On June 15, 1859, an American settler named Lyman Cutlar discovered a large black pig rooting through his potato patch on San Juan Island, a small island in the Pacific Northwest. The animal had repeatedly invaded his garden, and Cutlar had apparently lost patience. He picked up his rifle and shot it.
The pig belonged to the Hudson’s Bay Company, a powerful British trading enterprise that operated a sheep farm on the island. When Cutlar informed the farm’s manager, Charles Griffin, the two men argued over compensation. British authorities threatened to arrest the American settler, American officials demanded protection for their citizens, and within weeks, United States soldiers had occupied the island while British warships gathered offshore.
By August, hundreds of American troops were facing a formidable British naval force. Both countries claimed the island, neither wanted to surrender it, and local commanders were prepared to use force to defend their positions. Britain and the United States were approaching another war, thirteen years after signing a treaty intended to settle their territorial differences in the region.
The confrontation became known as the Pig War, and remarkably, no human being was killed. But the animal’s death was only the immediate trigger. Behind it lay decades of disputed boundaries, territorial expansion, imperial competition, conflicting laws, and political ambitions that had turned an ordinary property dispute into an international crisis.
Why Britain and America Couldn’t Agree on the Pacific Northwest
The origins of the Pig War stretched back to the founding of the United States. After the American Revolution, Britain formally recognized American independence under the Treaty of Paris in 1783. The two countries then faced the difficult task of determining where the new republic ended and British-controlled North America began.
The treaty established boundaries using rivers, lakes, and geographical coordinates, but the negotiators were working with imperfect maps. One provision attempted to draw a line westward from the northwesternmost point of the Lake of the Woods to the Mississippi River. Unfortunately, the Mississippi did not extend far enough north to intersect that proposed line, making the boundary geographically impossible.
The problem illustrates a recurring difficulty in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century diplomacy. Governments frequently divided enormous territories using maps that contained substantial inaccuracies, sometimes without consulting the Indigenous peoples who inhabited those lands. A boundary could appear perfectly straightforward on paper while creating considerable confusion on the ground.
Relations between Britain and the United States remained unsettled after independence. Disagreements over trade, maritime rights, British interference with American shipping, and frontier tensions eventually contributed to the War of 1812. American forces attempted to invade British Canada, while British troops famously burned public buildings in Washington in 1814, including the presidential residence.
The war ended without fundamentally changing the territorial balance between the two countries. Both governments subsequently recognized the advantages of stabilizing their shared frontier, particularly as settlement and commercial activity expanded westward.
Under the Convention of 1818, Britain and the United States agreed to extend much of their boundary along the 49th parallel from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains. Beyond the Rockies, however, both countries maintained competing claims to the vast territory commonly known as Oregon Country.
Rather than immediately risk another confrontation, they agreed to a form of joint occupation. British and American citizens could travel, trade, and settle in the region without either government formally surrendering its territorial claims. The agreement allowed both countries to postpone the sovereignty question while continuing to pursue their interests.
Those interests were not identical. Britain exercised much of its regional influence through the Hudson’s Bay Company, a chartered trading enterprise whose commercial operations extended across enormous areas of North America. The company established trading posts, maintained transportation networks, employed workers from different parts of the Pacific, and depended heavily on trade relationships with Indigenous communities.
Its most important business involved animal furs, particularly beaver pelts used in the production of fashionable felt hats. The Columbia River and its connected waterways were essential transportation routes for the company’s commercial network, making control of the Pacific Northwest economically valuable to Britain.
The United States increasingly viewed the same territory through the lens of agricultural settlement and national expansion. During the 1830s and 1840s, growing numbers of American migrants followed the Oregon Trail in search of farmland and opportunities beyond the established western frontier.
Their migration reflected a broader expansionist ideology that came to be called Manifest Destiny. Supporters believed that the United States was entitled, and sometimes divinely destined, to expand across the North American continent. This conviction helped justify territorial acquisition while disregarding the sovereignty and rights of Indigenous nations already occupying the land.
