WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.639 You know, usually when we think about the history 00:00:01.639 --> 00:00:05.679 of the American West, there's this expectation 00:00:05.679 --> 00:00:08.199 of a very specific linear story. Right, like 00:00:08.199 --> 00:00:10.679 a very clean progression. Exactly. It's almost 00:00:10.679 --> 00:00:12.880 like playing that old 8 -bit computer game, you 00:00:12.880 --> 00:00:15.759 know? You load up your covered wagon, you ford 00:00:15.759 --> 00:00:17.960 the river. Maybe get dysentery along the way. 00:00:17.980 --> 00:00:20.519 Yeah, exactly. And eventually you just arrive 00:00:20.519 --> 00:00:23.620 in this lush green valley. It's a really neat, 00:00:24.140 --> 00:00:26.879 highly predictable narrative of pioneer discovery. 00:00:27.019 --> 00:00:29.899 It is a comforting progression. I mean, we like 00:00:29.899 --> 00:00:32.439 our history to unfold in a straight line from 00:00:32.439 --> 00:00:34.979 point A to point B, where progress just sort 00:00:34.979 --> 00:00:37.359 of naturally marches forward. But then you step 00:00:37.359 --> 00:00:39.259 into the actual historical record of the U .S. 00:00:39.340 --> 00:00:41.299 state of Oregon, and suddenly that neat little 00:00:41.299 --> 00:00:43.460 game cartridge is just completely fried. Oh, 00:00:43.539 --> 00:00:45.380 absolutely. It is not a straight line at all. 00:00:45.659 --> 00:00:47.439 No, we're looking at a historical landscape that 00:00:47.439 --> 00:00:50.560 is honestly just completely chaotic. I mean, 00:00:50.719 --> 00:00:55.159 it's a story forged by... literal exploding mountains, 00:00:55.560 --> 00:00:59.020 bizarre geopolitical warfare, and this is key, 00:00:59.159 --> 00:01:01.780 deeply contradictory political realities. It 00:01:01.780 --> 00:01:04.879 really is the absolute definition of a historical 00:01:04.879 --> 00:01:08.159 and geological pressure cooker. Like, everything 00:01:08.159 --> 00:01:10.420 is turned up to the maximum intensity from the 00:01:10.420 --> 00:01:13.560 very beginning. Exactly. And that is our mission 00:01:13.560 --> 00:01:16.140 for today's Deep Dive. We are peeling back the 00:01:16.140 --> 00:01:18.319 layers of a place that, let's be honest, most 00:01:18.319 --> 00:01:21.439 people just associate with Endless Rain, Hipsters, 00:01:21.659 --> 00:01:23.579 and the Oregon Trail. Right. There's so much 00:01:23.579 --> 00:01:26.480 more to it than that. Way more. We know you want 00:01:26.480 --> 00:01:29.260 a quick but thorough understanding of what really 00:01:29.260 --> 00:01:31.959 shaped this region. So we're going to start with 00:01:31.959 --> 00:01:34.920 mountains literally blowing their tops off, move 00:01:34.920 --> 00:01:38.420 through secret fur deserts, and unpack the surprisingly 00:01:38.420 --> 00:01:42.040 dark, heavily legislated history of Oregon's 00:01:42.040 --> 00:01:44.459 founding. And actually, as a quick heads up, 00:01:44.540 --> 00:01:46.159 before we get into the darker chapters of this 00:01:46.159 --> 00:01:48.799 history, especially the heavily legislated racial 00:01:48.799 --> 00:01:51.480 exclusion of its founding and the intense modern 00:01:51.480 --> 00:01:53.700 political divides, I should just stay our goal 00:01:53.700 --> 00:01:55.420 here. Yeah, that's a really important point to 00:01:55.420 --> 00:01:58.319 make. Right. Because as guides on this deep dive, 00:01:58.640 --> 00:02:01.219 our goal today is simply to unpack the history 00:02:01.219 --> 00:02:03.280 exactly as it happened in the source material. 00:02:03.609 --> 00:02:06.430 We aren't here to take political sides or endorse 00:02:06.430 --> 00:02:09.669 any of these historical views or racist laws. 00:02:09.849 --> 00:02:11.789 We just want to give you the unvarnished reality 00:02:11.789 --> 00:02:14.889 of how this state was built. Exactly. Impartially 00:02:14.889 --> 00:02:16.669 reporting the facts so you can understand the 00:02:16.669 --> 00:02:19.349 full scope of the region. Right, because to understand 00:02:19.349 --> 00:02:21.449 the politics, you first have to understand the 00:02:21.449 --> 00:02:24.550 land itself. Before human history could even 00:02:24.550 --> 00:02:27.090 begin in this region, the stage had to be set 00:02:27.090 --> 00:02:30.750 by these violent... landscape -altering cataclysms. 