Recapping the Greater Idaho Movement

The Greater Idaho Movement was launched in the wake of the 2016 election by Inland Northwest Trump voters who were fed up with the political power imbalance brought on by current state boundaries. Advocates of the movement argue that voters in places like Eastern Oregon, Southeast Washington and Northern California all share much more in common with conservative voters in Idaho than they do with voters in their own respective states. They aim to secede various counties from the above states to form “Greater Idaho.” The movement explicitly uses the 2016 presidential election results as a roadmap for where to move borders which masks its reflections to similar movements in the region that hold a deeper, uglier history.

What is the American Redoubt?

The American Redoubt is a parallel political movement to “Greater Idaho,” led by conservatives within the Inland Northwest. Its advocates share similar desires to those in the Greater Idaho movement: creating a “redoubt” (described as a safe haven or a fallback position) for American conservatives. One of the movement’s most prominent voices, Jack Robertson, hosts his own podcast promoting the movement: Radio Free Redoubt. In his own words, the American Redoubt is “the strategic relocation of conservative, Christian, like-minded patriots to the Pacific Northwest.”

The American Redoubt movement provides a historical anchor for the same impulses powering the Greater Idaho Movement as both reflect the region’s history as a hub for white supremacy. Between 1974 and 2001, the headquarters of The Aryan Nations were located in Northern Idaho. One of their goals was to create an all-White enclave out of northwestern US states. They campaigned and recruited openly throughout the area, even holding parades that drew counter-protestors. The group only disbanded after facing a lawsuit that forced its leaders to declare bankruptcy and relinquish their 20-acre compound.

This idea of creating an enclave in the Inland Northwest was recycled in 2011 by survivalist author James Wesley Rawles, who sought to form a safe haven for Christian nationalists. His ideas leaned heavily on apocalyptic conspiracies, constantly proclaiming that the United States was on the brink of collapse. He contended that the only safe place for Christians was the “American Redoubt:” the mountainous Inland Northwest where population densities are low and the proportion of White residents is high. Despite similarities to the Aryan Nations’ plan, founders from both the American Redoubt and the Greater Idaho Movement claim that they do not lead racist movements (despite the fact that support from white nationalists are responsible for keeping these movements alive.)

I’m willing to take Beda’s words a step further: the ‘nonthreatening parts’ of this group advocate for a system that allows its more threatening members to flourish. The Greater Idaho Movement provides the political boundaries within which “Redoubters” will be empowered to legislate. In a response to the quote by Prof. Steven Beda, a spokesperson for the Greater Idaho movement proclaimed, “Real white separatists move out to get away from nonwhites in their area. We are doing the opposite.” But white nationalists are moving to Idaho because they’re seeking the communities these movements foster.

The American Redoubt is at its core a 21st century Christian nationalist recruitment tool that conveniently breathes life into the Greater Idaho Movement. While the two movements don’t have perfect ideological overlap, both provide havens for militant white separatists. While leaders of these movements may claim that they’re simply starting a conversation, all too often their most violent supporters are the ones who get the last word…

Leftover Links

• See inside the American Redoubt movement for yourself in this documentary.

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What Would Greater Idaho Look Like?

Total Population: 3.0 million residents (1.87 million registered voters)

Prospective State Capital: Boise, ID

Major Universities: Boise State University, Oregon Institute of Technology, Eastern Oregon University

Notable Monuments/Attractions: Crater Lake National Park, Mount Shasta, Oregon Butte

Number of House Seats: Greater Idaho - 4 (+2) / Washington - 10 (no change) / Oregon - 5 (-1) / California - 51 (-1)

Idaho Statehood History

Throughout the 1860s as the various northwestern territories were slowly organizing into states, many proposals were fielded and denied that would have incorporated areas of the Inland Northwest into its own state. One of the most prominent proposals was entertained at the turn of the century by the Spokane Chamber of Commerce and requested an adjustment of several boundaries throughout the Inland Northwest.

The Lincoln Plan (1907)

The first move in this plan was to create new eastern borders for Oregon and Washington that aligned with California’s present day border, stripping down both states to their present-day urbanized and coastal counties. Present-day Idaho would have been sliced in half across its center, with all of the counties in Idaho’s Panhandle being incorporated into a brand-new state named after President Abraham Lincoln. Those remaining rural counties jettisoned from Oregon and Washington would be split evenly between Lincoln and “new Idaho,” following Washington’s current southern boundary east.

While there were many proposals like the Lincoln Plan swirling around right at the time of the “birth” of the West, present-day Idaho was the closest anyone came to creating a true “Inland Northwest” state. Throughout the state’s history, Idaho voters regularly voted for conservative candidates and regularly sent Republicans to represent them in Congress. Meanwhile, citizens in Eastern Washington and Eastern Oregon voted similarly to Idaho residents but were routinely outnumbered by the more quickly growing coastal cities that typically voted for more liberal candidates. This divide continues to shape politics throughout the Northwest to this day. In recent years conservatives have ‘migrated’ to Idaho from neighboring northwestern states. Instead of leaning into these trends, the Greater Idaho Movement attempts to ‘move’ Idaho to where conservative voters already are.

The Greater Idaho Movement

The Greater Idaho Movement was launched in the wake of the 2016 election by Inland Northwest Trump voters who were fed up with the power imbalance brought on by current state boundaries. Advocates of the movement argue that voters in places like Eastern Oregon, Southeast Washington and Northern California all share much more in common with conservative voters in Idaho than they do with voters in their own respective states. They also contend that the current boundaries dilute the true power of the conservative vote in the region, splitting votes across several states rather than combining them into one state that would have more sway in Congress. The movement explicitly uses the 2016 presidential election results as a roadmap for where to move borders, showing that the movements leaders aren’t necessarily motivated by long-standing historical divisions. (They basically used the 2016 election as a fealty test, any county that didn’t support Trump strongly enough didn’t receive an invitation.)

