the onions of a species of agave, and carried out extensive trade with them. In contrast to the canoes of the Nuu-chah-nulth (in Washington especially the Makah and the Chinook ) their canoes were not seaworthy. In addition, unlike the tribes of the hinterland, they did not own horses. However, some tribes kept numerous dogs as village guards and to use their hair for clothing and blankets.

The characteristic house type of the coastal region and the rivers was the pit house , a plank house that was up to four meters deep and could be up to 50 m long and 7 m wide. Round pit houses could be more than 17 meters in diameter. Remains are most commonly found where rivers occasionally overflowed their banks and covered abandoned villages in mud, such as the Rattlesnake Creek Site in Klickitat County, northeast of Husum .

Until about 2000 BC The finds at the West Point site in Discovery Park and at Magnolia date back to the 8th century BC , which are related to the Duwamish . By the 6th century at the latest, Duwamish lived on what is now Seattle. On the Skagit River , human life can be traced back to around 6500 BC. Prove.

The 4th century site of Tualdad Altu (1570 ± 90 years BP) shows a probably only one house winter village in Puget Sound , south of Seattle near the Black River delta. The house should have measured about 17 by 7 m. The artifacts and the animal remains found are distributed within the house in such a way that one can assume a division of labor, at least a fixed functional division.

Makah

Today's Nuu-chah-nulth with their traditional areas, in the south the Makah

The only Nuu-chah-nulth tribe living in the USA are the Makah in the extreme northwest of Washington, in Neah Bay . Before the arrival of the Europeans, they lived in five villages, the oldest archaeological traces are almost 4000 years old. The two most important sites of the Nuu-chah-nulth culture are the Hoko River Archeological Site and Ozette . At the previously inhabited site on the Hoko, numerous artifacts were found, such as the remains of baskets, fish implements, stone blades, tiny blades known as microblades , but above all numerous organic remains, such as wood, leftovers and the like, which are preserved in the submerged part of the village stayed. It turned out that as early as 1000 BC A pronounced stockpiling, z. B. by drying the fish, was common. The Ozette site, where a southern branch of the Makah probably lived, is similarly important for the Makah culture. 55,000 artifacts were found here, including an anthropomorphic figure from around 800 BC. In addition, long-distance trade with Vancouver Island could be proven earlier .

Tribes of the east

Different tribes lived in east Washington, such as the Spokane and the Kutenai , who belonged to different language families, as did the Yakama living in the central southeast . The Spokane fished in the river of the same name and gathered every year at the large waterfalls in the place , which is also named after them today , to which other groups also came to fish. With the introduction of the horse in the early 18th century, especially the Upper Spokane changed their lifestyle and crossed together with the eastern living Flathead , the neighboring Kalispel and the Nez Perce the Rocky Mountains to bison hunt. This led to confrontations with the Blackfoot . The Flathead managed to create a kind of buffer zone between the inland Salish in the west and the equestrian nomads in the east. They acted as dealers and intermediaries. The Yakama, Cayuse and Wenatchi lived in the southeast and central east .

Earliest European voyages of discovery, land claims

That Sir Francis Drake , as he claimed on his return, sailed along the coast of what would later be California or Washington in June 1579, before completing his circumnavigation, had no impact on regional history, although Drake designated the area as New Albion for Queen Elizabeth I. . claimed. The journey of the Greek explorer Juan de Fuca , who was in Spanish service and who discovered the waterway that was later named after him in 1592 , initially had no impact. And even if Martin Aquilar claimed to have sighted a great river in 1603, which may have been the Columbia , this did not affect it either. Nevertheless, the two colonial powers Great Britain and Spain stuck to their claims, even if there was still no reason to enforce them. It was not until Russia's claims, which extended its colonial empire further south via Alaska, and above all the founding of the USA, that a protracted dispute opened up about the area that had been economically and politically insignificant for these states.

Early contacts with Europeans, epidemics

This changed suddenly in the 1770s. Juan Pérez and Don Bruno de Heceta were the captains of the Spanish ships in 1774 and 1775, respectively, and their crews were probably the first to enter the coastal region. They should underpin the Spanish claim and at the same time set a limit for the Russian fur traders who strive far south. Heceta's ship, the Santiago , was probably carrying smallpox when she docked at the mouth of the Quinault River to claim the land for the Spanish crown. The smallpox epidemic triggered by this landing is likely to have decimated the region's tribes by half to two thirds. Some tribes disappeared entirely. This shifted the regional balance of power at the same time and this gave the northern tribes of the Kwakwaka'wakw , Haida and Tsimshian , who also soon came to European weapons, the opportunity for more frequent and easier forays. How many Salish were deported north as slaves can no longer be determined. In 2005, the Lower Elwha Klallam found at least 335 skeletons of residents in the large village of Tse-whit-zen who had apparently fallen victim to smallpox.

Fuca Rocks at Cape Flattery

Mount Baker sketched by Gonzalo Lopez de Haro in 1790

At the same time, European military technology changed the nature of the clashes between the ethnic groups. The first arms deliveries were initially made through trade contacts between Europeans and the tribes on and around Vancouver Island , as well as further north. Direct trade contacts with the tribes in Washington did not come about until later, especially as the Makah reacted extremely dismissively and avoided the Salish contacts there, presumably because of their experience with the epidemic in question.

1778 reached James Cook Although Cape Flattery , but no one came ashore. On May 14, 1792, George Vancouver noted : “Not only is the unfortunate disease common, but it must be understood that among them it is most fatal, as its indestructible signs are seen in many; many have lost sight in one eye ... ” Peter Puget observed something similar in the sound that was later named after him . On the east side of Puget Sound the men found an abandoned Semiahmoo village empty, enough for 400 to 500 inhabitants.

New York Times of April 16, 1911. Edward Curtis notes on a photo of a Chinook girl that she is wearing Chinese coins that are over a hundred years old as a forehead decoration

Cook's later published journals caused a fur frenzy. Numerous traders appeared in the region to hunt otters or to buy furs from the Nuu-chah-nulth and Salish. Their resale to Macau brought temptingly high profits, which in turn could be invested in Chinese goods such as china and silk , which fetched high prices in Europe. It is possible that this is how Chinese coins came to the coast, which the Chinooks used as hair ornaments. In 1787 the merchant Charles William Barkley appeared in the region, the following year also John Meares , to whom Barkley had reported about his journey. Meares had some trading experience with the Nuu-chah-nulth, but after a Spanish fleet had captured his ships, he sparked a serious diplomatic crisis between Spain and Great Britain. Other Spanish ships under the leadership of Manuel Quimper and Francisco de Eliza landed on the coast in 1790 and 1791 and seized British ships.

