What was: The Aroostook War? (US-British war scare)

The Aroostook war was one of the many conflicts that nearly started a war between the United States and the British Empire in the 19th century. In this episode, we will be looking into detail of this conflict.

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The conflict between the two arose from a border dispute between the state of Maine and the Canadian province of New Brunswick. The issue stemmed from the Treaty of Paris in 1783, that ended the American Revolutionary war. The treaty did not clearly determine the boundary between British North America and the United States, so The Commonwealth of Massachusetts began issuing land grants in present day Maine, which it owned at the time, including areas that the British had already laid claim to. The war of 1812 saw the British occupy most of Eastern Maine, as they intended to annex the areas of occupation to some degree. The Treaty of Ghent that followed re-affirmed the boundary line as of the 1783 treaty, and while a commission determined who owned the islands in Passamaquoddy Bay, it didn't define the land boundary which again was in question between the two.

When Maine was separated into its own state in 1820, the boundary question was a massive concern for the new state, and it was also still a concern for Massachusetts, who owned upwards of half of all the public land in Maine, including large sections of the disputed territory. The British saw the extension of territory so hindering between the inland and coastal regions that it made communication and travel much more difficult. If they had control over the northern half of the claimed land it would cut travel time between Quebec and Halifax in nearly half. The region was also a major source of lumber which was vital to both Maine's and New Brunswick's economy. Losing the region would pretty much cripple the economy of either province. This proved to be a greater incentive to the British when thousands of acres in New Brunswick were destroyed in the great Miramachi fire in 1825. Tension only grew with the proclamation of the Republic of Madawaska within the disputed land in 1827 and the Republic of Indian Streams five years later. The 1830 census in Maine had a number of families within the disputed region want to have their land subject to the state and the incorporation of various small towns by committee. The New Brunswick's militia leader was alerted of this and he threatened to arrest anyone that was a part of the committee which didn't come of anything. The treaty of Ghent that ended the war of 1812, had allowed a third party to arbitrator any further disputes and Wilhelm the first, king of the Netherlands, offered that arbitration. He expressed deep frustration with the original treaty, and eventually drew a line that would grant 2/3rds of the territory to the US and a third to the British which was rejected by the Americans.