Is Greater Idaho Possible?

The movement is designed to grow in phases: Phase 1 focuses exclusively on convincing counties in Oregon to secede and join Idaho; Phase 2 expands the scope and lobbies for several counties in Washington and California to help make Idaho “even greater.” To their credit, the phased plan helps denote clear milestones that must be crossed in order to generate success. The first step of Phase 1 has already scored some wins with several counties across Oregon voting in support of seceding and joining Idaho. This grassroots approach to secession may prove fruitful in the next step of Phase 1: lobbying both the Oregon State Legislature and the US Congress to approve of the land transfer once enough counties join the movement.

Most high-ranking state and federal bureaucrats see the Greater Idaho movement as a distraction. Despite rural voters showing support and openness towards the idea, politicians highlight the incredibly difficult nature of re-drawing borders around existing infrastructure and residents. Moving borders requires state governments to renegotiate infrastructure ownership and natural resources like water rights. They’d have to manage incredibly expensive bureaucratic transitions like changing street addresses and coordinating the transfer of thousands of state employees like firefighters, policemen and city planners. There would also likely be significant population shifts happening as a result of any border shifting because many residents in these areas don’t want to live in Idaho.

Personally, I don’t think the Greater Idaho movement will reach its goals. Even though some Oregon voters have voiced their support through a vote, the movement’s organizers are looking at the issue from an almost exclusively political lens and aren’t reckoning with the clear challenges that would affect everyone in the Inland Northwest, regardless of how they view the movement. What would they rename Eastern Oregon University if its no longer actually in Oregon? What happens to cannabis dispensaries who are now operating in a state where medicinal cannabis use is still illegal? Can state-certified workers across a multitude of industries still work in their communities, or will they have to be retrained and re-certified under new state regulations?

These are incredibly important questions that affect many people’s jobs, homes and families in ways that are obfuscated when reducing the proposal to lines drawn on a map. Politicians are likely to reject the proposal because the process is poorly thought out and will likely cost all state governments involved an exorbitant amount of time and money. Greater Idaho advocates certainly stumbled on a novel idea by avoiding the problems associated with the creation of a whole new state, yet they didn’t address the clear hurdles present in transitioning hundreds of cities and towns from one state government to another.

To be clear: recent votes seen in both Oregon and Idaho don’t move borders.

• Morrow County voters approved a ballot question to require the county Board of Commissioners “to meet three times annually to discuss relocation of the state border.”

• Harney County voters approved a county measure to require “the county court to begin holding meetings regarding border relocation.”

Nothing will change without votes from both state legislatures AND invovlement by the United States Congress.

Leftover Links

• Learn more about how the High Desert shapes a different way of life in Eastern Oregon and Washington.

• See how the Greater Idaho movement nudges up against the Jefferson movement to create a new state out of the far reaches of Northern California.

Birthed From The Burned-Over District

Joseph Smith formally organized The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (originally named the Church of Christ) in an area of western New York known as the “burned-over district.” In the early 19th century, this region of New York along the Erie Canal was seeing a boom in industrialization alongside a scarcity of established clergymen. This led to the emergence of several new religious movements, many of which relied on fanciful aspects of folk religion like divine revelations, superstition and witchcraft to inspire converts. These movements spread like wildfire throughout the region and quickly generated an anti-religious backlash.

“There had been, a few years previously, a wild excitement passing through that region, which they called a revival of religion, but which turned out to be spurious… It was reported as having been a very extravagant excitement; and resulted in a reaction so extensive and profound, as to leave the impression on many minds that religion was a mere delusion. A great many men seemed to be settled in that conviction. Taking what they had seen as a specimen of a revival of religion, they felt justified in opposing anything looking toward the promoting of a revival.”

-Charles G. Finney, Presbyterian minister

Barely a year after establishing the church, Smith announced that he received a divine revelation, ordering him to establish a new home for the church in Missouri. The church and its converts quickly moved out of western New York and settled just outside of Kansas City.

The Mormon War of 1838

The Mormon church was not met kindly when settling in Missouri. As the area became flooded with followers of the church, existing settlers bristled at the deeply held convictions of their new neighbors. Ideals espoused by the Mormon church were directly at odds with existing Missourians for a plethora of reasons:

• Mormons believed they had a divine right to the land of their new home and called those who already lived their “enemies.” The Book of Mormon explicitly states, “If ye are faithful, ye shall assemble yourselves together to rejoice upon the land of Missouri, which is the land of your inheritance, which is now the land of your enemies.”

• Due to its northern roots, the church took an abolitionist stance toward slavery. This was at odds with the political leanings of their new home as Missouri was a slave state.

• The church provided communal cohesion that upended local economies, leading to the decline of local businesses who stood at odds with the church.

Since Missourians saw Mormons as invaders who aimed to upend their current way of life they reacted with hostility and violence, eventually leading to the Mormon War of 1838. The war was kicked off when Missouri polling officials campaigned to disenfranchise Mormon voters, leading to the Election Day Battle at Gallatin on August 6, 1838. Tensions continued to escalate with the Battle of Crooked River and finally culminated in the Mormon Extermination Order, issued by the Missouri Governor.

"The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from [Missouri] if necessary for the public peace—their outrages are beyond all description.” - Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs

Establishing Deseret

After being expelled from Missouri, church members endured a mass exodus to the west as they continued to face discrimination and hostility when searching for a new place to establish the church. After the death of Joseph Smith in 1844, Brigham Young assumed control of the church and led the mass migration toward the Great Basin.

Mormons reached the Great Basin at the tail end of the Mexican-American War, just as Mexico ceded 529,000 square miles of land to the United States. The church leapt at the opportunity to establish its own government after settling in the Salt Lake Valley and attempted to incorporate much of the Great Basin as the Territory of Deseret.