The British George Vancouver carried out the first detailed investigation and mapping of the coastal area from 1792 onwards. The naming of numerous islands, waters and mountains can now be traced back to his maps. These include the San Juan Islands , Puget Sound , Mount Rainier and Mount Baker . The last three are named after members of its crew, for example. Since Great Britain and Spain saw themselves in a race for the North Pacific - the Spaniards had a trading post in Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island , and for a short time in Neah Bay in northwest Washington - the Spaniard Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra or the Italians left in 1775 Alessandro Malaspina di Mulazzo produced maps of the region in the Spanish service . The latter negotiated directly with the most important chief of the region, Maquinna . While in Mexico in 1792, Malaspina dispatched two ships to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Strait of Georgia . The Sutíl Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and the Mexicana Cayetano Valdés y Flores , Malaspina's officers. As the last Spaniard, Salvador Fidalgo , unaware of the agreement between Great Britain and Spain of 1790, claimed the coast of Washington and set up a trading post at Neah Bay , on the extreme northwest corner of what would later become the US territory. However, there were disputes with the Makah resident there , so that the post had to be vacated again.

Robert Gray , circumnavigator, first sailor of the Columbia Estuary

Lewis and Clark Expedition Route

In 1792, Captain Robert Gray explored the mouth of the Columbia , which he named after his ship, the Columbia Rediviva . The territorial claims of the United States were later based, although Gray will hardly have given them this importance, on his sea voyages. The Lewis and Clark expedition , set up by the US government with a similar aim , reached Washington in October 1805 from the east. It reached the Pacific at what is now Ilwaco .

In addition to the explorers and fur traders who represented Russia, Spain, Great Britain and the USA, the fur trading companies in the region appeared as separate political forces. David Thompson of the North West Company (based in Montreal) founded the Spokane House, the first trading post in east Washington in 1810 . David Stuart of the American Pacific Fur Company established the first settlement at Okanogan in 1811 , and Astoria was built on the Columbia Estuary in 1811 on behalf of the Pacific Fur Company , named after the owner of the company, John Jacob Astor . This also built Fort Spokane to compete with the British Spokane House , a small post located on an important Indian trade route from Oregon to Fraser. As a result of the war between Great Britain and the United States (1812 to 1815), the British Hudson's Bay Company gained regional supremacy, and in 1821 London forced the company to merge with the competing North West Company. In 1826 the trading post was relocated to the Kettle Falls , a waterfall on Columbia whose salmon migrations attracted thousands of Native American fishermen each year. Since almost exclusively young men worked there, there were numerous connections with Indian women, whose descendants played an important role in conveying culture. Fort Vancouver on Columbia, founded in 1824, became the most important fort , and Fort Colville was built upriver the next year for further security .

As early as 1790/1794 Spain had renounced its claims in what would later become Canada and given up its only trading post in British North America . Similarly, Spain gave up its claims to Oregon in favor of the United States in the Adams-Onís Treaty in 1819 . In 1824 the USA also came to an agreement with Russia. On the other hand, Great Britain and the USA agreed in 1818 on joint control of the vast area, a treaty that was renewed in 1827. In 1818 the North West Company founded Fort Walla Walla .

Meanwhile, the number of Indians continued to decrease dramatically. In addition to smallpox, which hit about once every generation until enough people had become resistant, malaria contributed to this. It particularly raged in Lower Columbia and reached its peak in 1830, when Fort Vancouver was besieged by hundreds of sick people who only hoped to be buried by the local traders. In 1831 and 1832, malaria returned, which also affected many employees of the trading companies. They feared further infections and expelled the sick from the vicinity of the forts by force of arms. Although whites also died from the disease, the mortality rate among the Indians was significantly higher. It was estimated at 85%. In 1833 there was still a single man living on the once densely populated, 105 km² large Wapato Island (today Sauvie Island ) in the mouth of the Columbia, many Indian ghost towns were registered by the traders. Since everyone was afraid of getting sick, trade on the plateau, which was actually too dry to offer the Anopheles mosquito, which transmits the disease, of sufficiently moist biotopes, also broke off. In the east, around 20 to 50% of the Nez Perce died between 1824 and 1837. In addition to smallpox and malaria, the dreaded “winter disease”, as the combination of typhus , cholera and colds was called, contributed to this.

Rivalries

Hudson's Bay Company Flag (1882)

The British Hudson's Bay Company initially dominated trade with the Indians, especially after it was forcibly united with the North West Company in 1821. However, the American Jedediah Smith managed to lead an expedition from California to the northwest - albeit with heavy losses - and thus to maintain the claim of the USA to the area. In 1831 a four-person delegation from the Flathead or the Nez Perce (this is unclear) asked William Clark in St. Louis to send Catholic missionaries. This came to the ears of the Methodist Episcopal Church and so appeared in September 1834 Jason Lee (1803-1845), his nephew Daniel Lee and Nathaniel Wyeth and some helpers in Fort Vancouver. They came from New York and proselytized mainly in the Willamette Valley . In the next year a herd of 650 animals reached the valley. In 1837 the first Jesuit missionaries came to Kettle Falls and in 1845 they built a mission station with the help of the Sinixt and Colville . In 1839 a Catholic mission station was established in Cowlitz Landing , and in 1840 on Whidbey Island . Protestants proselytized in east Washington, Methodists in Nisqually from 1839 .

Cross presented to the missionary François Norbert Blanchet in 1840 by Chief Tslalakum, the Skagit on Whidbey Island .

But not only did a race develop between denominations, which was also joined by Catholic clergy for the French-speaking employees of the Hudson's Bay Company, but above all between Great Britain and the USA. When Captain Benjamin Bonneville (the Bonneville Dam is named after him) arrived in Walla Walla with more than 100 people on his two-year research and trade trip in 1833 , he was treated as a competitor by the British in the most unfriendly manner. Still, his reports drew more Americans to the region. The company in turn tried to strengthen its economic base by founding the Puget Sound Company , an agricultural company that promoted livestock and agriculture and soon ran numerous farms.

However, this could not prevent wagon convoys from traveling westwards from 1840 onwards, which brought so many settlers that the British were soon in the minority. In 1841 an expedition led by Charles Wilkes carried out scientific research for the first time and put on collections. This led first to the Columbia Estuary, then the ships sailed on to Port Discovery , near what is now Port Townsend , and the headquarters were established at Fort Nisqually. From there, Wilkes sent expeditions to Puget Sound, across the Cascade Range to Fort Colville, and another group sailed the Chehalis River to Grays Harbor , then through Willapa Bay to Columbia. Wilkes himself led a group to Cowlitz Farms and on to Fort Vancouver . With this, the USA had clearly substantiated its claim to the area. The importance of this demand became evident in the election campaign of the later President James K. Polk , who started with the slogan “Fifty-four forty or fight” (“Fifty-four-forty or fight”, which meant the north latitude). Polk not only claimed Washington, but also made land claims that extended considerably further north. The British, for their part, sent secret agents to the northwest to prepare for an eventual war.

From the Oregon Compromise (1846) to Washington State

The Oregon Territory in 1848 and the boundaries of today's states

With the construction of the capitol in the capital of the state, which was modeled on the federal capital, the USA also symbolically underpinned its claim to the northwest.

On August 5, 1846, the Oregon Compromise divided the area along the 49th parallel, and the Hudson's Bay Company had to give up its trading post south of this line - apart from the southern tip of Vancouver Island . The compromise was passed by the Senate with 41 to 14 votes, although many of the US President's supporters disagreed and they still wanted to occupy the entire area. The Oregon Territory , now part of the USA, consisted of the area of ​​the later states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho , plus parts of Montana and Wyoming . It expanded the US territory by an area of ​​700,000 km². In 1848 the Americans took over the company's trading post in Fort Vancouver as a military base.

