The voice for the Pig was Charlie Hopkinson. And btw, these are the times when war wasn’t thought to be the horrendous and terrifying catastrophe that it was. No television to broadcast the gory scenes, and only the people in the war understood the terror. So people would be excited if wars broke out
Very true in the first real instance of reality shock was one of the first battles of the civil War where people rode out from the city to watch the battle and were horrified
Also war after WW1 took weeks in trenches with dangerous gas or artillery. Without skirmishes and glory, but only to be met with bloody slaughter and the horrible conditions.
If you ever visit Seattle, going to the San Juan Islands is one of the touristy things to do. You take a boat out and spend the day. It's beautiful. A lot of rich and famous people have homes there.
Very true. I was just there a couple weeks ago. I went on a detour after coming back from Mount Baker. Didn't have the time to go on the islands themselves, but it is a really pretty area, especially right around the islands.
Moran State park on Orcas Island is hands down the best in Washington. The lakes are gorgeous and the forest has never been logged. I was a rich guys private estate until it became a park.
The scene with "You have dysentary" is in reference to "Oregon Trail", a famous video game in American history. In it, you are a family traveling up the Oregon Trail, and you can die from a myriad of ways, including dysentary.
Fort Vancouver eventually turned into the small city of Vancouver, WA. The much larger city of Vancouver, BC, is about 300 miles north of there. Both cities are named after the same guy - British explorer George Vancouver.
And not all that small. It has like 186 thousand people. I lived there for 10 years. Now I live near Puget Sound (Everett) and am a quick ferry ride to all of these places. It's kinda funny that this is not mentioned much around here.
@@jesswriggs7205 Every kid who went to public school in Washington state had to take Washington State History and learn about Pig Island. Every kid who went to public school in Oregon knows about Fort Vancouver and the beaver trappers. I grew up outside of Portland and moved to Tacoma when I was 16.
@A hecker all day British troops on the green at Lexington were a diplomatic problem... until someone pulled a trigger. Was the "Cold War" a war, or a "diplomatic problem"? It's probably just as well that Captain Salusbury Pryce Humphreys , once of the HMS Leopard, was nowhere near the scene (and likely dead by this time), since he fired on a US warship, killing US Navy Sailors - in time of peace- with significantly less provocation than this. In the greater scheme of things... when all was said and done... this was almost a non-event, a minor diplomatic kerfuffle... but it had the potential for dire consequences reaching far beyond the Pacific Northwest, or even the western US and Canada.
The beaver trade was booming in the early 1800s as beaver pelts were the most commonly used material in top hats of the time. The beaver pelts were notoriously difficult to work unless they are soaked in a mercurial solution. Hence why "Mad as a Hatter" is a thing, as hatmakers would go insane from the mercury fumes.
Yes, at that point in time you either had to sail completely around South America - or travel overland at Panama - which was rife with Yellow Fever - so much so that a significant percentage of the people who took that route, died. But that's the way the mail could reach the East Coast in "only" 6 weeks. The fastest Sailing ship to make the trip from New York to San Francisco was the Clipper ship "Flying Cloud" who made the trip in 1854 in 89 days 8 hours. so, typically, 3-5 months, then add about another week to Puget Sound. (That was bettered in 1989 by a racing sailboat, but yeah, whatever.)
Actually, the Islands in dispute, the "San Juan" Islands (one of those names left over from the Spanish... who were actually there before the British (History is fun) are lovely Islands - and currently comprise their own County - with a land area roughly the size of the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey combined. So, not huge on the overall scale of things, but not insignificant either.
And because it’s a beautiful area smack-dab in between Seattle & Vancouver-and other less populous but still important cities in the Cascadia Metroplex, like the Port of Tacoma, Victoria (the Capitol of British Columbia) and Bellingham, it is a popular tourist destination. A tourist destination that loves to talk about that time they were almost the epicenter of a major war between an immediate Post-Mexican-American-War/Pre-Civil-War US and the 2nd British Empire at its zenith under Victoria...all over the STUPIDEST reasons imaginable. It’s a lovely place to visit.
34:58 Since the famous canal wasn't made until the turn of the century, to get to San Juan Island General Scott sailed to Panama, trekked across the mountains on some mules, jumped on a ship on the other side of the ismuth, and sailed up the West Coast. This expensive route was the primary one to take if you needed to get there quickly and safely. The infrastructure in the american west wasn't very well developed; traveling across land was long and dangerous in the underdeveloped countryside, and even with the intercontinental railroad built in the 1850s it wasn't really until the 1890s or that the two halves of the country were truly connected.
14:25 I live in Washington State and a lot of people live up on those islands! Even some of the much smaller ones you can only get to by private boat. There's actually several car fairies that take hundreds of people back and forth every day and tens of thousands of people a year.
Yeah, and most of the residents are stuck up and entitled, I get to deal with them daily and they always complain that, "I have to catch the ferry and you're taking too long"
@@Yoda98292 I never understand why people get bent out of shape about that. I live down in West Seattle near the ferry and there's a restaurant I frequent quite often and people will often try to rush the weight staff to get the check or their food the ferry's run frequently enough they need to just plan their day better. Although I must say the fairies have been running pretty poorly lately as far as on time efficiency
Yeah, the British were kind of busy dealing with those issues at the time. This wasn’t even a real war seeing as there were no casualties on either side, it was a dispute.