The Territory of Deseret, had it been incorporated, would have captured all land between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains, stretching as far north as southern Oregon. That means the territory would have swallowed all of present-day Nevada and Utah, as well as portions of Arizona, California, Colorado and New Mexico. Its major cities would include San Diego, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City.

The Deseret movement failed primarily due to Brigham Young’s pivot to apply for incorporation as a full-fledged state, rather than a territory. He quickly commissioned a council of church leaders to draft a state constitution and sent a delegate to petition the cause in front of Congress. Congress eventually decided against establishing the Territory of Deseret (largely due to reservations surrounding Mormon’s support of polygamy), and instead addressed the established new boundaries through the Compromise of 1850. This bisected the proposed Territory of Deseret along the 37th parallel, with lands to the south becoming New Mexico Territory and lands to the north becoming Utah Territory. Brigham Young became the Utah Territory’s first governor following its recognition by Congress.

After becoming a territory, the Deseret movement powered forward with attempts to establish statehood within the new territory’s boundaries. After multiple failed attempts in the late 1800s, the movement was effectively silenced with the introduction of railroads across the west. Prior to the construction of railroads, a large proportion of the territory’s settlers identified with the Mormon church. New arrivals were decidedly less religious and eventually eroded support for the Mormon church’s vision for state government. The Mormon church’s embrace of polygamy continued to be a sticking point for opponents of the church in federal government and eventually led to the demise of the Deseret movement. Congress requested that Utah Territory explicitly condemn the practice in its constitution if it wanted to be admitted into the Union. The territory drafted a new constitution with an explicit ban on polygamy and Utah was officially granted statehood in January 1896.

Leftover Links

• Learn more about the Mormon War of 1838.

• Take a peek at the Constitution of Deseret that was drafted in support of its first application for statehood.

If Westsylvania Were A State…

Total Population: 5.3 million residents (just under 4 million registered voters)

Prospective State Capital: Pittsburgh, WS

Number of House seats: 7 (+4)

Major Universities: West Virginia University, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Kentucky

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Colonial History

The history of Westsylvania predates the birth of the nation as its eastern border largely follows the Proclamation Line of 1763. The line was established by King George III and forbade settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains, labeling areas west as an “Indian Reserve.” This move was bitterly contested by colonialists in the American colonies and was a contributing factor to the American Revolution.

In the colonial era the western boundaries of many colonies were loosely defined, often leading to border disputes between states. In the early 1770s, Pennsylvania and Virginia both laid claim to areas within Westsylvania. This is due to the way the colonies defined their boundaries in their original charters. Pennsylvania laid claim to all lands 5 degrees of longitude west of the Delaware River. Virginia laid claim to all lands west of its coastal towns, south of the Ohio River from sea to sea. (Yes, the original colony of Virginia originally laid claim to all land west of their original settlements out to the Pacific Ocean. This was actually common at the time as both Massachusetts and Connecticut made similarly expansive land claims.)

Before the two colonies resolved their border dispute, a third party entered the fray to turn the disputed areas into its own independent colony. Disgruntled settlers in the region coalesced to create The Ohio Company and negotiated a land transfer with the indigenous peoples who occupied the land. These lands were later merged with The Indiana Company (a rival land grant company with similar goals) to create the proposed colony of Vandalia. The name Vandalia was chosen to honor the reigning queen’s Germanic heritage as she to descended from the Vandal peoples. Had it been granted colony status, it would have been the fourteenth British American colony and the only colony without direct access to the Atlantic Ocean.

The Whiskey Rebellion

The Vandalia proposal never received an official decision from Britain as it was quickly overshadowed by the Revolutionary War. (It didn’t help that Vandalia submitted its own declaration of independence just 106 days before The Declaration of Independence we’re all familiar with.) The war sidelined the Vandalia movement until it was revived in a new form in the mid-1790s.

Following the Revolutionary War, the new American federal government had debts to pay. This led to the first ever federal tax on a domestic good: distilled spirits. Those living in the more remote, mountainous edges of the new country balked at the idea. These rebellious settlers saw few benefits from their federal government as they lived on the fringes of society and felt little obligation to support said government via taxes.

“They had all just fought in the Revolutionary War, which was about taxation without representation. Then they were remote on the frontier and had very little political agency, and all of a sudden they were again being taxed without representation — which they had just fought a war about.” -Meredith Grelli, co-owner of Pittsburgh’s first distillery opened since Prohibition.

Disputes between settlers and tax collectors increased throughout the years following the new tax and came to a head in July 1794. A federal marshal was attacked while attempting to serve subpoenas for those who failed to pay the tax. This quickly evolved into an armed standoff with disgruntled countrymen encouraging their peers to overthrow federal powers present in Pittsburgh to establish a new mountainous state of “Westsylvania.” President George Washington responded by personally leading 13,000 troops on a march to Pittsburgh. This show of force proved successful as the tax evaders scattered prior to the troops’ arrival.

“I think people in this area tend to think of the Whiskey Rebellion as being concentrated in Western Pennsylvania. That’s where the confrontation occurred over the tax, but the failure to pay the tax or the protest against the tax extended all along the trans-Appalachian frontier. -W. Thomas Mainwaring, professor of history at Washington & Jefferson College.

Westsylvania Today

While no present-day statehood movement exists, the cultural lineage of Westsylvania lives on today. Some see the history of Westsylvania as the emergence of America's first “red” state: suspicious of coastal elites, fond of guns, and hostile to taxes from big government. There’s also the continued commitment to whiskey as the famed Bourbon County, KY falls within this region. This sentiment has clearly endured across generations and shapes current political attitudes in both West Virginia and eastern Kentucky

• Hear the region’s unique music scene at the 2022 Westsylvania Jazz and Blues Festival.

• Learn how Westsylvanians were instrumental in the rise of bourbon whiskey.

