Historian Unsimplifies - The Pig War by Oversimplified (Part 1)

welcome back everyone to another reaction video this thing came out two hours ago and i've had hundreds of comments already of people asking when i'm gonna react to this video so here it is so we all remember the times the united states and the united kingdom were at war the american revolution in the 18th century and then there was the war of 1812 and then of course we all remember the time that george pickett yes the same george pickett of pickett's charge in gettysburg tried to start a war with britain in 1859. you don't well that's about all i know about the pig war i knew that i know george pickett was with the ninth infantry he was stationed in this area i believe that george mcclellan accused him of trying to start a war with britain something that would distract everyone from the impending civil war that was coming by uniting north and south against a common enemy and the brits across the sea that's about all i know about the pig war so i'm excited to dive into this one today join me on the journey [Music] is made possible by nordvpn click the link below to stay safe online and get a huge discount off a two-year plan with a 30-day money-back guarantee trouble sleeping need someone to snuggle then why not snuggle me the limited edition over simplified plushie is available for it's cute for a few days only get it quick along with some beautiful new character pins thomas jefferson look at us and uh james madison and i think that's james monroe there boys we've only gone and bloody done it we beat the brits and secured independence now to expand westward and conquer the rest of the continent uh thomas it looks like a bunch of different people already live out west what oh no that means we can't expand so i've talked about this on lots of other videos there are two overarching themes that define the first 80 years or so of the united states history it's slavery and manifest destiny and both of them are going to come into play in what we're talking about today manifest destiny the idea that the united states is meant to own everything from the atlantic ocean to the pacific ocean you know california oregon and washington today and then of course slavery and those two issues decide foreign policy they decide much of domestic policy really very little major events happen in u.s history that don't involve one or both of those things i hate my life whoa whoa whoa i didn't say they were white people oh boy [Applause] tough but fair at the end of the revolutionary war when the united states secured its independence from great britain the two sides met in paris to settle the terms among various things they discussed american territorial gains and the british granted them a generous amount of land out west see one of the things that doesn't get talked about a whole lot about the revolutionary war is that the british in controlling colonial america uh had an understanding with the native americans that basically they were going to keep all their people the british we're gonna keep all their people east of the appalachian mountains uh which run roughly about right here and so all of this territory here was for native americans only uh you know for trappers and things like that but otherwise that was it um and so one of the goals in winning independence was now hey we don't have to abide by what the british agreed to all of this lands open up and and a lot of uh the soldiers who fought the revolution were granted huge land grants in places like ohio and kentucky and what became tennessee however benjamin franklin appeared to have an additional fascination oh canada so voluptuous you think we can maybe acquire some of that quit ogling our territory but look at those curves i'd worry less about canada's curves and more about your own curves benjamin america suggested that one day the canadian colonies should become a part of the united states in response britain suggested that many in america should shut the hell up britain wasn't going to give up canada then the two sides had to agree on where to put their border easy enough for the most part follow some existing borders add in a few rivers and lakes maybe even a parallel for good measure and uh yeah i mean this is all massachusetts at the time it eventually becomes maine as part of one of the compromises but uh yeah there's a lot of different things that go on in disputing this border over the years you can see a lot of it at 1842 and even into much later times but then there was a question what would happen here straight line straight line and so it was the border would go from the northwesternmost point of this perfectly oval-shaped lake and continue in a straight line westward until it met the mississippi river perfect or was it well as it turned out the lake didn't actually look like this but like this and the mississippi wasn't here but here so in the end none of that made even the slightest bit of sense don't blame the founding fathers they were just using the best map available blame the guy who made it but to the minds of the day the issue had been solved and it was finally time to start getting along oh back to war they go the glorious war of 1812. and at this point uh napoleon in france has sold what became known as the louisiana purchase to thomas jefferson in the united states uh doubling the size of the us and of