1700 Cascadia Earthquake and Tsunami

The 1700 Cascadia earthquake resulted from a rupture at the Cascadia subduction zone along the Pacific Northwest coast. The earthquake caused a destructive tsunami in Japan and may have triggered the Bonneville Slide, which dammed the Columbia River Gorge.

When this happened

1700 Cascadia Earthquake and Tsunami occurred in 1700, during the colonial period period of American history.

Where this happened

1700 Cascadia Earthquake and Tsunami took place in Oregon. Explore the full history of Oregon and primary source records from this era.

European colonization of North America accelerated after 1600, with England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands establishing competing settlements along the Atlantic coast, the St. Lawrence River, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Mississippi Valley. The first permanent English settlement at Jamestown, Virginia (1607) struggled with starvation and conflict; the Plymouth colony (1620) and the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630) followed. By the mid-1700s, thirteen English colonies stretched along the Atlantic seaboard, governed through a mix of royal charters, proprietary grants, and elected assemblies. The colonial economy depended on tobacco in Virginia and Maryland, rice and indigo in the Carolinas, and maritime trade in New England — all increasingly reliant on enslaved African labor after 1619. Conflict with Indigenous peoples over land was continuous, punctuated by major wars including King Philip's War (1675–1676) in New England and the Yamasee War (1715–1717) in the South. The French and Indian War (1754–1763), part of the global Seven Years' War, ended French power in North America and left Britain deeply in debt — triggering the taxation disputes that would lead to revolution.

Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source: Wikipedia: Geology.