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If Absaroka Was A State…

Pronunciation: (ab-SOR-ka)

Total Population: 403,000 residents (~250,000 registered voters)

Prospective State Capital: Sheridan, AB

# of House seats: 1 (Montana would also shrink back down to one seat.)

Major Universities: Sheridan College, Black Hills State University, South Dakota School of Mines & Technology

Notable Attractions/Landmarks: Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone National Park, Bighorn National Forest

Statehood History

In the 1930s, FDR’s New Deal was forcefully reshaping American society in the wake of the Great Depression. Much of this government assistance relied on local institutions to be distributed. Therefore well-connected towns with colleges and hospitals had more access to federal relief while more sparsely populated counties were largely left to fend for themselves.

In Wyoming, this disparity was regional: the southern half of the state saw much federal investment during this time period for a multitude of reasons. Not only was the state capital, Cheyenne, located in the southeastern corner of the state, the transformational Transcontinental Railroad hugged the state’s southern border and was a major economic engine. Democrats from Southern Wyoming dominated state politics and largely ignored the less populated counties in the northern reaches of the state.

By the late 1930s A.R. Swickard, a local street commissioner in Sheridan, Wyoming, was fed up with the ways Democrats neglected the northern reaches of the state. Voters in his neck of the woods generally favored Republicans and cared more about issues related to ranchers rather than industrialists. When looking beyond the Wyoming’s borders into neighboring counties, Swickard found others who shared his same conservative, self-sufficient outlook on government. Above all else, residents living along these state borders wanted an increased sense of self-determination as many felt that their state governments ignored the corners these residents called home.

In 1939, Swickard convened a makeshift statehood convention in Sheridan, Wyoming. He brought together like-minded residents who shared his grievances, drew a map of the potential boundaries and even appointed himself the governor. The state’s proposed name is derived from the indigenous name of the Crow peoples whose reservation lies just northeast of the proposed state. After establishing its borders, secessionist raced to cultivate a regional identity. They held a single Miss Absaroka contest in 1939 to select a beauty queen to represent the state. They even designed a flag that would have nodded to its status as the 49th state admitted into the Union.

Absaroka Today

An important piece of the Absaroka state movement often glossed over was how secessionists saw potential in their proposed state’s natural beauty. In the 1920s, eastern South Dakota became a road trip destination for many Americans as they sought out the natural beauty found in and around the Black Hills. At the same time, legislators in South Dakota were seeking to build a Shrine of Democracy etched into its mountains to further lean into this tourism boom. The Absaroka statehood movement intersected almost perfectly with the construction of Mount Rushmore as the president’s faces were finally completed in the same year secessionist drew their map. (Fun fact: Mt. Rushmore was supposed to depict each president down to their waist. This was abandoned after funds dried up in 1941.) The proposed boundaries not only placed Mt. Rushmore squarely inside the boundaries of Absaroka, they also included Yellowstone National Park, truly making the state the “nation’s playground.”

In the moment of the movement, much attention was paid to those who tilled and maintained the region’s grasslands to sustain themselves. Residents coalesced to defend the rancher lifestyle that was often looked down upon and misunderstood by cosmopolitan decision makers confined to the coasts. While ranching would have been a major aspect of the proposed state’s economy, the coal industry that has since emerged in this region would have been the primary driver of Absaroka’s economic growth. The proposed state would hold almost the entirety of the Powder River Basin which is the largest source of low sulfur coal in the nation and holds 8 of the nation’s 10 largest coal mines.

While the secessionist movement was snuffed out with the onset of World War II in 1941, the political fault lines that created the secessionist movement still exist today. South Dakota’s political landscape is still split by the Missouri River, with would-be-Absarokans in counties to the west voting more heavily Republican than those to the east. The same goes for Montana and Wyoming: counties included in Absaroka continue to vote more Republican than those that were not. While the Absaroka statehood movement hasn’t been resurrected since, it’s regional identity lives on.

Leftover Links

• Learn more about the fraught history of Mount Rushmore as it sits on sacred Native American land.

• The failed state’s name lives on in the Absaroka Range, a sub-range of the Rocky Mountains that spans the Montana-Wyoming border.

Puerto Rico Overview

Total Population: 3.2 million

Capital City: San Juan, PR

Prospective # of House Seats: 5

Puerto Rico is an archipelago made up of the eponymous main island and several smaller satellite islands. It lies roughly 1,000 miles off the coast of Florida in the Caribbean Sea. The commonwealth is both the largest United States territory in terms of land area (roughly the size of Connecticut) and is also the most populous territory at 3.2 million residents. If Puerto Rico was ranked among US states by population it would rank 30th, just ahead of Nevada, Utah and Iowa.

Statehood History

Puerto Rico was first colonized by Spain with the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1493. Despite remaining under Spanish rule for over four centuries, Puerto Rico’s early human history mirrors that of the United States: displacement of the native population, importation of African slaves, and the emergence of a unique, multi-cultural identity. The islands changed hands in 1898 when Spain relinquished control to the United States at the close of the Spanish-American War.

Barely two decades after coming under the control of the US, the Puerto Rican government held a unanimous vote in favor independence. This went ignored by the US government and its residents were officially considered US citizens in 1917 with the passage of the Jones-Shafroth Act. Puerto Rico was officially organized as a commonwealth in 1952 followed by a US-led proposal to hold a constitutional convention for the islands.

Since organizing as a commonwealth in the early 1950s, Puerto Rico has put statehood to a vote a total of seven times, with three of those votes happening within the last ten years. While each vote proposed slightly different ways of incorporating the islands into a state, the referendums nearly always polled staying under US rule vs. full independence as its own sovereign country. According to the vote results independence has never been all that popular among Puerto Ricans, with at most 5% indicating support in 2012. Meanwhile, the push for statehood has had consistent support but has not always been popular among a majority of voters.

