Over The Back Fence: Conflicts on the United States/Canadian Border From Maine to Alaska

Conflicts the United States/Canada Border from Maine to Alaska

Elizabeth Tower

PO Box 221974 Anchorage, Alaska 99522-1974

books@publicationconsultants.com—www.publicationconsultants.com

ISBN 978-1-59433-112-1

eBook ISBN 978-1-59433-285-2

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2009936111

Copyright 2009 by Elizabeth A. Tower

—First Edition—

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in any form, or by any mechanical or electronic means including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, in whole or in part in any form, and in any case not without the written permission of the author and publisher.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

Dedication

Over the Back Fence is dedicated to Canadian historians Pierre Berton and Peter Newman who made history live and convinced me that North American history is not limited by boundaries of the United States of America.

Contents

Dedication

Foreword

American Revolution—Treaty of Paris

In which diplomats describe national boundaries without knowing the geography of North America.

War of 1812

In which the United States attempts to force Great Britain from North America while it is preoccupied fighting Napoleon in Europe.

Treaty of Ghent

In which nothing is accomplished in spite of bloodshed.

The Forty-Ninth Parallel

In which the United States and Great Britain compromised on a straight line.

Aroostook War

In which friendship between War of 1812 enemies prevents war between Maine and New Brunswick militias.

Webster/Ashburton Treaty

In which Daniel Webster outwits the state of Maine and orchestrates a compromise.

Oregon Treaty

In which American manifest destiny and British pride reach a compromise.

Pig War

In which a British pig invades American territory and an aged general prevents war again.

Alaska Border

In which Great Britain frustrates emerging nationalism in Canada.

The Border Today

From Maine to Washington.

Alaska Update

What’s happening in the North?

Future

There are still potential conflicts.

Bibliographical Notes

Index

Foreword

I am an American and for more than fifty years an Alaskan. As an Alaskan I have more contact with Canada than many Americans, because I pass through that foreign country whenever I drive to any of the south 48 states, or even to Southeastern Alaska. When driving through Whitehorse in Yukon Territory, I always stop at Mac’s Fireweed bookstore to pick up Canadian books, which are difficult to find in U.S. bookstores. Some of these Canadian books, notably Pierre Berton’s two-volume history of the War of 1812 and Peter Newman’s three-volume history of the Hudson’s Bay Company have made me realize that there is a lot of North American history that I did not learn in school. That history, which centers around the United States-Canada border, explains in part why Americans and Canadians are different. They share the ties of common blood, they look alike, sometimes talk alike, and even drive on the same side of the road, but they don’t always think alike. Pierre Berton has summed up these differences: "Three words—loyalty, security, and order—took on a Canadian connotation. Freedom, tossed about like a cricket ball by all sides, had a special meaning, too: it meant freedom from the United States. Liberty was exclusively American, never used north of the border, perhaps because it was too close to libertine for the pious Canadians. Radicalism was the opposite of loyalty, democracy the opposite of order." I am writing this book because there is no better way to understand the difference between Canadians and Americans than to read the story of the historical conflicts along the U.S.-Canada border.

The United States has generally fared well in the resolution of disputed territory, which resulted from lack of geographical knowledge and inaccurate maps. Some of the temperate territory granted to the United States might have been of greater value to Canada because most Canadians choose to live within a hundred miles of the border. The United States had a head start because it was an organized country with a concept of manifest destiny while Canada was still separate British crown colonies and a huge quasi-governmental commercial enterprise. Once the Canada colonies confederated and acquired Rupert’s Land from the Hudson’s Bay Company, the Dominion of Canada developed its own form of manifest destiny. However, Great Britain controlled Canada’s foreign relations until after World War II. At the time that some of the boundary conflicts were resolved, Great Britain was more anxious to stay in the good graces of the United States, a most valuable trading partner, than to foster the manifest destiny of Canada.

In spite of its turbulent history, the U.S.-Canada border has become a happy place where residents of both countries enjoy a symbiotic existence. May it always continue to be so.

American Revolution—Treaty of Paris

In the United States the conflict lasting from 1776 to 1783 is known as the American Revolution or the War for Independence. Some Canadians prefer to refer to it as the First American Civil War. In many ways it was a civil war because the people of the rebelling colonies were divided in loyalties. Although exact numbers are not known, an estimated 90,000, 30% of the population, were still loyal to Great Britain and many more colonists remained neutral during the war. The Loyalists included tenant farmers in the middle Atlantic colonies, highland Scots in the Carolinas, Anglican clergy and their parishioners, and a few Presbyterians in the southern colonies. A large number of Iroquois Indians stayed loyal to the king, but Germans and Quakers in Pennsylvania preferred to remain neutral, fearing that joining the revolution would jeopardize their royal land grants.

Colonists who refused to renounce their loyalty to King George III were often shunned by their neighbors and sometimes subjected to torture such as tar and feathering. Patriots would strip the Loyalist of his clothing and make him watch the tar boiling. Then they would pour tar over the Loyalist and make him roll in feathers. Tar was hard to clean off and blistered the skin which usually came off with the tar. Loyalist property was confiscated and many were forced to leave homes, businesses and farms. Some Loyalists joined British troops in the area or formed Loyalist militia units. The vast majority of Loyalists remained in America during and after the war and some who had fled to Europe eventually returned. About 70,000 Loyalists went to present day Canada, 32,000 to Nova Scotia, where the colony of New Brunswick was created for them in 1784. Others arrived in the eastern townships of Quebec where the governor of Quebec provided land for them in the area which became known as Upper Canada, and later Ontario. These British sympathizers were the first of Canada’s political refugees and the first true British settlers since previously Lower Canada had been predominately French.

