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History of British Columbia: Part 6 Bob Reid The Events of 1871 and the Resolution of the San Juan Boundary Dispute See these archives at www.notaries.bc.ca/scrivener. Part Part Part Part Part Part Part 1: 2: 3: 4: 4A: 5: 6: Fall Fall Winter Winter Spring Winter Summer October 2002 October 2003 December 2003 December 2004 March 2005 December 2006 July 2007 T he year 1871 was historic for the Colony of British Columbia. On July 20, it became the sixth province of the Dominion of Canada. Canada became a Pacific nation—A Mari usque ad Mare” (from the Bible, “He shall have dominion from sea to sea”). The entry of British Columbia into Confederation and the construction of a transcontinental railway was the dream of John A. Macdonald, the leader of the Conservative Party and the Prime Minister of Canada. He saw the railway creating an Imperial link between Great Britain and the Eastern parts of the British Empire. It would also forestall the expansionist policies of the United States, which was anxious to link its newly acquired territory in Alaska with its territories in Oregon and Washington. But Macdonald did not participate in the negotiations with the delegates from the Colony of British Columbia in June and July of 1870; he was ill. Not as a consequence of his fondness for whisky, even though he had gotten quite drunk to celebrate the entry of 54 Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. Vol. 11, No. 3 12, No. 3 12, No. 4 13, No. 4 14, No. 1 15, No. 4 16, No. 2 Manitoba into Confederation earlier that year, but because of the passage of a gallstone. He could not even be moved from his office on Parliament Hill. Therefore, it was George-Etienne Cartier, the acting Prime Minister, who agreed to the immediate construction of a railway to the Pacific. During the 1870 negotiations, Macdonald lingered at death’s door and, when he recovered sufficiently, he travelled by steamer to Charlottetown to recuperate. His convalescence on Prince Edward Island allowed Macdonald to converse with local politicians about what it would take to ensure the PEI’s entry into Confederation. After all, British Columbia had been promised a railway. In British Columbia there was jubilation. Most Colonists could not believe Ottawa had guaranteed to build a railway, especially to complete it within a 10-year period. The British Colonist expressed the general feeling of the non-Aboriginal populace when it wrote its New Year salutations that, “Clad in bridal attire, she is about to unite her destinies with a country that is prepared to do much for her.” The Scrivener But back in Ottawa, storm clouds were gathering. The immense cost of building a railway from Montreal to the Pacific in 10 years, across 3000 miles of unsurveyed territory, through the muskeg and swamps of the Canadian Shield, across the desert wasteland of the Prairies, and through the uncharted rugged mountains of British Columbia, almost scuttled the agreement. To many, it seemed an act of madness. Here was Canada, a country not yet 4 years old, with a population of less than 4 million people, promising to build a railway across a vast wilderness to connect with a population of about 28,000 non-First Nations. It would be almost 1000 miles longer than the railway built in the United States, which had a population of almost 40 million people. Alexander Mackenzie, the leader of the Liberal Party, commented it was “one of the most foolish things that could be imagined.” And it is difficult to disagree with him. The Liberal Party members in the House of Commons opposed it vehemently and even Conservative members from Upper Canada (Ontario) were questioning why Canadian taxpayers should be laden with the financial burden of building the railway. The difficulty for Macdonald was that the newly elected members of the Legislative Council in British Columbia had unanimously approved the amended terms of union. Volume 16 Number 2 Summer 2007 The interests of British Columbia were also on the agenda and not simply because some agitators in the United States were demanding that Great Britain cede British Columbia to it in compensation for the damages caused by Confederate raiders built in British ports during the Civil War. Great Britain and the United States hoped to resolve the longlasting dispute concerning the boundary between British Columbia and the United States: Did in run west or east of the islands in the San Juan archipelago? In 1859, this dispute almost resulted in war between Great Britain and the United States. It came to be known as the “Pig War”—a bloodless war in which the only casualty was a pig. Back in Ottawa, Cartier was drawing on all his political wiles to save the agreement with British Columbia. If it failed, so would the Conservative government. Joseph Trutch, one of the colonial delegates, who had travelled back to Ottawa to see its passage in the House of Commons, was summoned by Cartier to attend a rebellious meeting of the Conservative caucus at which Trutch promised that British Columbia would not demand a literal fulfilment of having the railway built within the 10-year time limit if it were proven to be beyond the financial capability of Canada. Cartier then rallied his supporters from Lower