The British and American camps still exist on San Juan Island as tourist attractions. The main thing I noticed when I visited was how much nicer the British camp was. The buildings are bigger and better quality, there are spaces for gardens and recreation...the American camp was barely more than a collection of shacks.
at 35:00 nowadays there is the Panama Canal which allows ships through, but that wasn't built until 1914. However, long before that it was a common practice to cross overland there due to how narrow it is, and catch another ship on the Pacific side.
When California revolted against the dysfunctional Mexican Government, if the US had not claimed it for themselves - British Warships were off-shore of the capitol of Monterrey, with orders to claim California for England. A key issue with British claims to territory around the world was that they often did not back them up by populating the area with English settlers - but by establishing "Trading Companies" that eventually became the controlling financial power in the region - thus, being able to exert political influence through financial means - and using military force to cow the populace / local government only when that didn't work. In North America, these tactics did not work against an armed population, who were themselves colonizing the land by forcibly displacing the native populace. The Pacific Northwest was a long way away from the government in Washington, but infinitely further away from London. Going to war with the US historically proved simply too expensive to justify for the gains realized.
@@lindaeasley5606 Absolutely. They were working hard to catch up with Spain and Portugal... and not a few powerful Englishmen harbored a certain amount of ill-will towards their erstwhile colonies.
1) I cannot imagine many Americans learned this story in school, especially since the events of the 1850s were mostly preludes to our Civil War. This story is not, although the involvement of George Pickett is interesting. 2) I think I heard you say you don't know about the War of 1812. For the British, this war was a sideshow to the Napoleonic Wars. One of the causes of the war was that the Royal Navy always needed more men, and they had the unfortunate habit of stopping American merchant ships and "impressing" sailors who might be British, which is a nice way of saying "kidnapping and enlisting" men into the Royal Navy, even if they could prove their American citizenship. I can understand if British schools skip this little bit of history. 3) At 5:30, I believe that "it's my density" is a reference to the first "Back to the Future" movie. 4) Yes, both the U.S. and the UK wanted the disputed territory for furs, especially beavers. Hats made from beaver pelts were popular in Europe in the 1700s and early 1800s. 5) At 9:49-9:53, OverSimplified is paraphrasing the lyrics of the song "All Star" by Smash Mouth. 6) It wasn't until the 1890s that the U.S. economy became larger than the UK, and World War 2 when the U.S. Navy replaced the Royal Navy as the world's largest. 7) At 20:01, what does the word "glubby" mean. Google had no answers. Does he mean "grubby?" 8) At 25:50, the two "telephones" are a banana and an electric iron! The iron ignites Pickett's hair. 9) At 35:00, the ship with General Scott aboard did indeed have to go around the southern tip of South America. Thanks to steamships, a trip which once lasted several months by sail probably took only several weeks in the late 1850s. The Panama Canal did not open until 1914.
I think the idea was to sail to panama and walk across the land or use horses and then get on a different boat on the pacific side... seems a lot faster than going around South America.
@@MyMonsterguy A railroad was built in Panama in the 1850s, where the canal is now, to transport people and supplies for the California Gold Rush. But Europeans in Panama had an extraordinarily high chance of dying from yellow fever or another tropical disease. Many took the extra time to steam around South America. OverSimplified said it took six weeks each way for mail, which might have been overland along the Oregon Trail. I know it was not the Pony Express, which existed only 1860-61.
"Glubby" is an informal way to say "fat". It carries a connotation of roundness with it. It's commenting on American health issues, so don't feel like you were the only ones getting picked on, Brits.
35:10 The reason why they go through Panama rather than going around South America is because, while the Panama canal would not be constructed until 1914, during that time, Panama was so thin that it would be more feasible, at least for people with enough money, to take a ship to Panama, then travel the very short distance across land, and take another ship up to the west coast of America.
4:25 You do, you just don't know you've known about it. That "star spangled banner as you've never heard it" video, you probably didn't realize, that was the War of 1812, technically it was 1814 but historians are bad with naming conflicts. Battle of New Orleans, Shelling of Fort McHenry, Start Spangled Banner, White House burned, Tecumseh's confederacy. That's all War of 1812.
Near the area Fort Vancouver is (it still stands as a historic site), there is a city called Vancouver. It is in Washington right over the river from Portland, Oregon. There is also Vancouver, British Columbia. There are two cities named Vancouver not that far from each other because of what happened here. 🙂
a bit like Mars today, there was probably very little in that remote area that was worth the time, effort and costs to bring it back to the east or even more Britain. Beavers maybe were the most unique thing there? The susual way was by ship to Panama, crossing Panama (no canal yet) and then by ship back up. And crossing Panama meant dealing with sickness and diseases. It was a hell of a trip.
At this time there was no way to go from the Atlantic to the Pacific without going all the way south past South America. Not until the Panama Canal was completed in 1914 and now ships cross through it regularly.
Though individuals and light cargo (most frequently top-priority mail) could risk yellow fever and the tropical heat and take a high-elevation overland trail at Panama to cut the trip a *bit* shorter.
Yeah, these islands seem inconsequential, but it does present some logistical issues - which country's laws are to be enforced? Who is responsible for providing services? Who is entitled to tax revenue? This was also such a contentious time between the US and UK that any minor dispute had the potential to spark a major conflict. Interestingly, the US and Canada still have some very minor territorial disputes to this day - nothing that could lead to conflict because the two nations cooperate so closely with one another, but these same territorial disputes between less friendly nations could absolutely result in conflict. It happens all the time all over the world.
