The Murder Of An Escaped British Pig By An American Farmer On San Juan Island Led To The Pig War Of 1859
If history is any indication, it doesn’t take much to start a war. In fact, a war nearly broke out between the United States and Britain, all because of the murder of an escaped pig. This dispute came to be known as the Pig War of 1859.
The Pig War is one of the lesser-known wars in history. The conflict began in 1846 when the Treaty of Oregon was signed in Washington, D.C., between the U.S. and Britain.
The purpose of the treaty was to put an end to the disagreement over the location of the border between their lands. It established the boundary on the 49th parallel, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific coastline.
However, when it came to a group of islands located to the southwest of Vancouver, the situation wasn’t as clear-cut since both sides staked their claim to the entire set of islands. San Juan Island was one of the largest and most important islands in the area. Its position at the mouth of the channel made it very desirable.
By 1859, the British were widely populated across San Juan Island. The Hudson’s Bay Company had set up salmon-curing stations and a sheep ranch along the western shoreline of the island.
Meanwhile, American settlers had also arrived on the island. They had settled in areas that were on sheep grazing lands and expected the U.S. government to recognize their validity. But the British considered their actions illegal and claimed that they were trespassing on the land.
Tensions grew and finally came to a head on June 15, 1859, when a pig belonging to the British wandered onto the land of an American farmer named Lyman Cutler.
When Cutler noticed the pig chowing down on some of the potatoes in his garden, he shot and killed it. The pig was the property of Charles Griffin, a British employee at the Hudson’s Bay Company.
When Griffin found out about his pig, he headed to Cutler’s farm to confront him. Cutler offered to pay $10 in compensation for the dead pig, but Griffin turned down the money.
Aleksey Sagitov – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual pigs
Instead, he reported the incident to the British authorities. They threatened to arrest Cutler and kick out all the Americans on the island.
The American citizens were outraged and drafted a petition to the U.S. government, requesting military protection.
General William S. Harney, the commander of the Department of Oregon, sent around 60 men to San Juan immediately upon receiving the letter. He was well-known for his anti-British views.
In retaliation, the governor of British Columbia, James Douglas, sent three British warships to the area. For the next month, both sides gradually increased their military presence on the island, but no one made a move to attack.
Finally, Admiral Robert L. Baynes, commander-in-chief of the British Navy in the Pacific, arrived on the island. He was appalled by the situation and refused to let the two nations engage in war over a pig.
By then, the stand-off involved at least three warships, 84 guns, and over 2,600 men. After negotiations were made, it was decided that each side would have no more than 100 men on the island until they came to an official agreement about ownership of the island.
In 1872, Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany declared that the island would be under American control. At last, the dispute was over. And luckily, the only casualty of the war was a pig.
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