WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - History's Weirdest Wars: the Pig War

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

The Pig War on the San Juan Islands was a brief and mostly harmless conflict between America and Britain over who owned the islands. This conflict began because an American farmer on the islands shot and killed a pig owned by the British Governer.

Hello everybody, welcome to history's weirdest wars. I'm your host, Harold Berzer. In this show, we will be talking about some of the most bizarre wars in history. From inconsequential rivalries starting for ridiculous reasons to conflicts which could have led to entire wars between nations. Today, we are going to be discussing the pig war. I'm not sure if you are familiar with it, but this would be a good opportunity to learn. This was a war in which the only casualty was war. one pig owned by the British governor of the San Juan Islands.

But it could have led to another war between America and England post-war of 1812. This was a war in which the only casualty was one pig owned by the British governor of the San Juan Islands. The USA desired to spread its territory out more. I'm sure you are all familiar with the Manifist Destiny, in which many citizens and government officials believed that it was America's duty to spread out as far as possible. They wanted to expand their growing nation. England offered the USA land, but this didn't satisfy the American government as they wanted all of Canada. England refused to give Canada to them as it was very useful for the Hudson Bay Company and

fur trading. America still wanted it though because land and hey you got to manifest that destiny. Drawing boundaries and borders, they agreed to share. share the Oregon country, also known as the Columbia District. This is where Washington state and Oregon State are today, and wanted it because the Columbia River was very good for fur trading, specifically for the Hudson Bay Company. The whole area also had plentiful resources. England would use the land for its river, which was very useful for the fur trade of the Hudson Bay Company. American settlers also had access to the Colombian River, but they didn't really have need for it so they let Britain do their own thing. Even though they had agreed to owning the land

and sharing it, both sides claimed that they had full rights and sovereignty over the entire territory. A British officer named James Douglas particularly believed that the United States had no rights over the land. He was in charge of the fur trade company in Oregon, but was told to move by the British government to Vancouver after the American settlers had disrupted the fur trade. He was Given the role of governor on Vancouver Island, from there, he was constantly worried and paranoid that the Americans were going to come and steal his territory and ruin his job yet again, possibly causing him to move or even get demoted. Those darn Americans, they ruin everything.

Current President Polk also believed that they had right to the whole land. He continued to argue this and even threatened war with England if they did not give them full right to the Oregon country, but the United States was a little busy with their kind of not really war with Mexico, 1846, but neither truly wanted to go to war with one another, so they agreed to renegotiate the borders of the territory. They agreed to redraw the border, making it a straight line rather than going along the river as they previously had established. The agreement was that the United States territory would stop along the channel between the San Juan Islands, which was a part of the territory. The only problem is that San Juan has many channels as it is

several islands. The agreement forgot to mention which channel the border went through, so it was unclear where the territory ended, which part was owned by England and which was American. The exact words of the document were, the line of the boundary 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 Fuka's straits to the specific ocean. Not Pacific Ocean, specific. Both British and American citizens lived on these lands, and they would do this really funny thing where they would both claim full territory of the land without any real proof other than the not very good document where they would try to arrest each other for trespassing on another nation's land

that they didn't belong to. But other than that, they mostly lived in slight toleration. So imagine the entire land of North America from sea to shining sea. And then think of a tiny dot right next to where Washington and Oregon State are. That dot is all this trouble. It's just one dot. This does, in a way, go to show you how valuable land was at that time. Up until like the 20th century land, greatest resource for trade. Anyways, back to Douglas.

He was still paranoid that the Americans would, you know, come and steal England's precious land, the land that belonged to none other than the British government. So, Douglas devised a plan to try to see. secure the San Juan Islands. He set up sheep farms on the islands with the help of an Irish businessman named Charles Griffin. By doing this, he hoped to re-secure the islands from the Americans. He also helped to make Charles Griffin the governor of the island on behalf of the British government. He did this by hiring the natives of the San Juan Islands to tend the sheep farms. One day, an American's customs collector brought the...

British sheep farms. He tried to arrest the local British for what he claimed was illegal sheep selling since it was on what he claimed to be American territory that they were selling these sheep. They responded by trying to arrest him for trying to arrest them. Again, no one can make up their minds about who owns this land, so they both believe that they have the authority to arrest each other. You know, as you do. Customs collector responded in the most American way possible, and that was threatening to kill the British officers if a shootout if they came to arrest him in a little tent that he made on the island and was staying in for the duration of this time. This man was going to go out guns blazing and would rather die than let the British win.

