March 2, 2021 • 51 mins
In 1859, a dispute between neighbors in the San Juan Islands of the Pacific Northwest led to the untimely death of a local (and very unlucky) pig. What could have been an easily resolved situation quickly ignited simmering tensions between the US and the UK, both of whom claimed the islands as their own territory. In the days and weeks after, soldiers from both nations traveled to the area... each waiting for the other side to make the first move in what almost became a full-on war. Tune in to learn more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Uh, you know, we're no.
I think we should change the headline on on this one.
It's it's a pretty metal headline for a weird and
not super metal story. You know, I would. I would
(00:49):
argue Ben that we doubled down and just just simplify
it and just call it war Pig. You know what.
Actually I am sold on that. And and since our
better third, super producer Casey Pegram is on Adventures Today,
classes out Man, it's up to us a bet sir
(01:09):
off And you know, but I gotta tell you, I
think super producer Casey Pegram would uh super approve of
the title war Pig because I don't know if you
know this, but he is a devout Ozzy Osbourne fanatic.
Are you kidding? It's like the only thing he talks
about off and you just won't shut up about, you know,
(01:32):
iron Man, iron Man, greatest song of all time, Black Sabbath.
He's always like he's always pulling the actual ease about
Black Sabbath, and he's like, did you know that they
were actually a blues band first, and we're like, yeah, Casey,
I know so, And actually it wasn't. It was a
dove that Ozzy bit the head off of, not a
(01:53):
not a rat um. I I don't know. Obviously we
are totally putting words into producer Casey Pegram's mouth, but
I imagine that he feels okay about Black Sabbath. Maybe,
you know, some of Ozzy's latter day stuff got a
little sammy, but I think his legacy is safe overall.
He's also like the father, the weird, kind of drunk
(02:16):
uncle of reality television. Well, you know, one thing I
will say about Casey is, uh, it's funny because future
Casey is editing this. One thing I will say about
him is a lot of people don't know this, but
all of Casey's many tattoos are direct references to Black Sabbath.
So if you ever meet Casey in person and you
(02:39):
want to get on his good side, ask him about
his ask him about his Black sabb and God forbid
you meet him in a dark alley. My friends, h
And by the way, Casey is editing this and presumably
rolling his eyes really hard right now. Um, we love you, Casey.
We're just we're just giving you a hard time. Um,
(02:59):
but you know, uh, speaking of reality television, the list
today's story has the kind of like early makings of
the kind of drama we absolutely live for in reality TV.
You know, it's got the conflict, it's got the simmering resentment.
You know, it's got the overreaction. Uh, and then it's
(03:19):
ultimately got the kind of uh no, not too much
of a spoiler alert, but the kind of anticlimactic ending. Yes. Yeah,
if this were an episode of reality TV, it would
literally be called the Pig episode, and we could call
it war Pig. But this is also known as the
Pig War or uh, the San Juan Boundary dispute. This
(03:45):
is weird. You were kidding about the pig episode? That
is an official title of this, uh, this story as well. Yeah,
that's correct. This this is a weird one. So, uh, folks.
You may be aware of the time that the UK
went to war with what would become known as the
United States in what we call the Revolutionary War, But
(04:08):
did you know the US and the UK almost went
to war again due to a series of ridiculous events
that began in eighteen fifty nine on an island called
San Juan Island. San Juan Island has nothing to do
with Puerto Rico at all. It is a chunk of
land located between the US and Vancouver Island. At the time,
(04:34):
this place was home to settlers from the US and
two British employees of the Hudson Bay Company. What on
earth are you guys talking about? You may ask, where's
the pig? Uh will will tell you about this strange
series of events. By the way, you know, you may
(04:55):
have heard of the Hudson Bay Company. They occupy some
kind of rarefied space in in the business world, and
that they were around in the eighteen hundreds and continue
to be around today. They started off as a fur
trading company and then in two thousand six still a thing,
were acquired by the well known entrepreneur American businessman Jerry
(05:17):
Zucker for one point one billion dollars um. It originally
was a Canadian owned company, and that is very much
the case in today's story. That's right, that's right. So
let's let's take a closer look at San Juan Island.
Let's do it way way way, way, way, way, way way.
(05:38):
Before the arrival of Europeans San Juan Island had its
own thriving community and culture. It had a temperate climate,
the soil was great, had tons of resources, marine and
timber especially, And this bountiful land appealed to Spain, Great Britain,
(05:59):
and the u US. Each of these empires, each of
these forces explored and charted and mapped and named the
islands while they were staking overlapping claims to Oregon County.
Oregon County you'll recognize today as the present states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho,
(06:20):
and then parts of Montana, Wyoming, and British Columbia as well.
Now you might be saying, wait, Spain, Spain's in the mix. Well,
Spain's kind of in the mix in terms of the
name of the island. But they had abandoned their claims
by eighteen eighteen. I think that's right. They took off
(06:42):
and left it to the English and the Americans, who
formed a joint agreement in eighteen eighteen, which, you know,
it seemed nice enough at the time. But to me,
the idea of joint occupation between former bitter rivals does
seem to not necessarily have the longest of term prospects.
(07:06):
In my opinion, seems like somebody would have read flag that.
But you know, I guess it was a lucrative enough
deal that it made sense for both of them to
play nice, and apparently they were able to do that.
They lived in relative harmony. Um, you know, with subjects
of each America doesn't have subjects citizens of the US
(07:27):
and subjects of the British Empire jointly occupying this land
for farming for um grazing, right, because again the soil
is very rich, so it made for some good livestock
grazing as well. And also if you look at a
map in this area, and this is something we'll dive
into a little bit later in to stay show, you'll
(07:49):
see that San Juan Island in particular has a lot
of strategic value. So of course you want, if you're
the UK or the US at this time, you want
to control that spot. You know, resources aside, you want
to be able to be a gatekeeper there for transport.
So pensions start to mount. As he said, No, yes,
(08:14):
there are trade agreements. Yes, there's heavy investment between both
of these nations, both these countries. But over in Oregon County,
the US forces, I think the British presence is offensive, inherently, profoundly,
fundamentally so, because they're laboring under the concept of manifest destiny.
(08:40):
This land is our land. Long story short, it is
right you you kind of nailed it. But it is
a grand idea, right, But it also sort of, you know,
doesn't really think of others. Let's say, it's sort of like,
you know, we're gonna do what we're gonna do. Anybody
else interests be damned. Would you say that that's about
(09:02):
the size of it. Yeah, yeah, you're right. No, So
manifest destiny is a kind of American exceptionalism. It was
this widely held belief in the eighteen hundreds nineteenth century
US that there was some sort of predestination, some sort
of like it was the fate of the American people
(09:27):
to expand across the continent because they were inherently special,
inherently different, and somehow exceptional in comparison to the rest
of the world. British people included, Sorry, your majesty. The
thing is, the British did not agree. As you might imagine.
They believed that they had a legal right to these
(09:48):
lands because of earlier treaties and earlier established activity of
the Hudson's Bay Company, which was a Canadian company which
was under the oversight of the British Crown. Yes, yeah,
just so, yeah, these internal differences and feelings of superiority aside.
(10:09):
On June eight in London, they signed the Treaty of Oregon.
And the Treaty of Oregon did something really important, really important,
but as we'll see, done especially helpful. Uh. They the
Treaty of Oregon sets the boundary on the forty parallel,
so from the Rocky Mountains to quote, the middle of
(10:33):
the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island ends
quote then south through the channel to the Strait of
Wanda Fuca and west to the Pacific Ocean. Seems clean
enough until you, you know, get on the ground, right
or even like look at a detailed enough map. That's fine.
(10:55):
That there's a band from Athens and if they're still active,
that it was called Kuanda Fuca and that or knew
what that was the reference to. So here you go. Um,
here's the thing. Like you said, Ben, there there was
you know, where the rubber met the road. A bit
of an issue. The San Juan Islands were in between
Vancouver Island and the mainland, meaning that because of this
(11:17):
geographical situation, there was actually a channel on either side,
and the treaty didn't say which the side was the
actual border exactly. So what do you the channel? I mean,
that's right, there's literally two channels? Which one you gotta
do better? Perfect storm for you know, a massive argument,
(11:45):
uh and pissing contest, especially with super legalistic people, right
and uh, diplomats and negotiators. Yeah, so there are two
possibilities here, one something called the Harrow Straight h A
r O and one something called the rosar Oreo straight
the San Juan Islands, right, smack dab between these, and
(12:07):
both sides round up on their mapping of the forty
ninth parallel and both sides say, well, yeah, actually this
this part is ours, so we'll just snatch this part.
The first claims from the Hudson's Bay Company come back
in eighteen five. They're based at Fort Victoria, and they
claimed San Juan Island, which was only seven miles across
(12:30):
the Harrow Strait. By eighteen fifty one, they had established
some pretty strong industry there, Like eighteen fifty one, there
they've got these salmon curing stations. But then the US
also enters the chat as we would say in the
modern day. By eighteen fifty three, the US had claimed
(12:51):
these as possessions that were part of what they called
the Washington Territory. So then what follows like another back
and forth of people trying to get more diplomatic street
credit for their claim to the islands. Yeah, and Hudson
Bay companies establishing uh sheep farms are a sheep farm
(13:13):
rather than Bellevue sheep farm that's along the island's southern shore. Um.