As American migration increased, the joint-occupation arrangement became more difficult to sustain. Settlers wanted land titles, legal protections, and a government that recognized their claims. British commercial interests, meanwhile, faced the possibility of being displaced by an expanding American population.
By the 1840s, the Oregon boundary had become a major political issue in the United States. Expansionists demanded territory extending as far north as latitude 54°40′, inspiring the slogan “54°40′ or Fight.”
President James K. Polk supported American territorial expansion, but a war with Britain would have been a serious undertaking, especially as relations with Mexico were deteriorating. Britain also preferred to protect its commercial interests without fighting another expensive North American conflict.
As the US State Department’s history of the Oregon negotiations explains, the governments eventually agreed to continue the 49th parallel as the principal boundary, while preserving Vancouver Island for Britain. The Oregon Treaty, signed on June 15, 1846, appeared to settle their competing claims in the Pacific Northwest.
Unfortunately, the agreement contained a geographical ambiguity that would eventually bring the two countries back to the brink of war.
The Treaty That Put San Juan Island Between Two Borders
The Oregon Treaty extended the international boundary westward along the 49th parallel until it reached the waters separating the North American mainland from Vancouver Island. From there, the border was supposed to turn south and pass through the Strait of Juan de Fuca toward the Pacific Ocean.
The difficulty lay in the treaty’s description of the maritime boundary. Article I of the 1846 Oregon Treaty referred to a line passing through “the middle of the channel” separating the continent from Vancouver Island. That wording appeared simple enough until officials examined the actual geography.
Between Vancouver Island and the mainland lay the San Juan Islands, an archipelago surrounded by several navigable waterways. Two of those waterways offered competing interpretations of the treaty’s intended boundary.
Haro Strait ran to the west of the islands, between the archipelago and Vancouver Island. If the international boundary followed Haro Strait, the San Juan Islands would fall on the American side.
Rosario Strait ran to the east of the islands, between the archipelago and the mainland. If the border followed Rosario Strait, the islands would belong to Britain.
Both governments insisted that their interpretation was consistent with the treaty. The Americans maintained that Haro Strait more clearly separated Vancouver Island from the continent and provided the appropriate passage toward the Strait of Juan de Fuca. British representatives argued that Rosario Strait better matched the intended navigational route and treaty language.
The disagreement was not simply a product of careless wording. Negotiators had relied on imperfect geographical knowledge, while maps and navigational charts did not always depict the waterways consistently. Even some of those involved in the original negotiations struggled to clarify precisely which channel had been intended.
Control of the islands also mattered strategically. The archipelago lay near Vancouver Island and the approaches to Victoria, an important British colonial settlement and harbour. Ownership could influence navigation, commercial access, and the security of Britain’s possessions on the Pacific coast.
A possible compromise involved drawing the boundary through San Juan Channel, between the competing waterways, and dividing the islands. Such an arrangement might have allowed both countries to retain part of the disputed territory, but neither side accepted it as the final settlement.
In 1857, the two governments established a joint boundary commission to investigate the question. British commissioner James Prevost defended the Rosario Strait interpretation, while American commissioner Archibald Campbell supported Haro Strait. They assembled geographical, legal, historical, and navigational arguments to support their respective positions.
The commission failed to reach an agreement. Britain continued treating the islands as British territory, while the United States maintained that they were American.
For diplomats working thousands of miles away, the disagreement could remain unresolved without immediate consequences. For the people living on San Juan Island, however, the uncertainty affected almost every aspect of ordinary life.
Before the Pig, Islanders Were Already Fighting Over Land and Law
San Juan Island was not an empty territory waiting for British or American settlers to claim it. Long before either country attempted to establish sovereignty, the island and surrounding waterways formed part of the ancestral homeland of Coast Salish peoples.
Indigenous communities had lived, travelled, fished, harvested resources, maintained important prairie landscapes, and established cultural relationships throughout the region for thousands of years. Their presence is essential to understanding the longer history of San Juan Island, which extends far beyond the familiar story of two governments arguing over a border.
The British and American claims therefore represented competing forms of colonial expansion into Indigenous territory. Neither government had acquired the island simply because its inhabitants had surrendered their rights. Yet imperial officials increasingly treated the question as a contest between two foreign powers, leaving Indigenous sovereignty outside the negotiations.