That's a true American spirit right there. But the British, with the hope of the local natives, chase the customs collector off the island. But not really, because afterwards, the United States responded to this, by sending another tax collector to collect from Charles Griffin. When he did not pay, they did the logical action of stealing the man's sheep and auctioning them off to gain the money that they believed that they were owed. There wasn't much he could do about it.

I suppose he was just happy that they at least did not take his precious pig. Now, we're done with the back story. We can finally get to the scene of the crime. The Vancouver Gold Rush began about this time, since it was right next to the San Juan Islands, more American citizens migrated over to them after the gold rush was depleted. Douglas's fear of the Americans invading Vancouver Island came true. Fortunately for him, he was not displaced, but his business operation was yet again disrupted.

One of these American settlers who came to Vancouver for the gold rush and then migrated to San Juan was a young American farmer named Lyman Cutler, and he's going to be a little important pretty soon. So once Lyman Cutler came to San Juan, he set up a potato farm. For some reason, when creating his farm, Lyman only fenced three sides of the potato field. Not quite certain why,

but I guess he's supposed, if they cover three sides, surely they will never suspect that a, fourth side was empty. Charles Griffin lived nearby. One of his pigs, one specific one, would continuously break into Cutler's fields and eat his potatoes. Cutler usually would just chase him off and would complain to Griffin, but Finn would not care. This was a common occurrence of this one pig just wandering into Cutler's field and eating his potatoes. So this started a bit of a rivalry between Cutler and Douglas. On one instance, Lyman complained to Griffin about his pig wandering into his

field and eating his crops. And Griffin responded with one of the most profound quotes in history. It is not my problem to keep my pig out of your potatoes, but you to keep your potatoes out of my pig. End quote. Truly one of the most majestic sentences ever uttered in history. Lyman eventually got so fed up with the pig coming onto his field, eating his precious livestock, his livelihood. So you shot the pig, as you would. Maybe he was just having a bad day. Who knows? But you shot the pig, but felt pretty remorseful afterwards. So he goes to Griffin and he explains the situation like, hey, sorry, I shot your pig. I didn't really mean to, but, you know, he's eating my crops. And to To recompensate for the loss of the pig, Cutler offered $10 a lot more than the pig was worth

quite generous for that period in history. Griffin did not think this was enough and instead demanded $100 for the pig's death. Very outrageous sum at the time. When he refused, Griffin attempted to have Cutler arrested. General William Harney, American governor of Oregon, received word that the British were once again trying to arrest an American citizen on American property. England claimed that they could because it was British property. Again, no one can decide who this land belongs to, so they both try to arrest each other. So Harney was going to use this as an excuse to start a war with England. A bit of backstory about General Harney. He was court-martialed four times, hated basically by everyone in the U.S. U.S. military and the government.

He, however, did have some powerful friends, such as President Polk, who helped him get undeserved promotions. He had attempted and failed to run for president. He was near retirement age at the time of the pig war, but was very ambitious and still planned to one day become president. He is not related to, but has a slight resemblance to current president of Hillsdale College, Dr. Arne, in my opinion, at least. No one knows why he wanted to go to war with Britain so badly, but there are a couple of interesting theories.

One, he was trying to get England involved in U.S. politics, as it was on the verge of civil war between the north and the south. His idea was that if they get England involved early, they might be able to intervene and prevent war from happening for the sake of continuing the cotton trade. But this is unlikely because Harney would go on to fight on the Union side of the Civil War. However, his loyalty was under suspicion. The second theory is just simple glory. He wanted to be that guy. He wanted to be the cool kid who started a war with England, and he probably thought that he would be leading the war.

He thought the best way to start a war with England was doing it over a single dead pig, and that this would make him famous. We're not entirely certain of his motive. But there's one thing several historians agree upon. And that was Harney was an idiot. To initiate his plan, Harney recruited General Pickett to the same picket of Pickett's charge fame in the Battle of Gettysburg. They devised a plan to have Pickett sail near the British forces on the islands and lead them to attack the American ships. After they provoked Pickett, Harney would inform the American government that they were in conflict with England. However, he would write the letter with extreme exaggerations. Not only that,

but Pickett made sure that the letter would take six weeks to arrive and likely another six to return back to him. That way, it would be too late for the American government to tell Pickett to stop his plans, and thus a war between the United States and England would begin. Pickett, for whatever reason, agreed to the plan. Pickett set up his camps, of troops at the edges of the island to continue to tempt the British into attacking. General Douglas saw this and fell for the trap, but no one was killed. The Royal Navy came in and asked Douglas to stop before matters became worse. He listened to reason and agreed.

