Cascadia (independence movement)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The Doug" is one of several proposed flag designs for Cascadia.^[1][2]

Cascadia (commonly called the Republic of Cascadia as a full name) is a proposed name for an independent sovereign state advocated by a small, grassroots environmental movement in the Pacific Northwest of North America. This state would hypothetically be formed by the union of British Columbia, Oregon, and Washington. Other suggested boundary lines also include Idaho (all or parts), Northern California, parts of Alaska, and parts of the Yukon. This type of "federation" would require secession from both the United States and Canada. The boundaries of this proposed republic could incorporate those of the existing province and states.^{[citation needed]}

At the maximum extent, Cascadia would be home to more than 17 million people and would boast an economy that generates more than $450 billion worth of goods and services annually, which would place Cascadia in the top 20 economies of the world.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] History

Thomas Jefferson was the first to suggest the "Republic of the Pacific".^[3]

After Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark into the Pacific Northwest in 1803, Jefferson envisioned the establishment of an independent nation in the western portion of North America which he dubbed the "Republic of the Pacific".^[4] Jefferson's original idea has since been embraced by a number of different groups with generally similar aims.

Elements among the region's population sought form their own country from the very begining. John McLoughlin, the chief factor of Columbia District, administered from Fort Vancouver, was involved with the debate over the future of the Oregon Country. ^[5] Before British claims north of the Columbia River were ceded to the U.S.A. by the Oregon Treaty of 1846; he advocated an independent nation that would be free of the United States during debates at the Oregon Lyceum in 1842, through his lawyer.^[5] This view won support at first and a resolution adopted, but was later moved away from in favor of a resolution by George Abernethy of the Methodist Mission to wait on forming an independent country.^[5]

When the Southern states seceded to form the Confederacy, some Oregonians saw it as a perfect opportunity to establish their own country. However, their movement failed when it became linked with the Knights of the Golden Circle, a pro-Confederate, pro-slavery organization.

Californians unsympathetic to the Union also pushed for the re-establishment of the Republic of California as an independent entity--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.

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 what is the best known of such movements in the region. 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.^[6] As this is historically a depressed area, many locals placed the blame on the state governments in Salem and Sacramento. For that reason, a flag bearing two X's and a gold pan was adopted. The two X's represented the so-called "double crosses" from Sacramento and Salem.^[7]

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.^[7]

In recent years dissatisfaction with a wide range of issues has led to a renewed interest in the idea of an independent Cascadia. In September 2001, the Cascadian National Party was launched with a full political platform. Three days later, the September 11th attack occurred, and support for the movement faltered.^[8]

In 2005, borrowing heavily from the Cascadian National Party platform, the Cascadian Independence Project was created. Since that time, it has become one of the only organizations actively promoting the idea of Cascadian Independence. While most other groups discussing the Cascadia concept, such as The Sightline Institute, Cascadia Commons, Crosscut, and Cascadia Prospectus, see the concept as one of a transnational cooperative identity short of full independence. Still others, such as The Republic of Cascadia, are a tongue-in-cheek expression of political protest.

[edit] Boundaries

The boundary often proposed for an independent Cascadia.

There are many disputed borders for Cascadia, although all include greater or lesser parts of the Hudson Bay Company's historic Columbia District. The most common border is simply to include the states of Oregon, Washington, and the province of British Columbia.^[9] Some maps simply include the states of Oregon and Washington, excluding BC from the map. Some groups have sought to extend the interpretation of Cascadia to embrace parts of Northern California, Idaho and Alaska. Others would make Cascadia a federation, combining counties into new states, including the states of Jefferson, Trinity, Jackson, Klamath, Shasta, and Pacifica. A further delineation of the proposed Cascadian boundaries could include the complete watershed of the Columbia river, therefore including the territories of what is now Idaho, western Montana, and part of Wyoming, Utah, and very northern Nevada.

[edit] Motivation

Different definitions of Pacific Northwest and related terms. The green outline is the "Cascadia bioregion," from which the common border of Cascadia is designed.

Cascadian secessionist movements generally state that their political motivations deal mostly with values, interests, and beliefs that the eastern federal governments are accused of ignoring. ^[10] 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 claimed by two countries.^[10] Some have asserted that political protest in the wake of the 2004 presidential election appears to be the primary reason for renewed separatist movements throughout states with substantial Democratic majorities, such as Washington and Oregon.^[11][12]

The region is already served by several cooperative organizations and interstate or international agencies, especially in forestry and fishery management and emergency preparedness – the whole region being prone to earthquakes (see Cascadia subduction zone). Secessionist groups hope that these organizations could become the framework for an independent nation.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] As an ecological bioregion