course you know it's interesting to sell land that's inhabited by people who aren't part of your country you know we've got the the sioux and many other native american tribes that are inhabiting this land at that time and you get lewis and clark and all that stuff happening saw the americans try to invade canada and the british burned down the white house but when all was said and done it was pretty much a draw and once again america and britain had to enter into peace negotiations by now both sides realize the original border they came up with was a piece of hot garbage and since america had also recently obtained a huge amount of land from napoleon they decided they would need to re-examine the border issue to fix the problems of the previous border agreement they decided to go from the northwesternmost point of this lake as had been previously agreed down to the 49th parallel and from there the line would go straight as an arrow up until the rocky mountains but beyond the rockies the two sides couldn't quite agree on where it would go next because both sides claimed the territory beyond the rockies was theirs see throughout its early history america as a nation had its eyes heavily fixated on all that juicy land out west and you can see why uh it was a pretty big deal for the us if they could have gotten canada because that solves all those problems now you don't have the pesky british trying to lay claim to land that you yourself are trying to lay claim to and then of course you have the spanish down here and then once mexico wins independence from spain now it's all mexican territory and that's going to become a big big deal and of course again foreign policy and domestic policy are determined by slavery and manifest destiny and the mexican war will involve both of those things ripe for invasion i mean settlementation america wanted to expand not only was it their right some believed it was a destiny given to them by god himself to multiply and spread across the continent like rats or disease okay guys just before we take over everything god definitely said this is what we're meant to do right yeah that's what he said isn't that what he said and who was it who spoke to god joseph smith well it was one of us no way we made this whole thing up to justify ruthless collective imperialist tendencies all right well in that case let's get out there and make the world a better place just as god intended [Applause] [Music] the stealth bombers come in and mcdonald's appears uh a lot of this like the stuff with killing all the bison and stuff like that and the railroad actually comes much later than the pig war this belief in divinely destined expansion would later be given its very own name manifest destiny but america wasn't the only one interested in controlling the western territories at the time canada was made up of a number of colonies collectively referred to as british north america this one over here was owned by the hudson's bay company a british charter company dedicated to turning as many beavers as possible into as many felt hats as possible as quickly as possible and the indigenous people became a key supplier as a result the british were also eager to control the land out west and secure that region's valuable resources and in particular the great columbia river was deemed vital to the beaver business so when it came to the question of what would happen to the border beyond the rockies the conversation went a little like this the line should keep going straight because we're manifestly destined to gain the entire north american continent no we need this river so we can keep scalping beavers why don't we just draw the border along the river that way we both have access to it well that would be a completely fair compromise that protects the interests of both parties and there's no way i'm ever going to agree to it having come to a roadblock both sides simply agreed that for now they would jointly occupy the northwestern territory what could possibly go wrong if we share it you know just like the us and native americans sharing things what could possibly go wrong the biggest drawback for the british here is while they've got a strong navy this is a long distance i mean just you know from uh the uk across the ocean you're talking thousands of miles and then you've got thousands more miles to get to the west coast it's not like it's really easily accessible to them of course it's not very accessible to much of the united states either but it's much closer they were both free to settle and trade there but rest assured the agreement was only temporary eventually somebody would get their way listen yank we can jointly occupy this land but i ain't sharing anything else i don't want to see you using my toothbrush i don't want to catch you wearing my underwear and i don't want to catch you using my computer and selling my data to advertise oh here comes an ad then you my friend should use nordvpn do you like giving strangers your passwords to your most important online accounts me neither and that's why i use nordvpn nordvpn has thousands of secure servers in over 60 countries allowing you to safely surf the net at the fastest speed possible by the way if you uh and i'll let the ad run because uh i should um you know nordvpn's a great way to watch things that are blocked in your country so like you people that can't see some of