The influence of the Loyalists on the evolution of Canada has persisted. Their ties with Great Britain and their antipathy to the United States has provided strength to keep Canada independent in North America. The Loyalists’ distrust of republicanism has influenced Canada’s gradual path to independence. The Canada provinces of New Brunswick and Ontario were founded as places of refuge for the United Empire Loyalists.

After the American Revolution, there were two countries involved rather than two British colonies, and the exact boundaries of the United States of America with British Canada became of increased importance. As was the custom of the times, all important negotiations involving North America took place thousands of miles away in Europe, involving long ocean voyages for the new Americans. Preliminary peace negotiations began in Paris in the second half of 1782. In a letter to James Sullivan, John Adams pointed out that the Mitchell Map was the only one that the ministers plenipotentiary of the United States and Great Britain used in discussion relative to the boundaries of the United States. Various copies of Mitchell Maps have subsequently appeared in archives of different countries with red lines drawn to indicate possible borders. Some of these maps were used in later deliberations, but at the time the negotiators realized their inaccuracies in respect to areas that had not been well explored. Therefore, the Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783 by John Adams, John Jay and Benjamin Franklin, representing the United States of America, and David Hartley, a member of the British Parliament representing King George III, contained only this verbal description of the colonial boundaries:

From the northwest angle of Nova Scotia, viz. that angle which is formed by a line drawn due north from the source of Saint Croix River to the Highlands; along the said Highlands which divide those rivers that empty themselves into the St. Lawrence, from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean, to the northwesternmost head of Connecticut River; thence down along the middle of that river, to the forty-fifth degree of north latitude; from thence, by a line due west on said latitude, until it strikes the river Iroquois or Cataraquy; thence along the middle of said river into Lake Ontario, through the middle of said lake until it strikes the communication by water between that lake and Lake Erie; thence along the middle of said communication into Lake Erie, through the middle of said lake until it arrives at the water communication between that lake and Lake Huron; thence through the middle of the communication by water between that lake and Lake Huron; thence along the middle of said lake until it arrives at the water communication between that lake and Lake Superior; thence through the middle of Lake Superior northward of the Isles Royal and Phelipeaux, to the Long Lake; thence through the middle of Long Lake, and the water communication between it and the Lake of the Woods, to the said Lake of the Woods; thence through the said lake to the most northwestern point thereof, and from thence on a due west course to the river Mississippi; thence by a line to be drawn along the middle of the said river Mississippi until it shall intersect the northwesternmost part of the thirty-first degree of north latitude.

South, by a line to be drawn due east from the determination of the line last mentioned, in the latitude of thirty-one degrees north of the Equator, to the middle of the river Apalachicola or Catahouche; thence along the middle thereof to its junction with the Flint river; thence straight to the head of St. Mary’s River; and thence down along the middle of St. Mary’s River to the Atlantic Ocean.

East, by a line drawn along the middle of the river St. Croix, from its mouth in the Bay of Fundy to its source, and from its source directly north to the aforesaid Highlands, which divide the rivers that fall into the Atlantic Ocean from those which fall into the river St. Lawrence; comprehending all islands within twenty leagues of any part of the shores of the United States, and lying between lines to be drawn due east from the points where the aforesaid boundaries between Nova Scotia on the one part, and East Florida on the other, shall respectively touch the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic Ocean, excepting such as now are, or heretofore have been, within the limits of the said province of Nova Scotia.

This ponderous description of the border still left uncertainties which remained open to partisan interpretation, particularly in regard to the boundary between Massachusetts/Maine and New Brunswick and Quebec. None of the rivers draining into the Bay of Fundy were currently called the St. Croix, location of the highlands was uncertain, and the exact source of the Connecticut River was yet to be determined. Furthermore, negotiators of the Treaty of Paris did not suspect that the source of the Mississippi River (Lake Itasca) was south of the northwesternmost point of the Lake of the Woods. These geographical inaccuracies were to cause future conflict and anomalies in the location of the International Border.

Additional terms of the Treaty of Paris included recognition of the 13 colonies as free and sovereign States; granting of fishing rights to United States fishermen in the Grand Banks off the coast of Newfoundland; restitution of confiscated estates, rights, and properties belonging to Loyalists and prevention of future confiscation; and perpetual access to the Mississippi River for Great Britain and the United States.

Over the ensuing ten years several issues arose, necessitating further diplomatic negotiation between the United States and Great Britain. The French Revolution had caused both Great Britain and the United States to want to improve trade relations. Since Great Britain was fearful of war with France, it was particularly anxious to assure the continued neutrality of the United States. The United States protested that Great Britain had not removed troops from military outposts in the Northwest Territory of the United States and accused the British of inciting Native American attacks on settlers. Furthermore, the boundary between the United States and Canada needed further delineation. The United States had not honored the provision to pay reparations for property confiscated from the Loyalists. John Jay served