Britain attempted to strengthen its position through settlement and commercial activity. James Douglas, an influential Hudson’s Bay Company official who had previously worked at Fort Vancouver, believed that establishing a substantial British presence could help secure the disputed islands.
In 1853, the Hudson’s Bay Company established Belle Vue Sheep Farm on the southern end of San Juan Island. The farm provided agricultural products for the company’s regional operations while giving Britain a visible commercial foothold on disputed territory.
An Irish company employee named Charles Griffin managed the operation. His workforce included Hawaiian shepherds, reflecting the Hudson’s Bay Company’s longstanding recruitment of labourers from the Hawaiian Islands. Their participation complicates the simplified picture of San Juan Island as a place inhabited exclusively by British and American settlers.
Belle Vue grew into a substantial agricultural enterprise. Its flocks expanded to thousands of sheep, grazing across extensive areas of the island, while the company also kept cattle and pigs. By 1859, the farm reportedly maintained more than 4,500 sheep, making livestock a highly visible part of Britain’s presence.
For Griffin and Douglas, the farm strengthened Britain’s territorial claim. For American officials, however, the company’s occupation did not prove that the island belonged to Britain.
The resulting disputes began well before anybody shot a pig. In 1854, American customs collector Isaac Ebey challenged the importation of livestock onto the island, arguing that British property entering American territory could be subject to American customs regulations.
Griffin rejected that interpretation because he considered the farm British property on British land. British authorities similarly challenged American officials who attempted to exercise jurisdiction over the island.
The dispute escalated when officials from Whatcom County in Washington Territory demanded property taxes from the company. When Griffin refused to pay, Sheriff Ellis Barnes and other American officials seized valuable breeding sheep and arranged to auction them to recover the claimed taxes.
The operation resulted in the loss of 34 breeding rams, according to accounts of the confrontation. Griffin protested angrily, while the American officials insisted that their actions were legitimate exercises of American authority.
What appeared to be a disagreement about taxes was actually another argument about sovereignty. If the Americans had the right to collect duties and seize livestock, they were effectively asserting that the island belonged to the United States. If Griffin could refuse payment under British authority, he was asserting the opposite.
Both governments became concerned that such incidents might provoke a larger confrontation. Officials attempted to restrain their representatives, but neither country was willing to surrender its underlying territorial claim.
Meanwhile, events elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest increased pressure on the island. The Fraser Canyon Gold Rush began in 1858, attracting thousands of prospectors, many of them Americans, into British-controlled territory.
Not everyone who travelled north found gold. Some prospectors who failed to make their fortunes remained in the region, looking for other opportunities. San Juan Island’s relatively open agricultural land made it an appealing destination.
By the spring of 1859, 18 American settlers had reportedly established claims on the island. Many occupied land that the Hudson’s Bay Company considered part of its grazing grounds, creating direct conflict between American homesteads and British livestock.
The American settlers believed that they were establishing homes on American territory. Griffin regarded them as squatters intruding on British land and interfering with his farm.
The same patch of ground could therefore be an American settler’s legally claimed homestead and part of a British company’s grazing estate, depending on whose authority was recognized. Fences, crops, grazing animals, taxes, and property boundaries had become expressions of a much larger disagreement.
Among those caught in this situation was a young American settler named Lyman Cutlar, whose potato garden occupied land claimed by the Hudson’s Bay Company.
The Shot Heard From a Potato Patch
Lyman Cutlar had established a cabin and planted potatoes on San Juan Island, believing that the land was legitimately open to American settlement. Unfortunately, his garden lay close to the grazing areas used by Belle Vue Sheep Farm, where the company’s animals roamed relatively freely.
One particularly troublesome animal was a large Berkshire pig belonging to the farm. The pig repeatedly entered Cutlar’s potato patch and helped itself to his crops, apparently ignoring the distinction between British livestock and American agricultural property.
