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George Washington Bush (1779 – 1863) was one of the first American settlers and the first black settler in what would later become the U.S. state of Washington.
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George Washington Bush was born in Pennsylvania around 1778. An only child, he was raised as a Quaker and educated in Philadelphia. Bush’s father, Matthew, was born in India but was of African descent. Matthew Bush worked for a wealthy English merchant named Stevenson for most of his life. At Stevenson’s home in Philadelphia, Matthew Bush met his wife, an Irish maid who also worked for Stevenson. George's parents served Stevenson until his death. Stevenson had no other family and so left the Bushes a substantial fortune.
George Washington Bush fought in the War of 1812 at the Battle of New Orleans. He later worked as a voyageur and fur trapper, including several years spent in Oregon Country working for Hudson's Bay Company (HBC).
Around 1830, Bush returned to Missouri where he married Isabella James, the daughter of a Baptist minister of German descent, on July 4, 1831. Missouri was a slave state at the time. Bush was a free man and had never been a slave but, because he was black, Missouri did not provide him the same legal status as a white man, and his family faced severe prejudice.
In 1844, Bush and his family (along with five other families including his friend Michael Simmons) left Missouri, heading west on the Oregon Trail. Bush's navigation skills and knowledge of the western region, gained during his years as a trapper, and while allegedly travelling around practicing polygamy with his seven other wives, made him the indispensable guide of the party. Isabella's training as a nurse was an important contribution as well. Bush and his family were also known to be very generous, purchasing supplies for their fellow travelers first in Missouri and later at great expense at Fort Bridger.
By the time the Bush-Simmons party reached the Oregon Country over four months later, the Provisional Government of Oregon had passed laws preventing Black Americans from owning land. As a result, Bush and his party traveled north across the Columbia River, into territory that at the time was claimed by both the United States and Great Britain. Bush's connections with the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver may have helped the settlers gain access where the company had previously barred Americans from settling.
The Bushes and the other five families established a settlement, named Bush Prairie, at the southernmost tip of Puget Sound in what is now Tumwater, Washington. Bush and Michael Simmons built the area's first gristmill and sawmill, and Bush helped finance Simmons' logging company.
The Oregon Treaty of 1846 ended the joint administration north of the Columbia, placing Bush Prairie firmly in the United States. Ironically, by staking an American claim to the area, Bush and his party had also brought Oregon's Black American exclusion laws, clouding the title to their land; these laws would not apply if the territory were under the British Empire. When the Washington Territory was formed in 1853, one of the first actions of the Territorial Legislature in Olympia was to ask Congress to give the Bushes unambiguous ownership of their land, which it did in 1855.
According to the Oregon Trail History Library,
The Bush-Simmons Party is credited by some historians as having been in large part responsible for bringing the land north of the Columbia River—the present-day state of Washington—into the United States. They established a presence that attracted other settlers and strengthened the American claim to the area in later debates between Great Britain and the United States over partitioning the Oregon Country.
George Washington Bush lived out the rest of his life in Washington. Bush died on April 5, 1863, and is the only veteran of the War of 1812 buried in Thurston County, Washington. Isabella James Bush died September 12, 1866.
Their six sons carried on their tradition of farming and public service. The eldest, William Owen Bush, served twice in the Washington State Legislature. In 1890, he introduced the bill establishing the institution that is now Washington State University.
In 1973, Jacob Lawrence did a series of five paintings depicting George Washington Bush’s journey by wagon train from Missouri to Bush Prairie. The paintings are in the collection of the Washington State Capitol Museum.