Puerto Rican statehood has been the dividing line for the state’s political parties as both of the current major parties define themselves around their support or opposition to statehood. The commonwealth’s New Progressive Party (PNP) was formed in 1967 out of the Republican Statehood Party by members who were upset by the latter party’s request that its members sit out on the year’s plebiscite. The opposing party to the PNP, the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), advocates for the continued commonwealth status of the islands. As a result, the many plebiscites held to determine Puerto Rico’s status are often proxies for each of the major party’s support on the island. (e.g. Recent support for statehood correlates with the New Progressive Party ascendance in both of the Commonwealth’s houses of state government, holding majorities between 2016 and 2020.)

Regardless of the method in which the islands gain self-determination, most Puerto Ricans are in agreement that the status quo does not provide adequate representation to island residents in the US federal government. Since Puerto Rico is an unorganized territory within the United States, its residents do not vote in presidential elections, have no representation in the Senate and can only send non-voting representatives to the House. It wasn’t until 1947 when residents were given the ability to elect their own governor. (The position was previously appointed by the President of the United States.) While Puerto Ricans are exempt from paying federal taxes on personal income, they are still subject to other federal taxes for welfare programs like Social Security and Medicaid.

Despite few concrete movements from Congress to admit Puerto Rico as the 51st state, both major mainland political parties have come out in support of Puerto Rico statehood. Democrats have consistently supported the islands’ self-determination and the movement was given special attention by President Bill Clinton who established the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico’s Status. Even in the face of shifting ideologies, Republicans have signaled unwavering support for Puerto Rico statehood in every party platform released since 2008. (Although, Mitch McConnell has recently been quoted opposing statehood.) As far as I can tell, no other present-day statehood movement has received such support from both parties. It seems as though Puerto Rico is on the fast-track to become the coveted 51st state. The problem is that statehood must pass through a gridlocked Congress that struggles to pass just about anything, even widely popular legislation. While conversations are ongoing surrounding Puerto Rico’s status, putting the proposal to an official vote does not seem to be a top priority for this Congress.

Leftover Links

• The Supreme Court is currently hearing a case that grapples with Puerto Rico’s exclusion from certain federal benefits programs, putting the state’s status under the microscope.

Guam + Mariana Islands Overview

Total Population: All islands - 213,000, Guam - 159,000

Largest City: Dededo, GU / Capital City: Hagåtña, GU

Statehood History

The Mariana Islands are an archipelago of fifteen mostly dormant volcanic mountains in the North Pacific Ocean. The submerged mountain range spans over 1,500 miles between Japan and Indonesia. Only the four southernmost islands are known to have permanent residents, with Guam holding more than two-thirds of the entire archipelago’s population. The largest ethnic group on the islands are the indigenous Chamarro people, (roughly 40% of the total population) and the second largest group being those descending from Asia (roughly 30% of the total population). If admitted as a single state the Mariana Islands would have the smallest proportion of White Americans of any state at only 7%.

Before the United States took control of the islands, starting with Guam in 1898, Spain governed the islands for nearly four centuries. Navigator Ferdinand Magellan first discovered the island for the Kingdom of Spain in 1521. For much of the century following discovery by Spain, the islands were used as re-provisioning stops for ships traveling between the Americas and the Philippines. Spanish colonization didn’t formally begin until 1668 with the establishment of the first Catholic church on the islands.

The change in territorial control from Spain to the United States was brought on by Spanish defeat in the Spanish-American War. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris, Guam was officially transferred to the United States while the rest of the Mariana Islands were sold to Germany (i.e. deemed the Northern Mariana Islands). German control only lasted 20 years as Japan invaded the islands early during World War I. Japan then controlled the Northern Mariana Islands until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor spurred the United States to enter the Pacific theater of WWII. Within three years, the United States captured the Northern Mariana Islands from Japan and was designated the trustee for the islands’ defense and foreign affairs by the United Nations.

In the postwar period, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands considered several public referendums that would have unified the islands into a single territory. None of these were ever successful, therefore Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are considered two separate territories by the United States government. The Northern Mariana Islands are officially a commonwealth with its own constitution and government established in 1978. Guam has been an official US territory since the Guam Organic Act of 1950. Several movements to establish Guam as a commonwealth have been mounted throughout the 1980s and 90s but none have been successful. Since neither territories are officially recognized as states, residents of neither Guam nor the Northern Mariana Islands have voting privileges in federal government. While all residents are recognized as American citizens they receive no vote in presidential elections, no representation in the Senate and can only send non-voting representatives to the House. As a result, both territories have fought for statehood at various times to provide better representation for their residents.

Since the Northern Mariana Islands is a commonwealth that allows a higher-degree of self-governance, Guam has tended to go it alone on statehood movements as its territory status means even less-self governance for the island. In as recent as 2016, Guam was considering putting decolonization to a vote, asking residents if they wished to pursue statehood, independence from the United States or “free association”. (A Freely Associated State (FAS) is an independent nation that has signed a comprehensive agreement with the United States called a Compact of Free Association (COFA) that governs diplomatic, economic, and military relations with the United States.) The question never made it onto the ballot due to an attempt at only allowing native residents a vote on the question, a requirement that the courts found unconstitutional. In the face of Guam’s struggles for statehood, the United Nations has openly supported the territory’s self-governance and in July 2020 Guam joined the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. As it stands, Guam’s outlook for statehood continues to look bleak as it remains incredibly unlikely that a statehood measure would pass through Congress, even if Guam was able to hold a vote and prove public support.

Leftover Links

• Learn what Guam’s fight for statehood shares in common with similar movements in Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico.

• See how some Guam residents’ push for complete independence from the United States complicates calls for statehood.