I've actually just finished reading a book about the Pig War. Oversimplified makes it sound more interesting than it actually is. It's mostly Harny and Pickett being idiots and not knowing about international diplomacy or the treaty both nations had signed years earlier. That's about as interesting as it got.
Fun Fact - Friday Harbor is the largest "city" (population ~ 2500) (it is incorporated) in the San Juan Islands, and the County seat. It is named after the Hawaiian shepherd who worked for the Hudson's Bay Company... his name was "Friday"... and he lived where "Friday Harbor" (once Friday's Harbor) is today.
Living in Washington State for 30yrs I already knew who won the islands from the start, lol.. But I definitely loved watching this video and learned some things they never seem to teach in school. Great Channel plz do more like this. Another great reaction, keep up the great work. 👍
Yeah, the British didn’t really care about this dispute. They were busy dealing with ruling 1/4 of the globe, it wasn’t even a real war either since there were no casualties on either side…except a pig. 😂
A lot of major cities in the US and probably Canada started as trading posts and or forts. Then to house everyone and they set up houses then they needed stores to sell supplies for the residents, and then time happened, and then you have Vancouver.
Mark 36:53. Oh! Okay! Hehe! So he did use a shotgun pump action sound effect, and he animated the hands to make the motion, though it isn't a shotgun! 😆😅
Let us not overlook the fact that, besides the Royal Navy, and Gen. Scott, it was a German Kaiser named Wilhelm (the first) on the "level-headed peacekeeper" team.
I grew up in Washington state. There are TWO cities named Vancouver. There is Vancouver, Washington which is just north of what is now Portland, Oregon. This was the original Ft. Vancouver. Then there is Vancouver, B.C. which is (obviously) in Canada, and is just north of the US-Canadian border north of Bellingham.
So there are 2 Vancouver’s. Vancouver, Washington, which is where Fort Vancouver was, and Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada. Douglas was relocated to Fort Victoria, on Vancouver Island, across the channel from Vancouver, British Columbia.
During that time you has to go all the way around but in 1904 they started to build the Panama canel which I believe finished in 1914 so today you don't have to go all the way around, the ships cut through Panama.
I remember some guys I knew in college saw train tickets to Vancouver and thought how great of a deal it was. But they didn't realize the train was going to Vancouver Washington not Vancouver BC
7:05 alberta in Western Canada actually has a shit ton of oil, Canada has the 3rd largest amount of oil in the world after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela and that's where it mostly comes from (Not exactly the disputed are but just to the east from it)
1: fort Vancouver is now in the position of Vancouver, Washington. 2: those islands are now San Juan county Washington. 3: the Panama Canal did exist at this time.
Right across from the San Juan Islands is a massive Naval Air Station on Whidby Island. I live near Whidby on the mainland in Marysville. I also have lived off and on in Vancouver, Washington for 30 years and lived there for the last 10 years before heading north. Vancouver or The Couve as we call it is now a city of 186,000 people. The cost of living there is stupid expensive. They do have a replica of the old fort in Vancouver. And down by the banks of the Columbia River they have the history on plaques everywhere.
Hey Luka, I actually live on Vancouver Island and can clarify some things. The fort that Douglas went to would become the city of Victoria which is the capital of British Columbia and is across the ocean from Vancouver which is BCs largest city. The city and the fort are named after a British explorer and there's a city named Vancouver in the US too though it's much smaller. People still live on the San Juan Islands though it's not many, a little over 10K I think? Too bad the Pig War isn't taught here, now that I know about I kind of want to go to the island but thanks to travel restrictions I can't.
0:28 I am born and raised in Washington state, which the San Juan Islands are a part of. Until Oversimplified's video I hadn't heard of it either. And it's a major thing to have happened in my state, yet it was overlooked in history class
Oh yeah Canada used to be literally a corporate outpost for the sole purpose of harvesting beavers, it’s not a part of our history that people talk enough about.
As an American who has some native blood and many native friends. I personally believe if manifest destiny was down with the literal and cultural gene code of Native Americans and instead we treated them as equals(ie let them decide if they wanna join the us) it would’ve been fine. In the end it lead to America having the most strategically secure geographic position in the world. However the broken treaties and backstabbing of the natives was unacceptable and we’re only just now starting to fix it. (Only positive thing is as we went West it became less literal gene code and more cultural so less deaths but still ruthless and unacceptable) Also there are two Vancouvers, one in southern washington on the Columbia River (where the original fort was) and the more famous Canadian one
In fairness, they did not really view America as a threat. The United States was a master of "Divide and Conquer" tactics on the Natives. For instance the Natives who were present at the first "Thanksgiving" were there due to an alliance they had made with the Pilgrims against a stronger local tribe. That tribe and Squanto's tribe had been fighting for generations, the Pilgrims just got there. The Crow Nation was the US Army's best scouts during the Great Plains War. Why would they do this? Because the Sioux Nation had been encroaching on their lands for generations.
@@brianeleighton @Brian Leighton lol there was no fairness in manifest destiny. I'm an apache and we have a term for the us government that has been handed down through oral teachings ever since they first expanded west. "Indian Givers" people who "give" something with the intent of taking it back by force. Hell even the first thanksgiving is told differently. Also people have been fighting for generations but that DOESNT mean they fought "All the time" their were weeks/months of peace. To say they always war and were savages spreads the colonistic propaganda
@@brianeleighton not to even get into that all history that is known today about early America is from the perspective of pilgrims/White Nationalists(manifest destiny because god gave anyone white the right to glory) sooo history is written by the victors and you must be crazy to think any indigenous would accept those interpretations.
