George Bush Monument
George Bush was the first Black pioneer in the Washington Territory and helped establish one of the area's first non-Indigenous American settlements at Bush Prairie in Tumwater.
Facts
About George Bush Monument
Inscriptions
Putting Down Roots
The Bush Family settles in
Washington Territory
"Black pioneer George Bush (c.1790-1863) helped establish the first non-Indigenous American settlement in Washington. George, his wife Isabella and others traveled the Oregon Trail to escape discrimination and prejudice in Missouri, only to arrive in the Oregon Country to find that newly adopted racist laws prohibited Black settlers.
"Continuing north of the Columbia River, they established a farm called Bush Prairie near today's Tumwater. The Bush family was known to be generous and welcoming and are credited with saving the lives of fellow settlers with food from their farm during the famine of 1852. This first settlement drew other pioneers and furthered the claim of this area by the United States. In 1850, the U.S. Congress passed the Donation Land Claim Act which excluded people of African descent from making land claims. The Washington Territorial legislature successfully petitioned Congress to grant the Bush family the right to retain ownership of their farm. Bush died a landowner but still not allowed to vote. His son, William Owen Bush, served in the first Washington State Legislature (1889-1890) and helped found Washington State University.
"From their home in Missouri, the Bush family brought root stock to cultivate at Bush Prairie; a nut from one of those century-old trees grew into a sapling that was rooted on this campus in 2010 and named the Bush Butternut Tree."