In order to promote settlement, the Donation Land Claim Act opened the territory of Oregon from 1850 to the settlers, who were allowed to acquire 160 acres of land each , plus the same area for their wives. Since there were no reservations at that time , this provision was not in conflict with the Intercourse Act of 1834, which prohibited white settlers from entering reservations until 1854/55, when the first contracts with Indians were concluded . This occupation of their land, illegal in the eyes of the Indians, had already led to the Whitman massacre in 1847 . Cayuse Indians had killed 14 residents of the mission station (10 km west of Walla Walla) because they were accused not only of supporting the land robbers, but also of having infected them with the deadly measles that were rampant among the Indians. They also captured 54 women and children. The causes lay both in personal misjudgments and poor preparation, as well as in the contempt for the cultures of the Indians and in the land hunger of the settlers and gold seekers. This outbreak of violence was the prelude to the first Indian War in the region, the Cayuse War , which lasted over seven years (1848 to 1855).

The area of ​​Washington is still very unevenly populated today.

In 1851 the settlers living in what is now West Washington, west of the Cascade Range, demanded their own territory for the first time, again in 1852. In 1853 the huge area was divided up, and the Washington Territory was created, which still included parts of Idaho and Montana in addition to Washington . The settlers in the east demanded a transfer of the capital from Olympia to Walla Walla , because the west was difficult for them to reach. Six years later Oregon was made a state, but the entire eastern part fell back to the Washington Territory. In 1863 the eastern territories were finally separated off altogether, and most of them went into the Idaho Territory . Further subdivisions followed, reflecting the traffic conditions, the settlement structure and the participation needs of the settlers. The maximum distance to the capital could not be beyond a certain time limit. The area, which has not been changed since 1863, roughly met these needs and Washington was declared the 42nd state of the USA in 1889.

First settlements, reservations, Indian wars

Camp of the Nez Perce in front of Fort Walla Walla, 1853

West and East Washington also developed differently during American colonization. In the east, the pioneers were missionaries who mainly worked in the Walla Walla Valley. When conflicts arose in the course of the first settlement, American missionaries were killed in 1847 ( Whitman massacre ). A volunteer army lost 300 horses on January 8, 1848 at The Dalles on Columbia, but they defeated the Indians. In the spring, 500 volunteers gathered in Walla Walla, but they suffered a heavy defeat against the Palouse. On March 16, an army unit arrived in Fort Vancouver and marched towards Walla Walla. The Cayuse agreed to make peace and turned over the five murderers.

But with that the tensions were so acute that other wars like the Yakima war followed. They stretched over ten years. The army, without knowledge of the local conditions, provoked warlike and peaceful tribes alike and drove the remaining tribesmen of the Cayuse into the Umatilla Indian Reservation in northeast Oregon.

Map showing the traditional territories of the Washington tribes

Confederation and Tribal Reservations in Washington

With the Treaties of Medicine Creek , Walla Walla and Point Elliott , most of the tribes were relocated to reservations from 1854/55. Little consideration was given to the cultural boundaries between the tribes - in contrast to Canada - and around 14 tribes were forced into the Yakama Indian Reservation in the south. The same was done with the Nez Perce in the east. When gold was found on the reservation area of ​​the Yakama in 1858 and conflicts arose again, Yakama and Cayuse united against the USA in the Yakima War . The army defeated the allied Indians in the Battle of the Four Lakes .

Most of the settlers came via the Oregon Trail , but some of them branched off towards Puget Sound . The first settlers on this fjord were the black George Washington Bush , who had already worked for the Hudson's Bay Company , and his wife Isabella James Bush from Missouri and Tennessee respectively . They settled their four families in what is now Tumwater in 1846 in order to escape the racist laws of Oregon. In 1847 Michael Simmons built the first sawmill from leftovers from Fort Vancouver, which was abandoned by the British. In 1850, a census recorded 1,049 white residents in what is now Washington, and 13,249 throughout the Oregon Territory. In 1860 there were 11,594 in Washington alone. But the surplus of men was so great that Asa Mercer brought more than 300 Civil War widows and orphans to Seattle in 1864, known as the Mercer Girls .

It was not until Governor Isaac Ingalls Stevens' anti-Indian policies that brought the tribes back into turmoil in 1853. On January 25, 1856, the governor made a full-bodied promise to the 50 or so residents of Seattle, which had been founded three years earlier, that "cities like New York and San Francisco would be attacked as soon as Seattle". The next morning over 200 Duwamish attacked the place and only the intervention of the Navy prevented the capture.

Envoys from four Indian tribes to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs , 1890. On the far left in the back row John McBain, next to him the Cayuse chief Showaway (not in traditional clothing), the Palouse chief Wolf Necklace, far right Lee Moorhouse, Umatilla Indian agent. In front the Umatilla chief Peo, next to him the chief of Walla Walla Hamli and the Cayuse chief Young Chief [Tauitau].

In the next few years, the Indians became more and more of a minority. In order to be able to carry out the process of assimilation , the Indians should initially keep their fishing and hunting rights and continue to collect and keep livestock on unoccupied land. If they had adjusted accordingly, the land should be given to them, not to the tribe, but to individuals. With this the individuals should become Americans, the tribal area should be dissolved and the tribes wiped out. In addition, trade and the semi-nomadic way of life were stopped as soon as they crossed the border into Canada. This cut economic and family ties. From 1855 treaties like that of Point Elliott were concluded, but their ratification was delayed until 1859. This led to the splitting of the groups into resisting and submitting groups, others shifted their settlement focus according to their custom, so that in 1859 a situation was hardly manageable when the treaties were finally ratified. Some tribes were not given a reservation, others were grouped together with tribes with which they had little to do or with whom they could not communicate at all, so that groups infiltrated or disappeared again. Some groups were not recognized as tribes until over 100 years later, while others are still fighting to this day. The right to fish and the other provisions of the early treaties could not be enforced before the Supreme Court until 1979 . During this time, the Spokans were particularly vigorous in eastern Washington. They defeated an army unit in August 1858. Thereupon Colonel George Wright led a troop of 700 men from Walla Walla against them, and thanks to new, long-range rifles he defeated them on September 1, 1858, at the Battle of Four Lakes, without a man to lose. A week later he had their 800 horses slaughtered.

But not only Indians should give way to “white work”, but also other ethnic groups. The Chinese had moved north from California to find work. 1864 Washington lifted a kind poll tax by each sheriff could be driven, a law with the significant title "Act to Protect Free White Labor Against Competition with Chinese Coolie Labor" (law to protect free white labor against the competition with Chinese Kuliarbeit ) - hence it was also called the "Anti-Coolie Act".

In 1876 the army ordered the Nez Perce to leave their residential area in the Wallowa Valley . The Indians tried to flee to Canada via the Bitterroot Mountains in 1877 , but were intercepted shortly before the border. Only some of them returned to Washington, to the Colville reservation (cf. Chief Joseph , Nez Percé War ).