the oversimplified videos because they talk about a guy with a little mustache and things like that that'll help you with that it works across all your devices so you're protected on the go even six of them simultaneously and it's super easy to use with just the click of a button you can head on over to south korea and watch every single bts video known to mankind why would you do that never need to worry about those shady websites annoying pop-ups or undesired eyes spying on your browsing history and you can even mark sexy burger country like this video it even comes with a 30-day that's what i just mentioned so why not go to nordvpn.com over to get a two-year plan with a huge discount plus an additional month for free and as always you'll be supporting my channel so thank you now where were we oh yeah bickering over boundaries manifesting destiny and a joint occupation of oregon terrible idea one man living here who felt the territory should be british was james douglas the hudson's bay company's no-nonsense chief factor at fort vancouver ah what a beautiful unspoiled corner of the british empire i've got my spotted dick my spice girls fan club membership and an unrelenting negative outlook on life that affects everyone around me what are you looking at stephen yes truly british what the what's the boss music here comes mcdonald's and i'm just looking around because i know that he likes to put in like characters from previous videos i just don't i don't see any at the moment the problem for men like douglas was that many americans had already begun streaming up the oregon trail gun slinging howdy neighboring diarrhea having by the thou you have dysentery if you're of my generation you have probably played the game oregon trail there's a new version of it now uh but that's like the most memorable thing from the oregon trail game is you have died of dysentery i will never ever forget that and that'll be a joke for the rest of my life they were pouring into the oregon territory in search of land to settle and farm this however crowded at the fur trade and eventually a very bitter douglas and the other hudson's bay traders at fort vancouver were ordered to relocate north to a new base of operations but the americans keep coming and they don't stop coming hopped in their wagons and they hit the ground running didn't make sense to keep sharing oregon when they outnumbered the brits more than six to one and suddenly the whole joint occupation deal was being called into question who would have thought that that wouldn't work out did president polk maintain that america had an obvious claim to the entire region and this is the same president polk who ran on the promise he was only going to serve one term but he also ran on the promise of annexing texas which he knew would probably mean war with mexico even implying a possible war with britain fiery language from u.s senators declared that american rifles would annihilate the hudson's bay company in oregon and america even gave britain notice that it was pulling out of the joint occupation agreement the british were alarmed as the two sides stood on the brink of war but in the end neither truly wanted to fight the british favored maintaining good economic relations while the americans had already gotten themselves into a war with mexico so after a bit of back and forth the british finally said fine you wanted a straight line there there's your straight line and so the agreement was made the border would continue directly to the strait of georgia but because the british insisted they keep vancouver island it would then move south through the center of the channel and on to the pacific ocean finally the issue of the northwest border had been solved no no hold the phone discrepancy detected enhanced frame 200 enhance enhance [Music] nope too far perfect now show me the exact wording of the treaty the line of boundary goes to the middle of the channel and thence southerly through the middle of said channel but there's loads of channels so you tell me which channel is the treaty referring to and therefore who owns these islands is the wording of the treaty maybe a little too vague well that's exactly the problem encountered by the people living in the area the british insisted that the channel intended by the treaty was the rosario strait and therefore the islands were british the americans on the other hand argued that the intended channel was the harrow strait and therefore the islands were american at times the debate became rather heated even the individuals who negotiated and signed the treaty at times didn't seem entirely sure which channel the treaty meant and representatives from the hudson's bay company begged them to make it clearer one thousand miles away the people in power simply had more to worry about than some tiny islands in the middle of nowhere [Applause] all right listen up we got a lot to get through the seventh earl of jizzingham says he encountered a foul beast in the fields of upper fartingdom late last night and put this sketch together that's a poor person darren lord pidlingham says he has a new mole on his backside how is that parliamentary business george oh some islands in the pacific northwest are in dispute and could lead to a war with america boring fine let's take a look at that mold george [Applause] for now the islands were simply held in dispute were they