If Michigan’s Upper Peninsula were its own state…

Total Population: 301,000 residents (213,000 registered voters)

Prospective State Capital: Marquette, SP

Major Universities: Michigan Technological University, Northern Michigan University, Finlandia University

Notable Monuments/Attractions: Mackinac Bridge, Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

Number of House Seats: Superior - 1 / Michigan - 13 (no net loss due to population)

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Statehood History

Michigan’s Upper Peninsula has a long history of shifting borders. When Michigan Territory was first established in 1805, it primarily included the Lower Peninsula and only included the eastern most tip of the Upper Peninsula. Meanwhile, the westernmost reaches of the U.P. were denoted as Indiana Territory at about the same time in history. (This led to an awkward period where the middle areas of the Upper Peninsula were unorganized, falling into neither Michigan nor Indiana Territories.) It wasn’t until the late 1830s that the Upper Peninsula was firmly controlled by Michigan.

Michigan’s admission into the Union in 1837 was the result of a conflict with Ohio known as the Toledo War. In the early 1800s, a border dispute arose over the Michigan-Ohio border as conflicting pieces of legislation placed the border at different latitudes. This became consequential due to the presence of Toledo which was originally established as a Michigan Territory settlement. The “almost bloodless” war was ended with a compromise initiated by Congress: Michigan Territory would cede Toledo to Ohio with a new agreed upon border, in exchange Michigan would be given statehood and control over the Upper Peninsula. (No, the U.P. wasn’t involved in any part of the Toledo War, nor did Ohio ever claim jurisdiction. The land transfer was just a way to throw a bone to Michigan.)

Michiganders were not pleased with this deal. At the time, the Upper Peninsula was viewed as a relatively worthless stretch of land due to its remoteness and harsh climate. Michigan delegates held a convention to discuss the terms, rejected the deal and eventually acquiesced during a second convention held months later.

Movements to separate the Upper Peninsula from Michigan reverberate throughout the state’s early history. In as early as 1858, a convention was held to combine the Upper Peninsula, several counties in northern Wisconsin, and a few stray counties in Minnesota, to be admitted into the union as the state of Superior. (The name Ontonagon was also considered, modeled after the city where the convention was held.) Several other initiatives were mounted throughout the late 1800s and 1900s as Upper Peninsula residents felt culturally and politically separated from the rest of the state. This was because that separation was also literal: the Upper Peninsula is separated from Michigan’s Lower Peninsula by roughly 5 miles of water at the narrowest crossing. Sailing was the only way Michiganders could navigate between the two landmasses for over 100 years of Michigan statehood and this crossing was often unnavigable during the winter months.

The construction of the Mackinac Bridge and its opening in 1957 was truly a momentous occasion for the state. It stands as the only road linking Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas. It was also a globally celebrated engineering feat: it remains the longest suspension bridge between two anchorages in the Western Hemisphere. Grumbles of secession began to subside in the wake of the construction of the Mackinac Bridge. In 1962, the Upper Peninsula Independence Association was formed and collected signatures to place secession on the ballot for a voter referendum. Ultimately, they failed to garner enough support to push the effort through, barely collecting half of the required signatures.

Superior Today

Today, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is still sparsely populated and primarily relies on a mixture of mining and tourism to power its economy. If admitted to the US today as a state, Superior would be somewhat competitive politically, leaning slightly toward the Republican party.

The congressional district covering the Upper Peninsula (MI-1) was represented by a Democrat (Rep. Bart Stupak) for 18 years in the House and voted for Pres. Barack Obama in 2008. The region just recently flipped back toward Republicans as it supported Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2020. However, in 2016 six percent of Upper Peninsula voters selected a third-party candidate for president. Despite it being a heavily rural area, Trump never captured more than 60% of all U.P. voters (in similarly rural areas Trump typically averages closer to 70-80% of support). He also lost the region’s most populous county, Marquette, in both elections. While voters in the Upper Peninsula do lean conservative, they also have a clear individualistic approach to politics and are not as easily swayed by nationalized narratives as other rural regions of the United States.

Leftover Links

• Gravely serious Ted Albert, an Upper Peninsula criminal lawyer, took a slightly humorous approach to secession in 1959 by filing for divorce from the State of Michigan on the behalf of the Upper Peninsula.

• Be sure to check out my previous post on Michigan’s 2020 presidential election results.

Nickajack Today

Total Population (2020): 3.6 million residents (2.5 million registered voters)

Prospective State Capital: Knoxville, NK

Notable Monuments/Attractions: Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee Aquarium, US Space and Rocket Center

Major Universities: University of Tennessee - Knoxville, University of North Alabama, Alabama A&M University (HBCU)

Number of House Seats: Nickajack - 5 / Alabama - 5 (originally 7) / Tennessee - 6 (originally 9)

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What is “Nickajack”?

Nickajack generally refers to the mountainous regions of northern Alabama and eastern Tennessee. The term originates from the 1794 Nickajack Expedition, a pivotal moment in western expansion as American settlers destroyed one of the Cherokee Nation’s final strongholds. This allowed frontiersmen the ability to settle throughout eastern Tennessee and eventually led to US control of the Tennessee River Valley. American historians refer to the destroyed Cherokee settlement as “Nickajack Town” and today the site lies beneath Nickajack Lake on the border between Alabama and Tennessee.

Nickajack History

The Nickajack statehood movement began at the start of the Civil War. While much of the South supported separating from the United States to retain the institution of slavery, many Union sympathizers in southern states rejected the idea of secession. Within the Tennessee River Valley, which stretches across both North Alabama and East Tennessee, slavery was largely unprofitable as the land was inhospitable to large plantations. As a result, most residents in this region were Unionists who rejected the articles of secession when their respective states contemplated leaving the Union in early 1861. After both Tennessee and Alabama opted to join the Confederacy, these Unionists hoped to mount a secession from the secessionist movement, mirroring the same set of factors that led West Virginia to become its own state in 1863.