00:02:30.969 --> 00:02:32.729 The geological pressure cooker you mentioned 00:02:32.729 --> 00:02:35.050 earlier. Yeah, and the record backs that up in 00:02:35.050 --> 00:02:37.610 a terrifying way. Like, toward the end of the 00:02:37.610 --> 00:02:40.250 last ice age, you had the Missoula floods, and 00:02:40.250 --> 00:02:41.889 we need to be clear here, these weren't just, 00:02:41.889 --> 00:02:44.150 you know, heavy rains. Not at all. I mean, this 00:02:44.150 --> 00:02:46.990 was the periodic rupturing of massive ice dams. 00:02:47.050 --> 00:02:50.210 Wow. Yeah, imagine a literal wall of ice holding 00:02:50.210 --> 00:02:53.210 back an entire inland sea, and then that dam 00:02:53.210 --> 00:02:55.189 suddenly just shatters. That is terrifying to 00:02:55.189 --> 00:02:57.819 even picture. It is. The discharge rates from 00:02:57.819 --> 00:03:00.599 these floods were ten times the combined flow 00:03:00.599 --> 00:03:02.379 of all the rivers in the world. Wait, let me 00:03:02.379 --> 00:03:05.000 just pause on that. Ten times the flow of every 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:08.370 single river on earth. Combined. Combined. The 00:03:08.370 --> 00:03:10.949 water over present -day Portland, Oregon was 00:03:10.949 --> 00:03:14.729 estimated to be about 400 feet deep. That's unbelievable. 00:03:14.789 --> 00:03:17.050 If you were standing in downtown Portland today, 00:03:17.189 --> 00:03:19.789 you'd be looking up at water covering a 30 -story 00:03:19.789 --> 00:03:23.129 skyscraper. And this wasn't just a freak one 00:03:23.129 --> 00:03:26.090 -time thing. No. This catastrophic flooding happened 00:03:26.090 --> 00:03:28.830 perhaps 40 times over a thousand -year period. 00:03:29.270 --> 00:03:32.090 It violently stripped away land in eastern Washington, 00:03:32.270 --> 00:03:34.750 which created the channeled scab lands. Oh, right. 00:03:35.659 --> 00:03:38.960 all those rich, thick lake sediments right into 00:03:38.960 --> 00:03:41.879 the lower Columbia River Plateau. So think about 00:03:41.879 --> 00:03:45.020 the irony there for a second. The legendary agricultural 00:03:45.020 --> 00:03:48.020 fertility that later drew all those covered wagons. 00:03:48.060 --> 00:03:51.120 Yeah. That lush green valley from the 8 -bit 00:03:51.120 --> 00:03:54.259 game. It was actually the direct result of catastrophic 00:03:54.259 --> 00:03:57.840 repeated destruction. It's a massive irony. And 00:03:57.840 --> 00:04:00.159 if the drowning landscape wasn't enough, you 00:04:00.159 --> 00:04:03.080 also have the volcanoes. Oh, the volcanoes. Right. 00:04:03.539 --> 00:04:07.039 Around 5677 BC, Mount Mazama erupts. And this 00:04:07.039 --> 00:04:08.639 was the tallest mountain in the region, right? 00:04:08.639 --> 00:04:12.379 Like 11 ,000 feet. Yeah. But the eruption is 00:04:12.379 --> 00:04:15.080 estimated to have been 42 times more powerful 00:04:15.080 --> 00:04:18.500 than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. Just 00:04:18.500 --> 00:04:20.519 picture that for a second. I mean, the Mount 00:04:20.519 --> 00:04:23.860 St. Helens eruption darkened skies across the 00:04:23.860 --> 00:04:26.879 entire country and dropped ash for hundreds of 00:04:26.879 --> 00:04:29.379 miles. Exactly. Now multiply that devastation 00:04:29.379 --> 00:04:32.319 by 42. It's almost incomprehensible. The mountain 00:04:32.319 --> 00:04:34.740 literally blew off half a mile of its own height. 00:04:34.910 --> 00:04:37.470 Right. And because it expelled so much magma 00:04:37.470 --> 00:04:40.170 so incredibly fast, the structural integrity 00:04:40.170 --> 00:04:42.290 of the mountain just completely failed. It just 00:04:42.290 --> 00:04:44.490 collapsed inward into its own emptied magma chamber. 00:04:44.670 --> 00:04:47.490 Yes. Creating this massive crater that eventually 00:04:47.490 --> 00:04:49.649 filled with water, which, of course, we now know 00:04:49.649 --> 00:04:51.449 as Crater Lake. Crater Lake. And then add to 00:04:51.449 --> 00:04:54.189 that the 1700 Cascadia earthquake. Oh, yeah. 00:04:54.310 --> 00:04:56.670 That was so massive, it caused an orphan tsunami 00:04:56.670 --> 00:04:59.470 all the way across the Pacific in Japan. And 00:04:59.470 --> 00:05:01.750 it triggered a landslide that completely downed 00:05:01.750 --> 00:05:03.990 the Columbia River. So my question to you is 00:05:03.990 --> 00:05:06.189 with floods drowning the landscape and mountains 00:05:06.189 --> 00:05:09.470 literally blowing their tops off. How did early 00:05:09.470 --> 00:05:12.589 humans even manage to survive and make sense 00:05:12.589 --> 00:05:14.930 of this explosive environment? Well, this is 00:05:14.930 --> 00:05:17.089 where the human element gets really fascinating 00:05:17.089 --> 00:05:20.250 because the Native Americans in the region didn't 00:05:20.250 --> 00:05:23.370 just survive these apocalyptic events. They actually 00:05:23.370 --> 00:05:26.790 accurately recorded them. Wait, really? Recorded 00:05:26.790 --> 00:05:29.439 them how? Through oral history. They essentially 00:05:29.439 --> 00:05:31.699 maintained an oral geological record spanning 00:05:31.699 --> 00:05:34.240 thousands of years. Take the eruption of Mount 00:05:34.240 --> 00:05:37.319 Mazama, for example. OK. The Klamath Native Americans 00:05:37.319 --> 00:05:40.060 passed down a history of the mountain being inhabited 00:05:40.060 --> 00:05:42.680 by Lao, who was the god of the underworld. Oh, 00:05:42.680 --> 00:05:45.100 interesting. Yeah. And the catastrophic destruction 00:05:45.100 --> 00:05:47.300 of the mountain was recounted as this massive, 00:05:47.420 --> 00:05:50.519 world -shaking battle between Lao and Skel, the 00:05:50.519 --> 00:05:53.879 sky god. Wow. So an indigenous myth passed down 00:05:53.879 --> 00:05:56.899 through countless generations is perfectly aligning 00:05:56.899 --> 00:05:59.860 with the 7 ,000 year geological fact. Precisely. 