James Baquet

The Pork and Beans War may have been a farcical action with a silly name, but the casus belli was solid enough.

The War of 1812 had been an “authentic” war, meant to tie a ribbon on the events of the American Revolution which had ended just a couple of decades earlier. Lasting nearly three years, at a cost of over 25,000 English and European-Americans dead from all causes (battle, disease, etc.) as well as over 10,000 Native Americans (warriors and non-combatants of numerous tribes), it was no laughing matter.

The Treaty of Ghent ended that war in December 1814, although skirmishes and at least one major battle continued for two more months due to slow communication. However, the treaty left some loose ends; one of these was the status of the border between what is now the U.S. state of Maine and the Canadian province of New Brunswick. The Aroostook River crosses today’s boundary between the two, and lends the action its more formal name: The Aroostook War.

British subjects on the Canadian side and American citizens on the U.S. side had been going about their business for over two decades after the War of 1812 had ended. But in 1838 and 1839 tensions in the area developed into a full-scale confrontation. The immediate cause of the war was the cutting of timber on the Canadian side by Americans, and a military stand-off took place.

Several British were captured, but the only casualties in the war were the injuries of two Canadian militiamen by black bears. A diplomatic solution, the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, was forged in Washington, D.C., in 1842 by representatives of the U.K. and the U.S., fixing the border that remains in effect to this day. (The treaty was named in part for the great American statesman Daniel Webster, Secretary of State at the time.)

Although it is usually referred to as a “war” — perhaps because local militia were called out on both sides — there was no military action, so it is better termed an “international incident.” As for the “Pork and Beans” part of the name, no one is quite sure where it came from. It may have referred to the diet of the lumberjacks who cleared the land, or the military men who defended it.

Vocabulary:

Which word above means:

1. finish the details of

2. trees cut for wood

3. worked out

4. setting, determining

5. respected politician

6. unfinished details

7. reason for a war

8. not funny

9. absurd, ludicrous

10. people who cut trees