The Pig War: The United States, Britain, and the Balance of Power in the Pacific Northwest, 1846-1872

by Scott Kaufman

Very few people have heard of the 'Pig War,' since this episode in American history was overshadowed by the U.S. Civil War and the beginning of mass immigration from Europe. Yet this diplomatic conflict between the United States and Great Britain, resulting from the shooting of a single pig, lasted more than twenty years, and greatly impacted the relationship between the two nations. Scott Kaufman carefully examines, and places into both an American and an international context, the origins and the resolution of this tense stand-off over contested colonial territory. His story not only reveals a tense dispute between a burgeoning imperial power and a waning empire but also highlights the changing Reconstruction-era U.S. national ideology, foreign diplomacy, and control over foreign markets. The Pig War contributes greatly to nineteenth-century American and British diplomatic history and sheds new light on the emergence of the United States as an international superpower.

216 pages, Hardcover

First published December 28, 2003

About the author

Dr. Kaufman, a Francis Marion University Board of Trustees Research Scholar, joined the Francis Marion University staff in 2001. He earned his doctorate from Ohio University in 1998.