Borders, political parties, population shifts, state

Hilly landscape northeast of Walla Walla

Long Washington camp in Cache Valley, Idaho, 1871

Settlement to the east of Walla Walla did not begin until 1860, when Franklin arose in the then Washington part of Cache Valley near Salt Lake City . When Pierce and then numerous gold discoveries were made that year, especially on the Clearwater and Salmon Rivers , suddenly there were more whites in the east than in the west. Walla Walla was already hoping to become the capital of its own state, especially since Nevada achieved this status in 1864. Washington's first bank was also opened here in 1869, owned by Dr. Dorsey Baker was. With Lewiston , another exploration metropolis, there was new competition, but especially the Olympics successfully fought against a division.

In 1862, Olympia was able to prevail insofar as it renounced the easternmost areas in order to then be able to point out that the remaining inhabitants were a minority. Now Walla Walla saw itself as the capital of a territory around northern Idaho and Montana - the city is only 10 km from today's eastern border of Washington - but western Montana waved it off. It was primarily these border disputes that delayed the elevation to the state for decades.

This also contributed to the fact that, with the founding of Canada (1867) and the purchase of Alaska in the same year, the Annexationists saw themselves closer to their goal of winning all of North America. In 1869, the Territorial Legislature passed a memorandum to Congress calling for the occupation of British Columbia. This demand also had strong support across the border, for example from John Sebastian Helmcken , who was considered one of the most influential men in the province at the time. But in 1871 the province decided under his leadership to join Canada. In addition, the Hudson's Bay Company received $ 650,000 in compensation in 1869 for the Puget Sound Company, which it had had to give up.

Northern Pacific Railway steam powered train, circa 1900

Meanwhile, the border dispute within the United States continued to smolder. In a sense, every infrastructure improvement that shortened travel times worked for Olympia. This was particularly true of the Northern Pacific Railway , whose destination was to be Portland , a project that would strengthen west-east connections - even if the company later chose Tacoma as its terminus (1873). Lewiston's politician, newspaper editor and anti-slavery activist Alonzo Leland also stood for this in the East . The constituent assembly of Washington took place in Walla Walla in 1878, but here, too, he could not enforce the annexation of North Idaho to Washington. Despite a very clear referendum (1208: 2) in 1880, the Anschluss did not succeed this time either, so that West Washington retained its preponderance. Olympia, which was excluded from the railway connection, decided in 1878 to build at least one narrow-gauge railway at its own expense and hired numerous Chinese laborers to do so. So the city kept the chances of becoming the capital of the desired state.

Two years later, the Senate in Washington, DC was controlled by the Democrats , a state that lasted until 1888, and ensured that the Republican- dominated territories of Washington and Dakota were not recognized as states. This was a way to keep political opponents out of the presidential election. The groups willing to join in northern Idaho also tried in vain to join the area to the Washington Territory in order to jointly achieve the desired status.

A few years later the chances looked better again, but now the population of northern Idaho suddenly changed, because the metal finds at Coeur d'Alene caused a new influx of people, which changed the political majorities. In addition, the traffic connections to the south of Idaho had now been significantly improved, the animosity between north and south decreased around 1886, and Idaho now hoped to be recognized as a state itself.

The presidential elections of 1888 brought Benjamin Harrison back to office. This opened the way to statehood for all territories that voted republican. Thus Dakota approved in the form of two states (North and South Dakota), Washington also. Even Wyoming, with a population of just 62,000, was made a state.

In 1870, when the Yakima Valley was divided up among white settlers, Washington had 23,955 white residents, who were eligible to vote, in 1880 already 75,116, with 60,000 being the minimum for recognition as a state. When the railroad reached Spokane in 1881, Puget Sound in 1883 and Tacoma in 1887, immigrants rose sharply. In 1890 there were already 357,232 non-Indians, in 1900 already 518,103.

Industrialization and segregation, booming cities

Railroad Avenue (now Alaskan Way) in Seattle, Anders Beer Wilse approx. 1898. The signs show that the main stores for clothing, agricultural machinery, food, mining equipment, a hotel, but also a bookbinding shop were located here

On November 11, 1889, Washington became the 42nd state in the United States and Olympia became its capital. Meanwhile, Seattle was in ruins after a devastating city fire on June 6, 1889. But with the gold rush on the Klondike , Seattle, which was elevated to a city in 1865, became the main port of call for tens of thousands of gold prospectors who met their equipment needs there. The population grew rapidly and in 1910 Seattle with 237,194 inhabitants already outstripped Portland , which had 207,714 inhabitants. In 1920 Seattle already had 315,312 inhabitants.

The first industrial settlements served the exploitation of the raw materials wood and coal, the latter especially around Spokane . In addition, agriculture was of great importance in the small-scale region, especially in the Yakima Valley (since 1870) and around the Puget Sound . The rain-rich west initially offered huge forests, so that Washington was the largest wood producer in the USA by 1905. The fact that Weyerhaeuser made one of the largest forest land purchases in the United States of all time in 1900 contributed significantly to this . A corresponding sawmill was built in Everett in 1903 . In 1923, Longview on Columbia was built for the sole purpose of logging and it was expected to have 75,000 inhabitants - but only 40,000. But forests were poorly cared for and severe forest fires resulted in state forests being established, such as Oregon's Tillamook State Forest . This 1470 km² forest was created after Tillamook Burn, who raged from 1933 to 1951 . From 1949 to 1973, the huge areas around 65 km west of Portland were reforested. The first limits of natural resources became apparent. In 1941, Weyerhaeuser took action and started operating the first tree nursery, a so-called " tree farm " in Montesano in western Washington.

Fallen giant tree in Olympic National Park

Gold dredger in the Sumpter Valley

The Mining Act of 1872 allowed the mining of precious metals in virtually any location, regardless of the environment, such as in the Sumpter Valley; the Timber & Stone Act of 1878 gave each settler up to 160 acres of woodland at a cost of $ 2.50 per acre. In this way, the large timber companies were able to buy their land from alleged settlers at extremely low prices.

The Indian tribes were also pushed back and forth depending on the land requirements. In 1879, for example, the government created the Moses reserve on the Methow and Okanogan , but dissolved it four years later following land demands by the settlers. The Indians only became US citizens with the Indian Citizenship Act of June 2, 1924. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act ended Chinese immigration and four years later they were banned from owning land. So many fled to California .

Counter-movements arose against the ruthless economization, such as Freeland , a utopian community on Whidbey Island or Aurora on Columbia. Attempts were also made for the first time in 1904 to protect forest areas, such as the Colville National Forest . Nevertheless, the timber industry penetrated into areas that were of growing importance for the regional self-image of the population, and which aroused great hopes for the emerging tourism. In 1938 President Roosevelt pushed through against local opposition that the area of ​​the Olympic National Park was not only protected by the state, but also enjoyed greater protection as a national park - today it is a World Heritage Site .

The Boeing Model 40A, which first flew on May 20, 1927

Tacoma was the center of precious and base metal processing, especially during the two world wars. As early as 1886 the city was connected to California by a railway line. Seattle was not attached until 1892. There the aircraft manufacturer Boeing became the largest employer in the region. Charles K. Hamilton (1886–1914) was the first to fly from Seattle in 1910; Boeing took off for the first time in 1915. In 1917 the company changed its name from Pacific Aero-Products to Boeing Airplane Co. In September 1927, Charles Lindbergh landed in Seattle and in Spokane , Boeing opened the Seattle- Chicago airline earlier this year . This made Seattle one of the few cities of great continuity, while other cities recorded almost sudden growth for various reasons, only to quickly lose their importance again.

