The Odd Story Behind The Pig War Of 1859

A watercolor of American Camp on San Juan Island.

On June 15th, 1859, a pig belonging to Charles Griffin of the Hudson’s Bay Company wandered into American territory on San Juan Island. It was a relatively typical day until the pig uprooted and destroyed Lyman Cutlar’s potato field. Enraged, Cutlar killed the pig with his rifle. The two began to bicker over the dispute, with an unconfirmed account noting Cutlar saying to Griffin, “It was eating my potatoes,” and Griffin replying, “It is up to you to keep your potatoes out of my pig.” The pig’s death wasn’t just tragic for Griffin but also for the British inhabitants on the islands, who quickly spun the murder of the pig into an attack on British property, as the pig belonged to a British owner. They argued that even if both countries agreed to jointly occupy the San Juan Islands, the killing of the pig was a crime against the Hudson’s Bay Company. The American inhabitants were furious at the British for trying to arrest Cultar and expel the Americans. After all, Cutlar was acting in self-defense after his property was destroyed first, so they retaliated by accusing the British of using the pig as an excuse to take the islands for themselves.

Tensions on the San Juan Islands

Normally, this situation wouldn’t have almost turned into a war, but the American and British settlers on San Juan Island—the most populous island in the San Juan Islands archipelago—were incredibly divided, with every interaction tense with nationalistic pride and differing opinions. The ultimate cause of this division on the San Juan Islands wasn’t personal hatred but the ambiguity of who owned the islands and, therefore, which country could gain more power over its resources. According to the Oregon Treaty of 1846, word for word, “the line of boundary [between the San Juan Islands] shall continue to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island, and thence southerly through the middle of the said channel, and of Fuca's Straits, to the Pacific Ocean.” Of course, the major question here is what channel the treaty is referring to. The San Juan Islands are more of an archipelago with many smaller islands. Therefore, the treaty could refer to three different channels, each of which would dramatically change the geographical boundaries defined by the treaty. The British thought the treaty referred to the Rosario Strait east of the San Juan Islands, which would allow the entire territory to fall under British rule. The Americans, however, thought the opposite, claiming that the channel was the westernmost channel, known as the Haro Strait, meaning that the territory would fall under American rule. This discrepancy allowed nationalistic interpretations of the treaty. This deepened the division within the island, as people assumed whichever channel the treaty implied was the one they thought. This discrepancy wasn’t entirely the fault of the politicians and residents; instead, a lot of it had to do with the limited scope of the maps drawn by the explorations of Captain George Vancouver and the U.S. Navy, which did not accurately represent the islands' geography. However, it is somewhat strange that this map discrepancy only really managed to enrage both sides to try and start a war once a pig was involved, rather than protesting against the vagueness of the treaty itself.

Strategic Importance of the Islands

A map showing the border claimed by the British, the border claimed by the U.S., a border proposal for compromise, and the modern border.

Both sides wanted control over the islands. On the British side, the islands were a top contributor to the British economy, particularly with the Hudson’s Bay Company’s monopoly over several industries. This made the British support their control over the islands to counter American influence in British North America. American settlers arrived en masse via the Oregon Trail. This was driven by the belief of “Manifest Destiny,” the idea that Americans were destined to colonize the entire continent and that it was backed by divinity. And so, in the San Juan Islands, which were rich in fertile land, had a lot of salmon, and served as a strategic location between the Pacific coastline and inland waterways, the Americans and British were forced to cohabitate the island after no official treaty was signed to declare the ownership of the islands.

Military Escalation and Broader Context

When Cutlar killed Griffin’s pig, the Hudson’s Bay Company finally had enough of the Americans acting against them, and they tried to use this incident as an opportunity to take over the islands. The company representatives and British officers sent warships and troops to intimidate the Americans and guard what they believed to be their islands. Not wanting to be pushed around, American inhabitants and authorities alerted the military, who responded with military forces to protect the islands. Ironically, despite this dramatic standoff on July 27, 1859, the American troops, led by Captain George E. Pickett, negotiated with the British troops, and no battle occurred. Both sides realized the issue could be resolved by reexamining the treaty without wasting time and resources fighting a war over a pig and vague language.

Neither side wanted to start a war over the islands, even though they individually viewed them as theirs. During this period, the United States and Great Britain had much more pressing concerns than an island drama over a pig, even if the locals presented the issue as a matter of sovereignty rather than a petty dispute. The United States, in particular, was slowly starting to become internally divided over the slavery debate, and decision-makers were too occupied with rallying supporters or protesting against slavery to care about the brewing Pig War. On the other side, the British were starting to expand their colonial sphere of influence throughout the world, particularly in Africa, India, and the Pacific, so they slowly realized that they needed to fight not over the islands for their resources but rather for their position to counterbalance the American influence. It is likely that the British did not care for the islands, as they were busy with their other colonies.

Resolution

In a highly anticlimactic resolution to the Pig War, Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany, a neutral third party, arbitrated the dispute. In 1871, he concluded that the San Juan Islands were United States territory and that the treaty referred to the Haro Strait as the more prominent and defensible channel. Interestingly, the treaty was never rewritten, but the clarification was sufficient enough to avoid a war. The lesson we learned from the Pig War tells us that negotiation and arbitration are much better diplomatic tools than gunfire. This is not to say that the Pig War wasn’t violent, as it resulted in the untimely and tragic demise of Charles Griffin’s pig. However, it’s an essential story for us to recall so that we can avoid jumping to rash decisions like going to war because of a pig.