When Virginia voted to secede from the Union in 1861, a majority of delegates from the northwestern corner of the state rejected the proposal. While the measure still passed and the state exited the Union, the aforementioned delegates quickly convened in Wheeling, WV to fight the move to secede. These angry, Union-supporting delegates opted to secede from the secessionist movement by becoming their own state within the Union. They held several constitutional conventions and West Virginia became the only state to successfully secede from a Confederate-led state and join the Union in 1863.

The Nickajack supporters failed to realize any of the success seen in the realization of West Virginia. While the movement did not result in new governance, it underscored the deep divides both East Tennessee and North Alabama experienced within their own states due to the regions’ unique geographies. Many Unionists of the time defected from the Confederacy and still opted to join the Union Army despite their state’s disapproval.

Nickajack Today

Today, there are almost no remnants of the Nickajack statehood movement as the disputes motivating the movement were quashed with the ending of the Civil War. It’s highly unlikely that today’s legislators from East Tennessee and North Alabama are interested in reestablishing this campaign.

The most prominent reminders of Nickajack lie in Marion County, the “land isthmus” at the Alabama-Tennessee border that would have connected the failed state’s two halves. Today, Marion County is home to the Nickajack Dam, lying less than two miles north of the Alabama-Tennessee border. It lies on the Tennessee River and creates Nickajack Lake, now a hub for lake tourism activities like boating, fishing and water sports.

Leftover Links

• More from Battleground: Learn about Tennessee's Three Grand Divisions

• Nickajack wasn’t the only separatist movement involving East Tennessee. Earlier in the state’s history, portions of East Tennessee sought to become its own state of Franklin.

• A 200-year old border dispute still has Georgia angry as many believe that the Georgia-Tennessee border was surveyed slightly too far to the south. “Fixing” the border would put much of Nickajack Lake inside of Georgia.

Delmarva Overview

Total Population: 920,000 residents (664,000 registered voters)

Prospective State Capital: Dover, DV

Number ofse Seats: Delmarva - 1 / Delaware - 1

Notable Attractions: Ocean City, Rehoboth Beach, Chesapeake Bay Bridge

Major Universities: Salisbury University, Delaware State University, University of Maryland Eastern Shore (HBCU)

2020 Presidential Vote: Donald Trump - 54% / Joe Biden - 44%

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Statehood History

The Delmarva Peninsula is a 170 mile-long peninsula currently occupied by three states: Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. The name is a clipped compound derived from the leading letters and abbreviations of the three states. The peninsula is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and the Delaware River to the east and the Chesapeake Bay to the west.

The origin of the peninsula’s current political boundaries can be traced back to before the birth of the nation. The line running west across the peninsula from its center, just north of present-day Salisbury, is known as the Transpeninsular Line, and was officially recognized as the southern border of the Delaware colony in 1751. The vertical line traveling north from the Transpeninsular Line is a portion of the infamous Mason-Dixon line. While the border was officially established in 1767, over a hundred years of conflict predated the line as land grants in the Maryland and Pennsylvania colonies (which included Delaware at the time) defined the boundary differently. Once today’s boundaries were established the colonies were admitted as some of the first states in the new nation. While the peninsula has been part of the United States throughout the nation’s history, the name “Delmarva” was not used regularly until the late 19th century.

The most prominent, modern-day campaign for secession came in the late 1990s. The effort was primarily led by Maryland state representatives from the state’s Eastern Shore. By the end of the 20th century, the rural Eastern Shore counties of Maryland had little in common with the more urbanized portions of the state surrounding Washington DC and Baltimore. Not only did things move much more slowly on the rural peninsula, residents were more conservative than those in the more centralized portions of Maryland. Delegates drafted a bill that would have put secession to a vote, allowing Marylanders the option to remove these rural areas out from under the control of “beltway bullies” as one delegate described. Delegates also sent informal ‘invitations’ to the two Virginia counties and two of the three counties of Delaware. New Castle county, the heavily urbanized, northernmost county home to Wilmington was purposefully excluded:

“We'd be trading government by the beltway bullies for rule by a government that would be controlled to some degree by Wilmington.”

- State Sen. Richard Colburn, R-Dorchester

Delmarva Today

Today, the Delmarva Peninsula is powered by two primary industries: agriculture and tourism. The area is a hub for poultry farming in particular, as the headquarters of Perdue Farms is located in Salisbury. The peninsula’s beaches are the hub of its tourism, primarily during the summer months. While the cities of Ocean City, MD and neighboring Rehoboth Beach, DE collectively hold less than 10,000 permanent residents, on busy weekends the beach towns often entertain hundreds of thousands of tourists. It is estimated that over 8 million people visit Delmarva beaches annually.

Delmarva statehood seems particularly unlikely for a bunch of reasons. First and foremost, Marylanders in support of secession have failed to mount a successful campaign within their current state. Second, the counties currently located in Delaware and Virginia have been much cooler on the Delmarva statehood movement and would have to push legislation through their own respective state governments to join the new state. Lastly, if these difficult tasks could be accomplished, supporters would be put to the ultimate test as they would have to convince Congress to validate the new state, yet another long shot as members of both parties regularly bristle at the political ramifications of introducing a new state to the union. Today, the name lives on through various businesses on the peninsula, the largest being the Delmarva Power Company.

Leftover Links

• Learn more about the disputes surrounding the Mason-Dixon line

• Maryland’s secession movement rose again in 2013 and failed to move the needle on statehood.

• Take an in-depth tour of all the different attractions that the Delmarva Peninsula has to offer.

