1840-1850s Blacks Arriving in Portland, Oregon

 Nadene Goldfoot                 

A small number of Jewish pioneers began arriving in the Oregon region during the late 1840s, with general Jewish settlement in Portland specifically taking root starting around 1849. 1840: Herman Ehrenberg, noted as one of the earliest known Jewish immigrants to the broader Oregon territory, arrived around this time, though not yet settled directly in Portland.1848–1849: The first wave of Jewish settlers—predominantly young single merchants of Central European/German descent—began arriving directly in Portland and the Willamette Valley.

Notable Pioneers: Early recorded regional trailblazers included the Fleischner brothers (Jacob and Louis), Dr. Israel Moses, a Civil War surgeon, and Herman Ehrenberg.
Moses was tried by court martial in 1864 for "Conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline" and "Disrespect to his superior officer" after having an ongoing disagreement with his commanding officer over whether a wounded patient should be discharged for disability or transferred to the Invalid Corps. He was ultimately found guilty and sentenced to be dismissed from the service; General George Henry Thomas approved the court's findings, but recommended, "in consideration of the long services" provided by Moses that his sentence be remitted and he instead "be reprimanded in General Order." 
 Following his resignation, per the Mount Sinai archives catalogue, Moses “was appointed Attending Surgeon"  in the "newly-opened Jews' Hospital in New York,” which later became Mount Sinai.
The Judge Advocate General concurred with General Thomas, stating "It appears that the contumacy and insubordination of Surgeon Moses grew out of a mistaken notion of his duty, rather than from any purpose to disobey orders or treat his superior officer with disrespect." Moses was therefore allowed to continue in his service and was eventually honorably discharged. (The existence of a court martial file for Moses was discovered in the Papers of Abraham Lincoln.)  I guess he was famous for the period, not for being in Portland.  I don't think he ever made it out here.
Jews first arrived in the Oregon Territory in 1848 and 1849. Early German and Central European settlers—such as Jacob Goldsmith and Lewis May—came to the region during this period, establishing general stores and trading posts in Portland and southern mining camps. Additional historical details are outlined in The Oregon Encyclopedia. 
  

The very existence of these photographs is evidence of Black love and community care. Each of these photographic types were carefully placed in protective cases lined with velvet or silk. These cases functioned like tender keepsakes that would have been gifted, caressed, and lovingly gazed upon. While the names and identities of many of the people pictured in these portraits are lost, we know that they were beloved. 

It was in the 1840s- to 1850s that Blacks started arriving in Portland, Oregon. A small number of free and enslaved Black pioneers arrived via overland wagon trains, despite strict territorial exclusion laws passed by Oregon's provisional and state governments attempting to bar Black settlement. By 1851 (Portland's incorporation year), about 55 African Americans managed to live and settle in the area.

Oregon passed laws to ban Black people from living, owning land, or making contracts in the territory. Because of these harsh rules, Black pioneers like George Washington Bush moved north across the Columbia River into the area that became Washington.  

The 1844 Lash Law: The provisional government made it illegal for Black people to live in the territory, punishing violators with public whippings of 20 to 39 stripes every six months until they left.
The 1849 and 1857 Laws: Later territorial laws and the 1857 state constitution banned African Americans from entering the state, suing in court, making contracts, or owning real estate. 



On August 26, 1851 Thomas Nelson ruled that:The above-named Jacob Vanderpool, having been brought before me on a warrant based upon the complaint of the above named Theophilus Magruder, and I being satisfied, that the said Jacob Vanderpool is a mulatto, and that he is remaining in the territory of Oregon contrary to the statutes and laws of the territory. I therefore order that the said Jacob Vanderpool remove from the said territory within thirty days from and after the service of this order.  Just like that, Jacob Vanderpool was expelled from the state of Oregon, never to return. An article would run in the Oregon Statesman the following week that praised Thomas Nelson’s ruling as a “reaffirmation of a well-settled doctrine.”

