George Washington Bush was a free black man living in the South in the mid-1800s. Bush and his family left Missouri in 1844 with a wagon train headed for the Oregon Trail. Along the way, he told fellow traveler John Minto that he hoped blacks would be treated better in the new territory than they were in the South.
The party stopped in what is now The Dalles, and they discovered that the provisional government in the area had recently passed a law excluding blacks. Bush stayed the winter, but then headed north across the Columbia River, where the British still had control and he hoped for less discrimination.
In 1845, the pioneers landed in the Puget Sound. The land Bush and his family settled became known as Bush Prairie, and Bush’s success in trading and his generosity to other settlers led the way for more Americans to settle in the area. Historians write that when Britain and the United States signed a treaty in 1846 establishing the border between the two countries, Bush’s presence helped make what is now Washington part of America.

— Michael J. Kleckner