00:06:00.100 --> 00:06:02.079 The collapse of the mountain wasn't just a story, 00:06:02.480 --> 00:06:04.680 it was an eyewitness account wrapped in theology. 00:06:05.069 --> 00:06:08.009 That is amazing. And we see the exact same thing 00:06:08.009 --> 00:06:11.290 with the Cascadia earthquake, that massive landslide 00:06:11.290 --> 00:06:14.389 that damned the Columbia River. Yeah. It's remembered 00:06:14.389 --> 00:06:17.250 in the oral history of local Native Americans 00:06:17.250 --> 00:06:20.769 as the Bridge of the Gods. Man, they witnessed 00:06:20.769 --> 00:06:23.170 the end of the Ice Age. They saw the landscape 00:06:23.170 --> 00:06:26.370 violently rearrange itself and they thrived in 00:06:26.370 --> 00:06:28.470 that environment for millennia. They absolutely 00:06:28.470 --> 00:06:31.389 did. Human habitation in the boundaries of present 00:06:31.389 --> 00:06:34.569 day Oregon actually dates back at least 13 ,000 00:06:35.410 --> 00:06:37.610 Right, and archaeologist Luther Cressman proved 00:06:37.610 --> 00:06:40.000 this, didn't he? He did. He discovered these 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:43.360 intricately woven sage bark sandals deep in the 00:06:43.360 --> 00:06:47.300 Fort Rock cave. 13 ,000 years of continuous habitation. 00:06:47.439 --> 00:06:50.600 That's staggering. It really is. By the 16th 00:06:50.600 --> 00:06:52.939 century, you had an incredibly diverse population 00:06:52.939 --> 00:06:54.699 of tribes. You had the Bannock, the Chinook, 00:06:54.800 --> 00:06:57.899 the Klamath, and many others. But then a subtle, 00:06:58.220 --> 00:07:01.060 almost invisible disruption arrives by sea. Right. 00:07:01.060 --> 00:07:03.180 And this completely challenges how we usually 00:07:03.180 --> 00:07:05.379 picture the arrival of Europeans. Yeah, because 00:07:05.379 --> 00:07:07.980 we're taught to imagine overland explorers. like 00:07:07.980 --> 00:07:10.579 Lewis and Clark mapping the wilderness hacking 00:07:10.579 --> 00:07:13.420 their way through the brush. Exactly. But the 00:07:13.420 --> 00:07:16.360 initial encounters were much stranger and, honestly, 00:07:16.699 --> 00:07:19.540 far more accidental. Accidental how? Well, starting 00:07:19.540 --> 00:07:22.560 in the late 1500s, Spanish ships sailing from 00:07:22.560 --> 00:07:25.120 the Philippines would ride the Corocio current. 00:07:25.379 --> 00:07:27.500 Oh, right. For those who might not know, the 00:07:27.500 --> 00:07:31.100 Corocio current is essentially a massive, sweeping, 00:07:31.600 --> 00:07:34.079 circular ocean current across the northern Pacific. 00:07:34.279 --> 00:07:36.379 Yeah, it's like a giant conveyor belt made of 00:07:36.379 --> 00:07:39.019 water. Conveyor belt, OK. And while these ships 00:07:39.019 --> 00:07:41.040 were aiming to use that conveyor belt to get 00:07:41.040 --> 00:07:43.819 to California, some would get blown off course 00:07:43.819 --> 00:07:46.220 or they'd wreck violently on the treacherous 00:07:46.220 --> 00:07:48.879 Oregon coast. I was looking at the accounts of 00:07:48.879 --> 00:07:51.079 these encounters and honestly, they read like 00:07:51.079 --> 00:07:53.839 an ancient civilization discovering a crashed 00:07:53.839 --> 00:07:56.519 UFO. That is the perfect way to describe it. 00:07:56.579 --> 00:07:58.899 You have these Nahalem Indian tales recounting 00:07:58.899 --> 00:08:00.759 completely strange people just washing ashore. 00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:04.759 Yes. And then there's the 1707 wreck of a Spanish 00:08:04.759 --> 00:08:06.860 ship called the San Francisco Xavier. That's 00:08:06.860 --> 00:08:10.139 the one with the beeswax, right? Exactly. For 00:08:10.139 --> 00:08:13.120 generations afterward, Native Americans and later 00:08:13.120 --> 00:08:15.180 settlers would just be walking along the beach 00:08:15.180 --> 00:08:18.800 and find huge chunks of beeswax and ornate silver 00:08:18.800 --> 00:08:21.399 vases scattered in the sand. Completely out of 00:08:21.399 --> 00:08:23.560 context. Alien artifacts just washing up with 00:08:23.560 --> 00:08:25.980 the tide. It really paints a picture that Oregon 00:08:25.980 --> 00:08:29.100 wasn't discovered by land explorers at all. No, 00:08:29.100 --> 00:08:32.059 it was more like it was slowly infiltrated by 00:08:32.059 --> 00:08:34.799 ocean currents and forgotten shipwrecks long 00:08:34.799 --> 00:08:37.159 before the covered wagons ever arrived. Yeah, 00:08:37.159 --> 00:08:39.519 if you connect this to the bigger picture, it 00:08:39.519 --> 00:08:41.799 completely reframes the timeline of contact. 