Canada (Quebec) in the House of Commons. After the Bill passed in the House of Commons, Cartier next obtained Senate approval by assuring its members that the railway would be built by private enterprise, with the government contributing land and a money subsidy. Volume 16 Number 2 Summer 2007 His Herculean efforts, plus Trutch’s reassurance to the Ontario members of the Conservative caucus, saw the passage of the Address to the Queen to allow British Columbia to enter Canada and passage of the agreement to build the railway, thereby ensuring British Columbia’s entry into Confederation. tactics of the Americans, but also against the appeasement policy of the British whose attentions were focused on the European stage where the new German Empire had defeated France. The balance of power in Europe had shifted considerably; this added impetus for Britain to resolve her differences with the United States, who had retained a large army after its victory in 1865 over the Southern States in its Civil War. For this reason, and also because of the expense, Britain decided that her troops stationed in North America served little purpose as a deterrent against invasion by the United States. So, in 1871 the British Redcoats marched out of Canada for home. On May 16, the Imperial Parliament in London issued the orderin-council to admit British Columbia as a province of Canada and set July 20, 1871, as the date for its entry. ©iStockphoto.com/Simone van den Berg Once again, Prime Minister Macdonald was absent from the debate, which was shaping up to be the hardest fight since Confederation. This time he was in Washington, DC, as a member of the British delegation that was negotiating a number of outstanding disputes between Great Britain and the United States. Canadian interests concerned fisheries in the Maritimes and trade. Thus, the person most responsible for B.C.’s entry into the Dominion is Sir George-Etienne Cartier. The assurance by Joseph Trutch that BC would not insist on the building of the railway if it would result in financial ruination was also a decisive factor, but one that was soon forgotten by the new province when construction was not completed within the 10-year period guaranteed in the original agreement. Tragically, during the time of these negotiations, Cartier, a father of Confederation and one of the great statesmen of Canada, was suffering from poor health. He died in 1873, only 58 years old. Meanwhile in Washington, the Prime Minister, although a representative on the British delegation, found himself in the unenviable position of having to witness Canada’s interests being sacrificed on the altar of British-American relations. Macdonald not only had to defend Canada’s interests against the bullying The two exceptions were at the naval establishments at Halifax and Esquimalt where British troops stayed until 1906. Although some Americans relished the prospect of a war with Great Britain as anti-British feeling ran high, most policymakers in the United States believed that British North America would ultimately come “within the magic circle of American union.” It was only a question of waiting for the inevitable to occur. In the Pacific Northwest, the United States and Great Britain had been rivals since Lewis and Clark spent the cold, wet winter of 1805 – 1806 at their crudely built Fort Clatsop at the mouth of the Columbia River, the site of present day Astoria. Then in 1811, John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Trade Company established Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River, 4 months before the arrival of David Thompson of the North West Company. By 1818 the two countries adopted a policy of “live and let live” as they agreed on joint occupation of what became known as the Oregon Territory. By 1844 the influx of American settlers to the region resulted in the bellicose political slogan of “54 40 or fight” by Presidential-hopeful Polk. But as neither country wanted a war, the diplomatic settlement saw the Oregon Treaty of June 15, 1846, extend westward to the Pacific to the 49th parallel of latitude that was the existing The Scrivener55 boundary east of the Rockies with a southward jog, allowing Vancouver Island to remain British. The boundary between the United States and Britain for this “jog” was designated in the Treaty as “the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver Island and thence southerly through the middle of said channel, and of [Juan de] Fuca’s Straits, to the Pacific Ocean.” Was the “middle…channel” the Haro Strait, along the west side of the San Juan Islands—or the Rosario Strait, along the east side? For in between the two straits lay San Juan, Orcas, Lopez, and a number of smaller islands, an area of about 170 square miles. The Treaty of 1846 also guaranteed the presence and property rights of the Hudson’s Bay Company in what was now United States’ territory. The HBC was allowed to retain possession of its trading posts, including the farms at Nisqually and Cowlitz, the Puget’s Sound Agricultural Company. The newly arrived Americans resented the presence of the HBC; memories of the American Revolution and the War of 1812 fuelled their antiBritish sentiment. Settlers trespassed on HBC’s lands and seized possession of the company’s property. The HBC quickly discovered that justice for it in the Oregon Territory was not to be found in the territorial courts. Forgotten was the fact that the HBC initially had assisted the first settlers to the region. The State Legislature of Oregon recognized this when it honoured Dr. John McLoughlin, who had been the HBC’s Chief Factor at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River, as the “Father of Oregon” in 1957, on the centenary of his death. Moreover, during the bitter Puget Sound Indian war, Governor James Douglas had sent weapons and ammunition, and also sent supplies on credit to the American settlers in the region. In return, the United States government dragged its feet in the repayment of the debt and rejected a claim for damages to HBC property. 