The history of Washington includes thousands of years of Native American history before Europeans arrived and began to establish territorial claims. The region was part of Oregon Territory from 1848 to 1853, after which it was separated from Oregon and established as Washington Territory following the efforts at the Monticello Convention. On November 11, 1889, Washington became the 42nd state of the United States.
Prehistory and cultures Archaeological evidence shows that the Pacific Northwest was one of the first populated areas in North America. Both animal and human bones dating back to 13,000 years old have been found across Washington and evidence of human habitation in the Olympic Peninsula dates back to approximately 9,000 BCE, 3,000 to 5,000 years after massive flooding of the Columbia River which carved the Columbia Gorge.
Anthropologists estimate there were 125 distinct Northwest tribes and 50 languages and dialects in existence before the arrival of Euro-Americans in this region. Throughout the Puget Sound region, coastal tribes made use of the region's abundant natural resources, subsisting primarily on salmon, halibut, shellfish, and whale. Cedar was an important building material and was used by tribes to build both longhouses and large canoes. Clothing was also made from the bark of cedar trees. The Columbia River tribes became the richest of the Washington tribes through their control of Celilo Falls, historically the richest salmon fishing location in the Northwest. These falls on the Columbia River, east of present-day The Dalles, Oregon, were part of the path millions of salmon took to spawn. The presence of private wealth among the more aggressive coastal tribes encouraged gender divisions, as women took on prominent roles as traders and men participated in warring and captive-taking with other tribes. The eastern tribes, called the Plateau tribes, survived through seasonal hunting, fishing, and gathering. Tribal work among the Plateau Indians was also gender-divided, with both men and women responsible for equal parts of the food supply.Armitage, Susan. "Tied to Other Lives: Women in Pacific Northwest History." Women in Pacific Northwest History. Ed. Karen J. Blair. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998.
The principal tribes of the coastal areas include the Chinook, Lummi, Quinault, Makah, Quileute, and Snohomish. The Plateau tribes include the Klickitat, Cayuse, Nez Percé, Okanogan, Palouse, Spokane, Wenatchee, and Yakama. Today, Washington contains more than 20 Indian reservations, the largest of which is for the Yakama.
At Ozette, in the northwest corner of the state, an ancient village was covered by a mud slide, perhaps triggered by an earthquake about 500 years ago. More than 50,000 well-preserved artifacts have been found and cataloged, many of which are now on display at the Makah Cultural and Research Center in Neah Bay. Other sites have also revealed how long people have been there. Thumbnail-sized quartz knife blades found at the Hoko River site near Clallam Bay are believed to be 2,500 years old.
European Colony
Early European and American exploration The first European sighting of the future Washington state coast on record was in 1774 by Spaniard mariner Juan José Pérez Hernández (c.1725–1775), sailing for the Kingdom of Spain / Spanish Empire, but he did not land. One year later, another Spanish-Basque Captain Don Bruna de Heceta (1747–1807), on board the Santiago, part of a two-ship flotilla with the accompanying Sonora, landed at Point Grenville near the mouth of the Quinault River, becoming the first Europeans to set foot in what is now Washington. The party claimed the coastal lands for Spain as far north up to the already present colonists of the Russian Empire possessions, originally discovered / claimed by Captain Vitus Bering (1681–1741), a Russian (Danish-born) mariner sailing the coasts of the northern Pacific for Russia and its rapidly expanding Russian Empire across the Bering Strait and Bering Sea (named for him) coming from eastern Siberia and Asia) further up the Pacific coast in Russian America since the 1740s (modern Alaska, purchased by the United States in 1867).