And this, weirdly, I've never really thought of sheep as
being a tool of political machinations, but this was just
so um. It was a politically motivated move because the
islands climate and like we said, the soil uh and
(13:35):
the conditions were rife for for grazing. UM. And the
flock expanded from sixty nine individual sheepy's to more than
four thousand, five hundred UH that were scattered across the island. Yeah.
And while this is happening, people in the US who
(13:57):
are looking to migrate and settle elsewhere on the continent,
they're all hearing about this great review of the San
Juan Islands by something called the Northwest Boundary Survey. Uh.
These naturalists are saying, you know what's great if you're
looking for a new place to live, Hey, this land
(14:18):
is your land, right, come over to this awesome island.
You got all the fish you want. The soil is great,
the climate is surprisingly awesome, and it's had backcheck ever
so slightly. You know, when I said that the sheep
farm move was politically motivated, I mean a lot of
this stuff was politically motivated. It was it was like
making the case for their claim by saying, well, we
(14:42):
established the sheep farm this time. Uh, and and it's
it's profitable or whatever, um or even if it wasn't profitable.
Just the establishment of all of these various little stations, uh,
in their minds at least, you know, kind of up
the ante as far as the validity of their claim
was concerned. So by the spring of eighteen fifty nine,
(15:02):
we had eighteen Americans settling on claims that were staked
on some of these really top sheep grazing lands. Um.
And they believed that because of the US's involvement, and
they're kind of bullish uh handling of the situation, that
they would be supported by the US government and the
(15:23):
U S Government would recognize their claims as valid um.
But the British UH not only didn't recognize their claim
they believed them to be illegal UH and considered the
claimants to be trespassers on their prime sheep grazing land.
Even referred to them as squatters. And this really started
(15:43):
to escalate this simmering resentment that we were talking about
from the start, right, Yeah, that's that's the thing. So
from the British perspective, these folks are illegal immigrants, you
know what I mean. Now, of course we have to
point out the tremendous hypocrisy of the British and the
(16:05):
US forces saying that people are illegally occupying land. Especially
we can consider the native population that was living in
North America for thousands of years. So here we are
both the US and Britain playing the islands. Are their
own settlers from both countries have been living and working
(16:29):
on on these islands in this area and they got
along well enough, which is odd when you think about it,
because I was trying to think of, like, um, an
impactful day to day kind of example or analogy here, Like, imagine, folks,
if my pal Null rented an apartment. Let's say I'm
(16:51):
a landlord and I rent out an apartment to knows,
but then I rent out an apartment to Casey. It's
the same apartment. These guys are ends, right, but they
both say, I own this apartment. You know, why are
you always here? Why are you bringing people? Casey shows
up with a thousand plus cheap and Nol was like, hey, dude,
(17:11):
you can come over, but just to be straight with you,
this is my apartment. The tension rises, Esenal said, and
it reaches ahead exactly thirteen years after the signing of
the Oregon Treaty. On June eighteen fifty nine. There's a
guy we have to introduce called Lyman Cutler. He is
(17:32):
a farmer and he sees this large black pig a boar,
rooting in his garden. His neighbor on the other side
of his fence is an irishman named Charles Griffin. Charles
Griffin is watching this pig route through Cutler's crops and
(17:52):
he's he's laughing about it. He's like, yes, going going
get him. And then Cutler's pretty pot out this, so
he takes out his rifle and he shoots the pig.
The problem is his neighbor owns the pig, and Charles
Griffin sometimes called Charles Griffith, he's not a U S immigrant,
He's a British subject and he is an employee of
(18:16):
Hudson's Bay. Yeah he he was, UM, and I you know,
there's there's part of me that can understand his righteous
indignation here, I suppose, especially given the flaring tensions UH
because of this kind of stalemate situation. UM. But also
like he he was known for letting his pigs roam
(18:37):
around the land. Whether that was like uh f you
kind of middle finger flex to to the other inhabitants
who were not British subjects. I have to imagine that
this affected other neighbors of his that were British subjects.
So doesn't sound like the most considerate UH neighbor to
be sharing this plot of land with. So it's highly
(18:59):
likely that his pigs had messed around both in Cutler's
land before UH and in others. Cutler's land admittedly was
surrounded by a three sided fence according to some official
complaints UH that are around UM. So you know, they
let things simmer for a minute and and and tempers
(19:20):
you know, cooled down, cooler has prevailed and all that. Uh.
And Cutler offered, in what he clearly thought was a
very magnanimous gesture, uh, and and probably a very generous one. Um,
considering you know, we can inflation calculator this probably but
he offered to pay ten dollars uh for the pig,
for the life of the pig after the fact, postmortem. Um,
(19:43):
so what would that be? What would ten dollars be
in eighteen fifty nine, ten dollars casey hit us with
that sound cue boo boo boo boop boop boop boop boop.
Eight it's uh. Ten dollars would be the equivalent of
three hundred and fifteen bucks today. If you are wondering
(20:04):
what the average cost of a pig is, uh, the
average price of a pig under eighty pounds is two
hundred and thirty bucks roughly. So, so ten dollars would
have been, you know, a pretty reasonable thing. But Griffin,
for one reason or another, wasn't having it, and instead
(20:28):
he demanded not ten dollars but a hundred dollars. Oh
my gosh, I see that clearly again, knowing what we
know about the inflation the rate of inflation there. Clearly,
I would say, three hundred dollars for a pig, even
by today's standards, seems about right. Don't you feel like
it's fair, especially considering the pig was the aggressor. The
(20:51):
pig was indeed the aggressor. So this, uh, doubling down,
this one hundred dollars, seems designed to cause a problem. Uh,
And it did because Cutler doubled down and returned by saying,
what you said, Ben, the pig, I shouldn't have to
pay anything. I was being generous to offer you ten dollars.
Your pig was rooting around in my cabbage patch or whatever. Uh,
(21:15):
And I shouldn't have to pay you a dime. Your
your animal was trespassing on my land. Oh that's where
we get into, right, my land trespassing. These types of
terms are very charged. Yeah. I I suspect there was something, uh,
some ulterior motive here, man, because first they claim about
(21:37):
the land. You're right, that's a powder keg. But secondly,
that's a crazy price for a pig, isn't it. I mean,
unless it was like you know, babe pig in the
city or you know, Wilburg could do tricks and stuff
caliber some pig um. Yeah, this was absolutely a number
that was designed to infuriate because if we run that
(21:57):
handy dandy inflation calculator one more time, be be poop uh,
we get the exorbitant number of three thousand, one d
and fifty one dollars and fifty nine cents. I don't
know this pig better, you know, poop gold uh and
(22:19):
do backflips and possibly recite you know, epic poetry for
that amount. Yeah. I mean maybe Griffith was you know,
maybe it was like his prize pet pig. Maybe they
had a deep relationship that can happen. I am not
implying that. I was thinking more of emotionally charged familial bonds,
(22:46):
you know, a man in his pig. Uh. So then
you're not talking me down from my my possibility there.
I'm certainly I'm certainly not gonna entertain it purposely. So
this disagreement spreads around the very small community on the island,
(23:12):
and the HBC Hudson's Bay Company employees obviously go full
in supporting Griffin or Griffith and the families from the
US on San Juan they're about at this time. They
of course have Cutlers back. So British forces threatened to
(23:34):
arrest this farmer. To arrest Cutler, his neighbors go, ham,
that's terrible. But they, you know, they go wild. And
so they call the U. S. Military and they say, look,
these British forces are basically invading us. They have no
authority here. And Uncle Sam is like, you're absolutely right,
you twenty five families on this island. Let's send in
(23:58):
the troops. So both government end up sending their militaries
to the San Juan Islands. Yeah. Yeah. Uh So now
not only is this this the island occupied by uh
warring families. I mean, I don't know this. It's certainly
possible that many of them stayed out of it and
(24:19):
and that they just wanted to like go about their business.
But I can imagine the taking of sides probably took
place because, like you said, Ben, this uh the kerfuffle
kind of began to circulate. And I'm just picturing, you know,
the suscerous of of discontent circulating between the two factions,
the Brits and the Yanks. Uh and bring in joint
(24:40):
military occupation. Uh And And that sounds like a real
recipe for disaster. With already um that reality TV show
level resentment about to boil over absolutely, the U. S
Forces dispatch sixties six soldiers from the ninth Infantry Regiment
to San Juan. This detachment is under the command of
(25:06):
of a kind of hot headed guy by the name
of George Pickett, hailing from Virginia. Just four years after this,
Pickett would lead a well, he would help lead a
disastrous infantry charge from the rebel forces into the center
of Union lines at the infamous Battle of Gettysburg. But
(25:28):
now four years before Gettysburg. Pickets Unit lands on July
fifty nine, and they set up camp near the wharf
that is occupied by Hudson's Bay Company, Griffin Bay. It's
just north of that sheep farm that you have mentioned earlier.
(25:49):
NOL and the regional authorities, the British authorities are freaked out,
understandably because they're like, hey, we claimed this island right,
because nobody really figured out the problem with those two
straits and and the problem of that forty nine parallels.
So British authorities are asking themselves why in blue blazes,
(26:09):
oh wait, maybe an accent will have the US troops
so on our islands and then they call in three warships.