00:08:42.419 --> 00:08:45.159 But tragically, the reality of that contact followed 00:08:45.159 --> 00:08:48.519 a devastating pattern. Native populations generally 00:08:48.519 --> 00:08:51.480 welcomed these early Europeans for trade. But 00:08:51.480 --> 00:08:53.559 the introduction of foreign diseases proved to 00:08:53.559 --> 00:08:56.279 be apocalyptic. And then as American interests 00:08:56.279 --> 00:08:58.379 later focused heavily on capturing the natural 00:08:58.379 --> 00:09:00.899 resources of the West, native populations were 00:09:00.899 --> 00:09:02.740 systematically pushed off their traditional sites 00:09:02.740 --> 00:09:05.519 entirely. Yeah, and a stark, really heartbreaking 00:09:05.519 --> 00:09:07.720 example of this is Salilo Falls in the Columbia 00:09:07.720 --> 00:09:11.480 River. Oh, man, Salilo Falls. This wasn't just 00:09:11.480 --> 00:09:14.659 a waterfall. This was a massive, vital fishing 00:09:14.659 --> 00:09:17.899 and trading hub for native people for literally 00:09:17.899 --> 00:09:19.940 thousands of years. Yet it was the economic and 00:09:19.940 --> 00:09:23.049 cultural center of their world. But in 1957, 00:09:23.669 --> 00:09:26.070 it was entirely submerged by the construction 00:09:26.070 --> 00:09:28.330 of the Delas Dam. Which is just devastating. 00:09:28.470 --> 00:09:29.889 I mean, they accepted government settlements, 00:09:29.889 --> 00:09:32.169 but you have to imagine the profound loss there. 00:09:32.409 --> 00:09:35.789 A multi -millennia old way of life just erased 00:09:35.789 --> 00:09:38.809 and buried under a man -made lake for hydroelectric 00:09:38.809 --> 00:09:41.129 power. It perfectly illustrates what happens 00:09:41.129 --> 00:09:43.289 when the secret of a region's resources gets 00:09:43.289 --> 00:09:45.250 out. Because once the British and the Americans 00:09:45.250 --> 00:09:48.070 realized how valuable the Pacific Northwest was. 00:09:48.450 --> 00:09:50.590 Specifically for animal furs, right? Which were 00:09:50.590 --> 00:09:53.029 basically the driving currency of the era. Exactly. 00:09:53.210 --> 00:09:56.210 It sparked this bizarre geopolitical Cold War. 00:09:56.450 --> 00:09:59.080 Yeah. During the 1820s and 30s, the U .S. and 00:09:59.080 --> 00:10:02.059 Great Britain were in what was called joint occupation 00:10:02.059 --> 00:10:04.340 of the Oregon country. And the British proxy 00:10:04.340 --> 00:10:06.399 in this conflict was the Hudson's Bay Company 00:10:06.399 --> 00:10:09.200 operating out of Fort Vancouver. Right. And they 00:10:09.200 --> 00:10:11.620 recognized that American trappers were starting 00:10:11.620 --> 00:10:14.059 to push into the territory. So they implemented 00:10:14.059 --> 00:10:16.440 a strategy that is just mind boggling in its 00:10:16.440 --> 00:10:19.340 scale. What did they do? They decided to systematically 00:10:19.340 --> 00:10:22.559 trap out every single fur bearing animal along 00:10:22.559 --> 00:10:24.899 the eastern and southern borders of the territory. 00:10:24.980 --> 00:10:27.149 They intentionally create what became known as 00:10:27.149 --> 00:10:30.710 a fur desert. Yes, a literal desert of resources. 00:10:30.850 --> 00:10:33.149 That is basically the 19th century equivalent 00:10:33.149 --> 00:10:35.870 of scorched earth corporate sabotage. Oh, 100%. 00:10:35.870 --> 00:10:38.470 The logistics of doing that by hand are insane. 00:10:38.629 --> 00:10:40.549 But the logic is brutal, right? If you remove 00:10:40.549 --> 00:10:42.870 all the inventory, if there are literally no 00:10:42.870 --> 00:10:45.850 animals left to trap, your competitors starve 00:10:45.850 --> 00:10:47.990 to death trying to cross the border. It was an 00:10:47.990 --> 00:10:50.750 ecological buffer zone designed entirely for 00:10:50.750 --> 00:10:53.750 geopolitical dominance. They essentially weaponized 00:10:53.750 --> 00:10:57.399 the ecosystem. Wow. But here is the catch. Despite 00:10:57.399 --> 00:10:59.740 these extreme measures, the demographics were 00:10:59.740 --> 00:11:02.000 shifting faster than the British could trap out 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:04.679 the rivers. And the way the first actual American 00:11:04.679 --> 00:11:07.559 government formed in Oregon is incredibly mundane. 00:11:07.759 --> 00:11:09.919 I mean, it wasn't some grand Declaration of Independence. 00:11:10.519 --> 00:11:12.399 No, it's actually one of my favorite details. 