Seattles Downfall

The Pacific Northwest is like no other in steps to success and the Northwest we know currently. The discovery of Vancouver, and confrontation with British, the conflicts with Natives and solutions to those conflicts, as well as the growth and achievement of its largest city of the time, Seattle, helped create and enforce the society and economy of which we have today. However the settlement of the Washington and Oregon territories came after the settlement of the colony Vancouver, Canada.

Firstly, the Forty-Ninth parallel is the line at which Canada and America are separated, is surpassed by southern most part of Canada, Vancouver. This is a province that is full of history and atmosphere unknown to many. An English sailor, Captain James Cook, discovered the island of Vancouver in 1778. Originally, the island was a colony of Great Britain, and until immigration open the gates to the province in the nineteen-fifty’s, eighty percent of the residents in Vancouver could trace back their ancestry to Britain. As that the colony was originally settled, as a stop over for British travelers on their way to England the majority of British people made Vancouver particularly pleasing. In the late eighteen-fifty’s gold was found, and attracted some new inhabitants that displeased the residents of Vancouver, due to their low social status, and poor manners. Vancouver undeniably has an uncanny resemblance of Great Britain. The likeness in architecture of buildings, society, decisions and format of government is apparent within the island. This is shown with the almost mimic, gives Vancouver a rare atmosphere of a Britain on the Pacific Ocean. Of course in the 1982 Canada was given the power to amend and create their own constitution. They became a country separate from Britain. Even after this, the island held onto to its charming atmosphere and rich history, of which attracted tourist and settlers. After Vancouver had been settled, the surrounding areas began to be settled as well. These included the Oregon Territory. There Indians were dealt with and pushed off the land they had once occupied.

As a result, for more then 300 years, Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest, were taken advantage of without knowing that they were being used. When the first white man came to the northwest, the natives knew nothing about him. They knew not who he was, how he worked, and what his words meant. This, however, was only turned to the new man’s advantage. They saw a land of riches, of abundant food and trading opportunities. Sadly, being the gluttons that they were, they also saw the advantage they had over the natives of the land they rightly called home. With the white man came diseases that the aborigines knew nothing of, which their immune systems had never encountered and had not anti-bodies to. Because of this weakness, many died after contracting the diseases. In particular, smallpox, which cut the Native American population by 90%. Samuel Hancock wrote, “ It was truly shocking to witness the ravages of the disease here at Neah Bay………The beach, for a distance of eight miles, was literally strewn with the dead bodies of these people.” This was a weapon of which the natives had no true defense. Those who they trusted to heal their people, the shaman, could do nothing. In one case, a white settler, Dr. Whitman was believed to be the shaman by the people of the Cayuses tribe. When he failed to stop the smallpox virus, he was killed, along with his wife and ten other mission hands. The suffering of the natives did not stop here though. Many treaties were made, and many acts were passed. In 1854, the Puyallup’s and Nisquallie’s signed the Treaty of Medicine Creek, which gave up to 2.2 million acres of land in return for thirty thousand dollars that was to be paid in twenty years and three reservations of 1,280 acres each, which were to be set aside for the natives. At another time seventeen thousand northwest Indians were convinced to give up 64 million acres for the cost of 1.2 million dollars, less then two cents and acre. The new settlers now learned what power they had over these people, how to take advantage of their lack of knowledge and ignorance in a world that the natives had never seen and knew no rules of. The United States government as well, took part in this atrocious behavior, passing acts like the Oregon Donations Land Act, which in the 1850’s allowed a white American man to claim 320 acres for himself and another 320 for his wife. As the times changed however the natives adapted to this new society and began to fight back in a different way. One victory was the Land Allotment Act of 1887 was that each male Indian head of house hold was given a chunk of reservation land from 40 to 160 acres, which he could sell as an individual. Now though,