Cutlar had reportedly chased the animal away on previous occasions and complained to Griffin about the damage. Griffin, however, did not accept responsibility in the way Cutlar expected. The disagreement reflected the larger conflict between the settlers and the company over who had the right to occupy and use the land.
On June 15, 1859, exactly thirteen years after the Oregon Treaty had been signed, Cutlar discovered the pig eating his potatoes again. This time, rather than chase the animal away, he shot and killed it.
Cutlar reportedly approached Griffin afterward and acknowledged what he had done. A dispute followed over the value of the pig and the compensation that should be paid.
Accounts differ about the exact amounts offered and demanded. Griffin is frequently reported to have demanded $100, an exceptionally large sum for an ordinary farm animal at the time, while Cutlar considered the demand unreasonable.
Had the incident occurred within a clearly established jurisdiction, it might have remained a dispute over damaged crops and livestock compensation. On San Juan Island, however, the central issue quickly became which country’s laws applied.
Griffin believed that an American squatter had killed British property on British land. Cutlar believed that he was an American citizen protecting crops on territory belonging to the United States.
When British officials threatened to arrest Cutlar and potentially take him to Victoria for prosecution, the American settlers interpreted the threat as an attempt to impose British law on American citizens. From their perspective, allowing the arrest would have amounted to accepting British sovereignty over the island.
The settlers appealed to Brigadier General William S. Harney, commander of the United States Army’s Department of Oregon. They complained about British interference and asked for military protection against the possibility of arrest or expulsion.
Harney was unusually receptive to their concerns. He possessed the authority to command American troops in the region, strongly distrusted the British, and had little patience for complicated diplomatic procedures.
The death of one pig had provided him with an opportunity to intervene in a territorial dispute that had frustrated both governments for more than a decade.
Harney and Pickett Turned the Dispute Into an Armed Occupation
Brigadier General William Selby Harney had spent decades serving in the United States Army. He possessed considerable experience, including service during the Mexican-American War, but he also had a reputation for aggression, insubordination, and confrontations with his superiors.
His military career had included repeated disciplinary controversies. Harney was not known for avoiding conflict when he believed decisive action would serve his interests, and his hostility toward the British made him particularly unsympathetic to their position on San Juan Island.
His authority also operated under conditions that made independent action unusually consequential. Washington, D.C., was thousands of kilometres away, and communication between the federal government and the Pacific Northwest could take weeks. By the time political leaders received a report, reviewed it, and sent instructions back, a determined local commander might already have transformed the situation.
Harney interpreted the settlers’ complaints as justification for military intervention. Instead of treating the pig incident as a dispute requiring further negotiation, he decided to establish a direct American military presence on San Juan Island.
He ordered Captain George Edward Pickett, commanding Company D of the 9th United States Infantry, to occupy the island and protect American settlers from British interference.
Pickett would later become famous for his role as a Confederate general during the American Civil War, particularly the disastrous assault known as Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. In 1859, however, he was an officer of the United States Army stationed in the Pacific Northwest.
On July 27, Pickett landed on San Juan Island with 64 soldiers. The deployment was presented as a protective measure, but it had implications far beyond the safety of the settlers.
The United States had placed armed troops on territory whose sovereignty remained formally disputed. Harney had acted without authorization from President James Buchanan or the War Department, effectively allowing a local military commander to determine the immediate direction of American foreign policy.
Pickett established his camp near the Hudson’s Bay Company farm on the island’s southern end. His initial position was exposed, particularly to attack from the sea, and his force was small enough that a determined British naval response could have overwhelmed it.
Nevertheless, Pickett asserted American authority over the island. His command displayed a notice indicating that American laws alone applied there, and he refused demands from British representatives that he withdraw.
From an American perspective, the landing could be described as protecting citizens against the threatened application of foreign laws. From a British perspective, it was an armed invasion intended to establish American sovereignty through military occupation.
There was another reason the situation was dangerous: the governments responsible for the disputed territory had not agreed to this escalation. Harney’s actions presented them with a new military reality before they could meaningfully intervene.
Historians have debated precisely what Harney hoped to accomplish.