56 The Governor of Washington Territory, Isaac Stevens, even claimed the HBC had taken an active part in the war on the side of the Indians. This outraged Douglas but American opinion remained unaltered by the truth. By 1857 relations were worsened when territorial officials threatened war because a British Columbia Indian killed a prominent American settler. Even though the Oregon Treaty had guaranteed the right of free navigation for HBC vessels on the Columbia River, US custom officials made a mockery of this right by charging exorbitant import fees, then impounding the HBC ships for nonpayment. When the HBC resolved this problem by diplomatic means, the territorial officials then required HBC vessels to obtain permits to enter American waters. They even insisted that HBC ships sailing between Victoria and Fort Nisqually (at the southern tip of Puget Sound) go through customs at Fort Astoria on the Columbia—many miles away. When United States authorities seized the HBC steamer Beaver, the HBC caved in finally to the constant harassment and closed its base at Fort Nisqually—much to the delight of Washington officials. By 1849 the HBC realized it could not retain its lands and holdings south of the 49th parallel in the Oregon Territories and offered to sell its interests to the American government. Talks dragged on for years. Why should Americans pay for what they already possessed? It was not until 1863 that Great Britain and the United States established a joint commission to dispose of Hudson’s Bay Company properties and claims south of the 49th parallel. And in 1869, a total payment of $650,000 was awarded to the Company. The HBC did, however, want to retain its extensive agricultural and fishing rights in the Puget Sound area. In 1850 it had a salmoncuring station on the largest island, San Juan Island. And in 1853, it expanded its operations and The Scrivener established a sheep farm on the island, named Belle Vue Farm. To the HBC, the islands were British territory, whereas the Americans held the position that the islands were within the territorial limits of the United States. And when Washington Territory was carved out of the Oregon Territory in 1853, San Juan Island was attached to Whatcom County, its northernmost county. The HBC no sooner landed its sheep than American officials from Whatcom County claimed that duty was owed because the sheep had been imported into the US. And in default of payment by the HBC, the officials seized and sold some of the sheep to pay the duty. Relations deteriorated as the colonists on Vancouver Island resented these actions as a continuation of the bullyboy tactics of the Americans that had resulted in the loss of lands and trading opportunities. To prevent further troubles, a truce was agreed until the Anglo-American boundary commission could resolve the dispute. The Anglo-American boundary commission, however, failed in its attempt to resolve it. The British claimed the boundary was Rosario Strait and the Americans claimed it was Haro Strait. The British Commissioner offered the Douglas Channel as a compromise and, although this would have given the Americans the major portion of the islands in the San Juan archipelago, it was refused, because San Juan would have remained British. So by 1857, the matter was left up to the governments of Great Britain and the United States to resolve. This did little to lessen the tension in the region. By 1859 there were about 18 Americans on San Juan Island. They based their claims on redemption rights that they expected the US Government to recognize as valid, but that the British considered illegal. Neither side recognized the authority of the other. Tempers were short and it took little to ignite a crisis. The HBC had expanded its agricultural operation by adding further livestock, including 40 pigs, that were Volume 16 Number 2 Summer 2007 allowed to roam freely about the island. One of these pigs belonging to an employee of the HBC, Charles Griffin, an Irishman hired to run the HBC farm, supposedly trespassed on land claimed by an American, Lyman A. Cutler, a disgruntled miner who, after failing to discover gold in British Columbia, set up his farm in the middle of the HBC’s farm. On June 15, 1859, Cutler discovered the pig rooting in his garden so he shot it. What ensued was a ridiculous farce but one that could have had serious global consequences. Cutler offered Griffin $10 for compensation for the pig. Griffin demanded a $100. Then Cutler said he