Enforcement: Oregon entered the Union in 1859 as a "free state" but explicitly as a white-only state, banishing residents like Jacob Vanderpool in 1851. Blacks coming to the territory had to move to Washington.  
 Bush and his allies established a successful agricultural settlement and farm at Bush Prairie near modern-day Tumwater and Olympia. Their support network and local friends successfully petitioned Congress to protect his land. Bush and his allies established a successful agricultural settlement and farm at Bush Prairie near modern-day Tumwater and Olympia. Their support network and local friends successfully petitioned Congress to protect his land. George Washington namesake settles in Oregon after Civil War.It’s is lovely to have an ancestor with the first 2 names of George Washington. Terrible photo . 
When he arrived in Oregon after the Civil War, only 10000 Europeans were in the Willamette Valley.

The most prominent Black pioneer family to arrive in the Pacific Northwest via covered wagon on the Oregon Trail was led by George Washington Bush. 1844 Migration: George Washington Bush, a free Black man of mixed-race heritage, left Missouri in a covered wagon with his white wife, Isabella, and their children. They traveled alongside several white families in a group known as the Simmons Party.  Bush financed much of the wagon train and helped other families along the Oregon Trail to escape harsh anti-Black exclusion laws in the Midwest.     When the group reached The Dalles and learned of repressive racial laws in the Oregon Territory, they moved north of the Columbia River into present-day Washington State.  Bush Prairie: Bush and his allies established a successful agricultural settlement and farm at Bush Prairie near modern-day Tumwater and Olympia. Their support network and local friends successfully petitioned Congress to protect his land rights.

America Waldo Bogle (June 2, 1844 – December 28, 1903) was a pioneer in the Oregon Territory. She and her husband, Richard Arthur Bogle, were among the first Black settlers in Walla Walla, Washington..Yes, this is an ancestor of Portland's well-known Dick Bogle of Portland's police, government and TV fame.  I did his genealogy with him!  Waldo was a well-known name we were following. America Waldo was born in Missouri on June 2, 1844. Her mother is believed to have been a slave of Missouri farmer John Waldo (1796–1849), and her father was a white man, probably either John Waldo or his brother Joseph (1805–1871). In 1854 America traveled by wagon train to Oregon with John Waldo's widow, Avarilla, and several other African Americans.   This black family originated in the Caribbean.  
Updated 8/10/2026, 11:18am 

July 4th Celebrating USA's Birthday with Remembering The Jews' Introduction to New York Before Statehood and the Blacks in Oregon

 Nadene Goldfoot                                            

The 13 original states were New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. New York actually became a state on July 9, 1776.  

Tomorrow we celebrate the 247th  anniversary of the creation of the United States of America.  It's one of the youngest of the countries on this planet.  Only 13 colonies were united in 1776 when it became a country.                                 

The 13 original states were the first 13 British colonies. British colonists traveled across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe and were daringly brave to step into small-leaky boats manned only by sails.  Who would dare do such a thing today?  The first was John Robinson, pastor from Amsterdam's son, Isaac.  John stayed on land with the rest of his flock.  In time, there were only a few members left as several had between 1629 and 1633 sporadically relocated to the Plymouth Colony. This included Robinson's son Isaac who arrived in 1631 and joined the Pilgrims at the Plymouth Colony.

I have a ggrandfather, Abiathar Smith Robinson, who was born in Vermont, but often thought it was New York.  Vermont was created on March 4, 1791,  only 15 years later,  out of a piece of New York, evidently.  The following are 15 towns near the New York border but now in Vermont:

1. Swanton, VT (about 11 miles from the border)
2. Saint Albans, VT (about 12 miles from the border)
3. Milton, VT (about 13 miles from the border)
4. Colchester, VT (about 9 miles from the border)
5. Burlington, VT (about 4 miles from the border)
6. Winooski, VT (about 6 miles from the border)
7. South Burlington, VT (about 6 miles from the border)
8. Shelburne, VT (about 4 miles from the border)
9. Williston, VT (about 11 miles from the border)
10. Jericho, VT (about 15 miles from the border)
11. Hinesburg, VT (about 10 miles from the border)
12. Middlebury, VT (about 12 miles from the border)
13. Rutland, VT (about 14 miles from the border)
14. Manchester, VT (about 9 miles from the border)
15. Bennington, VT (about 3 miles from the border)

New York's name was originally "New Amsterdam."  They showed how their people felt about Jews right away;  at least Peter did.  The Jewish arrival in New Amsterdam of September 1654 was the first organized Jewish migration to North America. 