@@fatty1040 You seem to think I am unaware of that history. Modern people ask why the Natives did not unite as a body to drive out the whites. The answer? Because the Natives of the time didn't view themselves as one people. They were many separate nations. The first Thanksgiving was celebrated because the Pilgrims were celebrating a successful harvest by shooting guns into the air. Squanto's tribe, which had made a defensive alliance with the Pilgrims thought they were under attack and so came to help fight. In the Apache Wars that were fought against your ancestors, the US Army's best scouts were members of the tribe that fought the Apache the most. I believe it was the Cheyenne. I was saying in fairness to the natives that they did not view the few whites as a threat as opposed to the whole tribe of enemies they had been fighting for generations. There is a myth equally strong in modern times about the West and Western expansion, the "Noble Savage" myth. The fact is that the native bands in the west were human, with human flaws. I do not know where I said that the tribes fought nonstop for generations. However, it is far easier to employ divide and conquer tactics on groups that have been fighting amongst themselves. The whites had just gotten there, it was easy for them to exploit old animosities among the natives. Edit: Also, fun fact. The original term "Indian Giver" was actually a term white people invented about natives themselves. The reason for this was how the natives viewed property and territorial rights. White people would come and negotiate the purchase of native lands from the tribe. The tribe viewed the "sale" price of the land as a payment to use the land for a season, not the permanent purchase of the land. The tribe would return to that tract of land a few seasons later to find farmlands and towns and want their land back. The term "Indian Giver" doesn't require force. It just requires to give something and then want that same thing returned back. This is why for instance the island of Manhattan was "bought" for a bunch of beads...that price seems a lot more fair when you realize the local tribe thought they were selling the hunting and fishing rights to the land for a season. Edit #2: By the time of the Battle of Little Bighorn, the natives DID understand the existential threat the whites posed. This is why the battle wasn't just fought against the Sioux. The Arapaho, Pawnee, Shawnee, Shoshone and Sioux were all present. These tribes put aside their own issues to face the much larger threat. However, by this time it was too late.
2.4K Thumbs Up + Mine! 👍 You're welcome! Thanks! ☺️ Notes: My doctor advised me to begin a Mediterranean Diet because of my High Blood Pressure. So I'm trying. But I had already bought bacon! I was going to leave it for my father. There were two boxes of it. He did finish one. But I think that seeing two different reactions to the same video may explain why I finished the second box tonight! Well, it can't taunt me anymore. Nor can the white bread. But my supply of salads is gone. Okay. The annexation of Canada is part of the game lore in the "Fallout" series. It made it much easier to fight China and get back Alaska. It didn't clarify if Canada suddenly became the largest state by far or if each providence became a state. 🤔
🪶There were around 600,000 native Americans dotted throughout the Untied States in 1812. 600,000 ultimately isn't much in the vast western US, there was room to settle peacefully but obviously vastly different cultures have trouble coexisting.
Yeah true. I think American Government wronged the Natives big time. My DNA shows my ancestors were from Ireland & wales on moms side, and I have some Cherokee blood on my Dads side.. my great, great,Grandmother walked the miserable Trail of Tears in the dead of winter to be relocated from Tennessee to Oklahoma territory. I still live in Oklahoma today. Each state have their own flag & Oklahomas is a Native American design.
A little late here, and I'm sure someone has already written this, but there is also a Vancouver in Washington State. It's a much smaller town than the Vancouver in Canada.
All of those bowler hats in the UK were made from beaver fur... Every one...Most men wore hats until the 1960s, John F. Kennedy being the first president who didn't wear a hat everyday... Harry Truman was a hat haberdasher...
Vancouver, Canada is in the area of Fort Vancouver, but there's also a Vancouver, Washington that's much closer. I only know this because I dated a girl from there.
As how he got there. Central and South America is one of those old wives tales. It doesn't exist. Once you get to the end of Mexico there is nothing there.
Hey Luka, hopefully you see this but I am born and raised on San Juan Island. Growing up my mothers house actually bordered the British Camp reserve. I know lots about The Pig War and would love to maybe send you some things, physical or otherwise (like photos/videos), about The Pig War, San Juan Islands, or America. Let me know if you'd be interested in more information on The Pig War, I'd love to be your boots on the ground! As far as sending you things about America, well, your PO box is in the description, I suppose I can just do that on my own accord. I will say, your PO box opening videos have been really great, always enjoy those.
a brit reacting to a brit vs US conflict that nearly escalated into bloodshed, let see what he thinks. I realized I misunderstood him saying 'thats like 3 months' when typing this message because I only thought he meant 1 of the 2 six weeks not both
34:58 Yes, General Scott would have had to either of gone all the way around South America & then back north to get to San Juan Island, or, since the Panama Canal hadn't yet been built (that would come after the Spanish-American War), to have crossed through Panama (then a part of Columbia) and then boarded another ship on the other side of the isthmus. Which he did, I don't know, but it would have had to have been one of those 2 if he was travelling by ship. Actually, the U.S. only really became the big bad-boy powerhouse we're thought of as today after the 2 World Wars. When all of the other superpowers of the day, pretty much all of whom were located in Europe, were trashed from the wars, we were the last man standing & were able to build ourselves up with a head start over all the other countries, and the 2 wars pushed us onto the international stage (until then, we were still trying to mostly keep to ourselves). And, actually, until the resolution of our Civil War, we were still trying to figure out what it meant to be "American". Solidifying our country in that war gave us our national identity.