The concept of Cascadia is closely identified with the environmental movement. To counter what some environmental movements see as improper stewardship of the land, they have defined what is called the Cascadia Bioregion (also referred to as the Pacific Northwest Bioregion). This area would encompass all or portions of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, Alaska, British Columbia, and Alberta. Bioregions are geographically based areas defined by land or soil composition, watershed, climate, flora, and fauna. The Cascadia Bioregion claims the entire watershed of the Columbia River (as far as the Continental Divide), as well as the Cascade Range from Northern California well into Canada. The delineation of a bioregion has environmental stewardship as its primary goal, with the belief that political boundaries should match ecological boundaries. Environmental sustainability appears to be a central tenet.^[13]

[edit] References in popular culture

• Two novels by Ernest Callenbach, Ecotopia (1975) and Ecotopia Emerging (1981), are fictional portrayals of the secession of the region from the United States. Callenbach's novels include Washington, Oregon, and the northern half of California in the new country (with the dividing line between northern and southern California drawn roughly through Santa Barbara and Bakersfield). Seriatim was a short-lived magazine published in El Cerrito, California in the late 1970s which also promoted the secession of the region along the lines portrayed by Callenbach.

• Joel Garreau's Nine Nations of North America (1981) has the region as one of his nine 'nations', which he named Ecotopia after the Callenbach novel.

• Predating these is a proposal made by Eric Hoffer in The Temper Of Our Time (1967) for "a pilot state made up of a slice of northern California and a slice of southern Oregon" in which "the main purpose of life would be for people to learn and grow." Hoffer feared that as meaningful work was automated away through technology, rootlessness would become a societal problem unless channeled in other directions such as education and personal growth, and proposed this region for his pilot state in part because it had good potential for work restoring ravaged soils and forests, work which would result in "the simultaneous reclamation of natural and human resources".

• In the Crimson Skies universe, the nation of Pacifica is formed out of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.

• The Fish Brewing Company of Olympia, Washington puts, "Brewed in the Republic of Cascadia" on their organic ale.^[14]

• The smALL FLAGs Company of Salem, Oregon sells the Douglas Fir flag as "a symbol for the Cascade Commons as well as the Republic of Cascadia (The Bioregional Cooperative Commonwealth of Cascadia)."^[15]

• The 2005 North American Science Fiction Convention (or NASFiC), Cascadia Con, presented itself as a Cascadian convention, using material from The Republic of Cascadia website, a previous year's Norwescon Science Fiction Convention doing the same thing, and other sources.^[16]

[edit] See also

• Oregon boundary dispute
• Alaska boundary dispute
• Alaskan Independence Party
• State of Lincoln
• State of Jefferson
• Secession
• Northwest Territorial Imperative
• Pacific Northwest Corridor

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Todd, Douglas. "Cascadians: Shared Cultural Traits, Values." The Vancouver Sun. 7 May 2008.
• Abraham, Kera. "A Free Cascadia." Eugene Weekly. 9 September 2006.
• Fleming, Thomas. "America's Crackup." National Review, 28 June 1997, Vol. 49, Issue 14
• Gauk, Matthew. "Welcome to the Evergreen Revolution." The Martlet, 9 November 2006.
• Henkel, William B. "Cascadia: A state of (various) mind(s)." Chicago Review, 1993, Vol. 39, Issue 3/4
• Jannsson, David. Divided we Stand, United We Fall (2006) - CounterPunch, 20 December 2006
• Ketcham, Christopher. "Most Likely to Secede - Interviews with a few prominent figures who actively promote self governance." Good Magazine, January 2008.
• Nussbaum, Paul. "Coming together to Ponder Pulling Apart." Philadelphia Inquirer, November 2006.
• Overby, Peter. "We're outta here." Common Cause Magazine, Win92, Vol. 18, Issue 4
• Crane, David, Paul Fraser, and James D. Phillips. "Western Regionalism: Views on Cascadia." Canada-United States Law Journal, 2004, Vol. 30, p321-347, 22p
• Powell, Mark W. "The Americas: British Columbia's future may not lie with 'Old Canada'." Wall Street Journal. Jun 9, 1995. pg. A11
• Will, Gudrun. "Cascadia Rising." Vancouver Review, 2006.
• Woodward, Steve. "Welcome to Cascadia" The Oregonian, 14 November 2004.
• "Welcome to Cascadia." The Economist, 5/21/94, Vol. 331, Issue 7864

[edit] External links

• Legality of Secession from the American Secession Project.
• Cascadian English Cascadians discuss their own regional dialect, and Chinook Jargon, Cascadia's original trade language.
• AltaColumbia A comprehensive list of Cascadian autonomy and secessionist movements and groups.
• Cascadia Related Links A list of websites related, both directly and indirectly, to Cascadia.
• The Republic of Cascadia A tongue-in-cheek site promoting Cascadian independence.
• Cascadia Rising News and information about the Cascadia region.