The fleet bought a base in Bremerton in 1891 , which gave the community a quick boom, but in 1902 the Navy moved its repair base to California. Violent internal power struggles plunged the small town into a political crisis; In 1910 the city had only 2693 inhabitants. During the Second World War, the city grew to 80,000 inhabitants, who with 40,000 employees were mainly employed in war production. By 1950 the city had shrunk again to 27,678 inhabitants. In the capital Olympia, the Olympia Brewing Company was developed by Leopold Schmidt from 1885 , and wine , hops and lavender were soon grown on a large scale. In 1893 the city was connected to the railway network. The Olympics were also able to develop comparatively continuously.

But not only natural resources, logging and gold were factors that caused the population to skyrocket for a short time, but also government measures. From 1893 to 1897 the USA got into an economic crisis, so that investments in Washington also fell sharply. But trade with Japan began in 1896, and in 1897 the first electric power station was built at Snoqualmie Falls . The population increased, in 1910 Washington already had 1,141,990 inhabitants.

Populists, Democrats, Republicans, women's movement

During the First World War, the Ministry of Labor looked for people willing to work with the help of posters, around 1917

John R. Rogers, the candidate of the People's or Populist Party founded in 1891 , which opposed the dominance of the railroad companies, bankers and large landowners and called for support for the small farmers, was elected Washington's third governor in 1897. Both of his predecessors were Republicans . He campaigned for the provision of credit to small farmers and for financial equalization between the counties in order to achieve an even education in schools, regardless of how high the tax revenue of the individual counties was (School Boy Act). In terms of foreign policy, he supported the military expansion, in particular the Spanish-American War from 1898. The Klondike gold rush , which made Seattle grow significantly, brought a considerable increase in population and economy . Like most supporters of his party, he became a member of the Democratic Party and was re-elected in 1900. But he died in 1901, so that his successor Henry McBride led his term to the end. With the help of a railway committee, he tried to limit the power of the railway companies. In 1902, two valleys (Yakima and Okanogan) began to be drained in order to gain arable land.

In 1905 the Republicans took over the government under the leadership of Albert E. Mead , but he insisted on the continuation of the railway committee set up by his democratic predecessor. A Highway Commission should take care of the expansion of the road network. Just like the railroad companies, the bankers had not expected their governor to subject them to greater state control. A bank examiner was created. Mead's successor died shortly after the election, followed by Marion E. Hay in office. He had a committee of inquiry set up to expose corruption in the public service, petitions for citizens were allowed and in 1910 women's suffrage was introduced.

Shortly before the First World War , the Democrats replaced the Republicans under Ernest Lister , a former member of the populists. Lister promoted irrigation systems and clearing to gain arable land. He advocated state insurance against accidents in the industrial sector and, through his veto, prevented a bill that would deprive members of the Industrial Workers of the World from civil rights. He also enforced the eight-hour day.

Lister was re-elected in 1916, but his second term was overshadowed by the war. In Washington, production was converted to armaments requirements. Fort Lewis was established in 1917 and Bremerton grew rapidly. On the one hand, industrialization brought about a pronounced growth phase in the cities and, on the other hand, an industrial proletariat that was soon well organized as a union. The Seattle general strike from February 6 to 11, 1919, in which over 60,000 workers took part, became known.

In addition, the women's rights movement was a major political force early on. Bertha Knight Landes became mayor of Seattle in 1926, the first woman to head a major city in the United States. Although women had already won the right to vote for the first time in 1883, it was withdrawn from them again in 1887. However, in 1910 Washington was the first state to definitively establish this right. As early as 1914, Reah Whitehead was the first woman to become a justice of the peace. In 1976, Dixy Lee Ray became Washington's first female senator, and from 1977 to 1981 she was governor.

In 1891, the Jesuits a university in Seattle, from the Seattle University emerged, while from the Washington Agricultural College , the Washington State University developed. The Western Washington University in Bellingham , however, went back to a school, the Whatcom Normal School from 1899.

Great Depression and World War II

Police in Seattle try to protect themselves from the Spanish flu with respiratory protection, December 1918

The First World War initially brought arms orders and a general economic upswing for many regions, but the return of the war participants, combined with the declining war industry, resulted in considerable economic and social problems. In addition, there was the Spanish flu brought by the returnees , which primarily affected the cities, especially Seattle, where at the end of 1918 the police were even equipped with respiratory protection.

The Grand Coulee Dam , inaugurated in September 1941

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge after it collapsed on November 7, 1940

After a modest economic recovery in Washington rang Black Friday on 29 October 1929, the Great Depression a. In Seattle, for example , a slum was built during this time, inhabited almost exclusively by unemployed men , a Hooverville named after the then president , where a shipyard had already been closed in 1920. Due to the favorable location of the state, alcohol was smuggled in from Canada from 1919 until the end of Prohibition in 1933 . As in most of the United States, employment programs have been launched in Washington and numerous dams have been built to generate electricity. The first was the Rock Island Dam in 1932 , which was followed by the Bonneville Dam in 1938 . Other construction projects were then tackled during World War II , including the Grand Coulee Dam , completed in 1941 , which was the largest in the United States at the time. In 1940, after 19 months of construction, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was the third longest suspension bridge in the world (853 m). It started to vibrate in strong winds and was nicknamed "Galloping Gertie" because of its swinging up and down. It collapsed on November 7, 1940 and the new building was completed in 1950.

In 1934, a wave of strikes by dock workers started in San Francisco and spread across almost the entire west coast as far as Seattle. In 1935 the left-wing liberal Washington Commonwealth Federation was founded. In 1939 the ferry workers went on strike. In 1930 Washington had 1,563,396 inhabitants, in 1940 it had 1,736,391.

During the war against Japan from December 8, 1941, the main burden of which was borne by the Pacific states , production facilities for the war industry were built in Seattle , but also in Bremerton , Vancouver and Tacoma . In Tacoma, McChord Field of the Army Air Corps (later Air Force) was built, and a base was also built on Whidbey Island. The world's first nuclear factory, the Hanford Site, was built in east Washington in 1943 . The plutonium hatched there was used for the construction of atomic bombs , in particular for the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (cf. atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ). The Hanford Site was closed in 1971, and it took until 1989 that the government was ready to acknowledge and eliminate the radioactive contamination (completion planned by 2030).

From the small aircraft factory founded by Bill Boeing in 1916, a trust was created together with United Airlines in 1928 , but this was broken up by the anti-trust laws from 1938. In 1927 Boeing took over the transport of goods on the Chicago – San Francisco route and in 1928 expanded the Seattle airfield, where in 1933 the first Boeing 247 took off.

While the USA entered World War II in 1941 and everything was economically subordinated to war production, which revived the old trusts, the Japanese were expelled from the country on February 19, 1942 (Executive Order 9066) or interned in the hinterland. In May 1942 they were then forced to leave Washington by ultimatum. On May 18, 2008, the University of Washington commemorated its 450 former students.