![A History Teacher Reacts | The Pig War [Part 1/2] | Oversimplified](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/u-9_ppvkIk8/mqdefault.jpg)
You can tell Oversimplified overhauled his comedy game during his hiatus
Yeah normally a lot of the jokes don't land with me, this one was crazy good.
I wouldn’t call it a “hiatus” because that’s his regular upload schedule
@@pookidwastherecaca5323 only in 6 months but hella good... now thats epic
He's always been very funny, i don't think this one was any more or less funny than the modern episodes tend to be
His humor can not be contained
The voice for the Pig was Charlie Hopkinson.
And btw, these are the times when war wasn’t thought to be the horrendous and terrifying catastrophe that it was. No television to broadcast the gory scenes, and only the people in the war understood the terror. So people would be excited if wars broke out
Very true in the first real instance of reality shock was one of the first battles of the civil War where people rode out from the city to watch the battle and were horrified
@@RabidNemo yup. And the broadcasts of the Vietnam war on American TV’s led to a major cultural shift in America.
@@AidanS99 Suddenly war didn't seem so adventurous or glorious anymore, especially when it's your children being sent to a foreign land to die.
Also war after WW1 took weeks in trenches with dangerous gas or artillery.
Without skirmishes and glory, but only to be met with bloody slaughter and the horrible conditions.
Before accurate guns and artillery, it was more man to man skirmishes with a lot of action in short periods in a day or couple of days.
If you ever visit Seattle, going to the San Juan Islands is one of the touristy things to do. You take a boat out and spend the day. It's beautiful. A lot of rich and famous people have homes there.
Very true. I was just there a couple weeks ago. I went on a detour after coming back from Mount Baker. Didn't have the time to go on the islands themselves, but it is a really pretty area, especially right around the islands.
Moran State park on Orcas Island is hands down the best in Washington. The lakes are gorgeous and the forest has never been logged. I was a rich guys private estate until it became a park.
The scene with "You have dysentary" is in reference to "Oregon Trail", a famous video game in American history. In it, you are a family traveling up the Oregon Trail, and you can die from a myriad of ways, including dysentary.
Fort Vancouver eventually turned into the small city of Vancouver, WA. The much larger city of Vancouver, BC, is about 300 miles north of there. Both cities are named after the same guy - British explorer George Vancouver.
Vancouver, Washington is a suburb of Portland.
And not all that small. It has like 186 thousand people. I lived there for 10 years. Now I live near Puget Sound (Everett) and am a quick ferry ride to all of these places. It's kinda funny that this is not mentioned much around here.
@@pacmanc8103 Technically yes, but its older than Portland.
@@sudmuck Right.
@@jesswriggs7205 Every kid who went to public school in Washington state had to take Washington State History and learn about Pig Island. Every kid who went to public school in Oregon knows about Fort Vancouver and the beaver trappers. I grew up outside of Portland and moved to Tacoma when I was 16.
Don't feel bad - very few people are aware of the story of "The Pig War".
I live in Bellingham, very close to those islands, and I hadn’t even heard of it before the oversimplified video
True. I’m in Seattle only had known about it because I’ve been to the San Juan Islands a couple of times and had heard about it while on Friday Harbor
@@metrofilmer8894 Me too.
@@brbw Not well known outside of the San Juans. 🙂
@A hecker all day
British troops on the green at Lexington were a diplomatic problem...
until someone pulled a trigger.
Was the "Cold War" a war,
or a "diplomatic problem"?
It's probably just as well that
Captain Salusbury Pryce Humphreys ,
once of the HMS Leopard,
was nowhere near the scene
(and likely dead by this time),
since he fired on a US warship,
killing US Navy Sailors - in time of peace-
with significantly less provocation than this.
In the greater scheme of things...
when all was said and done...
this was almost a non-event,
a minor diplomatic kerfuffle...
but it had the potential for dire consequences reaching far beyond
the Pacific Northwest,
or even the western US and Canada.
The beaver trade was booming in the early 1800s as beaver pelts were the most commonly used material in top hats of the time. The beaver pelts were notoriously difficult to work unless they are soaked in a mercurial solution. Hence why "Mad as a Hatter" is a thing, as hatmakers would go insane from the mercury fumes.
Yes, at that point in time you either had to sail completely around South America - or travel overland at Panama - which was rife with Yellow Fever - so much so that a significant percentage of the people who took that route, died. But that's the way the mail could reach the East Coast in "only" 6 weeks.
The fastest Sailing ship to make the trip from New York to San Francisco was the Clipper ship "Flying Cloud" who made the trip in 1854 in 89 days 8 hours.
so, typically, 3-5 months, then add about another week to Puget Sound.
(That was bettered in 1989 by a racing sailboat, but yeah, whatever.)
Actually, the Islands in dispute, the "San Juan" Islands (one of those names left over from the Spanish... who were actually there before the British (History is fun)
are lovely Islands - and currently comprise their own County - with a land area roughly the size of the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey combined.
So, not huge on the overall scale of things, but not insignificant either.