So if you're just like to your point about some
people probably just staying out of it, some people probably
just wanted to fish or to uh you know, live
their life on their island farm. This is a hell
of a week. This is crazy. I think there should
(26:31):
be a theme for Animal Crossing based on this story.
That's a beautiful idea. Would on board, Yes, sir, it's
totally doable. I mean, really, what is animal crossing if
not this situation kind of under a microscope. It's all
of these different, uh you know, anthropomorphic creatures supposedly trying
(26:52):
to live together in harmony. And I'm sure there are
a little cute see, you know, disagreements that pop up.
I don't really play the game, but how one would
it be for there to be, like for someone to
stage a re enactment of this story on the Animal
Crossing island. Um, I think we should. We should reach
out to Nintendo with our brilliant idea. Um. But the
people that were there, you know, now things are really
(27:15):
off the rails. Not only is there this disagreement that
has turned into a low key military occupation. Now you
have these U S troops that are moving in and
a thirty one gun steam frigate, a frigate, which I
love that word, by the way, I also love the
word a wharf. Uh. And that frigate in question is
(27:36):
the h MS Tribune, which was sent to uh knock
pick it off as a high horse, but also with
instructions to avoid out and out war. Yeah, they're they're
supposed to avoid a war because you know, a war
between the US and the UK at this time could
quickly become a global event, right uh, and it would
(28:00):
it would certainly be something that would consume the entire
continent of North America. So, in a euphemistic way, you
could say, the HMS Tribune was sent there to uh
just flex some maritime muscle and inspire Picket to move
somewhere else. The Tribune is backed up by these other
two ships we mentioned. They are the HMS Satellite and
(28:22):
the HMS Plumper, which is a ridiculous name ship. It's
just if it's so adorable. That's an animal crossing warship.
And these are each ships that pack heat. Uh. They
also have forty six Royal Marines in the mix, fifteen
Royal engineers. Picket is unmoved he has uninspired to continue
(28:45):
the euphemism, so instead of withdrawing, he writes to his
superiors for help and uh. During this time, for the
rest of July and then into August as well, both
grew are Both groups are acquiring more support. The British
are acquiring more royal marines, many of whom are battle hardened.
(29:10):
We're talking about people who had uh stormed beaches in
China not too long ago. And then on the U
s side, Pickett is kind of concerned with just putting
more feathers in his own cap. He's thinking, I'm already
low key famous because of my deeds in the Mexican War.
(29:30):
This is a chance to make myself even more of
a prominent American hero. Uh. He is threatening. He is
like squawking left and right. He's threatening the British on
their ships. He's antagonizing them. He's say, you're going to
have another bunker hill if you guys try to land
(29:50):
on the island. This land is our land. He probably said, sincerely,
without a note of irony. This, How does that old
saying go this um this something will not will not
stand there it is. Do you think any American general
ever just like aggressively said the words manifest destiny and
(30:15):
then slam their fists down on the table. I hope, so,
I definitely hope. So it seems like something they would do.
So this profoundly offends the British. This guy named James Douglas,
he's a governor of the Vancouver Island Colony, and he
orders the British naval commander, Rear Admiral Robert Baines, two
(30:37):
land marines on the island, get your house in order.
He's saying, he's smacking that table to your example, is
saying this saggression will not stand. Says this is a
British island. You get in there, you reassert British control.
And huge credit, huge shout out to Rear Admiral Baines,
(30:58):
because he diplomatically refuses, and he cites the reason that
we mentioned earlier. He said, you know, if we push
this too far, with all due respect, Governor, we could
end up in a war. And that's the last thing
anybody wants. There's something amazing about people who are able
(31:20):
to possess that clarity of thought when everything is going
south and getting into this, you know, this war text
of bad decisions and reactionary thought. This guy, the admiral,
is the one of the first people in the story
who says, should we start a world war? Should we
(31:43):
start another revolutionary war over this guy's pig? You know,
even if you love the pig. However, you know it's okay, okay,
how's a callback hashtag text? Pick? Um, I feel like
we're overlooking slightly, maybe just just just out loud, uh,
(32:04):
the idea or the fact that many huge scale wars
are caused by some little minute tipping point event, some
larger than others. Obviously, like the assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand and all of that. Um, Ben, you're more of
the international affairs expert than me, but I think you
would agree that huge scale conflicts often result from small
(32:29):
scale events, Yeah, or are triggered by Obviously, it's not
the only thing. It's it's based on a huge run
up to that thing, and that's the straw that breaks
the you know, the camel's back or whatever. Yeah, that's
a really good point. Well, because we see the multiple
factors lead to wars and the thing that becomes that
catalyst that Malcolm Gladwell asked, tipping point that can be
(32:52):
a relatively small thing. It's just it becomes somehow symbolic
of the accumulation of those other are factors and variables
leading to a conflict. You are absolutely right, so pick
it on the U S side. He gets reinforcements. A
hundred and seventy one men under the command of Lieutenant
(33:14):
Colonel Silas Casey arrived on August ten, and they go
to Victoria and they talked to Rear Admiral Baines. They say, Okay,
this is a reasonable guy. There's something so surreal and
almost like doctor Strange love about this. How these highly
regarded military leaders have to meet up to figure out
(33:35):
whether or not they're going to war over this dispute
from these neighbors. And so much of it, I mean,
you know, we use the word diplomacy, but so much
of it has to do with personalities and has to
do with like these like microaggressions, you know what I mean,
Like the idea of someone being unreasonable or pushing someone
too far, even just conversationally. Like so many decisions are
(33:59):
made based on that kind of calculus, or one would
hope not by the the the better more strategic generals.
But we know that based on the amazing satire that
is Dr Strangelove. Uh, some of these things can be
quite arbitrary and based on ego and posturing. Oh yeah,
(34:20):
and you know what, I think posturing should be the
word of the day on today's episode because this is
what follows now is all about posturing show of force, right. Uh.
The the guy who mentioned earlier, Lieutenant Colonel Casey. He
goes to meet with Bains and Baines by the way,
(34:40):
Baines is another battle hardened veteran. He had been in
the Battle of New Orleans in eighteen fifteen. He's got
a He's on board a ship, the HMS Ganges. It
has eighty four guns. And when uh, when Casey gets
to Baines and sees the ship, he calls on. He
(35:02):
calls on Baines and says, hey, well you come meet
us at this lighthouse. And Baines says, nice strike, kiddo.
I learned a thing or two in my days of
war and days of yore. I don't know if he's
excellent freestyling like that, but he says, look, I'm not
(35:22):
leaving my ship. Uh. And then Casey looks at the
ship and he's thinking Wow, this is intimidating. This this
ship is huge. So he goes back to San Juan
and he sends word to say, like, we need more people,
We need reinforcements. If we're really gonna do this, if
(35:43):
we're really gonna go to war over some territorial claims
and over this, you know, hapless, unfortunate pig, then I
need some firepower. So by August thirty one, there were
four hundred and sixty one Americans camped out in the
(36:07):
woods north of that sheep farm we mentioned, which I
hilariously referred to earlier as belle Vou, because that's clearly
a thing. It is, in fact Bellevue. There was an
errant e that had just dropped off of of our notes,
and those troops were protected by fourteen giant cannons known
as Field cannons. Not to mention the thirty two pound
(36:30):
naval guns that were taken off the U. S s.
Massachusetts and installed under the guidance of Second Lieutenant Henry M. Robert.
Uh So, the Americans were absolutely digging in their heels
um and the British were over conducting drills with their
fifty two total guns. Yep, there's the posturing, so they would, uh,
(36:51):
they would shoot nearby. This is something we see sometimes
with modern day military x sercizes. Right, you're going into,
for instance, the South China Sea and you're like, oh,
we're just making sure our battleships are ready. We're just
doing that in front of you. Everyone be cool. We're
(37:12):
we're practicing. This one doesn't count, so that that's what
they're doing. This is maybe the most American part of
the story. Tourists get involved fun. It's like people and
this this is so weird. This happens in other North
American conflicts throughout history. Tourists start traveling to the area
(37:35):
from Victoria and they they say like, hey, let's let's
go watch. Let's go watch the military drill. Do you
think there will be a war? It's this ridiculous. This
is very interesting, Ben because I can't believe it's never
occurred to me sooner at least as like a good
sketch or like a Monty Python esque kind of situation.
(37:58):
The idea of war tourists like obviously we have you know,
conflict reporters that are civilians that are you know, embedded
in war zones and there to do a job. But
how come we don't think about like the absurd concept
of like a family wearing Hawaiian shirts and eating popcorn,
like touching down in Sarajevo or whatever to watch the fireworks. Yeah, yeah,
(38:24):
it may have fallen off a bit in the modern day,
but you know what, we should do an episode about
it because it was a thing. It was definitely a thing.
And yeah, it's kind of messed up. It was considered
as spectacle. Happened in Europe pretty frequently to Uh. So
there's something else here, and and I love that this
points out how absurd these conflicts can become. There's something
(38:48):
very like Vonna gut esque about this. The officers from
both sides, both the British and the US, they go
to church together while these tensions are mounting. They go
to church aboard the HMS satellite. Uh. They also go
to the Irish guy, Charles Griffin or Charles Griffith's home
(39:11):
and they hang out and they get kind of lit.