One interpretation is that he wanted to secure the San Juan Islands for the United States and perhaps encourage further American expansion into British-controlled territory. His aggressive behaviour and willingness to challenge British authority are consistent with such ambitions, although they do not establish every motive attributed to him.
Other accounts suggest that Harney was pursuing personal prestige, possibly hoping that a successful confrontation with Britain would advance his political standing. Some commentators have gone further, proposing that Southern sympathizers might have welcomed a foreign crisis that distracted the federal government from the growing sectional conflict over slavery.
According to the more elaborate version of that theory, a conflict with Britain could have provided cover for Southern secession or encouraged national unity around an external enemy. Harney’s Southern background has helped keep such interpretations alive.
However, there is insufficient evidence to establish that Harney and Pickett were executing a coordinated conspiracy to start a foreign war. The National Park Service’s reassessment of Harney’s conduct provides a basis for examining his strategic ambitions without presenting speculative motives as proven fact.
A less conspiratorial explanation is that Harney was impulsive, strongly anti-British, and genuinely convinced that American citizens required immediate military protection. Personal ambition, nationalism, poor judgment, and territorial expansionism could have influenced him without any secret plan.
Whatever his underlying motives, the consequences of his decision were unmistakable. Pickett’s landing turned an unresolved legal and territorial dispute into an armed confrontation, creating the possibility that either side might fire the first shot.
Harney subsequently sent reports to Washington attempting to justify his actions, including allegations of British misconduct. But those messages could not reach the federal government quickly enough to prevent the immediate crisis.
For the moment, the situation depended largely on the decisions of officers and officials stationed around San Juan Island. The Americans had occupied the territory, and the next significant move belonged to Britain.
The Royal Navy Had the Firepower to Start a War
James Douglas was furious when he learned that American soldiers had landed on San Juan Island. By 1859, he was governor of Vancouver Island and the mainland colony of British Columbia, and he had spent much of his career defending British interests in the Pacific Northwest.
His earlier experience made him particularly sensitive to American encroachment. While working for the Hudson’s Bay Company at Fort Vancouver, Douglas had witnessed the steady arrival of American settlers into the Oregon region and the eventual weakening of Britain’s position south of the 49th parallel.
From his perspective, a familiar process was repeating itself. American migrants arrived on disputed land, claimed the protection of American laws, and were eventually followed by American soldiers. If Britain failed to respond, Douglas feared that the United States might gain control of San Juan Island through occupation rather than negotiation.
He decided to involve the Royal Navy.
Douglas instructed Captain Geoffrey Hornby, commander of HMS Tribune, to proceed to San Juan Island and prevent further American reinforcements. He also wanted the British authorities to remove Pickett’s force if necessary.
At the same time, Hornby was expected to avoid provoking a war. These instructions created an obvious contradiction: removing armed American troops against their will could require military force, while using military force against them could trigger the very conflict Douglas wanted to avoid.
Hornby understood the danger as soon as he arrived. Pickett’s soldiers were established on the island, and the Americans were not prepared to abandon their position simply because a British naval officer demanded it.
The British could potentially overpower the small American garrison, but a military victory on San Juan Island would not necessarily settle the dispute. An attack on United States soldiers could draw the two countries into a much larger war.
Douglas continued to press for a stronger British response. Additional naval vessels appeared around the island, while American forces received reinforcements and began strengthening their positions.
By late August 1859, the Americans had assembled hundreds of soldiers with artillery, facing a British naval force of five warships carrying more than 2,000 sailors and marines. The National Park Service’s account of the Pig War documents the scale of the military buildup and the decisions that prevented it from becoming a battle.
The Royal Navy possessed overwhelming firepower compared with Pickett’s initial force. Its guns could threaten American positions on the island, particularly because Pickett had established his first encampment in an exposed location.
Recognizing his vulnerability, Pickett moved his men to another position, though his command remained at considerable risk from naval bombardment. The Americans nevertheless continued fortifying their camp and preparing for the possibility of confrontation.
The situation was complicated by the arrival of officials, observers, and curious visitors who wanted to witness the unfolding crisis. For Charles Griffin, the developments were particularly infuriating. His pig had already been killed, his farm was caught in a sovereignty dispute, and now military personnel and visitors were occupying land used by the company’s livestock.