And because it’s a beautiful area smack-dab in between Seattle & Vancouver-and other less populous but still important cities in the Cascadia Metroplex, like the Port of Tacoma, Victoria (the Capitol of British Columbia) and Bellingham, it is a popular tourist destination. A tourist destination that loves to talk about that time they were almost the epicenter of a major war between an immediate Post-Mexican-American-War/Pre-Civil-War US and the 2nd British Empire at its zenith under Victoria...all over the STUPIDEST reasons imaginable. It’s a lovely place to visit.
31:00 the same thing happened during the American Civil War. Spectators picnicked on nearby hills in some of the battles
34:58 Since the famous canal wasn't made until the turn of the century, to get to San Juan Island General Scott sailed to Panama, trekked across the mountains on some mules, jumped on a ship on the other side of the ismuth, and sailed up the West Coast. This expensive route was the primary one to take if you needed to get there quickly and safely. The infrastructure in the american west wasn't very well developed; traveling across land was long and dangerous in the underdeveloped countryside, and even with the intercontinental railroad built in the 1850s it wasn't really until the 1890s or that the two halves of the country were truly connected.
14:25 I live in Washington State and a lot of people live up on those islands! Even some of the much smaller ones you can only get to by private boat. There's actually several car fairies that take hundreds of people back and forth every day and tens of thousands of people a year.
Some of them famous, one being Burl Ives before he passed away.
Yeah, and most of the residents are stuck up and entitled, I get to deal with them daily and they always complain that, "I have to catch the ferry and you're taking too long"
@@Yoda98292 I never understand why people get bent out of shape about that. I live down in West Seattle near the ferry and there's a restaurant I frequent quite often and people will often try to rush the weight staff to get the check or their food the ferry's run frequently enough they need to just plan their day better. Although I must say the fairies have been running pretty poorly lately as far as on time efficiency
Keep in mind the British empire was so large they also had say issues in... South Africa, India, China, and a little bit of everywhere else 😳
Yeah, the British were kind of busy dealing with those issues at the time. This wasn’t even a real war seeing as there were no casualties on either side, it was a dispute.
The British and American camps still exist on San Juan Island as tourist attractions. The main thing I noticed when I visited was how much nicer the British camp was. The buildings are bigger and better quality, there are spaces for gardens and recreation...the American camp was barely more than a collection of shacks.
at 35:00 nowadays there is the Panama Canal which allows ships through, but that wasn't built until 1914. However, long before that it was a common practice to cross overland there due to how narrow it is, and catch another ship on the Pacific side.
This was about 30 years before the Panama Canal was built, so yeah, he would've had to go all the way around South America.
When California revolted against the dysfunctional Mexican Government, if the US had not claimed it for themselves -
British Warships were off-shore of the capitol of Monterrey, with orders to claim California for England.
A key issue with British claims to territory around the world was that they often did not back them up by populating
the area with English settlers -
but by establishing "Trading Companies" that eventually became the controlling financial power in the region -
thus, being able to exert political influence through financial means - and using military force to cow the populace / local government
only when that didn't work. In North America,
these tactics did not work against an armed population,
who were themselves colonizing the land by forcibly displacing the native populace.
The Pacific Northwest was a long way away from the government in Washington, but infinitely further away from London.
Going to war with the US historically proved simply too expensive to justify for the gains realized.
The British Empire was heavily imperialistic during the 17th and 18th century ,wanting to claim territory all over the world . France ,too
@@lindaeasley5606 Absolutely. They were working hard to catch up with Spain and Portugal... and not a few powerful Englishmen harbored a certain amount of ill-will towards their erstwhile colonies.
@@lindaeasley5606 yeah, but this thing happened in the 19th century
1) I cannot imagine many Americans learned this story in school, especially since the events of the 1850s were mostly preludes to our Civil War. This story is not, although the involvement of George Pickett is interesting.
2) I think I heard you say you don't know about the War of 1812. For the British, this war was a sideshow to the Napoleonic Wars. One of the causes of the war was that the Royal Navy always needed more men, and they had the unfortunate habit of stopping American merchant ships and "impressing" sailors who might be British, which is a nice way of saying "kidnapping and enlisting" men into the Royal Navy, even if they could prove their American citizenship. I can understand if British schools skip this little bit of history.
3) At 5:30, I believe that "it's my density" is a reference to the first "Back to the Future" movie.
4) Yes, both the U.S. and the UK wanted the disputed territory for furs, especially beavers. Hats made from beaver pelts were popular in Europe in the 1700s and early 1800s.
5) At 9:49-9:53, OverSimplified is paraphrasing the lyrics of the song "All Star" by Smash Mouth.
6) It wasn't until the 1890s that the U.S. economy became larger than the UK, and World War 2 when the U.S. Navy replaced the Royal Navy as the world's largest.
7) At 20:01, what does the word "glubby" mean. Google had no answers. Does he mean "grubby?"
8) At 25:50, the two "telephones" are a banana and an electric iron! The iron ignites Pickett's hair.
9) At 35:00, the ship with General Scott aboard did indeed have to go around the southern tip of South America. Thanks to steamships, a trip which once lasted several months by sail probably took only several weeks in the late 1850s. The Panama Canal did not open until 1914.
And the transcontinental railroads were built after the Civil War, the Northern Pacific line wasn't completed until 1883.
I think the idea was to sail to panama and walk across the land or use horses and then get on a different boat on the pacific side... seems a lot faster than going around South America.
I learned about this in school, but I'm from Washington state, so it is local history.
