Джордж Вашингтон Буш: Пионер и проводник на Запад

American pioneer

George Washington Bush (1779 – April 5, 1863) was an American pioneer and one of the first African American (Irish and African) Bush's African American father, Matthew Bush, was born in India. 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, and they married in 1778. Pennsylvania did not repeal its anti miscegenation law until 1780, suggesting that Matthew Bush was either not considered black, or he was married under the care of Germantown Friends meeting in violation of the law. George's parents served Stevenson until his death. Stevenson had no other family and so left the Bushes a substantial fortune.

Bush fought under Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812 at the Battle of New Orleans. (Bush, Jeremiah Mabie and William Rutledge are the only known War of 1812 veterans to have settled in Thurston County, and the earliest known U. S. veterans in the county.) He later worked as a voyageur and fur trapper with a Frenchman named Joseph Robidoux IV headquartered in St. Louis, then spent several years in the Oregon Country working for the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC).

About the time Robidoux was hired to establish a trading post at the Blacksnake Hills (which became St. Joseph, Missouri), Bush moved to the area near said trading post and in 1828 purchased (with cash not grant or homestead) 80 acres of land. His property was in an unorganized part of Clay County, Missouri was a slave state at the time and had adopted anti miscegenation laws in 1821, but like his father's marriage, there is no evidence that his marriage was thought to be illegal at the time. Bush was a free man and had never been a slave, but, while he was of African and Irish descent, Missouri did not provide him the same legal status as a white man. including George Bush, whose 1828 land purchase was within Washington Township boundaries. Some sources state that his family lived in comfort there, while others suggest they faced increasing prejudice. Bush's navigation skills and knowledge of the western region, gained during his years as a trapper, 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. Bush bought six Conestoga wagons, equipping them with enough provisions for a year, and helped several families make the trip to Oregon. With him he brought many species of fruit and shade trees that he would plant in his farm at Bush Prairie. By the time the Bush Simmons party reached the Oregon Country over four months later, the Provisional Government of Oregon reacting to racially charged violence had passed an exclusionary law barring black persons, slave or free, from entering the Oregon Territory on penalty of lashing. 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. The wagon path they laboriously cut would become the northern spur of the Oregon Trail. 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.

Historians have noted how Bush's experience exemplifies the interdependence and interconnection of people from different racial groups on the western frontier, as well as the ugliness of racial prejudice. 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 Bush's journey by wagon train from Missouri to Bush Prairie. The paintings are in the collection of the Washington State Historical Society. In 2009, a Bush butternut tree was planted in Bush's memory on the grounds of the Washington State Capitol, and later also dedicated in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. The tree is a direct descendant of a seedling brought west on Bush's wagon and planted in 1845 at the Bush homestead on Bush Prairie. The original tree was one of the largest, and likely the oldest living butternut tree in the United States when it died in 2021. A permanent monument to George Bush and his family on the Washington State Capitol campus was dedicated on November 19, 2021. This monument refers to the contributions of Mr. Bush and his son William Owen Bush to Washington Territory, Washington State, and what became Washington State University. A copy of this monument will be installed on the campus of Washington State University at Tri Cities in Richland, Washington.

Although Bush is widely known today by his ostensible full name of George Washington Bush, doubt has been cast on if "Washington" actually was his middle name, or was added later through mistaken conflation with fellow African American pioneer George Washington of nearby Centralia, Wash.