They drink whiskey and smoke cigars. But they're still like
after that, right, like after their hangout sessions with the
Lord or with whiskey and cigars. After those hangout sessions
They're like, Okay, we're gonna go back to our posts.
Let's hope we don't start a war tomorrow. Uh are
(39:34):
you gonna He's not gonna do it. Yeah, okay, see
see your Monday. No, that's what I'm saying that these moments,
the idea of these like military leaders lounging around together
with their whiskey and cigars, it reminds me of another
Stanley Kubrick movie actually called Paths of Glory, which um
isn't quite as heavily satirical as Doctor Strangelove, but it's
(39:56):
very difficult for something to be because that one is
just over the top, you know, to to steal your word,
cartoonishly satirical. But Paths of Glory involves uh, World War One,
I want to say, um, like trench warfare hardcore, where
these um generals very callously make the decision to send
troops on a an utter suicide mission, and they do
(40:20):
it while lounging in this like French villa, drinking brandies
and smoking cigars. So that's kind of the callousness that
I'm talking about. Terrible, and so these you know, we
don't it's lost to history. We don't know how chill
these folks were when they were actually hanging out, or
if they were just sort of checking the cultural boxes
(40:41):
right of going to church, of being officers holding parley.
But we do know for the rest of that summer,
the officers and forces on both sides, we're playing chicken. Basically,
they were trying to get the other side to fire
the first shot, because then anything they did would be
(41:02):
an act of defense, right, so they would not be
quote unquote the bad guys. This was gonna go sideways
very easily, you know what I mean. Forget if Franz
Ferdinand another pig getting shot could have possibly put US
and the UK into a state of war. Luckily, officials
(41:22):
from both nations find out about this when news of
the crisis reaches Washington in late August. Here's the other
absurd thing about this. The officials, both from Britain and
the US had no idea what was happening in San Juan.
(41:43):
Because the whole time the forces there in Oregon County
have been like, um, they have been asking their superiors
for reinforcements, but they were asking their regional superiors, you
know what I mean. No one was talking to the
British monarchy. No one was talking to the US president,
see President James Buchanan. When he finds out about this,
(42:04):
he has an oh, snap, this could be bad moment.
And so he sends a general named Winfield Scott to investigate.
And he says, look, General, you need to go there,
and you need to make these people calm down, because
we don't want to be in another war. Uh. Scott
had a history about of this. He had a resume,
(42:24):
he had ease tensions on two other border disputes. Yeah,
something of like a hostage negotiator type vibe, or like
a dog whisperer, but like for troops. Um. So Buchanan
um was already up to his neck in trying to
prevent war on another front between the Northern and Southern
(42:46):
states of the United States. Uh. And saw this whole
kerfuffle on the island as an absolute waste of time.
So he wanted to do whatever it took to shut
it down. Uh. And Winfield Scott, you know, with his
certain set of skill, was his best hope, I think right.
So he sailed down through Panama. Took him six weeks.
He got there uh in October um and started chatting
(43:09):
with Douglas Via you know, like Courier UM, and the
two arranged for each UM leader, each representative of each
nation to withdraw their troops, leaving a single company of
troops from each side there and one warship, one British
warship anchored in the bay. So peace upon you San
(43:35):
Juan Islands. This joint military occupation last another twelve years.
During that twelve years, there is no shot fired over time.
Of course, these occupying troops were talking about a hundred
dudes on each side. These occupying troops, they become buddies,
their co workers and you know, other co workers. At
(43:58):
this point, they get together a celebrate the holidays. Uh.
They even they even play some sports and games. After
thirteen years of sometimes stilted negotiations, you know, held up
in part by the Civil War, Uh, the US Britain
agreed to allow another party two come in like a
(44:21):
third party, to help solve the dispute over San Juan Island.
And that third party they choose is the ruler of
a brand new nation, a newly established station called Germany.
At ruler's name Kaiser Wilhelm. First A good kaiser role.
I was your favorite type of brad Ben. You know,
(44:41):
I have thought about this a lot. It's very difficult
to choose. I've recently become obsessed with submarine sandwiches. Uh,
and I'm doing some some really uh intriguing experiments ridiculous historians.
You may or may not know this, but my long
suffering colleagues have had to listen to me become obsessively
(45:01):
wrapped up in different food experience experience like a case.
Not on purpose, not on purpose, you got me? Um, Yeah,
it's stuff to choose. The Kaiser is not named after
the bread, in case anybody was wanting that's unfortunate. Perhaps
the other way around. Uh, perhaps this was the Kaiser's
(45:22):
favorite bread. But but the Kaiser is a is a
is a post, right, It's like a It's basically like
a general or or or an emperor or something. Right, Yeah,
the German Emperor got it, or the head of the
Holy Roman Empire, Emperor of Austria. Or of course a
round soft roll of bread with a crisp crust, I
like a nice crusty baguette. Or if you want to
(45:43):
go completely different route of brioche, there's this. I tried
this bread that is croissant bread. It's like a loaf
of croissants that's just also bread. It's pretty good. Man
layers in there with the airpot against UH, and then
(46:03):
you know, sucker for tusking garlic loof. Anyway, anyway, the
Kaiser forms the commission. On October one, eighteen seventy two,
they announced their ruling, and they rule in favor of
the US, which means they established that boundary from the
Oregon Treaty to go through Harrow Strait. And this is
(46:24):
why the San Juan Islands are part of the US today.
This is the final boundary between Canada and the US.
It's it's finally set. November two, the Royal Marines finally
moved from their camp. And you know, I'm speculating here, Noll,
(46:45):
but I imagine it was a little bitter sweet because
these people have become friends and they're like, what's happening
to our kickball league? Bro, It's not about the dead
pigs that caused UH near military catastrophe. It's about the
friend that we made along the way, exactly. And that
is why the only casualty in the entirety of this
(47:07):
conflict was that one incredibly unfortunate pig. If you're in
the area, why not swing by the San Juan Island
National Historical Park. You can still visit the site of
both the British and the American camps. And fun fact,
it is the only United States national park where a
foreign flag is regularly hoisted over United States soil. And
(47:33):
that is because both the flag and the flag pole
were a gift from the British government as a sign
of the friends we made along the way. You know,
there's one thing that haunts me about this. It's just
one thing. What was the name of the pig? You know,
it's a good question, Ben. We'll have to just name
(47:53):
him in our hearts. We'll have to just well, you
know what, let's all let's just keep it to ourselves
like a wish, like a secret wish when you throw
a penny in a fountain, and we'll all just secretly
name the pig in our hearts, because that's where he lives. Now,
that's where he resides. Uh. If you don't want to
keep it in your hearts, and you want to give
(48:13):
us your best, uh, your best names for this unfortunate
but historically important pig. We love to hear him. You
can tell us about it online, where you can find
us at our Facebook page Ridiculous Historians. You can also
find us on social media, not just as a show,
but as individuals, that's correct. You can find me exclusively
(48:36):
on Instagram, where I post relatively regularly with you know,
pictures of my twelve year old newly quite goth cost
playing daughter and our adventures together and you know, music
stuff and memes and the like, and uh you know
all that. Ben, you're a bit more of a Twitter
with with with quite a lovely Twitter presence. Yeah, that's
(48:57):
kind of oll. Yeah, I am uh not more a Twitterer.
I am on Twitter and Instagram. You can find me
on Instagram. I just busted one of my cats out
of cat jail. I'm at Ben Bowling. You can also
find me on Twitter. Hit me up with weird ridiculous
history facts or questions. Always love to hear them at
Ben Bowling hs W. You know, big thanks to super
(49:22):
producer Casey Pegram, who will be who is with us
in spirit and we'll be joining us for our next episode.
He sure will. And then I just want to say
I did not mean to imply that you did not
also have an epically delightful Instagram account. Uh, you are
just quite the word smith on Twitter and uh and
I very much enjoy those posts, which you also repost
(49:43):
on Instagram in case people miss it in a Twitter
person so highly recommend you follow both of those accounts
of my good friend Ben Bolan Shucks. Uh, you don't know.
I gotta I gotta show you this cat. It's a story.
It's a story for off the air by I want
to put you on the spot too much, man, But
for folks who don't know, my friend Noll is uh
(50:07):
prodigiously talented in the realm of music. So if you
ask him politely, you like how I'm volunteering you, Man,
you ask him politely, he might give you a sneak
peak of some stuff I might And maybe one day
I'll make that SoundCloud I've been talking about for low
these many years. I do. I do have some things
in the works though, Uh and I appreciate the shout out. Ben,
(50:29):
um huge thanks to Christopher hasciotes here in spirit Gay
Blusier research or Extraordinary who will be joining us. We've
got him on the books for a very special episode,
very special episode. Um, I can't wait. We had a
really nice talk with him the other day. Things are
going great. We're all still friends and I think he
might be dropping in a little more on a regular
(50:52):
schedule coming up soon. Yeah, we finally talked Goodbye into
hanging out with us. It was very much a bromance
eating I think, but I can't wait to have you
on Gabe of course. Also speaking music, huge thanks to
Alex Williams who composed this slap and bop you're probably
hearing crescendo gently in the background now, And thanks to
(51:14):
Jonathan Strickland's who you Know a k The Quister who
you Know would have absolutely killed it with some ridiculous
British accents in today's show. Agreed, We'll see you next time. Books.