Cold war and recent past

The Space Needle in Seattle in the 1960s

The Space Needle and Seattle 2007

The first Boeing 787 during testing at Everett Airport in late 2009.

The state's population continued to grow sharply after the war, especially as Washington benefited from the military build-up in connection with the Cold War. In 1950 there were exactly 2,378,963, ten years later 2,853,214 and in 1970 already 3,409,169 inhabitants. The increasing urbanization of the state and the dependence on changing industries made the economy heavily dependent on the price fluctuations of the world market. As long as raw materials could be purchased at low prices, the aircraft industry, for example, benefited greatly from low oil and aluminum prices . In 1948 the Seattle-Tacoma (Sea-Tac) International Airport was opened. Boeing , as one of the largest corporations in the United States, has long dominated northern Washington and continues to play a significant role today. In 1954 the first prototype of a Boeing 707 started and in 1966 Boeing began building the 747 at Boeing's Everett plant , which was specially completed for this purpose. Among other things, the final assembly of the Boeing 787 is carried out in the same plant today . In the meantime, the company went into a downturn in 1969 - Boeing laid off 60,000 employees - and again in the 1973 oil crisis . In 1997 the company merged with McDonnell Douglas and in 2000 the headquarters moved to Chicago . The aviation industry benefited on the one hand from the rapidly growing civil aviation, and on the other hand from the needs of the air force, especially in the Korean , Vietnam and Second Gulf Wars , and the Iraq war that began in 2003 .

In 1962 the world exhibition Century 21 Exposition took place in Seattle, with a focus on space technology. The exhibition was all about the space race that took place in the 1950s and 1960s , which is particularly evident in the Space Needle observation tower, which was built for the occasion and has become the city's landmark .

The region secured its electricity supply not only through hydropower plants - with the The Dalles Dam , another dam was built on Columbia in 1956 - and nuclear power plants , but also through electricity supplies from Canada, for example as part of the Skagit River Treaty signed on April 2, 1984 , or earlier as part of the Columbia River Treaty , in which the Canadian company BC Hydro undertook to deliver electricity to the USA from four dam construction projects. In 2006, on the other hand, the last coal mine in Washington closed, as the construction of the Satsop nuclear power plant, which began in 1974, had already ceased in 1996.

In 1951, Washington State Ferries started operations. They connected the islands and neighboring Canada to the state's ports. At the same time, efforts to better protect natural resources increased, especially as tourism became increasingly important. Washington Senator Henry Jackson enforced the National Environmental Policy Act in 1970 , followed by a law protecting threatened species in 1973. In the same year, Seattle's local transport system was expanded significantly and buses ran free of charge within the city center.

Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980

Since Washington is located in a tectonically very turbulent region, there were already huge volcanic eruptions in earlier times, but also seaquakes. On May 18, 1980, the St. Helens volcano exploded and destroyed the landscape within a radius of 25 km. 57 people died and property damage amounted to around $ 4 billion. The ecological damage, such as massive fish deaths and forest fires, has never been quantified. The ash covered the ground within a radius of 200 km and was carried up to 1500 km. Washington's economy fell into recession for two years. This was also due to the fact that the wood industry fell into one of its numerous bear markets in 1979. Its political importance decreased more and more, even if in 1991 it was still trying to prevent the Old Growth Forests from being placed under protection, the forests that have never been cleared. Oregon followed in this development when in 1996 more people worked in the electrical industry than in the wood industry. The population rose to 4,866,692 by 1990 and in 2000 was already 5,894,121. Seattle, on the other hand, grew much more slowly and had a population of 516,259 in 1990, ten years later 563,374.

At the end of the 1980s a new boom began in Seattle, that of information technology , of which Microsoft is the best-known exponent . On March 13, 1986, based in Redmond , a city east of Seattle, the company went public, and within ten years it became one of the largest companies in the world. In 1999, Bill and Melinda Gates established the largest private foundation in the world, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation . Even the Internet trade is with amazon.com represented by one of the largest companies in Seattle.

The dependence on large industries, but also increasing immigration, made the population of Seattle sensitive to global relationships. In 1999, on the occasion of the meeting of the World Trade Organization for the Battle of Seattle , around 40,000 people gathered for protests.

It was not until 1924 that the Indians received general civil rights, with which they could take part in elections. They experienced a changed Indian policy from the 1930s and especially from the 1970s . Increasingly, they were able to govern themselves and with the establishment of Indian casinos and increasing tourism, many tribes were able to create their own jobs. In addition, their cultural organizations fought for the preservation of their heritage, including the burial sites and the dead themselves. On November 16, 1990, Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). He saw z. B. the return of the remains of archaeologically significant finds, such as the more than 10,000 year old Buhl woman . This is why it is so important whether the Kennewick man (see above) is considered the ancestor of the local Indian tribes or, for example, the ancestor of the Ainu in Japan. Since only formal recognition as an Indian tribe helps to achieve these rights, numerous groups are fighting over recognition. In 2000 the Duwamish , who had besieged Seattle in 1856, succeeded in enforcing this recognition, but they forfeited this recognition due to formal errors. The Lower Elwha Klallam managed to secure an archaeological site that is central to their history, the village of Tse-whit-zen, against the expansion plans of the port of Port Angeles . This succeeded in 2003, although, despite warnings, 70 million dollars had already been invested.

Gary Locke , first US governor of Chinese descent

The process of reconciliation is also continuing with other minorities despite tough resistance. In 1993, for example, Tacoma passed the Chinese Reconciliation Resolution . The meanwhile more liberal climate in Washington also contributed to this. It was also mostly ruled by Democrats . In 1997, Gary Locke , an American of Chinese descent, was elected governor of a US state for the first time (until 2005). In 2004, Washington elected Democratic candidate John Kerry . In 2005 Christine Gregoire was elected governor. In 2006 she signed a law that had failed several times since 1977 and granted homosexuals all civil rights.

The economic crisis that the USA got into from 2007 also hit Washington. It initially let house prices fall. The spread of the credit crisis from there to the banks became evident in Seattle when the regulators shut down Washington Mutual , a kind of savings bank, on September 25, 2008 . It was the largest bank to date in Washington to file for bankruptcy.