He stopped the fighting despite his hatred of the Americans and all that they have taken from him. But he requested that they have one more naval ship joined them for protection. against the Americans, even though they already outmanned and outgunned the Americans on the island. He thought they needed another royal ship. After this occurrence, the British offered to make the islands a joint military operation. Pickett refused and threatened to attack them if they landed on San Juan, that being the Royal Navy ships. The British decided to leave, not knowing of their departure, Pickett moved his men. further inland for protection. President Polk got word of this. Admiral Buchanan was sent to fix the

situation on the San Juan Islands on behalf of the American government. He held a small trial and asked Griffin and Lyman Cutler what had happened. They both explained their sides of the pig slaughter. Both told their sides of the story. Lyman said what had happened. The pig ate his crops, So to prevent him from eating more, he shot the pig. Griffin, however, claimed that the pig actually ran off of Lyman's property before he was able to kill it. How Griffin knew this, he didn't witness the event, he only knew because Lyman told him. I don't know. Anyways, Griffin made the claim that the pig was not on Lyman's property when he was shot and was therefore illegal.

Anyways, Buchanan, being the only person with common sense, sense asked the obvious question, why are we starting a war over a pig? Anyways, Buchanan settled the matter. He took England's original offer of making the land a joint military occupation, and it temporarily was for about a dozen years. He removed Pickett from command under request of the British government, but left Harney in charge. He told Harney to not put Pickett back on the island under the British request.

However, Harnie just ignore this and put picket on the island anyways. Why not? The two of them continue to devise plans to start a war with the British government. Word came back to Buchanan about this and he fired both of them. The American people and various news outlets received word of what was happening on the San Juan Islands. Some referred to the conflict as belligerent, arrogant, and even... They also said that it was an island no one had heard of until the other day. A very true statement.

Like, who cares about this island? The only advantage it has is livestock. There's no real resourceful benefit to San Juan. This whole conflict is more just a battle of proving the other government wrong. But others disagreed and said that this was a call for war between Britain. Many continued to say that they should start by taking over the Oregon country, kicking the remaining British out, and doing the same thing with San Juan. It was back to San Juan. Things are going fairly peaceful. It's still uncertain who owns the island, but both America and British once again lived there. But there seemed to be no arresting each other as they agreed to have the island.

the joint military occupation, as was suggested earlier. In 1872, the English and American governments decided that they would finally settle who owned the San Juan Islands. So they asked the German government who they thought owned it, and Germany decided that the United States should have the land. According to the biography of Frederick Douglass's life, no, sorry, Charles Douglas. different 19th century, Douglas. Douglas apparently went onto his porch and started to skip across it in order to reduce stress upon hearing the news. That being that once again, the Americans have taken over English territory.

The British and the Americans lived on the island for 12 years, mostly peacefully, but as the British left the island, they stole the flagpole. making sure that they had the last laugh as they left. Pickett and Harney fought on opposite sides of the Civil War, Harney being in the Union and Pickett being in the Confederacy. But 12 years after the Civil War, the United States government demanded reparations from Britain, and on that list, lo and behold,

were demands for payments from the Pig War. But they refer to it as the San Juan Islands in the document, but still kind of interesting that it was mentioned. The Pig War has been referred to as the San Juan Island border dispute, the Pig episode, and the Pig and Potato War. It's interesting to think about what would have happened if General William Harney had gotten his way and started a war with England. Ties between our two nations may have been permanently damaged, affecting our alliances during the World Wars. This also may have delayed. the American Civil War between the North and South, for who knows how long.

The San Juan Islands are still considered a part of Washington State today. It's a major tourist spot and has become popular through the history of the Pig War and apparently its whale watching programs. Anyways, that is how one pig could have led to a full war between the United States and England. The tragic tale of the pig. war goes to show how people in high places of power are willing to start war over anything. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this little history lesson. Thanks for listening.

Make sure to tune me next time. Goodbye.