(51:37):
For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Uh, you know, we're no.
I think we should change the headline on on this one.
It's it's a pretty metal headline for a weird and
not super metal story. You know, I would. I would
(00:49):
argue Ben that we doubled down and just just simplify
it and just call it war Pig. You know what.
Actually I am sold on that. And and since our
better third, super producer Casey Pegram is on Adventures Today,
classes out Man, it's up to us a bet sir
(01:09):
off And you know, but I gotta tell you, I
think super producer Casey Pegram would uh super approve of
the title war Pig because I don't know if you
know this, but he is a devout Ozzy Osbourne fanatic.
Are you kidding? It's like the only thing he talks
about off and you just won't shut up about, you know,
(01:32):
iron Man, iron Man, greatest song of all time, Black Sabbath.
He's always like he's always pulling the actual ease about
Black Sabbath, and he's like, did you know that they
were actually a blues band first, and we're like, yeah, Casey,
I know so, And actually it wasn't. It was a
dove that Ozzy bit the head off of, not a
(01:53):
not a rat um. I I don't know. Obviously we
are totally putting words into producer Casey Pegram's mouth, but
I imagine that he feels okay about Black Sabbath. Maybe,
you know, some of Ozzy's latter day stuff got a
little sammy, but I think his legacy is safe overall.
He's also like the father, the weird, kind of drunk
(02:16):
uncle of reality television. Well, you know, one thing I
will say about Casey is, uh, it's funny because future
Casey is editing this. One thing I will say about
him is a lot of people don't know this, but
all of Casey's many tattoos are direct references to Black Sabbath.
So if you ever meet Casey in person and you
(02:39):
want to get on his good side, ask him about
his ask him about his Black sabb and God forbid
you meet him in a dark alley. My friends, h
And by the way, Casey is editing this and presumably
rolling his eyes really hard right now. Um, we love you, Casey.
We're just we're just giving you a hard time. Um,
(02:59):
but you know, uh, speaking of reality television, the list
today's story has the kind of like early makings of
the kind of drama we absolutely live for in reality TV.
You know, it's got the conflict, it's got the simmering resentment.
You know, it's got the overreaction. Uh, and then it's
(03:19):
ultimately got the kind of uh no, not too much
of a spoiler alert, but the kind of anticlimactic ending. Yes. Yeah,
if this were an episode of reality TV, it would
literally be called the Pig episode, and we could call
it war Pig. But this is also known as the
Pig War or uh, the San Juan Boundary dispute. This
(03:45):
is weird. You were kidding about the pig episode? That
is an official title of this, uh, this story as well. Yeah,
that's correct. This this is a weird one. So, uh, folks.
You may be aware of the time that the UK
went to war with what would become known as the
United States in what we call the Revolutionary War, But
(04:08):
did you know the US and the UK almost went
to war again due to a series of ridiculous events
that began in eighteen fifty nine on an island called
San Juan Island. San Juan Island has nothing to do
with Puerto Rico at all. It is a chunk of
land located between the US and Vancouver Island. At the time,
(04:34):
this place was home to settlers from the US and
two British employees of the Hudson Bay Company. What on
earth are you guys talking about? You may ask, where's
the pig? Uh will will tell you about this strange
series of events. By the way, you know, you may
(04:55):
have heard of the Hudson Bay Company. They occupy some
kind of rarefied space in in the business world, and
that they were around in the eighteen hundreds and continue
to be around today. They started off as a fur
trading company and then in two thousand six still a thing,
were acquired by the well known entrepreneur American businessman Jerry
(05:17):
Zucker for one point one billion dollars um. It originally
was a Canadian owned company, and that is very much
the case in today's story. That's right, that's right. So
let's let's take a closer look at San Juan Island.
Let's do it way way way, way, way, way, way way.
(05:38):
Before the arrival of Europeans San Juan Island had its
own thriving community and culture. It had a temperate climate,
the soil was great, had tons of resources, marine and
timber especially, And this bountiful land appealed to Spain, Great Britain,
(05:59):
and the u US. Each of these empires, each of
these forces explored and charted and mapped and named the
islands while they were staking overlapping claims to Oregon County.
Oregon County you'll recognize today as the present states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho,
(06:20):
and then parts of Montana, Wyoming, and British Columbia as well.
Now you might be saying, wait, Spain, Spain's in the mix. Well,
Spain's kind of in the mix in terms of the
name of the island. But they had abandoned their claims
by eighteen eighteen. I think that's right. They took off
(06:42):
and left it to the English and the Americans, who
formed a joint agreement in eighteen eighteen, which, you know,
it seemed nice enough at the time. But to me,
the idea of joint occupation between former bitter rivals does
seem to not necessarily have the longest of term prospects.
(07:06):
In my opinion, seems like somebody would have read flag that.
But you know, I guess it was a lucrative enough
deal that it made sense for both of them to
play nice, and apparently they were able to do that.
They lived in relative harmony. Um, you know, with subjects
of each America doesn't have subjects citizens of the US
(07:27):
and subjects of the British Empire jointly occupying this land
for farming for um grazing, right, because again the soil
is very rich, so it made for some good livestock
grazing as well. And also if you look at a
map in this area, and this is something we'll dive
into a little bit later in to stay show, you'll
(07:49):
see that San Juan Island in particular has a lot
of strategic value. So of course you want, if you're
the UK or the US at this time, you want
to control that spot. You know, resources aside, you want
to be able to be a gatekeeper there for transport.
So pensions start to mount. As he said, No, yes,
(08:14):
there are trade agreements. Yes, there's heavy investment between both
of these nations, both these countries. But over in Oregon County,
the US forces, I think the British presence is offensive, inherently, profoundly,
fundamentally so, because they're laboring under the concept of manifest destiny.
(08:40):
This land is our land. Long story short, it is
right you you kind of nailed it. But it is
a grand idea, right, But it also sort of, you know,
doesn't really think of others. Let's say, it's sort of like,
you know, we're gonna do what we're gonna do. Anybody
else interests be damned. Would you say that that's about
(09:02):
the size of it. Yeah, yeah, you're right. No, So
manifest destiny is a kind of American exceptionalism. It was
this widely held belief in the eighteen hundreds nineteenth century
US that there was some sort of predestination, some sort
of like it was the fate of the American people
(09:27):
to expand across the continent because they were inherently special,
inherently different, and somehow exceptional in comparison to the rest
of the world. British people included, Sorry, your majesty. The
thing is, the British did not agree. As you might imagine.
They believed that they had a legal right to these
(09:48):
lands because of earlier treaties and earlier established activity of
the Hudson's Bay Company, which was a Canadian company which
was under the oversight of the British Crown. Yes, yeah,
just so, yeah, these internal differences and feelings of superiority aside.
(10:09):
On June eight in London, they signed the Treaty of Oregon.
And the Treaty of Oregon did something really important, really important,
but as we'll see, done especially helpful. Uh. They the
Treaty of Oregon sets the boundary on the forty parallel,
so from the Rocky Mountains to quote, the middle of
(10:33):
the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island ends
quote then south through the channel to the Strait of
Wanda Fuca and west to the Pacific Ocean. Seems clean
enough until you, you know, get on the ground, right
or even like look at a detailed enough map. That's fine.
(10:55):
That there's a band from Athens and if they're still active,
that it was called Kuanda Fuca and that or knew
what that was the reference to. So here you go. Um,
here's the thing. Like you said, Ben, there there was
you know, where the rubber met the road. A bit
of an issue. The San Juan Islands were in between
Vancouver Island and the mainland, meaning that because of this
(11:17):
geographical situation, there was actually a channel on either side,
and the treaty didn't say which the side was the
actual border exactly. So what do you the channel? I mean,
that's right, there's literally two channels? Which one you gotta
do better? Perfect storm for you know, a massive argument,
(11:45):
uh and pissing contest, especially with super legalistic people, right
and uh, diplomats and negotiators. Yeah, so there are two
possibilities here, one something called the Harrow Straight h A
r O and one something called the rosar Oreo straight
the San Juan Islands, right, smack dab between these, and
(12:07):
both sides round up on their mapping of the forty
ninth parallel and both sides say, well, yeah, actually this
this part is ours, so we'll just snatch this part.
The first claims from the Hudson's Bay Company come back
in eighteen five. They're based at Fort Victoria, and they
claimed San Juan Island, which was only seven miles across
(12:30):
the Harrow Strait. By eighteen fifty one, they had established
some pretty strong industry there, Like eighteen fifty one, there
they've got these salmon curing stations. But then the US
also enters the chat as we would say in the
modern day. By eighteen fifty three, the US had claimed
(12:51):
these as possessions that were part of what they called
the Washington Territory. So then what follows like another back
and forth of people trying to get more diplomatic street
credit for their claim to the islands. Yeah, and Hudson
Bay companies establishing uh sheep farms are a sheep farm
(13:13):
rather than Bellevue sheep farm that's along the island's southern shore. Um.