@@MyMonsterguy A railroad was built in Panama in the 1850s, where the canal is now, to transport people and supplies for the California Gold Rush. But Europeans in Panama had an extraordinarily high chance of dying from yellow fever or another tropical disease. Many took the extra time to steam around South America. OverSimplified said it took six weeks each way for mail, which might have been overland along the Oregon Trail. I know it was not the Pony Express, which existed only 1860-61.
"Glubby" is an informal way to say "fat". It carries a connotation of roundness with it. It's commenting on American health issues, so don't feel like you were the only ones getting picked on, Brits.
35:10 The reason why they go through Panama rather than going around South America is because, while the Panama canal would not be constructed until 1914, during that time, Panama was so thin that it would be more feasible, at least for people with enough money, to take a ship to Panama, then travel the very short distance across land, and take another ship up to the west coast of America.
14:28 Today, the San Juan Islands make up San Juan County, WA. There are 15,769 people living there
Mark 12:32. Thanks for allowing us to read what he was holding! With the family made video that I viewed before yours, I couldn't tell what he had. 😁
4:25 You do, you just don't know you've known about it. That "star spangled banner as you've never heard it" video, you probably didn't realize, that was the War of 1812, technically it was 1814 but historians are bad with naming conflicts. Battle of New Orleans, Shelling of Fort McHenry, Start Spangled Banner, White House burned, Tecumseh's confederacy. That's all War of 1812.
It’s named the Battle of 1812 because that’s when it started
@@michaelschemlab I'm well aware I'm simply poking fun at the basic naming scheme of historians. And War not Battle.
Near the area Fort Vancouver is (it still stands as a historic site), there is a city called Vancouver. It is in Washington right over the river from Portland, Oregon. There is also Vancouver, British Columbia. There are two cities named Vancouver not that far from each other because of what happened here. 🙂
a bit like Mars today, there was probably very little in that remote area that was worth the time, effort and costs to bring it back to the east or even more Britain.
Beavers maybe were the most unique thing there?
The susual way was by ship to Panama, crossing Panama (no canal yet) and then by ship back up. And crossing Panama meant dealing with sickness and diseases. It was a hell of a trip.
At this time there was no way to go from the Atlantic to the Pacific without going all the way south past South America. Not until the Panama Canal was completed in 1914 and now ships cross through it regularly.
Though individuals and light cargo (most frequently top-priority mail) could risk yellow fever and the tropical heat and take a high-elevation overland trail at Panama to cut the trip a *bit* shorter.
A railway across the isthmus was completed in 1855, a few years before Winfield Scott made his trip to Oregon.
I just watched a Canadian reaction vid, now I'm watching this
Ah, perfect
Yeah, these islands seem inconsequential, but it does present some logistical issues - which country's laws are to be enforced? Who is responsible for providing services? Who is entitled to tax revenue? This was also such a contentious time between the US and UK that any minor dispute had the potential to spark a major conflict. Interestingly, the US and Canada still have some very minor territorial disputes to this day - nothing that could lead to conflict because the two nations cooperate so closely with one another, but these same territorial disputes between less friendly nations could absolutely result in conflict. It happens all the time all over the world.
I've actually just finished reading a book about the Pig War. Oversimplified makes it sound more interesting than it actually is. It's mostly Harny and Pickett being idiots and not knowing about international diplomacy or the treaty both nations had signed years earlier. That's about as interesting as it got.
Fun Fact -
Friday Harbor is the largest "city"
(population ~ 2500) (it is incorporated) in the San Juan Islands, and the County seat.
It is named after the Hawaiian shepherd who worked for the Hudson's Bay Company...
his name was "Friday"...
and he lived where "Friday Harbor" (once Friday's Harbor) is today.
A lot of US cities are named after British cities. We even have London Kentucky as an example
Jamestown ,VA and Charleston ( town) were named after kings
Birmingham is another UK city that became the name of an American one.
Living in Washington State for 30yrs I already knew who won the islands from the start, lol.. But I definitely loved watching this video and learned some things they never seem to teach in school. Great Channel plz do more like this. Another great reaction, keep up the great work. 👍
40:53 *Britain conquers nearly half the globe except for a few islands*
"Aw, we've lost another one lads."
America had "manifest destiny", what was Britain's catch phrase when they were taking over 1/4 of the entire globe?
Yeah, the British didn’t really care about this dispute. They were busy dealing with ruling 1/4 of the globe, it wasn’t even a real war either since there were no casualties on either side…except a pig. 😂
Fun Fact: Washington has a county named "Thurston County".
A lot of major cities in the US and probably Canada started as trading posts and or forts. Then to house everyone and they set up houses then they needed stores to sell supplies for the residents, and then time happened, and then you have Vancouver.
Awesome video. Please do more of these. Hugs and love Luka. Happy Christmas to you all 😘
Vancouver is in Washington state USA and B.C Canada. 2 cities.
Fort Vancouver is in Washington state, just north of Portland, Oregon on the other side of the Columbia River...
Mark 36:53. Oh! Okay! Hehe! So he did use a shotgun pump action sound effect, and he animated the hands to make the motion, though it isn't a shotgun! 😆😅
Let us not overlook the fact that, besides the Royal Navy, and Gen. Scott, it was a German Kaiser named Wilhelm (the first) on the "level-headed peacekeeper" team.
I grew up in Washington state. There are TWO cities named Vancouver. There is Vancouver, Washington which is just north of what is now Portland, Oregon. This was the original Ft. Vancouver. Then there is Vancouver, B.C. which is (obviously) in Canada, and is just north of the US-Canadian border north of Bellingham.
