You know, usually when we think about the history
of the American West, there's this expectation
of a very specific linear story. Right, like
a very clean progression. Exactly. It's almost
like playing that old 8 -bit computer game, you
know? You load up your covered wagon, you ford
the river. Maybe get dysentery along the way.
Yeah, exactly. And eventually you just arrive
in this lush green valley. It's a really neat,
highly predictable narrative of pioneer discovery.
It is a comforting progression. I mean, we like
our history to unfold in a straight line from
point A to point B, where progress just sort
of naturally marches forward. But then you step
into the actual historical record of the U .S.
state of Oregon, and suddenly that neat little
game cartridge is just completely fried. Oh,
absolutely. It is not a straight line at all.
No, we're looking at a historical landscape that
is honestly just completely chaotic. I mean,
it's a story forged by... literal exploding mountains,
bizarre geopolitical warfare, and this is key,
deeply contradictory political realities. It
really is the absolute definition of a historical
and geological pressure cooker. Like, everything
is turned up to the maximum intensity from the
very beginning. Exactly. And that is our mission
for today's Deep Dive. We are peeling back the
layers of a place that, let's be honest, most
people just associate with Endless Rain, Hipsters,
and the Oregon Trail. Right. There's so much
more to it than that. Way more. We know you want
a quick but thorough understanding of what really
shaped this region. So we're going to start with
mountains literally blowing their tops off, move
through secret fur deserts, and unpack the surprisingly
dark, heavily legislated history of Oregon's
founding. And actually, as a quick heads up,
before we get into the darker chapters of this
history, especially the heavily legislated racial
exclusion of its founding and the intense modern
political divides, I should just stay our goal
here. Yeah, that's a really important point to
make. Right. Because as guides on this deep dive,
our goal today is simply to unpack the history
exactly as it happened in the source material.
We aren't here to take political sides or endorse
any of these historical views or racist laws.
We just want to give you the unvarnished reality
of how this state was built. Exactly. Impartially
reporting the facts so you can understand the
full scope of the region. Right, because to understand
the politics, you first have to understand the
land itself. Before human history could even
begin in this region, the stage had to be set
by these violent... landscape -altering cataclysms.
The geological pressure cooker you mentioned
earlier. Yeah, and the record backs that up in
a terrifying way. Like, toward the end of the
last ice age, you had the Missoula floods, and
we need to be clear here, these weren't just,
you know, heavy rains. Not at all. I mean, this
was the periodic rupturing of massive ice dams.
Wow. Yeah, imagine a literal wall of ice holding
back an entire inland sea, and then that dam
suddenly just shatters. That is terrifying to
even picture. It is. The discharge rates from
these floods were ten times the combined flow
of all the rivers in the world. Wait, let me
just pause on that. Ten times the flow of every
single river on earth. Combined. Combined. The
water over present -day Portland, Oregon was
estimated to be about 400 feet deep. That's unbelievable.
If you were standing in downtown Portland today,
you'd be looking up at water covering a 30 -story
skyscraper. And this wasn't just a freak one
-time thing. No. This catastrophic flooding happened
perhaps 40 times over a thousand -year period.
It violently stripped away land in eastern Washington,
which created the channeled scab lands. Oh, right.
all those rich, thick lake sediments right into
the lower Columbia River Plateau. So think about
the irony there for a second. The legendary agricultural
fertility that later drew all those covered wagons.
Yeah. That lush green valley from the 8 -bit
game. It was actually the direct result of catastrophic
repeated destruction. It's a massive irony. And
if the drowning landscape wasn't enough, you
also have the volcanoes. Oh, the volcanoes. Right.
Around 5677 BC, Mount Mazama erupts. And this
was the tallest mountain in the region, right?
Like 11 ,000 feet. Yeah. But the eruption is
estimated to have been 42 times more powerful
than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. Just
picture that for a second. I mean, the Mount
St. Helens eruption darkened skies across the
entire country and dropped ash for hundreds of
miles. Exactly. Now multiply that devastation
by 42. It's almost incomprehensible. The mountain
literally blew off half a mile of its own height.
