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Aroostook War
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Aroostook War
The Aroostook War (sometimes called the Pork and Beans War), or the Madawaska War, was a military and civilian-involved confrontation in 1838–1839 between the United States and the United Kingdom over the international boundary between the British colony of New Brunswick and the U.S. state of Maine. The term "war" was rhetorical; local militia units were called out but never engaged in actual combat. The event is best described as an international incident.
Negotiations between British diplomat Lord Ashburton and United States Secretary of State Daniel Webster settled the dispute. The Webster–Ashburton Treaty of 1842 established the final boundary between the countries, giving most of the disputed area to Maine while preserving an overland connection between Lower Canada and the Maritime colonies.
The Treaty of Paris (1783) ended the Revolutionary War but did not clearly determine the boundary between British North America (Quebec and New Brunswick) and the United States. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts thereafter began issuing land grants in its District of Maine, including areas to which the British had already laid claim.
Questions regarding the boundary line arose not long afterward, and the negotiators of the 1794 Jay Treaty agreed that a commission should determine the source of the St. Croix River, the principal geographical feature identified in the earlier treaty. The parties sent a collaborative survey team to locate the mouth of the proper river, and to establish its headwaters. In 1798 the commission decided the southernmost portion of this boundary, from the mouth of the St. Croix to its source, which was determined to be the Chiputneticook Lakes. This commission did no work to finalize details of the border north of the lakes, which was described as running in a straight line north to the highlands separating the Saint Lawrence River watershed from watersheds draining to the south. It also left unresolved the question of who claimed which islands in Passamaquoddy Bay.
During the War of 1812, the British occupied most of eastern Maine, including Washington County, Hancock County, and parts of Penobscot County, for eight months, intending to permanently annex the region into British North America as New Ireland.
The Treaty of Ghent ended the war in 1815 and re-established the boundary line of the 1783 treaty. A commission was appointed which resolved most of the issues surrounding the islands (Machias Seal Island continues to be formally disputed between the United States and Canada). A recommendation by the British commissioner that the northward line to the "highlands" end at Mars Hill (about 100 mi or 160 km south of where this line was eventually negotiated to end) was rejected.
When Maine broke away from Massachusetts as a separate state in 1820, the status and location of the border emerged as a chief concern to the new state government. Massachusetts also retained an interest in the matter, as it retained ownership of half the public lands in Maine, including a large part of the disputed territory, as part of the separation. For their part the British considered that Maine's territory protruding so deeply into British territory and nearly reaching the St. Lawrence in some areas constituted a serious hindrance to communications between Lower Canada and the maritime colonies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Securing the northern half of Maine would cut travel time between Quebec City and Halifax almost in half, as it lay directly between them.
As late as September 1825, Maine and Massachusetts land agents issued deeds, sold timber permits, took censuses, and recorded births, deaths, and marriages in the contested area of the Saint John River valley and its tributaries. Massachusetts land agent George Coffin recorded in his journal during one such journey during autumn 1825, returning from the Upper Saint John and Madawaska area to Fredericton, New Brunswick, that a thunderstorm had ignited a forest fire. This Miramichi Fire destroyed thousands of acres of prime New Brunswick timber, killed hundreds of settlers, left thousands more homeless, and destroyed several thriving communities. The journal entries of the newly appointed Governor of New Brunswick record the destruction and comments that survival of New Brunswick depended on the vast forests to the west in the area disputed with the United States.
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Aroostook War
The Aroostook War (sometimes called the Pork and Beans War), or the Madawaska War, was a military and civilian-involved confrontation in 1838–1839 between the United States and the United Kingdom over the international boundary between the British colony of New Brunswick and the U.S. state of Maine. The term "war" was rhetorical; local militia units were called out but never engaged in actual combat. The event is best described as an international incident.
Negotiations between British diplomat Lord Ashburton and United States Secretary of State Daniel Webster settled the dispute. The Webster–Ashburton Treaty of 1842 established the final boundary between the countries, giving most of the disputed area to Maine while preserving an overland connection between Lower Canada and the Maritime colonies.
The Treaty of Paris (1783) ended the Revolutionary War but did not clearly determine the boundary between British North America (Quebec and New Brunswick) and the United States. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts thereafter began issuing land grants in its District of Maine, including areas to which the British had already laid claim.
Questions regarding the boundary line arose not long afterward, and the negotiators of the 1794 Jay Treaty agreed that a commission should determine the source of the St. Croix River, the principal geographical feature identified in the earlier treaty. The parties sent a collaborative survey team to locate the mouth of the proper river, and to establish its headwaters. In 1798 the commission decided the southernmost portion of this boundary, from the mouth of the St. Croix to its source, which was determined to be the Chiputneticook Lakes. This commission did no work to finalize details of the border north of the lakes, which was described as running in a straight line north to the highlands separating the Saint Lawrence River watershed from watersheds draining to the south. It also left unresolved the question of who claimed which islands in Passamaquoddy Bay.
During the War of 1812, the British occupied most of eastern Maine, including Washington County, Hancock County, and parts of Penobscot County, for eight months, intending to permanently annex the region into British North America as New Ireland.
The Treaty of Ghent ended the war in 1815 and re-established the boundary line of the 1783 treaty. A commission was appointed which resolved most of the issues surrounding the islands (Machias Seal Island continues to be formally disputed between the United States and Canada). A recommendation by the British commissioner that the northward line to the "highlands" end at Mars Hill (about 100 mi or 160 km south of where this line was eventually negotiated to end) was rejected.
When Maine broke away from Massachusetts as a separate state in 1820, the status and location of the border emerged as a chief concern to the new state government. Massachusetts also retained an interest in the matter, as it retained ownership of half the public lands in Maine, including a large part of the disputed territory, as part of the separation. For their part the British considered that Maine's territory protruding so deeply into British territory and nearly reaching the St. Lawrence in some areas constituted a serious hindrance to communications between Lower Canada and the maritime colonies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Securing the northern half of Maine would cut travel time between Quebec City and Halifax almost in half, as it lay directly between them.
As late as September 1825, Maine and Massachusetts land agents issued deeds, sold timber permits, took censuses, and recorded births, deaths, and marriages in the contested area of the Saint John River valley and its tributaries. Massachusetts land agent George Coffin recorded in his journal during one such journey during autumn 1825, returning from the Upper Saint John and Madawaska area to Fredericton, New Brunswick, that a thunderstorm had ignited a forest fire. This Miramichi Fire destroyed thousands of acres of prime New Brunswick timber, killed hundreds of settlers, left thousands more homeless, and destroyed several thriving communities. The journal entries of the newly appointed Governor of New Brunswick record the destruction and comments that survival of New Brunswick depended on the vast forests to the west in the area disputed with the United States.
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