00:11:12.620 --> 00:11:17.120 In 1841, a wealthy master trapper and entrepreneur 00:11:17.120 --> 00:11:19.960 named Ewing Young dies. But he dies without a 00:11:19.960 --> 00:11:23.039 will. Right. And suddenly all these settlers 00:11:23.039 --> 00:11:26.679 look around and realize they have a major problem 00:11:26.679 --> 00:11:30.240 on their hands. There is no probate court. There's 00:11:30.240 --> 00:11:32.860 no legal system to figure out who gets his stuff. 00:11:33.120 --> 00:11:36.179 Exactly. You cannot have private property without 00:11:36.179 --> 00:11:38.700 a legal framework to protect and transfer it. 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:41.779 So they hold a meeting after his funeral and 00:11:41.779 --> 00:11:44.340 elect a supreme judge just to deal with this 00:11:44.340 --> 00:11:46.340 guy's estate. But they don't stop there, do they? 00:11:46.409 --> 00:11:48.470 No, they don't, because they also have a predator 00:11:48.470 --> 00:11:51.590 problem. Right. The wolves. In 1842, they hold 00:11:51.590 --> 00:11:54.049 meetings at a place called Champogue to discuss 00:11:54.049 --> 00:11:56.669 what to do about local wolves attacking their 00:11:56.669 --> 00:11:58.909 livestock. These literally became known as the 00:11:58.909 --> 00:12:01.509 wolf meetings. I love that. And over the course 00:12:01.509 --> 00:12:04.230 of a year, these random gatherings to discuss 00:12:04.230 --> 00:12:07.230 a dead guy's will and pesky wolves morph into 00:12:07.230 --> 00:12:10.610 an all -citizen meeting in 1843. Yep. Which creates 00:12:10.610 --> 00:12:12.509 the first acting provisional government of the 00:12:12.509 --> 00:12:15.740 Oregon country. So, looking at that... Is it 00:12:15.740 --> 00:12:19.240 safe to say that Oregon's entire political foundation 00:12:19.240 --> 00:12:22.460 was built purely on bureaucratic accidents? Well, 00:12:22.740 --> 00:12:25.139 it's a tempting conclusion, for sure. But if 00:12:25.139 --> 00:12:27.419 we step back and look at the mechanisms at play, 00:12:27.840 --> 00:12:30.639 this wasn't really an accident at all. No, it 00:12:30.639 --> 00:12:33.299 was an inevitability driven by demographic pressure. 00:12:33.639 --> 00:12:35.860 That same pressure cooker concept we talked about. 00:12:35.919 --> 00:12:38.639 Oh, right. Because the fur desert couldn't stop 00:12:38.639 --> 00:12:42.000 the massive influx of American settlers arriving 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:45.720 via the Oregon Trail in the 1840s. Exactly. The 00:12:45.720 --> 00:12:48.899 sheer demographic weight of thousands of Anglo 00:12:48.899 --> 00:12:51.159 -American settlers dominating the southern half 00:12:51.159 --> 00:12:54.259 of the region just forced the issue. So it wasn't 00:12:54.259 --> 00:12:56.940 just about wolves. It was about organizing a 00:12:56.940 --> 00:12:59.539 society that was rapidly expanding. Precisely. 00:12:59.629 --> 00:13:02.070 This demographic shift completely altered the 00:13:02.070 --> 00:13:04.250 balance of power, eventually forcing the British 00:13:04.250 --> 00:13:06.289 to just give up the southern half and sign the 00:13:06.289 --> 00:13:09.009 Oregon Treaty in 1846, which split the territory 00:13:09.009 --> 00:13:11.690 at the 49th parallel. OK, so the American settlers 00:13:11.690 --> 00:13:14.169 secure the land. They form a government out of 00:13:14.169 --> 00:13:16.029 these wolf meetings, and then they start writing 00:13:16.029 --> 00:13:18.769 laws. Right. And here is where we encounter a 00:13:18.769 --> 00:13:22.049 massive, deeply uncomfortable paradox at the 00:13:22.049 --> 00:13:24.820 heart of Oregon's founding. As these pioneers 00:13:24.820 --> 00:13:27.500 solidified their control, they drafted a vision 00:13:27.500 --> 00:13:30.879 for their new society that loudly championed 00:13:30.879 --> 00:13:33.500 freedom, but heavily legislated racial exclusion. 00:13:34.390 --> 00:13:37.350 There is a series of deeply discriminatory laws 00:13:37.350 --> 00:13:39.830 that were baked into the territory from the very 00:13:39.830 --> 00:13:42.090 beginning. Can you give an example? Sure. For 00:13:42.090 --> 00:13:44.509 instance, in 1844, the provisional government 00:13:44.509 --> 00:13:47.029 passed what became known as the Lash Law. Right. 