Spain's new Christianity decided not to allow Jews in their country, so in 1492, they made a law expelling all Jews unless they converted to Christianity.  180,000 Jews were kicked out of Spain.  50,000 converted to Christianity -forced to-many becoming Marranos (hiding their Judaism).  

When it had become a Christian state, Jews, probably from Spain along with Jews living there over 100 years already, had been living there, in Lisbon, Beja, and Santa-rem. Since the founding of the official Kingdom of Portugal in 1139, the country has been predominantly Christian. The first king of Portugal, Afonso Henriques, declared a unified church and state under Christianity. 

A whole community of Jews had been converted by force in 1497, 5 years after Spain's decision,  and they too became Marranos (hidden Jews).  When the Spanish Inquisition was introduced in the 16th century in Portugual, the refugees who fled to escape it formed the Portuguese synagogues in Amsterdam.  England had expelled Jews earlier, in 1290 as a result of Christianity through the Byzantine Empire's wishes, and Jews were not allowed back into England until 1655, the year after the boat full of Jews turned up near New Amsterdam.   

 It comprised 23 Sephardi Jews, refugees "big and little" of families fleeing persecution by the Portuguese Inquisition after the conquest of Dutch Brazil. It is widely commemorated as the starting point of New York Jewish and Jewish-American history.  The Jews had sailed from Recife on the ship Valck, one of at least sixteen that left mostly bound for the Netherlands at the end of the Dutch–Portuguese War. Valck was blown off course to Jamaica and/or Cuba.  According to account in Saul Levi Morteira and David Franco Mendes, they were then taken by Spanish pirates for a time. In Cuba, the Jews eventually boarded the St. Catrina, called by later historians the "Jewish Mayflower", which took them to New Amsterdam.

                  Peter Stuyvesant--America's first and worst anti-Semite, b; 1610-d:August 1672)the  Dutch Director General of New Netherland from 1647 until it ceded to the English in 1664.  Then it split into New York and New Jersey.  Stuyvesant, himself a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, opposed religious pluralism and came into conflict with Lutherans, Jews, Roman Catholics, and Quakers as they attempted to build places of worship in the city and practice their faiths. Stuyvesant was in particular antisemitic, loathing both the Jewish race and religion.

The new Jewish community faced antisemitic opposition to their settlement from Director-General Peter Stuyvesant, as well as a monetary dispute with the captain of the St. Catrina, which required adjudication from the Dutch West India Company. They were aided by some Ashkenazi Jewish traders who had arrived just a month earlier, on the ship Peereboom, from Amsterdam via London. This group included Jacob Barsimson, and perhaps Solomon Pietersen and Asser Levy, who has also in earlier sources been claimed as one of the twenty-three. The new community founded Congregation Shearith Israel, which still endures as the oldest Jewish congregation in the United States.

Peter Stuyvesant wasn't going to allow them to land because they were Jews.  As he wrote to the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch West India Company in 1654, he hoped that "the deceitful race, — such hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ, — be not allowed to further infect and trouble this new colony." He referred to Jews as a "repugnant race" and "usurers", and was concerned that   "Jewish settlers should not be granted the same liberties enjoyed by Jews in Holland, lest members of other persecuted minority groups, such as Roman Catholics, be attracted to the colony."

As it turned out, these Jews were representatives of the Dutch East India Company who paid Stuyvesant his salary.  They were all for allowing the Jews entrance to the land and told Peter so.                           

I see that Jan Pieterszoon Coen ([ˈjɑn ˈpitərzoːn ˈkun], 8 January 1587 – 21 September 1629) was an officer of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in the early 17th century,      

Jan Pieterszoon Coen who was born in Hoorn on 8 January 1587, and was raised by his family in accordance with strict Calvinist principles,.The five principles of Calvinism as formulated by the Synod of Dort (1618-1619) are summarized in "tulip," a popular acronym for total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistibility of grace and final perseverance of the saints. Calvin was a religious man who had left  the Roman Catholic Church and was very strict. They believed in the authority and sufficiency of Scripture for one to know God and one's duties to God and one's neighbour; the equal authority of both Old and New Testaments, the true interpretation of which is assured by the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit; the doctrines of God as triune and as creator and sustainer of all things, of Christ the Mediator, whose atonement for sin satisfies the divine justice, and of justification by faith issuing in an ethic that aims to transform every aspect of life.