In 1778, the British Royal Navy explorer Captain James Cook (1728–1779), sighted Cape Flattery, at the entrance of the Puget Sound at the Strait of Juan de Fuca. But the strait itself was not found until almost a decade later when Charles William Barkley (c.1759–1832), captain of the Imperial Eagle, sighted it in 1787. Captain Barkley named it for the earlier Spanish-Greek explorer Juan de Fuca (1536–1602). The Spanish-British treaties of the Nootka Conventions of the 1790s ended Spanish exclusivity and opened the Northwest North America Coast to explorers and traders from other nations, most important being the future British, Russians, and Americans of the United States. Further explorations of the straits were performed again by Spanish-Peruvian explorer Manuel Quimper (1757–1844), in 1790 and a year later by Francisco de Eliza (1759–1825), in 1791 and then the following year of 1792, came the arrival by British Royal Navy Captain George Vancouver (1757–1798). Captain Vancouver claimed the sound and coast for Britain and named the waters originally to the far south of the Tacoma Narrows as the Puget's Sound, in honor of Peter Puget (1765–1822), (who was the young Royal Navy naval lieutenant accompanying him on the Vancouver Expedition of 1791–1795, (later in his naval career he became a rear admiral). The name later came to be used also for the waters north of the Tacoma Narrows as well. Captain Vancouver and his expedition mapped the Pacific coast of western North America in 1792 to 1794, including the then large tract of the Oregon Country composed later of future territories / then states of Oregon and Washington / Idaho, plus to the north of the Canadian colonies of British North America of the Colony of Vancouver Island on off-shore Vancouver Island and the mainland's Columbia District / then later renamed Department, on the continent. Then subsequently after several decades in 1858 / 1866 into the Colony of British Columbia, eventually merging the island and mainland becoming by 1866, the modern British Columbia, later joining the 1867 confederation formed further east of the Dominion of Canada four years later in 1871 as the western-most province) in the Pacific Northwest region.Captain Robert Gray (1755–1806) (for whom Grays Harbor County in Washington was named), a civilian sea captain of a merchantman cargo vessel, discovered the mouth of the Columbia River along the West Coast of the North America continent in the Pacific Northwest region in 1792, naming the river after his ship "Columbia" and later establishing a trade in sea otter, seal and walrus fur pelts in the surrounding Pacific Northwest region. The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806), with their Corps of Discovery sent by the direction of third President Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826, served 1801–1809), entered the region from the east on October 10, 1805, having journeyed upstream on the Missouri River and through the passes in the Rocky Mountains chain, then downstream through the Snake River and Columbia River valleys to the coast. Explorers and scientific observers Meriwether Lewis (1774–1809), and William Clark (1770–1838), were surprised by the differences in the various Native Americans / Indian tribes in the Pacific Northwest from those they had encountered earlier in the expedition trip on the Great Plains, noting, in particular, the increased status of women among both coastal and upper plateau / mountain tribes. Lewis hypothesized that the equality of women and the elderly with men, was linked to more evenly distributed economic roles.
British / Canadian explorer, surveyor / cartographer and fur trader David Thompson (1770–1857), extensively explored the Columbia River two years later, commencing in 1807. Four years later in 1811, he became the first European to navigate the entire length of the river westward downstream to its mouth on the Pacific Ocean. Along the way he posted a notice where it joins the Snake River claiming the land for Great Britain (United Kingdom / British Empire), and stating the intention of their North West Company to build a fort and trading post there. Subsequently, the Fort Nez Perces trading post, was established (near present-day Walla Walla, Washington). Thompson's posted notice was later found by the party of Astorians of John Jacob Astor (1763–1848) looking to establish an inland fur trading post / station. It contributed to American mercantile fur trader leader David Stuart (1765–1853)'s choice, on behalf of the competing Americans' and Astor's short-lived Pacific Fur Company (1810–1813), of choosing a more northerly site for their operations which were then established at Fort Okanogan (in modern Okanogan County, near Brewster, Washington).
By the time American settlers started arriving from the east in the 1830s, a population of Métis (mixed race) people had grown from centuries of contact with early-European fur traders partnering with Native American women.Van Kirk, Sylvia. "The Role of Native Women in the Creation of Fur Trade Society in Western Canada, 1670–1830". Women in Pacific Northwest History. Ed. Karen J. Blair. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998. Before larger numbers of Caucasian European American women began moving to the territory from the east and the United States in the 1830s, traders and fur trade workers generally sought out Métis or Native American women for wives and companionship or for domestic chores. Early European-Indigenous mixed ancestry settlements resulted from these partnerships as an outgrowth of the fur trade then growing into the work of agriculture raising small crops of grain and vegetables harvested for food at: Cowlitz Prairie (Fort Vancouver) and Frenchtown, Washington (Fort Nez Percés).
American–British joint occupation disputes
American interests in the region grew as part of their concept of manifest destiny. Spain had ceded their rights north of the 42nd Parallel to the United States by the terms of the earlier 1819 Adams-Onís Treaty, (but not possession, which was disallowed by the terms of the Nootka Conventions).
Britain had long-standing commercial interests through the Hudson's Bay Company and a well-established network of fur trading stations and forts along the Columbia River in what it called the Columbia District. These were headquartered from Fort Vancouver in present-day Vancouver, Washington.
By the Treaty of 1818, following from the War of 1812 (1812–1815), Great Britain and the United States established the 49th parallel as the international border stretching west to the Continental Divide of the Rocky Mountains; but agreed to temporary joint control and occupancy of the Oregon Country / Columbia District for the next few years.
In 1824, the Russian Empire (Russia) signed an agreement with the U.S. acknowledging it had no claims south of the parallel line 54-40 of latitude north and Russia signed a similar treaty with Britain the following in 1825, thereby establishing the southern limits of its coastal possessions in Russian America (modern Alaska) in the northwestern corner of the North American continent until its sale to the U.S. 43 years later in 1867.