Sequoyah Overview

Total Population: 1.9 million residents (1.1 million registered voters)

Prospective State Capital: Muskogee, SE

Number of House Seats: Sequoyah - 3 / Oklahoma - 3 (Originally 5)

Major Universities: OSU-Tulsa, Northeastern State University, Rogers State University, College of the Muskogee Nation

2020 Presidential Vote: Donald Trump - 70% / Joe Biden - 28%

Statehood History

What was originally designated “Indian Country” was not the traditional lands of Native Americans but instead land set aside by the United States government for forced resettlement of indigenous peoples. Its original extent, set forth in the Nonintercourse Act of 1834, defined “Indian Country” as “all that part of the United States west of the Mississippi and not within the states of Missouri and Louisiana, or the territory of Arkansas.” In conjunction with the Indian Removal Act of 1830, many Native American tribes were forced out of their ancestral lands east of the Mississippi river. While some removals were peaceful, hinging on transfers of land through the signing of treaties, many removals were violent and deadly. (The Second Seminole War was fought due to the Seminole tribe of present-day Florida resisting forced relocation.)

This practice of forced relocation is what led to the Trail of Tears, an event many scholars view as American genocide. During the brutal journey west thousands of indigenous peoples died due to starvation and disease, ultimately thinning out the overall Native American population. Those lucky enough to survive the long journey primarily settled in present-day eastern Oklahoma on large swaths of land designated for indigenous resettlement. While this forced relocation was taking place, the area previously known as “Indian Country” was shrinking incredibly quickly due to the establishment of new states and territories. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 created both Kansas and Nebraska Territories and reduced “Indian Country” to “Indian Territory” which fell completely within the confines of present-day Oklahoma.

The history of the State of Sequoyah officially begins with the passage of the Curtis Act of 1898. This law abolished all tribal governments within the United States and established individual land holdings on lands previously set aside for Native Americans. An estimated 90 million acres of land were removed from Native American control with the passage of this law. It was quickly followed by the Oklahoma Organic Act of 1890 which established the previously “unorganized Indian Territory” as two incorporated territories of the United States: Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory. Much like the Curtis Act of 1898, this law continued the process of dissolving Native American tribal structures in anticipation of admitting the territories as an official US state. Throughout history, these tribes largely resisted US statehood and sought self-governance on their own terms. As the federal government refused to recognize these tribal governments at the turn of the century, Indigenous peoples in the newly organized Indian Territory began to consider statehood as a viable option for continued self-determination.

The Sequoyah Constitutional Convention was held on August 21, 1905 in Muskogee, the prospective state’s would-be capital. The Convention resulted in a 35,000-word constitution to govern the new state, a map showing the counties to be incorporated and an elected delegation to represent the new state in Congress. The convention’s proposals were put to a referendum later that year in November and was overwhelmingly supported by the territory’s voters. Unfortunately, the statehood proposal did not receive a warm welcome when introduced to Congress.

Despite Native Americans’ display of ‘civility’ (🙄) through the organization of a rigorous constitutional convention, many White congressman bristled at the thought of an official state governed by and for Indigenous peoples. Others were concerned with the explicitly political ramifications of admitting a new Democratic-leaning state. At the time, Congress was controlled by Republicans who were reluctant to cede their control to the opposing party through the introduction of new Democratic lawmakers. As a result, President Theodore Roosevelt (a Republican himself) stood against the State of Sequoyah and instead recommended merging these lands with the more heavily White Oklahoma Territory directly to the west.

“I recommend that Indian Territory and Oklahoma be admitted as one State and that New Mexico and Arizona be admitted as one State… Nothing has taken up more time in the Congress during the past few years than the question as to the Statehood to be granted to the four Territories above mentioned, and after careful consideration of all that has been developed in the discussions of the question, I recommend that they be immediately admitted as two States. There is no justification for further delay; and the advisability of making the four Territories into two States has been clearly established.”

- President Theodore Roosevelt, 1905 State of the Union Address

Sequoyah Today

Today, roughly 13 percent of Oklahoma’s total population identifies as Native American and the state has the second highest number of Indigenous peoples of any state in the US. Much of these residents live in “Sequoyah” as many of these eastern counties hold significantly higher proportions of Native Americans than those in the western reaches of the state. While the Sequoyah statehood movement died out shortly after the merger of the two territories into the singular state of Oklahoma, its legacy lives on in the Oklahoma Constitution. Much of that constitution incorporated proposals from the Sequoyah Constitutional Convention.

“The Oklahoma Constitution, as it came from the Sequoyah Constitution, to me, is the ultimate cut-and-paste job. They took, essentially, the most cogent elements of the Sequoyah Constitution and adapted over to what we have now as the present State of Oklahoma constitution.” - Michael Lovegrove, Historian

While the prospect of Sequoyah statehood in the future is highly unlikely, the Supreme Court recently gave an unexpected nod to the failed state. In July 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that much of Oklahoma still lies within a Native American reservation. In McGirt v. Oklahoma, the court found that reservations predating the Oklahoma Enabling Act of 1906 were never disestablished by the federal government. As a result, any crimes committed in these areas are under the jurisdiction of tribal courts rather than Oklahoma courts. While the court case has clear real-world implications, many also view the case as a symbolic win for Native Americans. Justice Neil Gorsuch acknowledged in the majority opinion that the United States should keep promises made to Native Americans despite the country’s long history of breaking written promises. While the ruling doesn’t give Native Americans the self-determination they sought more than 100 years ago, it does signal that today’s federal government is beginning to reckon with its long and ugly history of racism toward Indigenous peoples.

“The nations and the state are committed to implementing a framework of shared jurisdiction that will preserve sovereign interests and rights to self-government while affirming jurisdictional understandings, procedures, laws, and regulations that support public safety, our economy, and private property rights. We will continue our work, confident that we can accomplish more together than any of us could alone.”

- A joint statement released by the State of Oklahoma and the five Native American nations

Leftover Links

• Check out this fantastic documentary on the State of Sequoyah.

• UPDATE: See the aftermath of McGirt v. Oklahoma nearly 2 years later.