The Antecedents to Cascadia as a Cross Border Region

Abstract

For the short period from 1834 to 1863, the Pacific Northwest, centered in Cascadia, was an entity in the global economy. The region became a coherent economic unit under the management of the Columbia District of the Hudson’s Bay Company, which developed an economic hinterland, a coherent economic and trade strategy, an aggressive marketing agenda and control of marketable resources in the region. It strategically built a resource base to meet market needs and played an extensive entrepreneurial function, for example selling Finish boots in California in 1840 and Puget Sound grain in western Siberia by 1843. This paper traces the broad outline of the rise and fall of this economic empire and draws attention to the role of state power, manifested at the levels of identity and legal construction, in ending the coherence of that regional entity. In a time when the logic of Cascadia on environmental and regional grounds is apparent to many, this paper highlights how the border and the attendant identities of political actors divided and ended its coherence. Its demise may offer insight into the forces which bolster the border which divides it today.