And this, weirdly, I've never really thought of sheep as
being a tool of political machinations, but this was just
so um. It was a politically motivated move because the
islands climate and like we said, the soil uh and
(13:35):
the conditions were rife for for grazing. UM. And the
flock expanded from sixty nine individual sheepy's to more than
four thousand, five hundred UH that were scattered across the island. Yeah.
And while this is happening, people in the US who
(13:57):
are looking to migrate and settle elsewhere on the continent,
they're all hearing about this great review of the San
Juan Islands by something called the Northwest Boundary Survey. Uh.
These naturalists are saying, you know what's great if you're
looking for a new place to live, Hey, this land
(14:18):
is your land, right, come over to this awesome island.
You got all the fish you want. The soil is great,
the climate is surprisingly awesome, and it's had backcheck ever
so slightly. You know, when I said that the sheep
farm move was politically motivated, I mean a lot of
this stuff was politically motivated. It was it was like
making the case for their claim by saying, well, we
(14:42):
established the sheep farm this time. Uh, and and it's
it's profitable or whatever, um or even if it wasn't profitable.
Just the establishment of all of these various little stations, uh,
in their minds at least, you know, kind of up
the ante as far as the validity of their claim
was concerned. So by the spring of eighteen fifty nine,
(15:02):
we had eighteen Americans settling on claims that were staked
on some of these really top sheep grazing lands. Um.
And they believed that because of the US's involvement, and
they're kind of bullish uh handling of the situation, that
they would be supported by the US government and the
(15:23):
U S Government would recognize their claims as valid um.
But the British UH not only didn't recognize their claim
they believed them to be illegal UH and considered the
claimants to be trespassers on their prime sheep grazing land.
Even referred to them as squatters. And this really started
(15:43):
to escalate this simmering resentment that we were talking about
from the start, right, Yeah, that's that's the thing. So
from the British perspective, these folks are illegal immigrants, you
know what I mean. Now, of course we have to
point out the tremendous hypocrisy of the British and the
(16:05):
US forces saying that people are illegally occupying land. Especially
we can consider the native population that was living in
North America for thousands of years. So here we are
both the US and Britain playing the islands. Are their
own settlers from both countries have been living and working
(16:29):
on on these islands in this area and they got
along well enough, which is odd when you think about it,
because I was trying to think of, like, um, an
impactful day to day kind of example or analogy here, Like, imagine, folks,
if my pal Null rented an apartment. Let's say I'm
(16:51):
a landlord and I rent out an apartment to knows,
but then I rent out an apartment to Casey. It's
the same apartment. These guys are ends, right, but they
both say, I own this apartment. You know, why are
you always here? Why are you bringing people? Casey shows
up with a thousand plus cheap and Nol was like, hey, dude,
(17:11):
you can come over, but just to be straight with you,
this is my apartment. The tension rises, Esenal said, and
it reaches ahead exactly thirteen years after the signing of
the Oregon Treaty. On June eighteen fifty nine. There's a
guy we have to introduce called Lyman Cutler. He is
(17:32):
a farmer and he sees this large black pig a boar,
rooting in his garden. His neighbor on the other side
of his fence is an irishman named Charles Griffin. Charles
Griffin is watching this pig route through Cutler's crops and
(17:52):
he's he's laughing about it. He's like, yes, going going
get him. And then Cutler's pretty pot out this, so
he takes out his rifle and he shoots the pig.
The problem is his neighbor owns the pig, and Charles
Griffin sometimes called Charles Griffith, he's not a U S immigrant,
He's a British subject and he is an employee of
(18:16):
Hudson's Bay. Yeah he he was, UM, and I you know,
there's there's part of me that can understand his righteous
indignation here, I suppose, especially given the flaring tensions UH
because of this kind of stalemate situation. UM. But also
like he he was known for letting his pigs roam
(18:37):
around the land. Whether that was like uh f you
kind of middle finger flex to to the other inhabitants
who were not British subjects. I have to imagine that
this affected other neighbors of his that were British subjects.
So doesn't sound like the most considerate UH neighbor to
be sharing this plot of land with. So it's highly
(18:59):
likely that his pigs had messed around both in Cutler's
land before UH and in others. Cutler's land admittedly was
surrounded by a three sided fence according to some official
complaints UH that are around UM. So you know, they
let things simmer for a minute and and and tempers
(19:20):
you know, cooled down, cooler has prevailed and all that. Uh.
And Cutler offered, in what he clearly thought was a
very magnanimous gesture, uh, and and probably a very generous one. Um,
considering you know, we can inflation calculator this probably but
he offered to pay ten dollars uh for the pig,
for the life of the pig after the fact, postmortem. Um,
(19:43):
so what would that be? What would ten dollars be
in eighteen fifty nine, ten dollars casey hit us with
that sound cue boo boo boo boop boop boop boop boop.
Eight it's uh. Ten dollars would be the equivalent of
three hundred and fifteen bucks today. If you are wondering
(20:04):
what the average cost of a pig is, uh, the
average price of a pig under eighty pounds is two
hundred and thirty bucks roughly. So, so ten dollars would
have been, you know, a pretty reasonable thing. But Griffin,
for one reason or another, wasn't having it, and instead
(20:28):
he demanded not ten dollars but a hundred dollars. Oh
my gosh, I see that clearly again, knowing what we
know about the inflation the rate of inflation there. Clearly,
I would say, three hundred dollars for a pig, even
by today's standards, seems about right. Don't you feel like
it's fair, especially considering the pig was the aggressor. The
(20:51):
pig was indeed the aggressor. So this, uh, doubling down,
this one hundred dollars, seems designed to cause a problem. Uh,
And it did because Cutler doubled down and returned by saying,
what you said, Ben, the pig, I shouldn't have to
pay anything. I was being generous to offer you ten dollars.
Your pig was rooting around in my cabbage patch or whatever. Uh,
(21:15):
And I shouldn't have to pay you a dime. Your
your animal was trespassing on my land. Oh that's where
we get into, right, my land trespassing. These types of
terms are very charged. Yeah. I I suspect there was something, uh,
some ulterior motive here, man, because first they claim about
(21:37):
the land. You're right, that's a powder keg. But secondly,
that's a crazy price for a pig, isn't it. I mean,
unless it was like you know, babe pig in the
city or you know, Wilburg could do tricks and stuff
caliber some pig um. Yeah, this was absolutely a number
that was designed to infuriate because if we run that
(21:57):
handy dandy inflation calculator one more time, be be poop uh,
we get the exorbitant number of three thousand, one d
and fifty one dollars and fifty nine cents. I don't
know this pig better, you know, poop gold uh and
(22:19):
do backflips and possibly recite you know, epic poetry for
that amount. Yeah. I mean maybe Griffith was you know,
maybe it was like his prize pet pig. Maybe they
had a deep relationship that can happen. I am not
implying that. I was thinking more of emotionally charged familial bonds,
(22:46):
you know, a man in his pig. Uh. So then
you're not talking me down from my my possibility there.
I'm certainly I'm certainly not gonna entertain it purposely. So
this disagreement spreads around the very small community on the island,
(23:12):
and the HBC Hudson's Bay Company employees obviously go full
in supporting Griffin or Griffith and the families from the
US on San Juan they're about at this time. They
of course have Cutlers back. So British forces threatened to
(23:34):
arrest this farmer. To arrest Cutler, his neighbors go, ham,
that's terrible. But they, you know, they go wild. And
so they call the U. S. Military and they say, look,
these British forces are basically invading us. They have no
authority here. And Uncle Sam is like, you're absolutely right,
you twenty five families on this island. Let's send in
(23:58):
the troops. So both government end up sending their militaries
to the San Juan Islands. Yeah. Yeah. Uh So now
not only is this this the island occupied by uh
warring families. I mean, I don't know this. It's certainly
possible that many of them stayed out of it and
(24:19):
and that they just wanted to like go about their business.
But I can imagine the taking of sides probably took
place because, like you said, Ben, this uh the kerfuffle
kind of began to circulate. And I'm just picturing, you know,
the suscerous of of discontent circulating between the two factions,
the Brits and the Yanks. Uh and bring in joint
(24:40):
military occupation. Uh And And that sounds like a real
recipe for disaster. With already um that reality TV show
level resentment about to boil over absolutely, the U. S
Forces dispatch sixties six soldiers from the ninth Infantry Regiment
to San Juan. This detachment is under the command of
(25:06):
of a kind of hot headed guy by the name
of George Pickett, hailing from Virginia. Just four years after this,
Pickett would lead a well, he would help lead a
disastrous infantry charge from the rebel forces into the center
of Union lines at the infamous Battle of Gettysburg. But
(25:28):
now four years before Gettysburg. Pickets Unit lands on July
fifty nine, and they set up camp near the wharf
that is occupied by Hudson's Bay Company, Griffin Bay. It's
just north of that sheep farm that you have mentioned earlier.
(25:49):
NOL and the regional authorities, the British authorities are freaked out,
understandably because they're like, hey, we claimed this island right,
because nobody really figured out the problem with those two
straits and and the problem of that forty nine parallels.
So British authorities are asking themselves why in blue blazes,
(26:09):
oh wait, maybe an accent will have the US troops
so on our islands and then they call in three warships.
So if you're just like to your point about some
people probably just staying out of it, some people probably
just wanted to fish or to uh you know, live
their life on their island farm. This is a hell
of a week. This is crazy. I think there should
(26:31):
be a theme for Animal Crossing based on this story.