Right. And because it expelled so much magma
so incredibly fast, the structural integrity
of the mountain just completely failed. It just
collapsed inward into its own emptied magma chamber.
Yes. Creating this massive crater that eventually
filled with water, which, of course, we now know
as Crater Lake. Crater Lake. And then add to
that the 1700 Cascadia earthquake. Oh, yeah.
That was so massive, it caused an orphan tsunami
all the way across the Pacific in Japan. And
it triggered a landslide that completely downed
the Columbia River. So my question to you is
with floods drowning the landscape and mountains
literally blowing their tops off. How did early
humans even manage to survive and make sense
of this explosive environment? Well, this is
where the human element gets really fascinating
because the Native Americans in the region didn't
just survive these apocalyptic events. They actually
accurately recorded them. Wait, really? Recorded
them how? Through oral history. They essentially
maintained an oral geological record spanning
thousands of years. Take the eruption of Mount
Mazama, for example. OK. The Klamath Native Americans
passed down a history of the mountain being inhabited
by Lao, who was the god of the underworld. Oh,
interesting. Yeah. And the catastrophic destruction
of the mountain was recounted as this massive,
world -shaking battle between Lao and Skel, the
sky god. Wow. So an indigenous myth passed down
through countless generations is perfectly aligning
with the 7 ,000 year geological fact. Precisely.
The collapse of the mountain wasn't just a story,
it was an eyewitness account wrapped in theology.
That is amazing. And we see the exact same thing
with the Cascadia earthquake, that massive landslide
that damned the Columbia River. Yeah. It's remembered
in the oral history of local Native Americans
as the Bridge of the Gods. Man, they witnessed
the end of the Ice Age. They saw the landscape
violently rearrange itself and they thrived in
that environment for millennia. They absolutely
did. Human habitation in the boundaries of present
day Oregon actually dates back at least 13 ,000
Right, and archaeologist Luther Cressman proved
this, didn't he? He did. He discovered these
intricately woven sage bark sandals deep in the
Fort Rock cave. 13 ,000 years of continuous habitation.
That's staggering. It really is. By the 16th
century, you had an incredibly diverse population
of tribes. You had the Bannock, the Chinook,
the Klamath, and many others. But then a subtle,
almost invisible disruption arrives by sea. Right.
And this completely challenges how we usually
picture the arrival of Europeans. Yeah, because
we're taught to imagine overland explorers. like
Lewis and Clark mapping the wilderness hacking
their way through the brush. Exactly. But the
initial encounters were much stranger and, honestly,
far more accidental. Accidental how? Well, starting
in the late 1500s, Spanish ships sailing from
the Philippines would ride the Corocio current.
Oh, right. For those who might not know, the
Corocio current is essentially a massive, sweeping,
circular ocean current across the northern Pacific.
Yeah, it's like a giant conveyor belt made of
water. Conveyor belt, OK. And while these ships
were aiming to use that conveyor belt to get
to California, some would get blown off course
or they'd wreck violently on the treacherous
Oregon coast. I was looking at the accounts of
these encounters and honestly, they read like
an ancient civilization discovering a crashed
UFO. That is the perfect way to describe it.
You have these Nahalem Indian tales recounting
completely strange people just washing ashore.
Yes. And then there's the 1707 wreck of a Spanish
ship called the San Francisco Xavier. That's
the one with the beeswax, right? Exactly. For
generations afterward, Native Americans and later
settlers would just be walking along the beach
and find huge chunks of beeswax and ornate silver
vases scattered in the sand. Completely out of
context. Alien artifacts just washing up with
the tide. It really paints a picture that Oregon
wasn't discovered by land explorers at all. No,
it was more like it was slowly infiltrated by
ocean currents and forgotten shipwrecks long
before the covered wagons ever arrived. Yeah,
if you connect this to the bigger picture, it
completely reframes the timeline of contact.