00:13:47.350 --> 00:13:50.590 This statute outlawed slavery -giving slave owners 00:13:50.590 --> 00:13:54.370 three years to free enslaved people, but it simultaneously 00:13:54.370 --> 00:13:57.330 mandated that freed black people leave the territory 00:13:57.330 --> 00:13:59.690 entirely. And the enforcement mechanism for that 00:13:59.690 --> 00:14:02.509 was just brutal. If they refused to leave, the 00:14:02.509 --> 00:14:04.820 law initially required to be whipped twice a 00:14:04.820 --> 00:14:07.759 year until they left. Now, the historical record 00:14:07.759 --> 00:14:09.720 notes that the whipping provision was soon deemed 00:14:09.720 --> 00:14:12.360 too harsh by the settlers and reduced to forced 00:14:12.360 --> 00:14:15.159 labor later that same year. But the underlying 00:14:15.159 --> 00:14:18.259 intent was undeniable. The message was, you are 00:14:18.259 --> 00:14:20.559 not welcome here. And this wasn't an isolated 00:14:20.559 --> 00:14:23.480 incident or some fringe idea. When the Oregon 00:14:23.480 --> 00:14:26.259 Territory electorate, which, by the way, consisted 00:14:26.259 --> 00:14:29.320 entirely of white men over the age of 21, voted 00:14:29.320 --> 00:14:32.799 on their state constitution in 1857, the numbers 00:14:32.799 --> 00:14:35.059 tell a very stark story. What were the numbers? 00:14:35.659 --> 00:14:38.659 They voted against slavery by a massive landslide 00:14:38.659 --> 00:14:42.100 of 74 .5 percent. Wait, I need to pause you there 00:14:42.100 --> 00:14:44.019 because the second half of that ballot is what 00:14:44.019 --> 00:14:46.519 makes this so complex. Yeah, go ahead. On that 00:14:46.519 --> 00:14:48.960 exact same ballot where they overwhelmingly reject 00:14:48.960 --> 00:14:52.059 slavery, they voted to ban black people from 00:14:52.059 --> 00:14:54.519 residing in Oregon by an even larger margin. 00:14:54.980 --> 00:14:58.240 88 .88 percent. How does a society hold both 00:14:58.240 --> 00:15:00.960 of those thoughts in its head? at the same time. 00:15:01.120 --> 00:15:04.259 I mean, how do you ban slavery but simultaneously 00:15:04.259 --> 00:15:06.360 ban the victims of slavery from even existing 00:15:06.360 --> 00:15:09.080 in your state? It's a staggering paradox. To 00:15:09.080 --> 00:15:11.059 understand how they reconciled that, we have 00:15:11.059 --> 00:15:13.039 to look at the economic and social anxieties 00:15:13.039 --> 00:15:15.620 of the era. Peter Burnett, who was the head of 00:15:15.620 --> 00:15:17.820 Oregon's legislative assembly, explained the 00:15:17.820 --> 00:15:20.600 1844 law by stating that the object was to, quote, 00:15:20.879 --> 00:15:23.200 keep clear of that most troublesome class of 00:15:23.200 --> 00:15:25.620 population. He argued that they were in a new 00:15:25.620 --> 00:15:28.399 world under favorable circumstances and wished 00:15:28.399 --> 00:15:30.809 to avoid the evils that afflicted the United 00:15:30.809 --> 00:15:33.789 States. And when he said evils, he wasn't talking 00:15:33.789 --> 00:15:36.370 about a moral stance against the cruelty of slavery, 00:15:36.549 --> 00:15:39.250 was he? No, not at all. Most Oregonians at the 00:15:39.250 --> 00:15:41.590 time held deeply entrenched white supremacist 00:15:41.590 --> 00:15:44.750 views and were actually indifferent, if not outright 00:15:44.750 --> 00:15:47.149 hostile, toward the abolitionist movement in 00:15:47.149 --> 00:15:49.389 the East. So what was their primary motivation? 00:15:49.710 --> 00:15:52.309 It was economic anxiety. They wanted to prevent 00:15:52.309 --> 00:15:54.870 the land from being taken over by the large plantation 00:15:54.870 --> 00:15:57.710 systems of the American South. The white pioneer 00:15:57.710 --> 00:16:00.210 laborers didn't want to have to compete economically 00:16:00.210 --> 00:16:03.409 with bonded, unpaid labor. So for these pioneers, 00:16:04.129 --> 00:16:07.250 their vision of democracy and a Western utopia 00:16:07.250 --> 00:16:10.259 was strictly defined as a white Working Class 00:16:10.259 --> 00:16:13.460 Sanctuary. Yes. And this exclusionary philosophy 00:16:13.460 --> 00:16:15.940 resulted in further discriminatory legislation 00:16:15.940 --> 00:16:19.000 down the line. Like the tax law in 1862. Exactly. 00:16:19.139 --> 00:16:21.539 They passed a law requiring all ethnic minorities 00:16:21.539 --> 00:16:25.000 to pay a $5 annual tax just to exist there. And 00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:27.299 they implemented a strict ban on interracial 00:16:27.299 --> 00:16:30.659 marriage that wasn't fully repealed until 1951. 00:16:31.340 --> 00:16:34.769 1951? Think about that. It sounds like they were 00:16:34.769 --> 00:16:37.490 building a revolutionary publicly owned park, 00:16:38.029 --> 00:16:40.669 but welding a massive iron clad members only 00:16:40.669 --> 00:16:44.169 sign right onto the main gate. That is an incredibly 00:16:44.169 --> 00:16:46.649 apt metaphor. And what makes this paradox even 00:16:46.649 --> 00:16:49.649 sharper is that just a few decades later, Oregon 00:16:49.649 --> 00:16:52.350 became globally famous for championing the ultimate 00:16:52.350 --> 00:16:54.490 democratic power for the general public. Oh, 00:16:54.549 --> 00:16:57.500 right. During the progressive era. from 1897 00:16:57.500 --> 00:17:00.580 to 1917. Yeah, a political activist named William 00:17:00.580 --> 00:17:03.460 Uren helped establish what became known nationwide 00:17:03.460 --> 00:17:06.759 as the Oregon system. Uren was this indefatigable 00:17:06.759 --> 00:17:09.460 organizer who pushed for direct legislation by 00:17:09.460 --> 00:17:12.119 the citizens. He fundamentally changed the mechanics 00:17:12.119 --> 00:17:15.200 of government there. He did. By 1902, Oregon 00:17:15.200 --> 00:17:17.559 approved the initiative and referendum processes. 