There were many reasons that a pioneer in the 1840s might have wanted to go west. A settler like Michael T. Simmons, who had a history of moving from place to place, might have wanted adventure and freedom, a chance to live in a new land far from established towns. Other settlers might have heard the rumors of Oregon Country’s perfect climate, excellent for farming and freedom from diseases that was ravaging Missouri at the time, such as cholera and malaria. |
A pioneer like George Washington Bush might have wanted to go to Oregon Country to escape racial prejudice. George Bush was of Black descent, with a white mother and a Black father. He was living in Missouri, where slavery was legal. Although he was a free man, he did not have a free man’s rights because of his ethnic heritage. He could not vote, own land, or send his children to public schools. Some of his neighbors would not even let him shop at their stores. We know that having the same rights as his white friends was of the utmost importance to George Bush. While traveling on the Oregon Trail he confided to a friend that if he could not have a free man’s rights in Oregon, he would move on elsewhere, perhaps south to Mexico. |
This is an artist's idea of what George Bush may have looked like. There are no known photographs of George Bush. |