would pay nothing because the pig was trespassing on his farm. Matters worsened when the HBC threatened to arrest Cutler and take him to Victoria for trial. The Americans on the island sent a petition for military protection. On July 27, the military commander of the Oregon Department, W. S. Harney, an Anglophobic American Brigadier-General, sent a company of 60 soldiers to occupy the island, claiming it was American territory and that the troops were to protect the Americans from Indians. The troops were under the command of Captain George E. Pickett, who a few years later as a Confederate general, led the illfated charge at Gettysburg. The British forces were dominant and Douglas was eager to avenge all the imagined injustices suffered at the hands of the Americans. He ordered Captain Geoffrey Hornby to land his forces and take the island by force. But the Captain refused until Admiral Robert L. Baynes, the commander of British naval forces in the Pacific, arrived. When the Admiral arrived, he told Douglas that under no circumstances would he start a war over a pig. What ensued was a ridiculous farce but one that could have had serious global consequences. The same reaction occurred in Washington, DC. when federal officials received General Harney’s report of his actions and his request for naval support. President Buchanan was alarmed that a squabble over a pig could cause an international incident. The President did not want a war with Great Britain; he had his hands full with problems over slavery and threats of secession by southern states. He ordered General Harney to do nothing and to await the arrival of the Commander-in-Chief of the United States Army, General Winfield Scott. In response, the staunchly antiAmerican Governor Douglas ordered British warships to the island, claiming it was British territory. On his arrival, General Scott corresponded with Governor Douglas and gained his trust to lessen the risk of confrontation. Matters escalated as more American troops arrived and more warships were sent. The traditional animosities between the two sides flared. General Harney was praised by his side for “foiling a diabolical scheme” by the HBC to establish a British colony on American soil, whereas in Victoria, the British Colonist wrote that the American soldiers had come “like thieves in the night to bully us out of our just rights.” General Harney was officially rebuked and reassigned. The American force on the island was reduced to the number of the original detachment that had landed and those original troops were replaced with an equal number under a different officer. Douglas in his turn agreed to the anchorage of a single British warship. In the end, 461 American troops were landed on the island, which was surrounded by 5 British men-of-war with 167 guns and 1965 men aboard. Volume 16 Number 2 Summer 2007 As tempers cooled, sounder minds in London and in Washington agreed for token forces to jointly occupy the island until the boundary dispute could be peaceably resolved. On March 21, 1860, a detachment of Royal Marines, under the command of Captain Bazalgette, landed on the northwest coast and established at Garrison Bay, the “English Camp.” For the next 12 years, two military camps of about 100 troops each existed on the island. The dispute was soon overtaken by events in the United States when the first shot was fired in 1861 at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, marking the start of its bloody Civil War. Great Britain could have easily taken control of the island. One writer states, “Great Britain magnanimously left the question in abeyance.” Governor Douglas urged London to send a force to occupy the territory north of the Columbia River and thereby recover control of the territory that he believed rightfully belonged to Britain. But it is more likely that London realized the serious consequences of taking any action while the United States was involved elsewhere. And, after all, the dispute involved only some islands that were of little interest to British interests. After the resolution of the American Civil War in 1865, the United States entered into new negotiations to resolve the dispute. An agreement was made in 1868 and amended in 1869, to refer the boundary dispute to the President of the Swiss Republic. If he could not determine which was the channel to which the Oregon Treaty of 1846 referred, he could find an equitable solution that would amount to the nearest approximation of the words in the Treaty. The United States Senate refused to ratify this agreement because it was determined to limit the question to a choice between the Rosario and Haro Straits. In 1871 the dispute remained unresolved; the negotiators at Washington, DC, however, agreed to refer the San Juan boundary dispute to arbitration and the German Kaiser Wilhelm I agreed to accept the position of arbitrator. The Kaiser appointed a three-man arbitration commission that met for nearly a year in Geneva before coming to a 2-to-1 decision. The Scrivener57 On October 21, 1872, the Kaiser sided with the majority in favour of the United States, thereby establishing the boundary line through Haro Strait. The San Juan Islands were confirmed to be American possessions and the southern boundary on the Pacific