Cascadia (independence movement)


Cascadia is a bioregion and bioregional movement located within the western region of North America. Potential boundaries differ, with some drawn along existing political state and provincial lines, and others drawn along larger ecological, cultural, political, and economic boundaries. The boundaries are generally those defined by the Cascadia Bioregion.
The proposed country or region largely would consist of the Canadian province of British Columbia and the US States of Washington and Oregon. Including all parts of the bioregion, Cascadia would stretch from coastal Alaska in the north into Northern California in the south, and inland to include parts of Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Yukon. More conservative advocates propose borders that include the land west of the crest of Cascade Range, and the western side of British Columbia.
As measured only by the combination of present Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia statistics, Cascadia would be home to slightly more than 16 million people, and would have an economy generating more than US$675 billion worth of goods and services annually. This number would increase if portions of Northern California, Idaho, and Southern Alaska were also included.
By land area Cascadia would be the 20th largest country in the world, with a land area of 534,572 sq mi, placing it behind Mongolia and ahead of Peru. Its population would be similar in size to that of Ecuador, Zambia, Cambodia, or the Netherlands.

Description of the movement

The Cascadia movement contains groups and organizations with a wide range of goals and strategies. Some groups, such as the Cascadian Independence Party, wish to create a Cascadian nation-state while others, Cascadia Now! and Vote Cascadia, seek to build a bioregionalist network as alternative to the nation-state structure.
There are several reasons why the Cascadia movement aims to foster connections and a sense of place within the Pacific Northwest region and strive toward independence. The main reasons stated by the movement include environmentalism, bioregionalism, privacy, civil liberties and freedom, increased regional integration, and local food networks and economies.
The designer of the Doug flag, Alexander Baretich, claims that Cascadia is not necessarily about secession but is rather about the survival of peak oil, global warming, and other pending environmental and socioeconomic problems.

Colonial background

19th century

Oregon Country and Columbia District

The Oregon Country and the Columbia District are precursors to Cascadia.
An 1813 letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Jacob Astor congratulated Astor on the establishment of Fort Astoria and described Fort Astoria as "the germ of a great, free, and independent empire on that side of our continent, and that liberty and self-government spreading from that as well as from this side, will insure their complete establishment over the whole." He went on to criticize the British, who were also establishing fur trade networks in the region: "It would be an afflicting thing, indeed, should the English be able to break up the settlement. Their bigotry to the bastard liberty of their own country, and habitual hostility to every degree of freedom in any other, will induce the attempt." The same year of Jefferson's letter, Fort Astoria was sold to the British North West Company, based in Montreal.
John Quincy Adams agreed with Jefferson's views about Fort Astoria, and labeled the entire Northwest as "the empire of Astoria", although he also saw the whole continent as "destined by Divine Providence to be peopled by one nation." As late as the 1820s James Monroe and Thomas Hart Benton thought the region west of the Rockies would be an independent nation.
Elements among the region's colonist population starting in the 1840s sought to form their own country, despite their small number. Oregon pioneer John McLoughlin was employed as the "Chief Factor" by the Hudson's Bay Company for the Columbia District, administered from Fort Vancouver. McLoughlin was a significant force in the early history of the Oregon Country, and argued for its independence. In 1842 McLoughlin advocated an independent nation that would be free of the United States during debates at the Oregon Lyceum. This view won support at first and a resolution was adopted. When the first settlers of the Willamette Valley held a series of politically foundational meetings in 1843, called the "Wolf Meetings," a majority voted to establish an independent republic. Action was postponed by George Abernethy of the Methodist Mission to wait on forming an independent country.
In May 1843, the settlers in the Oregon Country created their first "western style" government as a Provisional Government. Several months later the Organic Laws of Oregon were drawn up to create a legislature, an executive committee, a judicial system, and a system of subscriptions to defray expenses. Members of the ultra-American party insisted that the final lines of the Organic Act would be "until such time as the USA extend their jurisdiction over us" to try to end the Oregon Territorial independence movement. George Abernethy was elected its first and only Provisional Governor, with an opposing faction led by Osborne Russell favoring independence. Russell proposed that the Oregon Territory not join the United States, but instead become a Pacific Republic that stretched from the Pacific Ocean to the Continental Divide.
British claims north of the Columbia River were ceded to the United States by the contentious Oregon Treaty of 1846. In 1860, there were three different statements from separate influential individuals on the creation of a "Pacific Republic".

American Civil War

When the Southern states of the U.S. seceded to form the Confederate States of America, some Oregon Territory settlers reacted to the instability of the union as another opportunity to seek independence.
The leader of California's federal forces at the outset of the Civil War was himself a supporter of the Confederate cause, but that movement proved weaker than its opposition. For his role in convincing Californians to remain in the Union, Thomas Starr King was honored as one of the two "heroes of California" in the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall Collection until 2009, when his statue was replaced by one of Ronald Reagan.
While independence movements during this time failed to take root, Adell M. Parker, president of the University of Washington Alumni Association, said in his speech at the groundbreaking of the Seattle campus:

20th century

State of Jefferson

After attempts in the mid 19th century at forming a State of Jefferson prior to becoming Oregon and then again in the 1930s, citizens attempted the best known of such movements in the region. During 1940 and 1941, organizers attracted media attention by arming themselves and blockading Highway 99 to the south of Yreka, California, where they collected tolls from motorists and passed out proclamations of independence. When a California Highway Patrolman turned up on the scene, he was told to "get down the road back to California". The movement was created to draw attention to the area by proposing that Southern Oregon and Northern California secede from their respective state governments to form a separate state within the United States. A perceived lack of attention and resources from their state governments led to the adoption of a flag design bearing a gold pan and two X's, a "double cross." The movement quickly ended, however, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
Stanton Delaplane's coverage of the State of Jefferson won the 1942 Pulitzer Prize for Reporting.
In 1956, groups from Cave Junction, Oregon and Dunsmuir, California threatened to tear Southern Oregon and Northern California from their respective state rulers to form the State of Jefferson.