That's a beautiful idea. Would on board, Yes, sir, it's
totally doable. I mean, really, what is animal crossing if
not this situation kind of under a microscope. It's all
of these different, uh you know, anthropomorphic creatures supposedly trying
(26:52):
to live together in harmony. And I'm sure there are
a little cute see, you know, disagreements that pop up.
I don't really play the game, but how one would
it be for there to be, like for someone to
stage a re enactment of this story on the Animal
Crossing island. Um, I think we should. We should reach
out to Nintendo with our brilliant idea. Um. But the
people that were there, you know, now things are really
(27:15):
off the rails. Not only is there this disagreement that
has turned into a low key military occupation. Now you
have these U S troops that are moving in and
a thirty one gun steam frigate, a frigate, which I
love that word, by the way, I also love the
word a wharf. Uh. And that frigate in question is
(27:36):
the h MS Tribune, which was sent to uh knock
pick it off as a high horse, but also with
instructions to avoid out and out war. Yeah, they're they're
supposed to avoid a war because you know, a war
between the US and the UK at this time could
quickly become a global event, right uh, and it would
(28:00):
it would certainly be something that would consume the entire
continent of North America. So, in a euphemistic way, you
could say, the HMS Tribune was sent there to uh
just flex some maritime muscle and inspire Picket to move
somewhere else. The Tribune is backed up by these other
two ships we mentioned. They are the HMS Satellite and
(28:22):
the HMS Plumper, which is a ridiculous name ship. It's
just if it's so adorable. That's an animal crossing warship.
And these are each ships that pack heat. Uh. They
also have forty six Royal Marines in the mix, fifteen
Royal engineers. Picket is unmoved he has uninspired to continue
(28:45):
the euphemism, so instead of withdrawing, he writes to his
superiors for help and uh. During this time, for the
rest of July and then into August as well, both
grew are Both groups are acquiring more support. The British
are acquiring more royal marines, many of whom are battle hardened.
(29:10):
We're talking about people who had uh stormed beaches in
China not too long ago. And then on the U
s side, Pickett is kind of concerned with just putting
more feathers in his own cap. He's thinking, I'm already
low key famous because of my deeds in the Mexican War.
(29:30):
This is a chance to make myself even more of
a prominent American hero. Uh. He is threatening. He is
like squawking left and right. He's threatening the British on
their ships. He's antagonizing them. He's say, you're going to
have another bunker hill if you guys try to land
(29:50):
on the island. This land is our land. He probably said, sincerely,
without a note of irony. This, How does that old
saying go this um this something will not will not
stand there it is. Do you think any American general
ever just like aggressively said the words manifest destiny and
(30:15):
then slam their fists down on the table. I hope, so,
I definitely hope. So it seems like something they would do.
So this profoundly offends the British. This guy named James Douglas,
he's a governor of the Vancouver Island Colony, and he
orders the British naval commander, Rear Admiral Robert Baines, two
(30:37):
land marines on the island, get your house in order.
He's saying, he's smacking that table to your example, is
saying this saggression will not stand. Says this is a
British island. You get in there, you reassert British control.
And huge credit, huge shout out to Rear Admiral Baines,
(30:58):
because he diplomatically refuses, and he cites the reason that
we mentioned earlier. He said, you know, if we push
this too far, with all due respect, Governor, we could
end up in a war. And that's the last thing
anybody wants. There's something amazing about people who are able
(31:20):
to possess that clarity of thought when everything is going
south and getting into this, you know, this war text
of bad decisions and reactionary thought. This guy, the admiral,
is the one of the first people in the story
who says, should we start a world war? Should we
(31:43):
start another revolutionary war over this guy's pig? You know,
even if you love the pig. However, you know it's okay, okay,
how's a callback hashtag text? Pick? Um, I feel like
we're overlooking slightly, maybe just just just out loud, uh,
(32:04):
the idea or the fact that many huge scale wars
are caused by some little minute tipping point event, some
larger than others. Obviously, like the assassination of Archduke Franz
Ferdinand and all of that. Um, Ben, you're more of
the international affairs expert than me, but I think you
would agree that huge scale conflicts often result from small
(32:29):
scale events, Yeah, or are triggered by Obviously, it's not
the only thing. It's it's based on a huge run
up to that thing, and that's the straw that breaks
the you know, the camel's back or whatever. Yeah, that's
a really good point. Well, because we see the multiple
factors lead to wars and the thing that becomes that
catalyst that Malcolm Gladwell asked, tipping point that can be
(32:52):
a relatively small thing. It's just it becomes somehow symbolic
of the accumulation of those other are factors and variables
leading to a conflict. You are absolutely right, so pick
it on the U S side. He gets reinforcements. A
hundred and seventy one men under the command of Lieutenant
(33:14):
Colonel Silas Casey arrived on August ten, and they go
to Victoria and they talked to Rear Admiral Baines. They say, Okay,
this is a reasonable guy. There's something so surreal and
almost like doctor Strange love about this. How these highly
regarded military leaders have to meet up to figure out
(33:35):
whether or not they're going to war over this dispute
from these neighbors. And so much of it, I mean,
you know, we use the word diplomacy, but so much
of it has to do with personalities and has to
do with like these like microaggressions, you know what I mean,
Like the idea of someone being unreasonable or pushing someone
too far, even just conversationally. Like so many decisions are
(33:59):
made based on that kind of calculus, or one would
hope not by the the the better more strategic generals.
But we know that based on the amazing satire that
is Dr Strangelove. Uh, some of these things can be
quite arbitrary and based on ego and posturing. Oh yeah,
(34:20):
and you know what, I think posturing should be the
word of the day on today's episode because this is
what follows now is all about posturing show of force, right. Uh.
The the guy who mentioned earlier, Lieutenant Colonel Casey. He
goes to meet with Bains and Baines by the way,
(34:40):
Baines is another battle hardened veteran. He had been in
the Battle of New Orleans in eighteen fifteen. He's got
a He's on board a ship, the HMS Ganges. It
has eighty four guns. And when uh, when Casey gets
to Baines and sees the ship, he calls on. He
(35:02):
calls on Baines and says, hey, well you come meet
us at this lighthouse. And Baines says, nice strike, kiddo.
I learned a thing or two in my days of
war and days of yore. I don't know if he's
excellent freestyling like that, but he says, look, I'm not
(35:22):
leaving my ship. Uh. And then Casey looks at the
ship and he's thinking Wow, this is intimidating. This this
ship is huge. So he goes back to San Juan
and he sends word to say, like, we need more people,
We need reinforcements. If we're really gonna do this, if
(35:43):
we're really gonna go to war over some territorial claims
and over this, you know, hapless, unfortunate pig, then I
need some firepower. So by August thirty one, there were
four hundred and sixty one Americans camped out in the
(36:07):
woods north of that sheep farm we mentioned, which I
hilariously referred to earlier as belle Vou, because that's clearly
a thing. It is, in fact Bellevue. There was an
errant e that had just dropped off of of our notes,
and those troops were protected by fourteen giant cannons known
as Field cannons. Not to mention the thirty two pound
(36:30):
naval guns that were taken off the U. S s.
Massachusetts and installed under the guidance of Second Lieutenant Henry M. Robert.
Uh So, the Americans were absolutely digging in their heels
um and the British were over conducting drills with their
fifty two total guns. Yep, there's the posturing, so they would, uh,
(36:51):
they would shoot nearby. This is something we see sometimes
with modern day military x sercizes. Right, you're going into,
for instance, the South China Sea and you're like, oh,
we're just making sure our battleships are ready. We're just
doing that in front of you. Everyone be cool. We're
(37:12):
we're practicing. This one doesn't count, so that that's what
they're doing. This is maybe the most American part of
the story. Tourists get involved fun. It's like people and
this this is so weird. This happens in other North
American conflicts throughout history. Tourists start traveling to the area
(37:35):
from Victoria and they they say like, hey, let's let's
go watch. Let's go watch the military drill. Do you
think there will be a war? It's this ridiculous. This
is very interesting, Ben because I can't believe it's never
occurred to me sooner at least as like a good
sketch or like a Monty Python esque kind of situation.
(37:58):
The idea of war tourists like obviously we have you know,
conflict reporters that are civilians that are you know, embedded
in war zones and there to do a job. But
how come we don't think about like the absurd concept
of like a family wearing Hawaiian shirts and eating popcorn,
like touching down in Sarajevo or whatever to watch the fireworks. Yeah, yeah,
(38:24):
it may have fallen off a bit in the modern day,
but you know what, we should do an episode about
it because it was a thing. It was definitely a thing.
And yeah, it's kind of messed up. It was considered
as spectacle. Happened in Europe pretty frequently to Uh. So
there's something else here, and and I love that this
points out how absurd these conflicts can become. There's something
(38:48):
very like Vonna gut esque about this. The officers from
both sides, both the British and the US, they go
to church together while these tensions are mounting. They go
to church aboard the HMS satellite. Uh. They also go
to the Irish guy, Charles Griffin or Charles Griffith's home
(39:11):
and they hang out and they get kind of lit.
They drink whiskey and smoke cigars. But they're still like
after that, right, like after their hangout sessions with the
Lord or with whiskey and cigars. After those hangout sessions
They're like, Okay, we're gonna go back to our posts.