But tragically, the reality of that contact followed
a devastating pattern. Native populations generally
welcomed these early Europeans for trade. But
the introduction of foreign diseases proved to
be apocalyptic. And then as American interests
later focused heavily on capturing the natural
resources of the West, native populations were
systematically pushed off their traditional sites
entirely. Yeah, and a stark, really heartbreaking
example of this is Salilo Falls in the Columbia
River. Oh, man, Salilo Falls. This wasn't just
a waterfall. This was a massive, vital fishing
and trading hub for native people for literally
thousands of years. Yet it was the economic and
cultural center of their world. But in 1957,
it was entirely submerged by the construction
of the Delas Dam. Which is just devastating.
I mean, they accepted government settlements,
but you have to imagine the profound loss there.
A multi -millennia old way of life just erased
and buried under a man -made lake for hydroelectric
power. It perfectly illustrates what happens
when the secret of a region's resources gets
out. Because once the British and the Americans
realized how valuable the Pacific Northwest was.
Specifically for animal furs, right? Which were
basically the driving currency of the era. Exactly.
It sparked this bizarre geopolitical Cold War.
Yeah. During the 1820s and 30s, the U .S. and
Great Britain were in what was called joint occupation
of the Oregon country. And the British proxy
in this conflict was the Hudson's Bay Company
operating out of Fort Vancouver. Right. And they
recognized that American trappers were starting
to push into the territory. So they implemented
a strategy that is just mind boggling in its
scale. What did they do? They decided to systematically
trap out every single fur bearing animal along
the eastern and southern borders of the territory.
They intentionally create what became known as
a fur desert. Yes, a literal desert of resources.
That is basically the 19th century equivalent
of scorched earth corporate sabotage. Oh, 100%.
The logistics of doing that by hand are insane.
But the logic is brutal, right? If you remove
all the inventory, if there are literally no
animals left to trap, your competitors starve
to death trying to cross the border. It was an
ecological buffer zone designed entirely for
geopolitical dominance. They essentially weaponized
the ecosystem. Wow. But here is the catch. Despite
these extreme measures, the demographics were
shifting faster than the British could trap out
the rivers. And the way the first actual American
government formed in Oregon is incredibly mundane.
I mean, it wasn't some grand Declaration of Independence.
No, it's actually one of my favorite details.
In 1841, a wealthy master trapper and entrepreneur
named Ewing Young dies. But he dies without a
will. Right. And suddenly all these settlers
look around and realize they have a major problem
on their hands. There is no probate court. There's
no legal system to figure out who gets his stuff.
Exactly. You cannot have private property without
a legal framework to protect and transfer it.
So they hold a meeting after his funeral and
elect a supreme judge just to deal with this
guy's estate. But they don't stop there, do they?
No, they don't, because they also have a predator
problem. Right. The wolves. In 1842, they hold
meetings at a place called Champogue to discuss
what to do about local wolves attacking their
livestock. These literally became known as the
wolf meetings. I love that. And over the course
of a year, these random gatherings to discuss
a dead guy's will and pesky wolves morph into
an all -citizen meeting in 1843. Yep. Which creates
the first acting provisional government of the
Oregon country. So, looking at that... Is it
safe to say that Oregon's entire political foundation
was built purely on bureaucratic accidents? Well,
it's a tempting conclusion, for sure. But if
we step back and look at the mechanisms at play,
this wasn't really an accident at all. No, it
was an inevitability driven by demographic pressure.
That same pressure cooker concept we talked about.
Oh, right. Because the fur desert couldn't stop
the massive influx of American settlers arriving
via the Oregon Trail in the 1840s. Exactly. The
sheer demographic weight of thousands of Anglo
-American settlers dominating the southern half
of the region just forced the issue. So it wasn't
just about wolves. It was about organizing a
society that was rapidly expanding. Precisely.
This demographic shift completely altered the
balance of power, eventually forcing the British
to just give up the southern half and sign the
Oregon Treaty in 1846, which split the territory
at the 49th parallel. OK, so the American settlers
secure the land. They form a government out of
these wolf meetings, and then they start writing
laws. Right. And here is where we encounter a
massive, deeply uncomfortable paradox at the
heart of Oregon's founding. As these pioneers
solidified their control, they drafted a vision
for their new society that loudly championed
freedom, but heavily legislated racial exclusion.