00:17:17.680 --> 00:17:20.140 Meaning citizens could literally bypass the legislature 00:17:20.140 --> 00:17:22.460 and vote laws directly into existence. Right. 00:17:22.559 --> 00:17:25.420 And by 1908, they empowered citizens to recall 00:17:25.420 --> 00:17:27.940 public officials. A muckraking journalist from 00:17:27.940 --> 00:17:30.400 New York, Lincoln Stephens, actually visited 00:17:30.400 --> 00:17:32.799 in 1908 and was completely shocked. Oh really? 00:17:33.059 --> 00:17:36.180 Yeah he was amazed to find that this remote rugged 00:17:36.180 --> 00:17:39.799 state had more fundamental tools for self -governance 00:17:39.799 --> 00:17:42.920 and direct democracy than almost anywhere else 00:17:42.920 --> 00:17:44.789 in the country. But this brings us right back 00:17:44.789 --> 00:17:46.670 to the paradox we've been talking about. The 00:17:46.670 --> 00:17:49.329 direct democracy of the organ system gave incredible 00:17:49.329 --> 00:17:51.849 unfiltered power to the majority. Right. But 00:17:51.849 --> 00:17:54.589 if the majority holds exclusionary or biased 00:17:54.589 --> 00:17:58.349 views, direct democracy doesn't fix those biases. 00:17:58.910 --> 00:18:01.410 it mathematically amplifies them. That makes 00:18:01.410 --> 00:18:03.289 total sense. And this history has a very long 00:18:03.289 --> 00:18:06.869 tale. It definitely does. As recently as 1994, 00:18:07.289 --> 00:18:09.990 an Oregon Supreme Court task force issued a report 00:18:09.990 --> 00:18:11.869 finding that minorities were still more likely 00:18:11.869 --> 00:18:14.650 to be arrested, charged, and incarcerated than 00:18:14.650 --> 00:18:17.910 similarly situated non -minorities. Wow. In 1994. 00:18:18.150 --> 00:18:20.970 Yes. The report specifically pointed to the lingering 00:18:20.970 --> 00:18:23.750 problems of institutional racism, showing how 00:18:23.750 --> 00:18:26.170 those foundational laws echo through the centuries. 00:18:26.450 --> 00:18:28.920 And that historic tension between democratic 00:18:28.920 --> 00:18:31.960 power and deep ideological division, it didn't 00:18:31.960 --> 00:18:34.640 just fade away into the history books. It evolved 00:18:34.640 --> 00:18:37.319 to completely define modern Oregon. It's the 00:18:37.319 --> 00:18:39.599 defining characteristic. The state has a legacy 00:18:39.599 --> 00:18:42.759 of extreme internal polarization that touches 00:18:42.759 --> 00:18:45.359 almost every aspect of life. Just look at the 00:18:45.359 --> 00:18:47.019 historical conflict. Oh, they're everywhere. 00:18:47.440 --> 00:18:50.579 You have loggers fiercely battling environmentalists. 00:18:50.740 --> 00:18:53.859 Ranchers clashing with farmers. Wealthy growing 00:18:53.859 --> 00:18:56.700 cities positioned against established but economically 00:18:56.700 --> 00:18:59.700 struggling rural areas. There's even a long standing 00:18:59.700 --> 00:19:02.680 cultural friction between native Oregonians and 00:19:02.680 --> 00:19:05.960 outsiders, particularly Californians moving north. 00:19:06.140 --> 00:19:08.319 And this division isn't just people arguing at 00:19:08.319 --> 00:19:10.460 town halls or complaining to their neighbors. 00:19:11.099 --> 00:19:14.920 This tension has manifested in persistent literal 00:19:14.920 --> 00:19:17.880 secessionist movements. Yes. People in various 00:19:17.880 --> 00:19:20.180 regions spanning all sides of the political spectrum 00:19:20.180 --> 00:19:22.920 have actively attempted to carve out their own 00:19:22.920 --> 00:19:25.519 independent states. You have conservative rural 00:19:25.519 --> 00:19:28.119 areas pushing to secede and form the state of 00:19:28.119 --> 00:19:30.880 Jefferson. And on a broader scale, you have movements 00:19:30.880 --> 00:19:33.440 envisioning an independent buyer region called 00:19:33.440 --> 00:19:37.039 Cascadia or the environmentalist concept of ecotopia. 00:19:37.440 --> 00:19:40.160 And this brings us right back to the modern manifestation 00:19:40.160 --> 00:19:43.390 of the Oregon system. of ballot initiatives. 00:19:43.910 --> 00:19:46.529 Because the citizens have the power to put almost 00:19:46.529 --> 00:19:48.950 anything on the ballot, the state's elections 00:19:48.950 --> 00:19:52.049 often feature intense political whiplash. Oh, 00:19:52.049 --> 00:19:54.410 for sure. If you look at a modern Oregon voting 00:19:54.410 --> 00:19:56.910 ballot today, you'll see the direct descendants 00:19:56.910 --> 00:19:59.609 of those 19th century wolf meetings. Absolutely. 