The Pig War

The Pig War of 1859 was a tense yet bloodless standoff between the United States and the United Kingdom over who owned the San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest. Despite its dramatic name, no people were harmed. The conflict arose from the Oregon Treaty of 1846, which set the United States–British border along the 49th parallel from the Rockies to the Pacific but left vague whether Haro Strait, near Vancouver Island, or Rosario Strait, closer to the mainland, marked the “middle of the channel.” The United States stance was that the Rosario Strait meant that the islands belonged to America. This uncertainty had lingered since the 1840s, with both sides laying claim to the islands.

On June 15, 1859, exactly 13 years after the adoption of the Oregon Treaty, the ambiguity led to direct conflict. Lyman Cutlar, an American farmer from Kentucky who had moved onto San Juan Island claiming rights to live there under the Donation Land Claim Act, passed nine years earlier by the United States Congress in 1850, found a pig rooting in his garden and eating his tubers (potatoes). The trouble started when Cutler shot the pig owned by Charles Griffith, an Irish worker for the Hudson’s Bay Company stationed at the island’s depot. Cutler apologized and offered $10 as compensation, but the British authorities responded by threatening to arrest him and expel all Americans from the island. In response, Brigadier General William S Harney sent Company D of the 9th US Infantry, led by Captain George E Pickett (who would later become a Confederate general), to San Juan on July 27, 1859, according to the National Park Service.

Governor James Douglas of Vancouver Island protested the landing, leading to the arrival of British warships to assert control. By late 1859, both nations agreed to a joint military occupation of the islands to avoid further conflict. American and British troops coexisted in a tense but peaceful manner, even celebrating holidays together. In 1871, Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany resolved the dispute in favor of the United States, awarding the San Juan Islands to them. The joint occupation ended in 1872, making the islands officially part of Washington Territory. The Pig War remains known as a bloodless territorial dispute that showed how something like unclear borders and incidents that follow even if one party tries not to make it a big deal, could spark international tensions, and how third-party arbitration can resolve such conflicts without war.