There is a series of deeply discriminatory laws
that were baked into the territory from the very
beginning. Can you give an example? Sure. For
instance, in 1844, the provisional government
passed what became known as the Lash Law. Right.
This statute outlawed slavery -giving slave owners
three years to free enslaved people, but it simultaneously
mandated that freed black people leave the territory
entirely. And the enforcement mechanism for that
was just brutal. If they refused to leave, the
law initially required to be whipped twice a
year until they left. Now, the historical record
notes that the whipping provision was soon deemed
too harsh by the settlers and reduced to forced
labor later that same year. But the underlying
intent was undeniable. The message was, you are
not welcome here. And this wasn't an isolated
incident or some fringe idea. When the Oregon
Territory electorate, which, by the way, consisted
entirely of white men over the age of 21, voted
on their state constitution in 1857, the numbers
tell a very stark story. What were the numbers?
They voted against slavery by a massive landslide
of 74 .5 percent. Wait, I need to pause you there
because the second half of that ballot is what
makes this so complex. Yeah, go ahead. On that
exact same ballot where they overwhelmingly reject
slavery, they voted to ban black people from
residing in Oregon by an even larger margin.
88 .88 percent. How does a society hold both
of those thoughts in its head? at the same time.
I mean, how do you ban slavery but simultaneously
ban the victims of slavery from even existing
in your state? It's a staggering paradox. To
understand how they reconciled that, we have
to look at the economic and social anxieties
of the era. Peter Burnett, who was the head of
Oregon's legislative assembly, explained the
1844 law by stating that the object was to, quote,
keep clear of that most troublesome class of
population. He argued that they were in a new
world under favorable circumstances and wished
to avoid the evils that afflicted the United
States. And when he said evils, he wasn't talking
about a moral stance against the cruelty of slavery,
was he? No, not at all. Most Oregonians at the
time held deeply entrenched white supremacist
views and were actually indifferent, if not outright
hostile, toward the abolitionist movement in
the East. So what was their primary motivation?
It was economic anxiety. They wanted to prevent
the land from being taken over by the large plantation
systems of the American South. The white pioneer
laborers didn't want to have to compete economically
with bonded, unpaid labor. So for these pioneers,
their vision of democracy and a Western utopia
was strictly defined as a white Working Class
Sanctuary. Yes. And this exclusionary philosophy
resulted in further discriminatory legislation
down the line. Like the tax law in 1862. Exactly.
They passed a law requiring all ethnic minorities
to pay a $5 annual tax just to exist there. And
they implemented a strict ban on interracial
marriage that wasn't fully repealed until 1951.
1951? Think about that. It sounds like they were
building a revolutionary publicly owned park,
but welding a massive iron clad members only
sign right onto the main gate. That is an incredibly
apt metaphor. And what makes this paradox even
sharper is that just a few decades later, Oregon
became globally famous for championing the ultimate
democratic power for the general public. Oh,
right. During the progressive era. from 1897
to 1917. Yeah, a political activist named William
Uren helped establish what became known nationwide
as the Oregon system. Uren was this indefatigable
organizer who pushed for direct legislation by
the citizens. He fundamentally changed the mechanics
of government there. He did. By 1902, Oregon
approved the initiative and referendum processes.
Meaning citizens could literally bypass the legislature
and vote laws directly into existence. Right.
And by 1908, they empowered citizens to recall
public officials. A muckraking journalist from
New York, Lincoln Stephens, actually visited
in 1908 and was completely shocked. Oh really?
Yeah he was amazed to find that this remote rugged
state had more fundamental tools for self -governance
and direct democracy than almost anywhere else
in the country. But this brings us right back
to the paradox we've been talking about. The
direct democracy of the organ system gave incredible
unfiltered power to the majority. Right. But
if the majority holds exclusionary or biased
views, direct democracy doesn't fix those biases.
it mathematically amplifies them. That makes
total sense. And this history has a very long
tale. It definitely does. As recently as 1994,
an Oregon Supreme Court task force issued a report
finding that minorities were still more likely
to be arrested, charged, and incarcerated than
similarly situated non -minorities. Wow. In 1994.
