HISTORY
HISTORY
The early frontier.
When Europeans first explored the Washington area, they encountered a number of Indian tribes, the most prominent being the Chinook, the Coast Salish, the Nez Percé, and the Yakima. The early history of Washington and of the Northwest is intertwined with efforts to find the Northwest Passage, the development of the fur trade with the Orient, and the attempts of Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries to convert the Indians. Spaniards had sailed along the coast earlier, but the wealth of sea otter skins secured from the Indians on one of the voyages of Captain James Cook in 1778 marked the start of real exploration and of the maritime fur trade. George Vancouver, sent by Britain in 1792, tried to find the Northwest Passage and to map the coast. Robert Gray was the first trader from the United States; his explorations resulted in the discovery of the Columbia River in 1792. By 1812, the United States almost completely dominated the fur trade. The British Hudson's Bay Company, however, maintained areas of dominance into the 1840s.
Missionaries were generally welcomed by the Indians, though often not so much for Christian salvation as for the knowledge and material advantages the whites could bring. Among the most famous missions were those of the medical missionary Marcus Whitman and the Reverend Henry Spalding, established in 1836 in southeastern Washington, and the Roman Catholic missions established by Pierre-Jean DeSmet in northeastern Washington.
The Protestant missionaries felt that white civilization was necessary for the Indian and thus encouraged white settlement. With the opening of the Oregon Trail, the first large group, about 1,000 people, reached the Northwest in 1843. These and others following first went mainly into the Willamette valley of what became the state of Oregon, and later into the area north of the Columbia River (in present-day Washington), then still dominated by the Hudson's Bay Company. The Indians were initially receptive but the settlers' inconsistent dealings with the Indians led to such conflicts as the Cayuse War (1848-50), the Yakima War (1855-58), and the Nez Percé War (1877).
By the end of the 19th century most of the Indians had been settled on reservations, representing three principal tribal groups: Coast Salish, Interior Salish, and the Sahaptin. Anthropologists have identified numerous distinct tribes on the basis of language and other local cultural characteristics. Among the larger tribes of western Washington are the Makah, Quinault, Lummi, Snohomish, and Puyallup; tribes of eastern Washington include the Okanogan, Yakima, Klickitat, Kalispel, and Spokane.
Territory and state.
Until the 1840s citizens of both the United States and Britain by agreement could settle and trade in what was
still known as the Oregon country. In 1846 the two countries agreed on the present boundary between the United
States and Canada, and in 1848 Congress established the Oregon Territory including all of the present-day states
of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and parts of Wyoming and Montana. This enormous area was difficult to govern from
the territorial capital in the Willamette valley. As the population around Puget Sound grew, agitation arose to
form a separate territory of the area north and west of the Columbia. In 1853 Congress created the Washington Territory--named
for the first president of the United States--and extended it east of the Columbia River to the crest of the Rockies,
including parts of present-day Idaho and Montana.
Different rates of population growth and difficulties of communication continued to cause problems, and various
movements called for the creation of a separate territory in eastern Washington and even the creation of an independent
Pacific Republic. In the 1870s and '80s the extension of the telegraph and the railroads to the Northwest strengthened
ties with the United States, and attention turned to seeking statehood, granted in 1889.
Gold discoveries in the interior in the 1850s made Walla Walla the center of eastern Washington for a time, but
these were merely a prelude to Washington's role in provisioning the gold seekers who set out for the Alaskan and
Yukon strikes of the late 1890s. The gold stimulated the trade of cities on Puget Sound, and the new prosperity
was celebrated at the Alaska-Yukon Exposition in 1909.
Possibly the greatest stimulus to the state's progress in the 20th century was initiated by the development of
the Columbia Basin and related projects, which greatly increased hydroelectric power and provided the basis for
increased irrigation and flood control. A navigation improvement project was authorized as early as 1911, and work
began on the Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams in 1933. Construction was completed on Bonneville in 1937 and on
the main structure of Grand Coulee in 1941. The first two Grand Coulee power plants were completed in 1951, and
a third power plant began operation in 1975.
Washington's prosperity and its growing role in the commerce of the Pacific were among the features celebrated
in the Seattle World's Fair of 1962, named the Century 21 Exposition. Developments in the latter half of the 20th
century were increased urbanization, consolidation of agricultural landholdings, improved transportation networks,
and expanded trade with the Pacific Basin countries. Increasing concern for the environment led to a series of
laws to regulate the impact of a growing population.
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