Douglas eventually proposed landing British troops on the island to establish a military presence alongside the Americans. His objective was to ensure that Britain did not appear to accept exclusive American occupation of territory it claimed.
Hornby approached Pickett to discuss the proposed landing. Pickett warned that if British troops attempted to come ashore, he would resist them with force.
The two commanders now faced incompatible instructions. The British governor wanted troops landed to defend Britain’s claim, while the American captain was prepared to prevent such a landing.
Had Hornby attempted to carry out Douglas’s wishes, the confrontation might quickly have turned violent. Both forces were armed, both believed they were defending legitimate national interests, and neither wanted to appear to surrender under pressure.
Hornby decided not to land the troops under those conditions. Rather than initiate a battle, he delayed the proposed action and allowed time for higher British naval authority to intervene.
Rear Admiral Robert Lambert Baynes, commander of Britain’s naval forces in the Pacific, subsequently became involved. Baynes recognized the extraordinary danger of allowing a territorial dispute to develop into a war between two major powers.
He reportedly dismissed the prospect of fighting over a “squabble about a pig,” a remark that captured the absurdity of the immediate crisis without eliminating the seriousness of the underlying territorial question.
Baynes did not argue that Britain should abandon its claim to the San Juan Islands. Instead, he rejected the assumption that defending a territorial claim required immediately attacking the Americans who occupied it.
The British could maintain their legal position, continue observing American activities, and seek instructions from London without opening fire. Naval restraint would preserve the opportunity for diplomacy while avoiding the potentially irreversible consequences of a military engagement.
The distinction proved decisive. Hornby’s refusal to attempt a dangerous landing and Baynes’s determination to avoid escalation prevented the British naval presence from becoming the opening stage of a shooting war.
That restraint mattered because the possible consequences extended well beyond San Juan Island. Britain possessed the world’s most powerful navy, while the United States had a growing population, substantial territorial resources, and military forces near British North America.
An armed confrontation might have spread along the Pacific coast or reopened conflict across the Canadian frontier, with wider maritime consequences. Neither government had authorized such a war, and neither had a clear interest in fighting one.
Yet the immediate danger remained until officials in Washington and London could intervene. British naval officers had prevented a battle, but they could not permanently settle the territorial dispute or independently determine the future of American troops on the island.
Winfield Scott Finds a Way for Both Sides to Stand Down
News of the confrontation travelled slowly from the Pacific Northwest to Washington and London. By the time President James Buchanan understood the scale of Harney’s military intervention, American and British forces had already been confronting one another for weeks.
Buchanan had little appetite for an unnecessary international conflict. The United States was approaching a profound domestic crisis as disagreements over slavery and the future of the Union intensified. A war with Britain would have created an additional danger at a moment when the country was already becoming increasingly divided.
He turned to Lieutenant General Winfield Scott, the commanding general of the United States Army.
Scott was one of America’s most experienced military officers. He had served during the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War, commanded major military campaigns, and previously helped resolve sensitive disputes involving Britain.
He also knew Harney and was familiar with his difficult relationship with military authority. Scott understood that the problem on San Juan Island was not merely geographical or legal; it had been made more dangerous by officers whose actions threatened to dictate national policy.
Despite his age and poor health, Scott travelled to the Pacific Northwest to negotiate a settlement. His objective was to reduce the immediate military danger without requiring either country to concede that its interpretation of the boundary was wrong.
Scott met Douglas and worked toward a practical arrangement. The two sides would reduce their military presence, refrain from attempting to remove one another by force, and maintain a limited joint occupation until their governments could finally settle the sovereignty question.
This approach gave both countries a way to step back without formally surrendering their claims. Britain could continue insisting that the islands were British, while the United States could continue maintaining that they were American.
For the American side, the agreement also required restraining the officers who had contributed to the crisis. Pickett was to be replaced in command on the island, reducing the danger that his confrontational relationship with British representatives would produce another incident.