british or were they american i'm sure this conflict won't cause anyone to die and one man who thought the islands were undeniably british was james douglas now the governor of vancouver island he had already once had american settlers encroach on his territory and force him to move and by golly he wasn't going to let it happen again as far as he was concerned those islands were not only british but prime agricultural land and given the chance those globby yanks wouldn't hesitate to start pitching flags with their glubby little hands a little bit reminds me of what happened with the falklands war you know 140 years later or so where people are kind of arguing over who has the right to the island and somebody's going to settle on it and somebody's gonna take it from the other one and that whole bit and so he came up with a plan if the british settled the islands first then that would surely secure them for britain and so in 1853 douglas sent an irishman by the name of charles griffin along with some hawaiian shepherds to go set up a sheep farm on san juan island and set up a sheep farm they did the place was rammed with sheep 1369 to be exact but within those flocks of woolly cowards could also be found a number of beautiful prized berkshire pigs oh porky you look stunning you're the greatest thing that's ever happened to me would you perhaps like to go to the island bowl together tonight oink once for now roll around in that cow crap if yes yes i'm covered in poo and i'm the luckiest man alive but life on the island for charles griffin wasn't to be a perfect paradise of pig pageants because unfortunately for him the americans also believed the island was theirs one day in 1854 an american customs collector was sailing around the islands on the outlook for bands of native tribesmen when he spotted something aha i've got you now you savages over yonder those are cheap sir sheep you say what are they doing here let's go and negotiate with them with sheep are you crazy i'm perfectly stable your rat bag call me crazy again and i'll eat your eyes hello good sir we request to speak with you this reminds me of uh saturday night live did a skit years ago with uh uh christopher walken which some of the funniest stuff they ever did was when he hosted and it was about a census taker coming and and asking him how many people lived in his apartment and he's like you know he says i'm like 84 and then when they asked him well who all lives there and he starts talking about his cat and a candy bar and a lamp and all this stuff and you know same kind of thing here a little bit talking to the sheep like he's a citizen of the island out of my way allow me to parlay with this foul beast hey hey stop threatening my sheep your sheep you mean to tell me that you a british subject have illegally imported these sheep into american territory i'll have you know that you an american are currently trespassing on british territory the americans felt that they were entitled to collect taxes on the british property you know because the island was american and they threatened seizure if dews weren't paid the british meanwhile threatened to arrest the americans you know because the island was british and the two sides were in a standoff to give charles griffin the legal power to deal with the american trespassers douglas said hey put on this wig boom and remember it's you know it's literally weeks if not months to transmit messages i mean we're talking about the 1850s here so uh you don't have any telegraph cables across the ocean yet so it's still all about i think the first telegraph cables in the 1860s the first one that actually took and lasted was after the american civil war so we're still talking about waiting for ships to cross the ocean and back with messages from the government you're a magistrate now and in turn griffin went to one of his hawaiian shepherds and said hey i'm making you a constable so i mean and i should clarify that griffin you know he's acting on his own right here but he's probably also waiting for direction from the government on what to do next put on this badge the british then went off to arrest the us customs inspector but being an american he emerged from his tent with four pistols and a giant knife so the brits had to back down eventually raids by northern tribes chased the us officer from the island but the americans weren't done yet officials from nearby whatcom county in washington territory believe the island fell under their jurisdiction and they decided it was time to make the british pay up once and for all they sent one sheriff barnes to go confront charles griffin hey you owe us 80. wait did that say what i think it said decided it was time to make the british pay up once and for all they sent one sheriff barnes to go confront charles griffin hey it says boobies upside down okay we we did similar things as kids with with uh calculators it was like a a preteen boy thing that you did i guess you owe us 80 and 33 cents for all this farm stuff you got here go suck an egg oh i see so that's how it is huh that's how it's going to be is it that's the way in which things are eh that be how it will is it will it be how that is huh that be the way in which things be the way they are is that get off my property so the sheriff another whatcom county officials felt they were now well within their rights to seize and auction off