The Aroostook War (sometimes called the Pork and Beans War) was an undeclared nonviolent confrontation in 1838/1839 between the United States and Great Britain over the international boundary between British North America (Canada) and Maine. The compromise resolution won a mutually accepted border between the state of Maine and the provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec. High tensions and heated rhetoric in Maine and New Brunswick led both sides to raise troops, arm them, and march them to the disputed border. President Martin Van Buren sent Brigadier General Winfield Scott to work out a compromise. The compromise created a neutral area, and the excitement faded away as the diplomats took over.
The Aroostook War involved no actual confrontation between military forces, and negotiations between diplomats from the UK and United States Secretary of State Daniel Webster quickly settled the dispute. Secretary of State Webster secretly funded a propaganda campaign that convinced leaders in Maine of the wisdom of compromise. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 established final boundary between the countries, giving most of the disputed area to Maine and a militarily vital connection between Canadian provinces to the UK. Though there was no conflict between military forces, occasionally civilian lumberjacks became violent if they spotted people on the wrong side of the border.
Read more about Aroostook War: Disputed Border, Growing Tensions, Crisis of 1830, Posses, Arrests, and The Mobilization of Militia, The American and British Governments Step In, Settlement
Famous quotes containing the word war:
“No spoon has yet destroyed a mouth, but the knife of war cuts portions that are hard to swallow. Perhaps the big mouths of the privileged are able to cope with them, but they dull the teeth of the little people and ruin their stomachs.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)