A Brief History of Cascadia: to 1846
History to 1846 | 1846 to 1952 | 1952 to Present
Cascadia like its borders, has an imprecise history.
The idea of an autonomous state along the Pacific coast dates back hundreds of years to when the area was first being explored. It was originally envisioned by Thomas Jefferson after he sent Lewis and Clark into the Pacific Northwest in 1803.
Jefferson foresaw the establishment of an independent nation in the Western portion of the North American continent that he dubbed the "Republic of the Pacific". In his mind, this nation was to be home to a “great, free and independent empire”, populated by American settlers, but separate from the United States politically and economically, and eventually becoming a great trading partner exploring its own democratic experiment.
When Lewis and Clark first arrived, they found a densely populated and diverse region. Before 1800, it is estimated that more than 500,000 people lived within the region in dozens of tribes such as the Chinook, Haida, Nootka and Tlingit.
It was during these early years of exploration that the root of therm Cascadia first came into being. It is credited to Scottish naturalist David Douglas, after whom the Doug Fir was named, and who explored the region in depth throughout the 1820’s. While he was searching for plants near the mouth of the Columbia gorge in 1825 he was struck by the areas ‘cascading waterfalls’. As he writes in his journals he talks in depth about the mountains by these ‘great cascades’ or later, just simply the Cascades, the first written reference to the mountain range that would later bear this name.
Surrounding these mountains lived a hardy and independent people. Even before the area was unified as the Oregon Territory, the idea of an autonomous state was embraced by those who had recently moved to the region.
John McLoughlin, the chief factor of the Columbia District, administered from Fort Vancouver and which included Oregon, Washington and large swaths of British Columbia, was involved with the debate over the future of the Oregon Country. As a member of the Oregon Lyceum, a forum and literary club for influential pioneers, and the first organization to publish a newspaper west of the Rockies, he was engaged at the forefront of a political debate to decide wether or not to form an independent government.
At the time neither the United States nor Great Britain could claim the Oregon Country under the terms of the Treaty of 1818 signed at the conclusion of the War of 1812. During these debates in Oregon City the European settlers argued about whether an independent country or a provisional government should be formed. Beginning in the fall and winter of 1840-1841 before British claims north of the Columbia River were ceded to the U.S.A. by the Oregon Treaty of 1846; Chief Factor John McLoughlin advocated for an independent nation.
Those lyceum members advocating an independent country were mainly British, including Dr. McLoughlin and his HBC employees, although many former fur trappers, predominately French Canadian, Roman Catholics, and the region's Jesuit missionaries sided with McLoughlin on this issue. His view won support at first and a resolution was adopted, but was later moved away from in favor of a resolution by George Abernethy of the Methodist Mission to delay the formation an independent government to see if the United States would extend its jurisdiction.