griffin's sheep in order to recoup lost taxes and who would they escalation breeding rams off to but themselves then in a pretty chaotic scene they worked to tie the rams to their boats and when charles griffin came running to rescue his kidnapped sheep being americans they pulled out guns on him and he had to back down in all charles griffin lost 34 breeding rams and he was furious the british complained to the american government who were shocked to hear what had been going on at their northwest border and both governments told their officials in the air so we got a mini cooper here uh with the british uh flag on the top of it and uh i don't know what kind of car that is but it's obviously an american one korea to back off we're not trying to start a major war over some dumb sheep and a stupid island but also the islands are definitely ours under no circumstances let the other side have them for now both governments agreed to set up yet another boundary commission to decide which channel was the correct border but it often devolved into petty bickering the british did make one interesting suggestion though we could draw the border through this middle channel and split the islands between us well that would be a completely fair compromise which means we'll never do it both parties and there's no way i'm ever going to agree to it and now he's got an ak-47 the aftermath of the sheep raid james douglas still stationed at fort victoria became even more cautious of american encroachment into his territory uh mr douglas sir it appears an indian has discovered gold in the fraser canyon just north of here shut up keep your voice down paul and these are the kinds of things on which major agreements can fall apart uh you know the same thing happens in 1875-76 when ulysses s grant administration has come to an agreement with the the sioux indians uh and you know they're allowing them to have the black hills and everybody thinks that everything's finally settled and then uh prospectors go in find gold in the black hills and suddenly there's a problem on their hands because they've just agreed to give this land over and now suddenly everybody wants the land and they try to buy the land from the native americans and they don't want to sell the land and so that's how you end up with the great sioux war which culminates in little bighorn custer's defeat those kinds of things all because somebody found gold we can't risk those globby americans hearing about this or our territory here will be infested with them oh now the fraser canyon gold rush attracted a heap of americans to the region some got lucky most did not and of those that didn't rather than returning all the way home many simply decided to settle in the area and in particular the juicy green pastures of san juan island were rather appealing believing the island was american territory around a dozen american settlers moved there in the late 1850s one of them was a man named lyman cutler a young man in his mid-20s and lazy as pie he didn't want to have to clear a space in the forest to build his home so he said i'll just build my cabin right in the middle of this british sheep run look at all this empty land here i don't want to have to cut down trees i can just put it right here i'm sure that won't make anyone mad when he planted potato seeds in his garden rather than building a nice protective fence around them he said i'll just fence in three sites and hope all these british farm animals have a moral compass and respect my property rights griffin's pig was a berkshire well-known for rooting and lyman's fairly pathetic fence made for a bad combination numerous times he had had to chase the pig away from his property and he once angrily marched up to griffin's home saying hey british farm idiot keep your stupid pig out of my potatoes it is up to you to keep your potatoes out of my pig imagine that major conflicts can potentially erupt because of a stupid lazy settler who shows up on land that doesn't belong to him and takes the easiest route to settling that land and suddenly you could spark a crisis between major governments griffin was furious with his new american neighbors they built their homes all over his sheep pastures and besides what right did they have to be here anyway it was british territory lyman on the other hand swore the local government had assured him his land claims were legitimate and so to him the british were out of line look at that sick freak in love with his pig isn't that just sick yeah what a freak not like our loves buddy yeah just a man in his potato nothing wrong with that but the tension between lyman and griffin was just about to explode and we'll stop right there uh we are about halfway through the video we'll come back tomorrow with part two and finish off this story i hope you've enjoyed this so far stick around make sure you're subscribed if you're new to the channel so you don't miss it i'll upload part two sometime tomorrow afternoon thanks for watching you

Channel: Vlogging Through History

Views: 283,050

Keywords: oversimplified reaction, history reaction, historian reacts, reaction video, historian reacts to oversimplified, history guy gaming, history teacher reacts, pig war reaction, oversimplified pig war reaction, new oversimplified video

Id: o7HoZ-ZMSiA

Length: 28min 21sec (1701 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 06 2021