Remembering The Pig War
By Clayton Callahan, WashCo Dems Communications Committee Member
The Pig War of 1859 was an actual conflict involving the United States and the United Kingdom over in the San Juan Islands, located between British Columbia and the Washington Territory. The Pig War is so called because it was triggered by the shooting of a pig and raged for over a decade. However, the good news is that the pig was the only casualty.
What the actual f*ck?
Now, the Oregon Treaty of 1846, resolved the Oregon boundary dispute by dividing the Oregon Country and Columbia District between the United States and future Canada. Unfortunately, the treaty failed to properly account for the island of San Juan which lays just off shore of Bellingham, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia respectively.
One fine day, an American farmer named Lyman Cutlar found a pig rooting in his garden and, being a proud devotee of the Second Amendment, shot the animal dead. The pig, however, happened to be owned by a proper subject of Her Royal Majesty, the Queen of England. So, when British authorities threatened to arrest Cutlar, nearby American settlers frantically called on the American Army for protection and the excrement hit the proverbial fan.
The US Army soon established a base camp near the south end of the Island, while the Royal Marines set up their own on the north end. The situation continued to escalate, and by August of 1859, a detachment of 461 Americans with fourteen cannons were opposed by a flotilla of five British Royal Navy warships mounting 70 guns and carrying 2,140 men.
And then… nothing happened as leaders in London and Washington dithered over the matter for a long, long time.
During the following twelve years, the British and American troops on San Juan Island developed surprisingly amicable relationships, visiting one another’s camps to celebrate their respective national holidays and holding various athletic competitions. The dispute was eventually peacefully resolved by diplomacy and life gradually got back to normal.
In fact, the whole matter has largely been forgotten ever since. After all: no girl’s schools were bombed resulting in 175 civilian deaths. There was no disruption of international trade that jammed up thousands of ships on the wrong side of a narrow strategic straight. Also, the price of fuel—chiefly coal at the time—did not spike to unheard of levels when hostilities began. American rates of inflation did not jump by 5.5%, but rather were wholly unaffected by the death of the poor pig. And—although NATO did not yet exist—no meaningful damage was done to existing alliances, disrupting the global balance of power shattering our best hopes for peace in our lifetimes. Heck…even the popularity of the American president—one James Buchanan—didn’t suddenly plummet by a whopping 15% as a result of the Pig War. In fact, today, the whole thing is remembered simply as a historical curiosity by scholars and history geeks alike.
In truth, until verry, verry, verry recently, the Pig War has been chiefly remembered as the most stunningly STUPID American war of all time.
But, oh my… how things do change in the age of Trump.
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