Vashon History

Historical Issues and Themes

Dr. Bruce Haulman

Beall Greenhouses © Island Landmarks

Vashon-Maury Issue

Is it one island? Colloquially Vashon refers to both.

A Place of Imagination
 
Water and Land: Are there two fundamentally different orientations for islanders?

Multi-Vocal History

The history of Vashon is a history, which reflects the important role of women, minorities, the land and its ecosystems. Vashon’s history is a multicultural, cosmopolitan history that reflects the presence of a diverse population of Indigenous Peoples, Asian Immigrants (Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Vietnamese), Northern European Immigrants (Norwegians, Swedes, Germans), Southern European Immigrants (Italians, Slovakians), and Americans (East Coasters, Mid-Westerners, Southerners, Californians, Other Westerners).

In examining the history of Vashon-Maury Island, seven enduring patterns emerge which have characterized the island in each of the Fifty-Year Cycles, and continue to characterize it today. The concepts behind these seven patterns form the central analytic ideas for this study of Vashon-Maury Island history. In each major era of Vashon-Maury Island’s history these patterns emerge, shift and are redefined, but always within a recognizable form. These patterns are what form much of the continuity that marks a history defined largely by change.

Vashon-Maury Islanders think of themselves as truly exceptional. And, in many ways Vashon-Maury Island is a very exceptional place. Yet, we must always ask ourselves, as islanders, how truly exceptional is Vashon-Maury Island and how much are we prisoners of larger social, political and economic forces? The answer is, of course, mixed. The island is an exceptional place, yet the reasons people come here, the experiences they have, the jobs they hold, the patterns of their lives, are really not exceptionally different from their contemporaries on other Puget Sound islands, nor are they particularly different from their contemporaries on the mainland of the Puget Sound Basin. What is exceptional are some of the particular ways in which these non-exceptional events and occurrences are manifested on the island. One of the purposes of this book is to examine and describe these particularities.

From the very beginning, there has been a continual process of conflict between old-timers and newcomers, between those already here and new arrivals to the island. These conflicts, which begin with Indian-white conflicts, continue with each succeeding generation, and are still present in some of the conflicts of today. As whites began to settle the Puget Sound Basin, and push the Indian inhabitants out of their traditional homes, the Indians resisted with the short Puget Sound Indian War of 1855-56. There is no record of conflict on Vashon-Maury, but Vashon was one of the relocation centers for the First Internment, when Indian peoples from Vashon-Maury and surround areas were gathered on Vashon and then moved to the internment center on Fox Island. Subsequent conflicts on Vashon-Maury were seldom violent, but represented tensions between groups as the island went through a series of dramatic changes. Loggers and Farmers struggled over the land. Ethnic tensions between different European ethnic groups, and sometimes within these ethnic groups; combined with racial tensions as Chinese and Japanese immigrants moved onto the island. The Chinese disappeared as anti-Chinese riots swept the Northwest in the 1880’s. The Second Internment rounded up the Japanese on Vashon-Maury and forcibly relocated them during the Second World War. As Vashon developed as a recreational center and a summer getaway, tensions developed between full time residents and "summer people." During the counter culture revolution of the 1960’s, tensions developed between the established conservative residents and the new group of "hippies" moving to the island to find a new life. And, underlying all these conflicts was the dispute between developers – those who sought growth and new development for the island - and preservationists - those who sought to keep the island as it was.

Vashon has always had a resource dependent economy. Initially the economy was dependent on natural resources (timber, fish, clay, agriculture) that could be extracted. Eventually the island became economically dependent on secondary resources (recreation property, waterfront homes, pocket farms) and finally the economy became dependent on human resources that could be easily exported (commuters). As such, Vashon has never been self-sufficient and has always been a hinterland to the Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area. Carlos Schwantes’ concept of hinterland is useful here. He defines a hinterland as a region remote from the centers of economic and political power and a tributary to developed cities. Vashon-Maury Island certainly is all these things, and thus, Vashon has experienced the periodic boom and bust economic pattern that characterizes resource dependent hinterlands. (Schwantes)

The mythology of pioneers is one of independent, self-reliant individuals who conquer the wilderness and transform the land. This is a predominately Euro-American mindset that characterizes the first generation of Vashon settlers. But interestingly, each succeeding generation of Vashon Islanders has reinterpreted their own history to reflect this Pioneer Mindset. The 1990’s urbanite who moves to the island to cut a home site from their five acres, build a home, and "farm" on the weekend is, both metaphorically and mythically, recreating the western frontier experience. Metaphorically they see themselves as self-reliant individuals taming the wilderness to build their future, when in reality they are dependent on a whole infrastructure of facilities and services that make their "frontier" experience possible. Mythically, they are inheritors of a rich American tradition of westward expansion and settlement that is the dominant expression of what it means to be an American.