between Canada and the United States was set. On November 25, 1872, the Royal Marines lowered the Union Jack and left quietly while the Americans raised their flag over the entire island. British settlers who remained became American citizens to keep their land claims. Thus, the Pig War ended with a whimper. One consequence of the Pig War was a determination of the British Colonists to defend themselves. In 1859 the only British troops available in the Colonies were the Royal Engineers; they were stationed at New Westminster on the Mainland Colony, whereas Vancouver Island had only periodic visits of warships of the Royal Navy until 1862, when Esquimalt became the British Navy’s Pacific base. In 1860, however, Victoria’s black community of several hundred men and women who had come north from California obtained permission to establish the Victorian Pioneer Rifle Corps, known as the African Rifles. It comprised about 50 men. Other communities followed. One of these is the oldest militia regiment still in service in British Columbia—the Royal Westminster Regiment traces its origins to the New Westminster Volunteer Rifle Corps, formed in 1863. To many, the Pig War’s resolution started a gradual improvement in relations with the United States. An American writer wrote, “the Pig War and its amicable resolution proved to the world that two nations could solve even the most difficult issues through diplomacy and ushered in a new era of peaceful Anglo-American relations.” But the resolution of the “Pig War” did not result in an improvement in the relations between British Columbia and Washington Territory. In 1884 an American mob of about 100 so-called vigilantes crossed the border into British Columbia to capture Louie Sam, 58 a 14-year old member of the Sto:lo nation and hanged him on the pretext that he murdered a shopkeeper in Whatcom County. side with the words “Brethren Dwelling together in Unity.” Within the portal of the Arch on the east side are the words “May These Gates Never Be Closed.” The ringleaders of the mob were suspected of being the real murderers but requests by the British Columbia government to the Washington Territorial government to turn over the two men fell on deaf ears. It was not until 2006 that Washington State legislators approved a resolution offering sympathy to Louie Sam’s descendants and acknowledged that he had been wrongly accused. And the Union Jack continues to fly above what was the “British Camp” on San Juan Island. It is raised and lowered daily by American park rangers, making it one of the very few places without diplomatic status where US government employees regularly hoist the flag of another country. s To many, the Pig War’s resolution started a gradual improvement in relations with the United States. And the improvement in the relations between Great Britain and the United States often came at the expense of Canada and British Columbia , as was proven in the Alaskan Boundary arbitration of 1903, which settled the northern boundary on the Pacific between the United States and Canada. Once again, it is alleged that Great Britain ensured the maintenance of peaceful and harmonious Anglo-American relations at Canada’s expense by caving into the pugnacious “big stick” diplomacy of President Teddy Roosevelt. The passage of time has swallowed the bitter disputes and differences, however, and today Canada and the United States have forged a friendship based on common interests and principles of freedom and human dignity. At the international boundary between Blaine, Washington, and Douglas, British Columbia, stands the Peace Arch, constructed to commemorate the centennial—1814 to 1914—of the signing of the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814, that ended the War of 1812 between the United States and Great Britain. The American side of the Arch is inscribed with the words “Children of a Common Mother, “the Canadian The Scrivener To be continued . . . Robert S. Reid is an Associate Professor Emeritus of Law. He retired from the Faculty of Law at UBC on June 2003. Bob remains a member of the Notary Board of Examiners and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Land Title and Survey Authority. His interests now are mainly the history of BC and Canadian military history. SOURCE REFERENCES Jean Barman, The West Beyond the West: A History of British Columbia, University of Toronto Press, 1991. Margaret A. Ormsby, British Columbia: a History, The Macmillan Company of Canada, 1958. P. B. Waite, MACDONALD, His Life and World, McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd., 1975. F. W. Howay, British Columbia. The Making of a Province, The Ryerson Press, Toronto, 1928. Robert E. Ficken, Unsettled Boundaries, Fraser Gold and the BritishAmerican Northwest, Washington State University Press, 2003. British Columbia: a Centennial Anthology, Editor-in-Chief R. E. Watters, McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1958. Pierre Berton, The National Dream. The Great Railway, 1871–1881, McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1970. HistoryLink.org, The OnLine Encyclopedia of Washington State History, San Juan Island Pig War: Annotated Bibliography by Washington State History Day Winner Rebecca Smith. Volume 16 Number 2 Summer 2007