The Myth of the Independent Pioneer
An 1877 editorial from the Seattle Intelligencer argues that the abundance of free, unsettled land in Washington Territory is the only thing keeping local wages high and preventing the labor unrest seen in crowded cities like Paris or London.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
In Great Britain and other countries where land is monopolized, the amount of wages is regulated by the limit of human endurance. The degradation of the ranks of labor by hunger, cold, and filth checks the decline of wages below the rate that actually prevails. In America, such a state of things is prevented by our lands. As long as the Government holds its millions of acres of public domain, where every citizen may take for himself an estate, will the country be safe from riot and civil disorder. The absorption of the surplus population on this account relieves the pressure of competition in the labor market, by multiplying the landlord class and converting those that otherwise would be solicitants for work into employers. It is the consciousness of the resources at his hand that makes the American laborer so independent in spirit, enterprising, and self-reliant. In Washington Territory, wages are the highest of all, because here vacant public land in connection with commercial development makes a constant demand for agricultural produce, in advance of supply. Any industrious workingman can easily get the start of fortune, and pass from one round of the ladder to another, with ability proportioned to his qualities of patience, facility, activity, and intrepidity.
“The absorption of the surplus population on this account relieves the pressure of competition in the labor market, by multiplying the landlord class.”
This 1877 vision of the 'American dream'—where cheap land acts as a safety valve against poverty and labor strikes—feels hauntingly relevant today. As Seattle faces an acute housing crisis, the 19th-century belief that geographic expansion or easy ownership could resolve systemic economic inequality remains a core, if increasingly complicated, pillar of the Pacific Northwest identity.
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