Republicans and Democrats took turns in the office of governor. Arthur B. Langlie of the Republicans was governor from 1941 to 1945 and 1949 to 1957, and from 1957 to 1965 the Democrat Albert Rosellini was the first American of Italian descent to hold this office. Republican Governor Daniel J. Evans was re-elected three times from 1965 to 1977. he was followed by the Democrat Dixy Lee Ray , the first woman in office , until 1981 . It was followed by Republican John Spellman and Democrat Booth Gardner until 1985 and 1993 respectively . With Mike Lowry not only the first Chinese came to office, but the Democrats were the first to prevent a change. This was also Christine Gregoire in a close election in 2004, which remained in office until 2013. In 2009, the majority of voters in Washington voted for the Democrats under Barack Obama and confirmed the Democratic governor Gregoire. Jay Inslee , who won the 2012 and 2016 elections, was also her democratic successor .

literature

• Jacilee Wray: Native Peoples of the Olympic Peninsula. Who We are , University of Oklahoma Press, 2015. ISBN 978-0-8061-4670-6
• Robert H. Ruby, John A. Brown: A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest , University of Oklahoma Press, 1992. ISBN 0-8061-2479-2
• Randall Schalk: The Evolution and Diversification of Native Land Use Systems on the Olympic Peninsula. A Research Design , Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Washington, 1988 ( online ( memento of September 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ))
• Alan D. McMillan: Since the Time of the Transformers. The Ancient Heritage of the Nuu-chah-nulth, Ditidaht, and Makah , Vancouver 2000. ISBN 0-7748-0701-6
• Coll Thrush: Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place , University of Washington Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-295-98812-2
• David J. Weber: The Spanish Frontier in North America , Yale University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-300-14068-2
• Kurt R. Nelson: Fighting for Paradise. A Military History of the Pacific Northwest , 2007. ISBN 978-1-59416-045-5
• Lawrence Kip: Army Life on the Pacific , Applewood 2009. ISBN 978-1-4290-2099-2
• Robert E. Ficken: Washington Territory , Washington State University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-87422-249-4
• Astra Apsitis, David W. Hastings: Washington's Road to Statehood, 1853–1889 , Office of the Secretary of State, Division of Archives and Records Management, Olympia 1989.
• Robert E. Fuck: Washington State. The Inaugural Decade, 1889-1899 , Washington State University Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0-87422-288-3
• Raymond D. Gastil, Barnett Singer: The Pacific Northwest. Growth of a Regional Identity , McFarland, Jefferson, North Carolina 2010. ISBN 978-0-7864-4540-0
• Sandra Haarsager: Organized Womanhood. Cultural Politics in the Pacific Northwest, 1840-1920 , University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 1997.
• Shanna Stevenson: Women's Votes, Women's Voices. The Campaign for Equal Rights in Washington , Washington State Historical Society, 2009. ISBN 978-0-917048-74-6
• Kit Oldham, Peter Blecha, HistoryLink: Rising Tides and Tailwinds. The Story of The Port of Seattle 1911-2011 , Seattle 2011. ISBN 978-0-295-99131-3
• Lillian Alice Ackerman: A Necessary Balance. Gender and Power among Indians of the Columbia Plateau , University of Oklahoma Press, 2003, ISBN 0-8061-3485-2
• Julian Hawthorne: History of Washington. The Evergreen State, from Early Dawn to Daylight , American Historical Publishing, 1893 (one of the first historiographical attempts).
• Robert I. Vexler, William F. Swindler: Chronology and Documentary Handbook of the State of Washington , Oceana Publications, New York 1979. ISBN 0-379-16172-9
• Cecil Pearl Dryden: Dryden's History of Washington , Binfords & Mort, Portland 1968 (partially out of date).

Web links

Commons : History of Washington  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

• Timeline on historylink.org, the online encyclopedia of Washington State history
• University of Washington Libraries: Digital Collections, Washington State Localities Photographs
• Secretary of State's Washington History website
• Search mask for all archives in Washington
• Digitized archival material
• John R. Swanton: The Indian Tribes of North America. Washington