Let's hope we don't start a war tomorrow. Uh are
(39:34):
you gonna He's not gonna do it. Yeah, okay, see
see your Monday. No, that's what I'm saying that these moments,
the idea of these like military leaders lounging around together
with their whiskey and cigars, it reminds me of another
Stanley Kubrick movie actually called Paths of Glory, which um
isn't quite as heavily satirical as Doctor Strangelove, but it's
(39:56):
very difficult for something to be because that one is
just over the top, you know, to to steal your word,
cartoonishly satirical. But Paths of Glory involves uh, World War One,
I want to say, um, like trench warfare hardcore, where
these um generals very callously make the decision to send
troops on a an utter suicide mission, and they do
(40:20):
it while lounging in this like French villa, drinking brandies
and smoking cigars. So that's kind of the callousness that
I'm talking about. Terrible, and so these you know, we
don't it's lost to history. We don't know how chill
these folks were when they were actually hanging out, or
if they were just sort of checking the cultural boxes
(40:41):
right of going to church, of being officers holding parley.
But we do know for the rest of that summer,
the officers and forces on both sides, we're playing chicken. Basically,
they were trying to get the other side to fire
the first shot, because then anything they did would be
(41:02):
an act of defense, right, so they would not be
quote unquote the bad guys. This was gonna go sideways
very easily, you know what I mean. Forget if Franz
Ferdinand another pig getting shot could have possibly put US
and the UK into a state of war. Luckily, officials
(41:22):
from both nations find out about this when news of
the crisis reaches Washington in late August. Here's the other
absurd thing about this. The officials, both from Britain and
the US had no idea what was happening in San Juan.
(41:43):
Because the whole time the forces there in Oregon County
have been like, um, they have been asking their superiors
for reinforcements, but they were asking their regional superiors, you
know what I mean. No one was talking to the
British monarchy. No one was talking to the US president,
see President James Buchanan. When he finds out about this,
(42:04):
he has an oh, snap, this could be bad moment.
And so he sends a general named Winfield Scott to investigate.
And he says, look, General, you need to go there,
and you need to make these people calm down, because
we don't want to be in another war. Uh. Scott
had a history about of this. He had a resume,
(42:24):
he had ease tensions on two other border disputes. Yeah,
something of like a hostage negotiator type vibe, or like
a dog whisperer, but like for troops. Um. So Buchanan
um was already up to his neck in trying to
prevent war on another front between the Northern and Southern
(42:46):
states of the United States. Uh. And saw this whole
kerfuffle on the island as an absolute waste of time.
So he wanted to do whatever it took to shut
it down. Uh. And Winfield Scott, you know, with his
certain set of skill, was his best hope, I think right.
So he sailed down through Panama. Took him six weeks.
He got there uh in October um and started chatting
(43:09):
with Douglas Via you know, like Courier UM, and the
two arranged for each UM leader, each representative of each
nation to withdraw their troops, leaving a single company of
troops from each side there and one warship, one British
warship anchored in the bay. So peace upon you San
(43:35):
Juan Islands. This joint military occupation last another twelve years.
During that twelve years, there is no shot fired over time.
Of course, these occupying troops were talking about a hundred
dudes on each side. These occupying troops, they become buddies,
their co workers and you know, other co workers. At
(43:58):
this point, they get together a celebrate the holidays. Uh.
They even they even play some sports and games. After
thirteen years of sometimes stilted negotiations, you know, held up
in part by the Civil War, Uh, the US Britain
agreed to allow another party two come in like a
(44:21):
third party, to help solve the dispute over San Juan Island.
And that third party they choose is the ruler of
a brand new nation, a newly established station called Germany.
At ruler's name Kaiser Wilhelm. First A good kaiser role.
I was your favorite type of brad Ben. You know,
(44:41):
I have thought about this a lot. It's very difficult
to choose. I've recently become obsessed with submarine sandwiches. Uh,
and I'm doing some some really uh intriguing experiments ridiculous historians.
You may or may not know this, but my long
suffering colleagues have had to listen to me become obsessively
(45:01):
wrapped up in different food experience experience like a case.
Not on purpose, not on purpose, you got me? Um, Yeah,
it's stuff to choose. The Kaiser is not named after
the bread, in case anybody was wanting that's unfortunate. Perhaps
the other way around. Uh, perhaps this was the Kaiser's
(45:22):
favorite bread. But but the Kaiser is a is a
is a post, right, It's like a It's basically like
a general or or or an emperor or something. Right, Yeah,
the German Emperor got it, or the head of the
Holy Roman Empire, Emperor of Austria. Or of course a
round soft roll of bread with a crisp crust, I
like a nice crusty baguette. Or if you want to
(45:43):
go completely different route of brioche, there's this. I tried
this bread that is croissant bread. It's like a loaf
of croissants that's just also bread. It's pretty good. Man
layers in there with the airpot against UH, and then
(46:03):
you know, sucker for tusking garlic loof. Anyway, anyway, the
Kaiser forms the commission. On October one, eighteen seventy two,
they announced their ruling, and they rule in favor of
the US, which means they established that boundary from the
Oregon Treaty to go through Harrow Strait. And this is
(46:24):
why the San Juan Islands are part of the US today.
This is the final boundary between Canada and the US.
It's it's finally set. November two, the Royal Marines finally
moved from their camp. And you know, I'm speculating here, Noll,
(46:45):
but I imagine it was a little bitter sweet because
these people have become friends and they're like, what's happening
to our kickball league? Bro, It's not about the dead
pigs that caused UH near military catastrophe. It's about the
friend that we made along the way, exactly. And that
is why the only casualty in the entirety of this
(47:07):
conflict was that one incredibly unfortunate pig. If you're in
the area, why not swing by the San Juan Island
National Historical Park. You can still visit the site of
both the British and the American camps. And fun fact,
it is the only United States national park where a
foreign flag is regularly hoisted over United States soil. And
(47:33):
that is because both the flag and the flag pole
were a gift from the British government as a sign
of the friends we made along the way. You know,
there's one thing that haunts me about this. It's just
one thing. What was the name of the pig? You know,
it's a good question, Ben. We'll have to just name
(47:53):
him in our hearts. We'll have to just well, you
know what, let's all let's just keep it to ourselves
like a wish, like a secret wish when you throw
a penny in a fountain, and we'll all just secretly
name the pig in our hearts, because that's where he lives. Now,
that's where he resides. Uh. If you don't want to
keep it in your hearts, and you want to give
(48:13):
us your best, uh, your best names for this unfortunate
but historically important pig. We love to hear him. You
can tell us about it online, where you can find
us at our Facebook page Ridiculous Historians. You can also
find us on social media, not just as a show,
but as individuals, that's correct. You can find me exclusively
(48:36):
on Instagram, where I post relatively regularly with you know,
pictures of my twelve year old newly quite goth cost
playing daughter and our adventures together and you know, music
stuff and memes and the like, and uh you know
all that. Ben, you're a bit more of a Twitter
with with with quite a lovely Twitter presence. Yeah, that's
(48:57):
kind of oll. Yeah, I am uh not more a Twitterer.
I am on Twitter and Instagram. You can find me
on Instagram. I just busted one of my cats out
of cat jail. I'm at Ben Bowling. You can also
find me on Twitter. Hit me up with weird ridiculous
history facts or questions. Always love to hear them at
Ben Bowling hs W. You know, big thanks to super
(49:22):
producer Casey Pegram, who will be who is with us
in spirit and we'll be joining us for our next episode.
He sure will. And then I just want to say
I did not mean to imply that you did not
also have an epically delightful Instagram account. Uh, you are
just quite the word smith on Twitter and uh and
I very much enjoy those posts, which you also repost
(49:43):
on Instagram in case people miss it in a Twitter
person so highly recommend you follow both of those accounts
of my good friend Ben Bolan Shucks. Uh, you don't know.
I gotta I gotta show you this cat. It's a story.
It's a story for off the air by I want
to put you on the spot too much, man, But
for folks who don't know, my friend Noll is uh
(50:07):
prodigiously talented in the realm of music. So if you
ask him politely, you like how I'm volunteering you, Man,
you ask him politely, he might give you a sneak
peak of some stuff I might And maybe one day
I'll make that SoundCloud I've been talking about for low
these many years. I do. I do have some things
in the works though, Uh and I appreciate the shout out. Ben,
(50:29):
um huge thanks to Christopher hasciotes here in spirit Gay
Blusier research or Extraordinary who will be joining us. We've
got him on the books for a very special episode,
very special episode. Um, I can't wait. We had a
really nice talk with him the other day. Things are
going great. We're all still friends and I think he
might be dropping in a little more on a regular
(50:52):
schedule coming up soon. Yeah, we finally talked Goodbye into
hanging out with us. It was very much a bromance
eating I think, but I can't wait to have you
on Gabe of course. Also speaking music, huge thanks to
Alex Williams who composed this slap and bop you're probably
hearing crescendo gently in the background now, And thanks to
(51:14):
Jonathan Strickland's who you Know a k The Quister who
you Know would have absolutely killed it with some ridiculous
British accents in today's show. Agreed, We'll see you next time. Books.
(51:37):
For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
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