George Washington Bush

• Born: c. 1790
• Birthplace: Pennsylvania
• Died: April 5, 1863
• Place of death: Bush Prairie, Washington

Pioneer

One of the first people to settle in the territory that became Washington State, Bush was a courageous pioneer who prevailed in spite of insidious exclusion laws. He led a wagon train along the famous Oregon Trail and, once in Washington Territory, built a successful farm and mill.

Area of achievement: Exploration and pioneering

Early Life

George Washington Bush was the son of Matthew Bush, an African American who reportedly was from either the West Indies or India, and an Irish immigrant who worked as a maid. Both parents were servants in the home of a wealthy Philadelphia man named Stevenson. Bush was raised in the Quaker tradition and was probably better educated than the norm.

As a young man, Bush served in the U.S. Army, reportedly at the Battle of New Orleans, an important event during the War of 1812. In 1820, he found his way to the Oregon country, where he was an explorer and fur trapper primarily associated with the Hudson’s Bay Company. In 1830, Bush settled in Missouri, worked a successful farm, and married a German American woman named Isabelle James. They had five sons while in Missouri, and a sixth was born after the family moved west.

During these years, Bush’s African American ancestry placed him and his family in an increasingly difficult position. Prejudice against them finally persuaded them to sell the farm and move west to the Oregon country, which at the time was held jointly (and in dispute) by the United States and Great Britain.

Life’s Work

In 1844, the Bush family joined with twenty-five others to form a wagon train to cross the country on the Oregon Trail. Bush and his friend Michael Simmons led the party. Some of the families did not have enough money to pay for the necessary provisions and equipment, and Bush reportedly helped them finance the journey. As a leader of this challenging expedition, he was wise and generous, characteristics for which he was well known throughout his life. The journey took four arduous months, but their arrival in Oregon was a bitter disappointment, because they found that racial prejudice had spread since Bush’s earlier stay in Oregon. As in Missouri, African Americans were not allowed to own land, and the provisional legislature of the Oregon Territory had enacted the notorious “Lash Law” that forced African Americans to leave the territory or face lashings. A prohibition on African Americans arriving or staying in Oregon eventually was included in Oregon’s Bill of Rights in 1857. The last exclusion law was not removed from Oregon’s state constitution until 1926.

The wagon train reached Oregon in the fall of 1844, and the Bush family soon realized that they did not want to settle in the hostile territory. The Columbia River separated Oregon from the sparsely settled land to the north, where the governing body was the Hudson’s Bay Company and where exclusion laws were not in effect. The Bushes crossed the Columbia and spent the winter of 1844-1845 near the Hudson’s Bay settlement at Fort Vancouver. Their close friends the Simmonses moved with them across the river.

In the summer of 1845, Bush and Simmons explored the region to the north and decided to move their families to a site near Puget Sound. To get there, the families proceeded down the Columbia to the Cowlitz River and then north as far as possible on the Cowlitz. From Cowlitz Landing, it took two weeks to build a trail north to the southern tip of the Puget Sound. This trail eventually became the northern extension of the Oregon Trail and was followed by many settlers.

The two families each staked out a claim in the lush bottomland south of the south shores of the sound. The Simmons claim was on the Tumwater River, near what became the city of Tumwater, and the Bush claim was south of it on land that became known as Bush Prairie.

Bush and Simmons cooperated on many pioneering projects, including the construction of the first grist mill in the area. There, grain from Bush’s fertile farm was milled for sale to the increasing number of settlers. The men also built a sawmill to meet the demand for lumber for the construction of homes and other buildings.

The 640-acre Bush farm was very successful, growing vegetables, grain, and fruit. Bush became known throughout the region as a generous and charitable man. One hard winter, he was said to have saved more than one family from starvation by sharing his stores of grain and produce. Newcomers found that they could go to his farm to borrow seed to start their farms.

The presence of the Bush and Simmons families and the others who followed them to the Puget Sound region led to new problems. Their settlements highlighted the need for a settlement of the dispute between the United States and Great Britain over the ownership of the land north of the Columbia. The Treaty of Oregon of 1846 finally established the boundary, which gave most of the Puget Sound region to the United States, while Britain retained the land north of the forty-ninth parallel. This meant that the new settlements around Bush Prairie were in Oregon Territory and thus subject to its exclusionary laws. After all of their efforts to escape discrimination, the Bush family no longer legally owned the successful farm that they had built.

The situation was unresolved until 1853, when the northern half of Oregon was separated into a political region called Washington Territory. The first territorial legislature was made up of men who were familiar with the Bush family’s generosity. They voted unanimously to petition Congress to grant the Bush family clear title to their land, which Congress did in 1855.

The Bush family stayed on the farm and prospered in Washington Territory. They introduced modern farming equipment and practices, which were then adopted by other settlers in the region, so that the Bush farm became a model of productivity and quality. Bush died on April 5, 1863. His farm, which had grown to 880 acres, was left in the hands of his sons. The oldest, William Owen Bush, managed it until he died in 1907.

Significance

Bush was the first African American to settle in what became Washington State. He became a leading citizen of the Puget Sound region, and he and his family acted as benefactors and mentors for the pioneer families who followed them to the region.

Bibliography

City of Tumwater, Washington. “Tumwater History.” http://www.ci.tumwater.wa.us/History.htm. Provides information about Bush, Simmons, their settlement, and the history of the town of Tumwater.

Heikell, Iris White. The Wind-Breaker: George Washington Bush, Black Pioneer of the Northwest. New York: Vantage Press, 1980. This brief biography provides a dramatic account of Bush’s moves across the country, resulting in his family’s settlement in Washington Territory.

Hult, Ruby El. The Saga of George Washington Bush, Unheralded Pioneer of the Northwest Territory. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962. The first full biography of Bush, this book was written by a local journalist.

LeWarne, Charles Pierce. Washington State. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003. Complete, well-researched history of the state. Includes much of the story of the Bush family’s pioneering move to Puget Sound and offers a well-written account of the development of the region.

Morgan, Murray. Puget’s Sound: A Narrative of Early Tacoma and the Southern Sound. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003. An acclaimed history of the region that devotes a section to Bush and his companions.