 Jan held two terms as governor-general of the Dutch East Indies. In 1601, he travelled to Rome, to study trade in the offices of the Fleming Joost de Visscher, where he learned the art of bookkeeping. Joining the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1606, he made a trading voyage to the East Indies in 1607 with the fleet of Pieter Willemsz Verhoeff.

He was the founder of Batavia, capital of the Dutch East Indies. Renowned for providing the impulse that set the VOC on the path to dominance in the Dutch East Indies, he was long considered a national hero in the Netherlands. Since the 19th century, his legacy has become controversial due to the violence he employed, especially during the last stage of the Dutch conquest of the Banda Islands, in order to secure a trade monopoly on nutmeg, mace and clove.  A famed quote of his from 1618, Despair not, spare your enemies not, for God is with us, illustrates his single-minded ruthlessness, and his unstinting belief in the divinely-sanctioned nature of his project.

I bet his name was originally Cohen and he came from a Jewish family who had to become Marranos, Jews that had to go underground in hiding the fact they were Jews.  They hid it so well that soon the children really were brought up as Christians and this Coen was one of them.  All history, knowledge of his ancestors, could have been lost by the time he was born.                      

                  Size of Israel compared to USA's lower 48

On the West coast, for it took a while for people to travel across this North American Continent that hadn't been known about in Europe:  California on September 9, 1850; Oregon on February 14, 1859; and Washington on November 11, 1889.  Alaska on January 3, 1959 and Hawaii on August 21, 1959.  It was our 34th president, Dwight David Eisenhower who was the 1st president to reside over all 50 states with his term from 1953 to 1961.  

7 year old Dick Bogle b: 1930  with his mother, Katheryn Hall Bogle, a reporter for the Oregonian in Portland, Oregon. America's president then was Herbert Hoover (1929-1933).  Dick wore a lot of hats in Portland; sports editor, head of Portland's fire department, police officer, detective, had a jazz radio show, etc.  His father had been a postman from a line of very impressive Bogles. Dick's ggrandfather had been born in Jamaica.    

Dick Bogle speaks at the City of Unity Rainbow Rally, 1989. 

In honor of MLK, Jr., and in recognition of the death of a black college student in Portland. Courtesy Oregon Hist. Soc. Research Lib., bd000443

Blacks were not allowed in Oregon originally, but could move to Washington. Dick Bogle's family were affected by that ruling.  His ancestor, America, could not follow the wagon train to Oregon and instead was able to live in Washington. 

The first Black exclusion law in Oregon, adopted in 1844 by the Provisional Government, mandated that Blacks attempting to settle in Oregon would be publicly whipped—thirty-nine lashes, repeated every six months—until they departed. There is no documented record of any official whipping—the law was written with a grace period, and it was repealed before it had expired—but the concept was clear. In 1849, the Oregon Territorial Government adopted a second Black exclusion law, which was repealed in 1853.

The Oregon constitution, adopted in 1857, banned slavery but also excluded Blacks from legal residence. It made it illegal for Blacks to be in Oregon or to own real estate, make contracts, vote, or use the legal system. Like earlier exclusion laws, the constitutional ban, which took effect when Oregon became a state in 1859, was not retroactive, which meant that it did not apply to Blacks who were legally in Oregon before the ban was adopted.

  

Resource:

https://americanhistory.si.edu/citizenship/learn/a-growing-nation/64/learn#:~:text=The%2013%20original%20states%20were,the%20Atlantic%20Ocean%20from%20Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Robinson_(pastor)#:~:text=In%20time%2C%20there%20were%20only,Pilgrims%20at%20the%20Plymouth%20Colony.

https://statedistance.com/border-new-york-and-vermont

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/vermont-admission-anniversary.html#:~:text=From%20the%20Guide%20to%202010,territory%20of%20the%20United%20States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Pieterszoon_Coen

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Stuyvesant#:~:text=As%20he%20wrote%20to%20the,usurers%22%2C%20and%20was%20concerned%20that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_arrival_in_New_Amsterdam