Yes. The report specifically pointed to the lingering
problems of institutional racism, showing how
those foundational laws echo through the centuries.
And that historic tension between democratic
power and deep ideological division, it didn't
just fade away into the history books. It evolved
to completely define modern Oregon. It's the
defining characteristic. The state has a legacy
of extreme internal polarization that touches
almost every aspect of life. Just look at the
historical conflict. Oh, they're everywhere.
You have loggers fiercely battling environmentalists.
Ranchers clashing with farmers. Wealthy growing
cities positioned against established but economically
struggling rural areas. There's even a long standing
cultural friction between native Oregonians and
outsiders, particularly Californians moving north.
And this division isn't just people arguing at
town halls or complaining to their neighbors.
This tension has manifested in persistent literal
secessionist movements. Yes. People in various
regions spanning all sides of the political spectrum
have actively attempted to carve out their own
independent states. You have conservative rural
areas pushing to secede and form the state of
Jefferson. And on a broader scale, you have movements
envisioning an independent buyer region called
Cascadia or the environmentalist concept of ecotopia.
And this brings us right back to the modern manifestation
of the Oregon system. of ballot initiatives.
Because the citizens have the power to put almost
anything on the ballot, the state's elections
often feature intense political whiplash. Oh,
for sure. If you look at a modern Oregon voting
ballot today, you'll see the direct descendants
of those 19th century wolf meetings. Absolutely.
In the 21st century, it is not uncommon to see
state ballots where right -wing proposals like
anti -gay or pro -religious measures are sitting
right alongside politically liberal initiatives.
such as the decriminalization of drugs. It's
the ultimate stress test for direct democracy.
You have a state voting on wildly opposite ends
of the political spectrum on the exact same piece
of paper. And you see that same tension regarding
the power of the state versus individual autonomy
in recent events, too. Think back to the COVID
-19 pandemic. Right. The state implemented incredibly
strict mandates. Governor Kate Brown issued a
statewide stay at home order where violators
could face Class C misdemeanor charges. Which
is intense. Oregon also joined California and
Washington in the Western states pact to strictly
control the outbreak. It's a fascinating dynamic,
isn't it? A state fiercely protective of pioneer
individualism and individual ballot power, simultaneously
exercising intense, almost unprecedented executive
control during a crisis. It really forces you
to ask, if the state has been this deeply fractured,
literally trying to secede from itself and voting
on wildly opposite ends of the political spectrum,
what is the glue actually holding Oregon together
today? That is the big question. And it may be
that the glue is simply the shared ongoing process
of arguing over what the state should be. The
ballot initiative system, for all its whiplash,
forces the population to constantly engage with
their own deep divisions. It really is an incredible
journey we've tracked today. I mean, we started
with a landscape brutally sculpted by ice age
floods and exploding volcanoes that collapsed
into themselves. We saw strange Spanish shipwrecks
washing ashore, delivering silver and beeswax
to native tribes long before Overland exploded.
ever arrived. We unpacked how a calculated fur
desert and a dead trappers will accidentally
birthed a government. And we confronted the deeply
uncomfortable paradox of a state founded on progressive
direct democracy for some and severe racial exclusion
for others. Leading right up to the intense ballot
box polarization we see today. As we wrap up
I want to leave you with a final thought to ponder
something that kind of ties this all together.
Please do. Think about the literal geography
we discussed at the very the very beginning of
this deep dive. The Cascade Mountains physically
cleave the state of Oregon in two. On one side,
you have a lush, damp, coastal rainforest, and
on the exact opposite side of the mountains,
you have a dry, high desert. It's a stark contrast.
So you have to wonder, in a state so dramatically
and violently divided by its own geology, was
its deeply polarized political and cultural destiny
carved into the rocks from the very beginning?
Wow. What a question to end on. Thank you for
joining us on this deep dive and, as always,
keep exploring!