Vashon has always seen itself as a refuge for independence and self-reliance, when in reality the island has been heavily dependent on government (Federal, State and County), ferries, outside markets, and migration. Periodically, the island has considered separating from King County, but in reality the island is a net importer of county resources. Surveys and land grants by the federal government and by the territorial and later state government of Washington were essential for Vashon-Maury to be developed and settled. Ferries have always dominated island life. From the earliest "mosquito fleet" boats, to the first county ferry from Des Moines in 1916, to the Black Ball revolt of the 1940’s, to the modern state ferry system, Vashon-Maury has always depended on ferries. The island has never been economically self-sufficient. Because the island has a resource-based economy, it has been dependent on the export of these resources to be successful. The markets for these resources have been the metropolitian centers of Seattle and Tacoma, and occasionally the cities of Oregon, California or the East. As a result, the island has suffered from the cyclic booms and busts that have characterized the resource dependent economy of the entire Pacific Northwest. Finally, Vashon-Maury is dependent on migration for growth. Newcomers to the island, who come for a wide variety of reasons, provide the people who inhabit the island. During some decades this growth has been nearly 300%, but over the one hundred and twenty years since Euro-American settlement, growth has averaged 25% each decade.

Typical of westerners, Vashon-Maury Islanders have looked to others for the source of their problems. Large corporations, foreign immigrants, government, ferry owners, and newcomers all are seen as the source of problems, not islanders themselves. As David Guterson points out, the very nature of insular living insulates and isolates us from the outside world. Yet, as the outside world imposes itself on the island, as it must inevitable do, islanders find themselves assigning blame for these intrusions to these outside forces rather than to themselves; as if they are not part of the larger world.

Vashon, like the rest of the Pacific Northwest, has a record of bigotry and discrimination directed against racial, ethnic, and social groups. Vashon-Maury Islanders pride themselves on being a refuge from the strains and tensions of the outside world, and yet it is largely a refuge for Euro-Americans. The numbers of minority group members living on Vashon-Maury Island has always been small, and the community has rarely welcomed the few minorities who choose to live here. At times the island has been directly hostile to non-Europeans. The First Internment of 1855-56 rounded up the Indian inhabitants of Vashon-Maury Island and the surrounding area, relocated them to Vashon for a temporary processing, and then interned these Indians on Fox Island for the duration of the Puget Sound Indian War. In the 1880’s an apparently flourishing Chinese fishing community located on Maury Island in the Outer Harbor, disappeared virtually overnight as the anti-Chinese riots swept through Tacoma, Seattle, and other northwest communities. In the 1940’s the Second Internment takes place when Japanese residents of Vashon-Maury Island were relocated to the Puyallup Fair Grounds (interestingly renamed Camp Harmony for this purpose), initially interned at Manzinar in the California desert, and then moved to Minidoka in southern Idaho. Bigotry is not only racial and ethnic. Vashon-Maury Island has always had individuals who discriminated against others because of their social or economic status. When pickers were essential for the success of agriculture, they were welcomed during the picking season but were rarely encouraged to make Vashon-Maury their home. The realtor who boasts of interviewing clients to see if they would make good islanders before selling them a house represents another type of bigotry based on a mindset of fear that can not handle diversity. And, least we think these are events of the past, as recently as 1998 the Seattle Weekly led with a cover story titled "Isle of Fear" concerning Vashon-Maury Island’s reaction to a convicted sex-offender, and the Gay Pride Network has had their road cleanup sign repeatedly vandalized. Even with the major changes in the racial and social landscapes of the Puget Sound Basin that have taken place at the end of the twentieth century, Vashon-Maury Island has a minority population of less than 3% and has individuals who are unwilling to accept the diversity the Island prides itself on.

These seven enduring patterns provide the framework for analysis that Vashon: The Natural and Human History of an Island uses to examine and understand the five major Cycles of Vashon-Maury Island history. These seven patterns are found in each of the Fifty-Year Cycles. Although in each Cycle the patterns shift and take a particular form; that form is still recognizable. These patterns are what form much of the continuity that marks a history defined largely by change. If, as David Guterson declares, islands are ideas; then the ideas behind these enduring patterns are what help to define Vashon-Maury Island during each era of its history.

Vashon did not have to develop the way that it did. What are the significant decision points at which development took one particular path rather than alternative paths?

Western history is a story of relations between a diverse cast of characters and the story of human efforts to "master" nature. The "frontier" as an analytic concept has no meaning. The history of the West is more complex than the old models which portray a pattern of continual "progress" and "improvement," rather than a history filled with success and failure, heroism and villainy, virtue and vice, nobility and shoddiness. The history of the West is a real human history not an idealized illusion of the past. Historians have a point-of-view that informs their writing and interpretations of the past. (Thanks to Patricia Limerick)

Hierarchical/Patriarchal models of thought lead to the conception of humans as superior to nature and non-human creatures. The land is viewed as a resource to be controlled, subordinated, dominated, and used.

© Bruce E. Haulman 2008