Harney nevertheless continued to resist elements of the settlement. He later ordered Pickett back to San Juan Island despite instructions that the captain should be replaced, and his department challenged aspects of the joint-occupation agreement.
His actions reinforced Washington’s concerns about allowing local commanders to determine the country’s foreign policy. Scott eventually succeeded in having Harney removed from his Pacific Northwest command and reassigned.
The larger American military force was reduced, and both governments accepted the principle of a temporary shared presence. In March 1860, British Royal Marines landed peacefully on the northern end of San Juan Island, establishing the arrangement that had appeared so dangerous when Douglas first proposed it during the previous summer.
The difference was that the landing now occurred by agreement rather than as a unilateral military challenge.
The immediate crisis had ended without a battle. Britain and the United States still disagreed about who owned San Juan Island, but they had found a way to prevent that disagreement from becoming a war.
Two Flags Flew Over San Juan Island for Twelve Years
The joint occupation created an unusual arrangement. For more than twelve years, British and American soldiers remained stationed on the same island, representing governments that continued to claim sovereignty over the entire territory.
The Americans occupied a position on the island’s southern end, which became known as American Camp. The British established English Camp in a more sheltered location toward the north, where Royal Marines maintained their presence.
In theory, the arrangement might have produced constant tension. The two military forces served rival governments, occupied disputed territory, and remained under separate chains of command.
In practice, relations between the garrisons were often remarkably friendly.
British and American soldiers visited one another, shared meals, played games, and participated in social occasions. British marines attended American Fourth of July celebrations, while American personnel visited English Camp for festivities honouring Queen Victoria.
The soldiers charged with defending competing national claims often enjoyed more cooperative relations than the political and military officials who had created the confrontation. Even Pickett developed cordial relationships with British officers during his time in the region.
The peaceful occupation demonstrated that the absence of a settled boundary did not necessarily require continuous hostility. Both governments maintained their legal positions while allowing ordinary relations between their forces to continue.
Events elsewhere soon made the San Juan question less urgent.
In 1861, the American Civil War began, and the United States faced a far greater crisis than the ownership of a Pacific island. Eleven Southern states attempted to leave the Union, creating a conflict that threatened the survival of the country.
George Pickett, a native of Virginia, resigned from the United States Army and joined the Confederacy. He eventually became a Confederate general and is best remembered for the failed assault against Union positions during the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863.
Harney, despite his Southern background, remained in the Union Army, although suspicions about his loyalties and disagreements over his command eventually contributed to his removal from authority in Missouri.
The Civil War also complicated relations between Britain and the United States. British manufacturers depended heavily on cotton produced in the American South, and some influential British figures initially considered the possibility of recognizing or assisting the Confederacy.
The Trent Affair of 1861 brought the two countries dangerously close to another confrontation. An American naval officer intercepted a British mail steamer and removed two Confederate diplomats, provoking strong protests from Britain.
Although the immediate dispute was resolved, other tensions continued. Confederate commerce raiders built in British shipyards attacked Northern shipping, causing substantial economic damage and generating American demands for compensation after the war.
These developments made a final settlement of the San Juan boundary more difficult. Yet they also helped create the diplomatic circumstances in which Britain and the United States would eventually seek a broader resolution of their outstanding differences.
Meanwhile, the two military camps continued their peaceful coexistence. No British or American soldier was killed in combat during the Pig War, and the original pig remained the conflict’s famous casualty.
That description does not mean the episode was entirely harmless. The competing imperial claims marginalized Indigenous sovereignty, increased military control over the island, and subjected residents to overlapping and uncertain jurisdictions for more than a decade.
The Hudson’s Bay Company’s commercial position also changed as the territorial and political circumstances evolved. British and American settlement, livestock operations, and military occupation had lasting implications for how the island’s land was used and controlled.
Nevertheless, the joint occupation showed that governments could maintain an unresolved disagreement while refusing to settle it through violence. Britain and the United States had postponed the sovereignty decision, but they had also prevented the island from becoming a battlefield.
The 1872 Arbitration Decides Who Owns the Islands
By the end of the American Civil War, Britain and the United States had accumulated a substantial list of diplomatic disputes. The San Juan boundary remained unresolved, but it was no longer the only disagreement requiring attention.
