That Daft Pig That Nearly Started A War
Category: Geography & Maps 5th July 2026
Oddly, the whole thing begins like a pub argument that got official uniforms. In 1859 on the San Juan Islands, a settler found a pig rooting in his garden, shot it, and discovered it belonged to a chap who worked for a British company. One pig. One bang. And suddenly two great empires decide to stand around like daft boys on a playground.
Now listen: Britain and the United States both claimed those islands because the maps were vague after a treaty. Rather than settle it sensibly with a handshake and a map, they parked soldiers and naval boats opposite each other and pretended this was the 18th century. No big sea battles. No mad charges. Mostly stomping about, some blusters, and a lot of glaring over the water. The only proper casualty in the early bit was pork.
They then lived in this awkward limbo for years. Farmers carried on doing farm things. Soldiers drilled. Officers wrote polite letters. Someone somewhere must have thought it would be tidy to let a neutral chap decide. So in 1872 they handed the job to an arbitrator: the German Emperor. He looked at the map, shrugged where necessary, and handed the islands to America. Problem solved. The pig had had the dramatis personae of a Shakespeare sketch and then got a postscript from a monarch.
What tickles me is the scale mismatch. Two naval powers. One muddy island full of cows and cozy birds. One moneyed argument about a pig. You can imagine the generals back home being told "we're on the verge of a war" and someone in a wig saying "for a pig?" It reads like a daft farce, only it was real. Proper bonkers.
I once ferried round bits of that coast with a mate years ago and you look at the hills and think: that's what they argued about. Makes modern border rows look faintly theatrical. At least that one ended without anyone inventing a new way to blow things up. Just a pig, a politeness of empires, and a Kaiser with a ruler. Lovely.