Ecotopia

's environmental Utopian novel Ecotopia follows an American reporter, William Weston, on his tour through a secretive republic 20 years after their secession from the U.S. At first wary and uncomfortable, Weston is shown a society that has been centrally planned, scaled down, and readapted to fit within the constraints of environmental sustainability.

Regional identity

The idea of Cascadia as an economic cross-border region has been embraced by a wide diversity of civic leaders and organizations. The "Main Street Cascadia" transportation corridor concept was formed by former mayor of Seattle Paul Schell during 1991 and 1992. Schell later defended his cross-border efforts during the 1999 American Planning Association convention, saying "that Cascadia represents better than states, countries and cities the cultural and geographical realities of the corridor from Eugene to Vancouver, B.C." Schell also formed the Cascadia Mayors Council, bringing together mayors from cities along the corridor from Whistler, British Columbia, to Medford, Oregon. The council last met in May 2004. Other cross-border groups were set up in the 1990s, such as the Cascadia Economic Council and the Cascadia Corridor Commission. These groups were established to focus on transportation issues, and have not advocated secession or independence.
The region is served by several cooperative organizations and interstate or international agencies, especially since 2008 with the signing of the Pacific Coast Collaborative which places new emphasis on bio-regionally coordinated policies on the environmental, forestry and fishery management, emergency preparedness and critical infrastructure, regional high-speed rail and road transportation as well as tourism
Under some definitions, Cascadia is energy sufficient, due to the high propensity for renewable energy resources and supplies many other western states such as California and Idaho with some electricity.
The area from Vancouver, B.C. down to Portland has been termed an emerging megaregion by the National Committee for America 2050, a coalition of regional planners, scholars, and policy-makers. This group defines a megaregion as an area where "boundaries begin to blur, creating a new scale of geography". These areas have interlocking economic systems, shared natural resources and ecosystems, and common transportation systems link these population centers together. This area contains 17% of Cascadian land mass, but more than 80% of the Cascadian population. Programs such as the enhanced driver's license program can be used to more easily cross the border between Washington and British Columbia.

Public support for secession

Canada

A poll commissioned by the Western Standard magazine in 2005 asked whether "western Canadians should begin to explore the idea of forming their own country", and 35.6% of respondents from Western Canada agreed.

United States

While it is difficult to gauge support specifically in Washington and Oregon, because no research has been done for those states, a nationwide poll by Zogby International in 2017 found that 39% of Americans support a state's or region's right to peacefully secede from the United States, the highest rate since the American Civil War. However, none of these studies are specifically about forming an independent Cascadia. The movement saw much discussion in the 1990s, and while the increase in security and American nationalism after the September 11 attacks set back the movement's momentum for some time, the concept has continued to become more ingrained into society and the public consciousness. In January 2011, Time magazine included Cascadia number eight on a list of "Top 10 Aspiring Nations", noting it "has little chance of ever becoming a reality".

Secessionist activism

Cascadian secessionist movements generally state that their political motivations deal mostly with political, economic, cultural, and ecological ties, as well as the beliefs that the eastern federal governments are out of touch, slow to respond, and hinder state and provincial attempts at further bioregional integration. These connections go back to the Oregon Territory, and further back to the Oregon Country, the land most commonly associated with Cascadia, and the last time the region was treated as a single political unit, though administered by two countries. Some have asserted that political protest in the wake of the 2004 United States presidential election appears to be the primary reason for renewed separatist movements throughout states with substantial Democratic majorities, such as Washington and Oregon.
On September 9, 2001, the Cascadian National Party website was launched on Angelfire, with the goal of launching a political party dedicated to the independence of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, but faltered quickly.
Cascadian independence has seen a resurgence in popularity following the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States on November 8, 2016, with a secession referendum proposed in Oregon. The individuals who put forward the proposal have since withdrawn their petition. Several new Cascadia organizations have also formed in that time period. Immediately after Trump's election, a series of Yes Cascadia meetings were formed to explore the idea of a Cascadia Secession Movement gathering hundreds of people in person, later changing their name to Vote Cascadia. Another new group active is All Things Cascadia: Department of Bioregional Affairs, which operates a 'Cascadian Diplomatic Corps' and offers classes and training about Cascadia and bioregionalism.
Members of the Cascadian independence movement have declared May 18 as "Cascadia Day", in recognition of the lateral eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, with the week surrounding that date being "Cascadia Culture Week".
The Cascadia Party of British Columbia formed in 2016 and nominated two candidates, though neither were elected, in the 2017 British Columbia general election to advocate for sovereignty for the Cascadia bioregion.

In popular culture