American officials demanded compensation for the destruction caused by Confederate commerce raiders built in British shipyards. Other disagreements concerned fishing rights, navigation, trade, and territorial questions arising from the countries’ long relationship in North America.
Rather than attempting to resolve each issue through a separate confrontation, the governments began negotiating a comprehensive settlement. Those negotiations produced the Treaty of Washington in 1871.
The treaty established mechanisms for addressing several major disputes, including the so-called Alabama Claims involving damage caused by Confederate raiders. It also provided a process for determining the final sovereignty of the San Juan Islands.
Article XXXIV of the Treaty of Washington submitted the maritime boundary disagreement to arbitration by the German emperor, Wilhelm I. Britain would defend the Rosario Strait interpretation, while the United States would argue that the boundary followed Haro Strait.
The arbitration was deliberately limited. The emperor was not being asked to devise a new geographical compromise or divide the islands according to what might seem politically convenient.
Instead, he was asked to determine which country’s interpretation most accurately reflected the meaning of the Oregon Treaty of 1846.
Both sides submitted extensive arguments supported by maps, navigational evidence, historical documents, and diplomatic correspondence. The German emperor referred the competing claims to advisers who examined the material before a decision was announced.
On October 21, 1872, the ruling favoured the United States.
The arbitrator accepted the American interpretation that the international boundary should pass through Haro Strait, placing the San Juan Islands within American territory.
For Britain, the decision was disappointing. James Douglas, who had devoted considerable energy to defending British interests in the region, believed that his country’s case had not been adequately represented.
Nevertheless, the British government accepted the award. It did not attempt to overturn the judgment through military pressure or reopen the confrontation that had nearly produced war thirteen years earlier.
On November 25, 1872, the Royal Marines departed English Camp, formally ending the British military occupation of San Juan Island. American soldiers subsequently occupied the former British position, while the remaining United States garrison stayed on the island until July 1874.
The withdrawal marked the final end of the military occupation associated with the Pig War. The Hudson’s Bay Company’s agricultural operations eventually disappeared, and Charles Griffin had already departed from the island before the territorial settlement was completed.
The boundary established through the 1872 arbitration remains the international border between the United States and Canada in the region.
The resolution was significant because both countries accepted a decision that neither had been willing to impose through direct negotiation. The dispute had survived ambiguous treaty language, failed boundary commissions, competing settlements, clashes over taxes and property, military occupation, and the diplomatic complications of the American Civil War.
Ultimately, it was settled not by superior firepower, but through an agreed process of international arbitration.
The Pig War remains memorable because its immediate cause appears so ridiculous. A pig ate potatoes, an angry settler shot it, and two of the world’s major powers came dangerously close to an armed confrontation over a small island.
But the underlying conflict was considerably more serious than the death of an animal. Britain and the United States were contesting territorial sovereignty in a region where imperial expansion, economic interests, settler ambitions, Indigenous rights, and ambiguous legal agreements had created overlapping claims.
The shooting mattered because it occurred within that unstable environment. Harney’s intervention and Pickett’s occupation transformed a local dispute into a military crisis, while Douglas’s determination to defend British authority threatened to escalate the confrontation further.
Peace ultimately depended on decisions made by individuals who recognized the consequences of proceeding. Hornby refused to undertake a landing likely to provoke gunfire, Baynes restrained the Royal Navy, and Winfield Scott negotiated an arrangement that allowed both governments to retreat from the immediate danger without abandoning their legal positions.
The final arbitration demonstrated that the question of sovereignty could still be answered through an agreed legal process, even after years of confrontation. The countries did not have to pretend the disputed territory was unimportant; they had to agree that resolving its ownership did not justify an unnecessary war.
One pig had died, and the consequences might easily have been far greater. Instead, the border was eventually settled, the soldiers returned home, and Britain and the United States accepted a peaceful resolution to a dispute that had once seemed capable of drawing them into another devastating conflict.
Last Updated on October 30, 2026 by Aseem Gupta