00:19:59.849 --> 00:20:02.609 In the 21st century, it is not uncommon to see 00:20:02.609 --> 00:20:06.250 state ballots where right -wing proposals like 00:20:06.250 --> 00:20:08.950 anti -gay or pro -religious measures are sitting 00:20:08.950 --> 00:20:11.609 right alongside politically liberal initiatives. 00:20:11.470 --> 00:20:14.430 such as the decriminalization of drugs. It's 00:20:14.430 --> 00:20:16.650 the ultimate stress test for direct democracy. 00:20:17.069 --> 00:20:19.549 You have a state voting on wildly opposite ends 00:20:19.549 --> 00:20:21.849 of the political spectrum on the exact same piece 00:20:21.849 --> 00:20:24.009 of paper. And you see that same tension regarding 00:20:24.009 --> 00:20:26.089 the power of the state versus individual autonomy 00:20:26.089 --> 00:20:28.289 in recent events, too. Think back to the COVID 00:20:28.289 --> 00:20:31.369 -19 pandemic. Right. The state implemented incredibly 00:20:31.369 --> 00:20:34.450 strict mandates. Governor Kate Brown issued a 00:20:34.450 --> 00:20:36.589 statewide stay at home order where violators 00:20:36.589 --> 00:20:39.009 could face Class C misdemeanor charges. Which 00:20:39.009 --> 00:20:41.630 is intense. Oregon also joined California and 00:20:41.630 --> 00:20:44.190 Washington in the Western states pact to strictly 00:20:44.190 --> 00:20:46.940 control the outbreak. It's a fascinating dynamic, 00:20:46.960 --> 00:20:50.680 isn't it? A state fiercely protective of pioneer 00:20:50.680 --> 00:20:54.380 individualism and individual ballot power, simultaneously 00:20:54.380 --> 00:20:57.680 exercising intense, almost unprecedented executive 00:20:57.680 --> 00:21:00.059 control during a crisis. It really forces you 00:21:00.059 --> 00:21:03.799 to ask, if the state has been this deeply fractured, 00:21:04.119 --> 00:21:06.480 literally trying to secede from itself and voting 00:21:06.480 --> 00:21:08.799 on wildly opposite ends of the political spectrum, 00:21:09.460 --> 00:21:12.359 what is the glue actually holding Oregon together 00:21:12.359 --> 00:21:15.140 today? That is the big question. And it may be 00:21:15.140 --> 00:21:17.819 that the glue is simply the shared ongoing process 00:21:17.819 --> 00:21:20.380 of arguing over what the state should be. The 00:21:20.380 --> 00:21:22.819 ballot initiative system, for all its whiplash, 00:21:23.019 --> 00:21:24.940 forces the population to constantly engage with 00:21:24.940 --> 00:21:27.660 their own deep divisions. It really is an incredible 00:21:27.660 --> 00:21:29.380 journey we've tracked today. I mean, we started 00:21:29.380 --> 00:21:32.279 with a landscape brutally sculpted by ice age 00:21:32.279 --> 00:21:34.380 floods and exploding volcanoes that collapsed 00:21:34.380 --> 00:21:37.319 into themselves. We saw strange Spanish shipwrecks 00:21:37.319 --> 00:21:39.759 washing ashore, delivering silver and beeswax 00:21:39.759 --> 00:21:42.279 to native tribes long before Overland exploded. 00:21:42.089 --> 00:21:45.430 ever arrived. We unpacked how a calculated fur 00:21:45.430 --> 00:21:48.470 desert and a dead trappers will accidentally 00:21:48.470 --> 00:21:51.549 birthed a government. And we confronted the deeply 00:21:51.549 --> 00:21:54.990 uncomfortable paradox of a state founded on progressive 00:21:54.990 --> 00:21:58.329 direct democracy for some and severe racial exclusion 00:21:58.329 --> 00:22:01.269 for others. Leading right up to the intense ballot 00:22:01.269 --> 00:22:04.029 box polarization we see today. As we wrap up 00:22:04.029 --> 00:22:05.990 I want to leave you with a final thought to ponder 00:22:05.990 --> 00:22:07.849 something that kind of ties this all together. 00:22:07.950 --> 00:22:10.450 Please do. Think about the literal geography 00:22:10.450 --> 00:22:11.990 we discussed at the very the very beginning of 00:22:11.990 --> 00:22:15.890 this deep dive. The Cascade Mountains physically 00:22:15.890 --> 00:22:19.569 cleave the state of Oregon in two. On one side, 00:22:19.569 --> 00:22:22.569 you have a lush, damp, coastal rainforest, and 00:22:22.569 --> 00:22:24.509 on the exact opposite side of the mountains, 00:22:24.890 --> 00:22:28.109 you have a dry, high desert. It's a stark contrast. 00:22:28.230 --> 00:22:30.950 So you have to wonder, in a state so dramatically 00:22:30.950 --> 00:22:33.670 and violently divided by its own geology, was 00:22:33.670 --> 00:22:36.849 its deeply polarized political and cultural destiny 00:22:36.849 --> 00:22:38.650 carved into the rocks from the very beginning? 00:22:38.809 --> 00:22:41.710 Wow. What a question to end on. Thank you for 00:22:41.710 --> 00:22:44.150 joining us on this deep dive and, as always, 00:22:44.589 --> 00:22:45.269 keep exploring!