Home Brewed Mojo: THE PIG WAR OF 1859

6/15/1859 - Showing history seems to always have room for a few more morons in its stories, Great Britain and the United States almost go to war in the San Juan Islands between Vancouver Island and the North American mainland ... OVER THE KILLING OF AN IRISHMAN'S LARGE BLACK PIG BY AN AMERICAN FARMER!

The Disputed Area

Peaceful neighbors previously living in the region, thirteen years after the Oregon Treaty is adopted and leaves the area possession in dispute, Lyman Cutlar finds the pig of Charles Griffin (on the island herding sheep for the Hudson Bay Company) eating tubers out of his garden, becomes incensed, and shoots the pig dead. Cutlar offers Griifin $10 for the pig, but Griffin puts a price tag of $100 on the creature ... and the men famously argue ... "It was eating my potatoes," claims Cutlar, to which Griffin responds, "It is up to you to keep your potatoes out of my pig." BRILLIANT!

The Sheep Farm

Griffin

Worth A War?

Bye-Bye Piggy!

The Murder Weapon

In need of a People's Court, Cutlar takes his case to the authorities, with the British deciding to arrest Cutlar, while the Americans on the island call for military protection, and get it in the form of Brigadier General William S. Harney sending 66 soldiers to the island under the command of Captain George Pickett (he of the famous failed charge during the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg and the infamous "shad bake" that helps lose the Battle of Five Forks ... pouring gasoline on the fire, Pickett will state that if the British want a fight, "We'll make a Bunker Hill of it!"). Escalation, by August of 1859, American Colonel Silas Casey has 461 soldiers and 14 cannons to defend the islands against five British warships mounting 70 guns, and 2,140 men ... a powder keg ready to blow!

Harney

Young Pickett

Casey

Though the governor of Vancouver Island, James Douglas (who Queen Victoria makes Sir Douglas in 1864 and is now known as "The Father of British Columbia", orders British Rear Admiral Robert l. Baynes to attack, wiser heads prevail (chiefly that of the admiral, who states, that "two great nations in a war over a squabble about a pig" is foolish and refuses to land his marines), and the Americans and British will eye each other warily (shouting animosities at each other the highest level of clashing), ready to defend themselves, but each side unwilling to be the first that fires a shot that starts a war.

HMS Satellite

Douglas

Baynes

Leadership in both countries finally aware of the state of affairs in the northwest, U.S. President James Buchanan sends General Winfield Scott to the area to negotiate with Governor Douglas ... and for a time, there is both a British flag and an American flag flying over the island as the forces on the island are reduced to 100 soldiers for each side. Finally, after twelve years, tired of the area's potential for disaster (and the United States still weary from the blood letting of its Civil War), both countries agree that a neutral outside party is needed to determine ownership of the area ... and so the job goes to Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany, he in turn refers the matter to a three-man arbitration commission which takes a year to examine evidence and documents, and take testimony, before deciding in favor of the United States.

Buchanan

Scott

Wilhelm I

On November 25, 1872, Great Britain withdraws its Royal Marines from the island, and no longer needed, the United States ends its military presence there in July of 1874. Pig War over, the circumstances are now commemorated annually at the San Juan Island National Historic Park ... and daily, at the "English Camp" on the north end of the island, American park rangers each morning and night, peacefully raise and lower the flag of another nation, the Union Jack of Great Britain.

"American Camp"

Supplies Being Landed At "English Camp" - 1868