Remarks

1. ↑ M. Leland Stilson, Dan Meatte, and Robert G. Whitlam: A Field Guide to Washington State Archeology. 2003, p. 53.
2. ↑ An interactive map of the Scablands can be found here: Explore the Scablands .
3. ↑ In 2002, only 29 groups (cf. Federally Recognized Indian Tribes ) were recognized as tribes or confederations tied to a reservation in the area of ​​Washington State . This is not only due to the complicated recognition process, but above all to the fact that several tribes were often forced into a reservation and these tribes could be recognized as a common ethnic group.
4. ↑ M. Leland Stilson, Dan Meatte, and Robert G. Whitlam: A Field Guide to Washington State Archeology. 2003, p. 14.
5. ↑ All locations are numbered in the USA. The first two digits stand for the state (45 for Washington), followed by a two-letter abbreviation for the county , then a sequential number in the order of the time of discovery.
6. ↑ Ruth Kirk, Richard D. Daugherty: Archeology in Washington. University of Washington Press 2007, p. 10.
7. ^ Prehistory of Olympic National Park .
8. ↑ Brent A. Hicks: Marmes Rockshelter: A Final Report on 11,000 Years of Cultural Use. Pullman: Washington State University Press 2004, ISBN 0-87422-275-3 .
9. ↑ Timothy Pauketat: The Oxford Handbook of North American Archeology. Oxford University Press 2012, pp. 152f.
10. ^ Kennewick Man , HistoryLink.
11. ↑ Thomas J. Green, Bruce Cochran et al: The Buhl Burial: A Paleo Indian Woman From Southern Idaho. In: American Antiquity 63/3 (1998) 437-456.
12. ↑ M. Leland Stilson, Dan Meatte, and Robert G. Whitlam: A Field Guide to Washington State Archeology. 2003, p. 9.
13. ↑ Allan H. Smith: Takhoma. Ethnography of Mount Rainier National Park. Washington State University Press 2006, pp. 106 ff.
14. ↑ Guy E. Gibbon, Kenneth M. Ames: Archeology of prehistoric native America: an encyclopedia. Taylor & Francis, 1998, p. 118 and E. James Dixon: Bones, Boats & Bison. Archeology and the First Colonization of Western North America , University of New Mexico 1999, 119f.
15. ↑ M. Leland Stilson, Dan Meatte, and Robert G. Whitlam: A Field Guide to Washington State Archeology. 2003, p. 16.
16. ↑ M. Leland Stilson, Dan Meatte, and Robert G. Whitlam: A Field Guide to Washington State Archeology. 2003, p. 22f.
17. ↑ M. Leland Stilson, Dan Meatte, and Robert G. Whitlam: A Field Guide to Washington State Archeology. 2003, p. 23.
18. ^ Brian Thom: Coast Salish Transformation Stories: Kinship, Place and Aborigingal Rights and Title in Canada. Discussion paper for the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Anthropology Society, Toronto 1998 passim.
19. ↑ Barbara Huck: The hair of the dog: was it a sheep or a dog? A canine with an identity complex, the wool dog was prized by the Salish of British Columbia for the thick, soft, white hair they could transform into magnificent blankets. In: The Beaver: Exploring Canada's History (April 2007) and Dies .: In Search of ancient British Columbia , Volume 1, Heartland, Winnipeg, 2006, pp. 139f.
20. ↑ M. Leland Stilson, Dan Meatte, and Robert G. Whitlam: A Field Guide to Washington State Archeology. 2003, p. 27f.
21. ^ RG Matson, Gary Coupland: The Prehistory of the Northwest Coast. Left Coast Press 1994, Walnut Creek, California 2009, p. 221.
22. ↑ James C. Chatters, Virginia L. Butler: Tualdad Altu (45KI59). A 4th Century Village on the Black River, King County, Washington. First City Equities, Seattle 1988, p. 174.
23. ^ Alan D. McMillan: Since the Time of the Transformers. The Ancient Heritage of the Nuu-chah-nulth, Ditidaht, and Makah. Vancouver 2000, p. 99.
24. ^ Archeology , Makah Cultural and Research Center Online Museum.
25. ↑ European horses arrive on the Columbia plateau in the early 1700s. HistoryLink.
26. ^ History of Washington . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
27. ^ Lancaster Pollard, Lloyd Spencer: A history of the state of Washington. Volume 1, American Historical Society 1937, p. 17.
28. ↑ Unearthing Tse-whit-zen. In: Seattle Times 22.-25. May 2005 .
29. ↑ Vancouver, Volume 2, pp. 241-242 after Smallpox epidemic ravages Native Americans on the northwest coast of North America in the 1770s. ( Memento April 10, 2012 on the Internet Archive ), HistoryLink.
30. ^ Peter Puget, Pacific North West Quarterly, 198.
31. ↑ See the map of Vancouver
32. ↑ Captain Alexandro Malaspina , Vancouver Island University.
33. ↑ Don Popejoy, Penny Hutten: Early Spokane. Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, South Carolina 2010, p. 42.
34. ^ Sylvia Van Kirk: The Role of Native Women in the Creation of Fur Trade Society in Western Canada, 1670-1830. In: Women in Pacific Northwest History, ed. Karen J. Blair. Seattle: University of Washington Press 1998, passim.
35. ^ Larry Cebula: Plateau Indians and the quest for spiritual power, 1700-1850. Pp. 73-75.
36. ^ Larry Schweikart, Bradley J. Birzer: The American West. John Wiley & Sons 2003, New York, pp. 190f.
37. ^ Glenn P. Hastedt: Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy. Infobase Publishing, New York 2004, p. 371.
38. ↑ The text of the law
39. ↑ Astra Apsītis, David W. Hastings: Washington's Road to Statehood, 1853-1889 , Office of the Secretary of State, Division of Archives and Records Management, Olympic 1989, passim.
40. ↑ Your father was a Baptist of German descent.
41. ^ Cecil Pearl Dryden: Dryden's history of Washington , Binfords & Mort, 1968, p. 110.
42. ^ Preliminary report on the eighth census, 1860, of the United States , Washington 1862, p. 2.
43. ↑ Lawrence Milton Woods: Asa Shinn Mercer. Western Promoter and Newspaperman, 1839-1917. Arthur H. Clark, 2003, p. 40.
44. ↑ Robert E. Ficken: Washington Territory. Pullman: Washington State University Press 2002, p. 50.
45. ↑ Robert E. Ficken: Washington Territory. Pullman: Washington State University Press 2002, pp. 46f.
46. ↑ US Army defeats Native Americans at Battle of Four Lakes on September 1, 1858 ( Memento from May 18, 2011 in the web archive archive.today ), HistoryLink.
47. ↑ This and the following after Merle Wells: The Long Wait for Statehood. Why it took Washington 36 years and Idaho 26 years to achieve their goals. In: Columbia Magazine 1988 ( July 4, 2008 memento on the Internet Archive ) (archive.org, July 14, 2008 version).
48. ↑ The text of the Washington Constitution can be found here .
49. ^ Richard L. Forstall: Population of States & Counties of the United States 1790–1990. Diane Publishing, Washington DC 1996, p. 177.
50. ^ Coll Thrush, William Cronon: Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-over Place. University of Washington Press 2008, p. 81.
51. ^ Statistical abstract of the United States. P. 23.
52. ↑ On the wood industry around Spokane cf. W. Hudson Kensel: The Early Spokane Lumber Industry, 1871-1910. Idaho Yesterdays, Volume 12, No. 1, 1968.
53. ^ History , Longview, Washington.
54. ↑ James LeMonds: Deadfall. Generations of Logging in the Pacific Northwest. Mountain Press Publishing, 2001, p. 39.
55. ↑ In addition: Gordon Morris Bakken: The Mining Law of 1872. Past, Politics and Prospect. University of New Mexico 2008.
56. ^ Indian Affairs. Laws and Treaties , compiled by Charles J. Kappler, Volume 1, Washington 1904, pp. 904f.
57. ↑ The Quileute made their ideas heard in a newspaper for the first time between 1908 and 1910. See Heather McKimmie: Quileute Independent and Quileute Chieftain, 1908-1910. A Seattle Ethnic Press Report , University of Washington Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project website , 1999 . The Real American was published from 1922 to around 1924 . A National Paper for Indians and their Friends , cf. Erin Plummer: The Real American. “A National Paper for Indians and their Friends,” University of Washington Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project website , 2005
58. ↑ This: John Soennichsen: The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Santa Barbara, California 2011th
59. ^ Website of the Colville National Forest
60. ^ Statistical abstract of the United States , Volume 963, Washington 1954, p. 18.
61. ^ Doris H. Pieroth: The Woman Who Was Mayor. In: Karen J. Blair (Ed.): Women in Pacific Northwest History , Revised 1988 Edition, University of Washington Press, Seattle 2001, pp. 135–157.
62. ↑ Greg Lange: Census of Seattle's Depression-era shantytown, Hooverville, is taken in March 1934. HistoryLink.org Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, January 18, 1999, accessed June 21, 2012 . 
63. ^ Detlef Wienecke-Janz (ed.): The great chronicle of world history . Volume 16: National Socialism and World War II: 1933–1945 . Wissen Media Verlag GmbH, Gütersloh / Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-577-09076-6 , p. 93.
64. ^ ^{A b c} Richard L. Forstall: Population of States & Counties of the United States 1790-1990. Diane Publishing, Washington DC 1996, p. 2.
65. ↑ Michele Stenehjem Gerber examined the history of the system: On the Home Front. The Cold War Legacy of the Hanford Nuclear Site . University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln 1992, New Bison Books 2007.
66. ^ University of Washington honors Japanese American students of World War II on May 18, 2008.
67. ^ Last coal mine in Washington closes on November 27, 2006.
68. ^ Matthew J. Lindstrom, Zachary A. Smith: The National Environmental Policy Act. Judicial Misconstruction, Legislative Indifference, and Executive Neglect. 2nd Edition. Texas University Press 2008, p. 11.
69. ^ Frank Parchman: Echoes of Fury. The 1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens and the Lives it Changed Forever. Epicenter Press, p. 380.
70. ↑ Official Congressional Directory, 2009–2010: 111th Congress, Convened January 2009 , published by Congress, Washington DC 2010, p. 279.
71. ↑ John Melvin DeGrove: Planning Policy and Politics. Smart Growth and the States. Lincoln Institute of Land Policy 2005, p. 284.
72. ↑ The text can be found here .
73. ↑ Lynda Mapes investigated the process: Breaking Ground. The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and the Unearthing of Tse-whit-zen Village. University of Washington Press 2009. General information on legal status cf. Penny A. Hazelton: Indian Law Research in Washington (= Washington Legal Researcher's Deskbook, Chapter 3d), Seattle 2002, pp. 211-234 (University of Washington School of Law Research Paper, ( digitized )).
74. ^ Tacoma City Council approves Chinese Reconciliation Resolution on November 30, 1993 , HistoryLink.
75. ↑ Governor Christine Gregoire signs bill extending civil rights laws to gays and lesbians on January 31, 2006 , HistoryLink.
76. ^ Federal bank regulators seize Washington Mutual on September 25, 2008.

This article was added to the list of articles worth reading on March 29, 2012 in this version .