If it makes you feel better, present-day San Juan Island is home to a historical park where they fly the Union Jack.
So there are 2 Vancouver’s. Vancouver, Washington, which is where Fort Vancouver was, and Vancouver, British Columbia, in Canada. Douglas was relocated to Fort Victoria, on Vancouver Island, across the channel from Vancouver, British Columbia.
Been waiting for this 😁 sorry you were sick on that day glad your better now
During that time you has to go all the way around but in 1904 they started to build the Panama canel which I believe finished in 1914 so today you don't have to go all the way around, the ships cut through Panama.
I remember some guys I knew in college saw train tickets to Vancouver and thought how great of a deal it was. But they didn't realize the train was going to Vancouver Washington not Vancouver BC
the Fort Vancouver mentioned is probably near the area of Vancouver, Washington. Which is on the southern border of the state.
7:05 alberta in Western Canada actually has a shit ton of oil, Canada has the 3rd largest amount of oil in the world after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela and that's where it mostly comes from
(Not exactly the disputed are but just to the east from it)
Also I grew up on one of those islands, they are inhabited and are a popular local tourist destination today.
35:12 Back then yes, but now we have the Panama Canal that cuts through central America.
Now Panama built wider locks...
I honeymooned on the island. Very nice place. If you are ever in the Washington area it is a nice place to stay. Friday harbor was nice.
1: fort Vancouver is now in the position of Vancouver, Washington.
2: those islands are now San Juan county Washington.
3: the Panama Canal did exist at this time.
Right across from the San Juan Islands is a massive Naval Air Station on Whidby Island. I live near Whidby on the mainland in Marysville. I also have lived off and on in Vancouver, Washington for 30 years and lived there for the last 10 years before heading north. Vancouver or The Couve as we call it is now a city of 186,000 people. The cost of living there is stupid expensive. They do have a replica of the old fort in Vancouver. And down by the banks of the Columbia River they have the history on plaques everywhere.
Suggestion: check out Marcus Lattrels lone survivor speech
Hey Luka, I actually live on Vancouver Island and can clarify some things. The fort that Douglas went to would become the city of Victoria which is the capital of British Columbia and is across the ocean from Vancouver which is BCs largest city. The city and the fort are named after a British explorer and there's a city named Vancouver in the US too though it's much smaller. People still live on the San Juan Islands though it's not many, a little over 10K I think? Too bad the Pig War isn't taught here, now that I know about I kind of want to go to the island but thanks to travel restrictions I can't.
0:28 I am born and raised in Washington state, which the San Juan Islands are a part of. Until Oversimplified's video I hadn't heard of it either. And it's a major thing to have happened in my state, yet it was overlooked in history class
There's still a bridge named after Pickett in Whatcom County and his home is a historical site.
Oh yeah Canada used to be literally a corporate outpost for the sole purpose of harvesting beavers, it’s not a part of our history that people talk enough about.
As an American who has some native blood and many native friends. I personally believe if manifest destiny was down with the literal and cultural gene code of Native Americans and instead we treated them as equals(ie let them decide if they wanna join the us) it would’ve been fine. In the end it lead to America having the most strategically secure geographic position in the world. However the broken treaties and backstabbing of the natives was unacceptable and we’re only just now starting to fix it. (Only positive thing is as we went West it became less literal gene code and more cultural so less deaths but still ruthless and unacceptable)
Also there are two Vancouvers, one in southern washington on the Columbia River (where the original fort was) and the more famous Canadian one
In fairness, they did not really view America as a threat. The United States was a master of "Divide and Conquer" tactics on the Natives. For instance the Natives who were present at the first "Thanksgiving" were there due to an alliance they had made with the Pilgrims against a stronger local tribe. That tribe and Squanto's tribe had been fighting for generations, the Pilgrims just got there. The Crow Nation was the US Army's best scouts during the Great Plains War. Why would they do this? Because the Sioux Nation had been encroaching on their lands for generations.
@@brianeleighton @Brian Leighton lol there was no fairness in manifest destiny. I'm an apache and we have a term for the us government that has been handed down through oral teachings ever since they first expanded west.
"Indian Givers" people who "give" something with the intent of taking it back by force. Hell even the first thanksgiving is told differently. Also people have been fighting for generations but that DOESNT mean they fought "All the time" their were weeks/months of peace. To say they always war and were savages spreads the colonistic propaganda
@@brianeleighton not to even get into that all history that is known today about early America is from the perspective of pilgrims/White Nationalists(manifest destiny because god gave anyone white the right to glory) sooo history is written by the victors and you must be crazy to think any indigenous would accept those interpretations.
@@fatty1040 You seem to think I am unaware of that history. Modern people ask why the Natives did not unite as a body to drive out the whites. The answer? Because the Natives of the time didn't view themselves as one people. They were many separate nations. The first Thanksgiving was celebrated because the Pilgrims were celebrating a successful harvest by shooting guns into the air. Squanto's tribe, which had made a defensive alliance with the Pilgrims thought they were under attack and so came to help fight. In the Apache Wars that were fought against your ancestors, the US Army's best scouts were members of the tribe that fought the Apache the most. I believe it was the Cheyenne. I was saying in fairness to the natives that they did not view the few whites as a threat as opposed to the whole tribe of enemies they had been fighting for generations. There is a myth equally strong in modern times about the West and Western expansion, the "Noble Savage" myth. The fact is that the native bands in the west were human, with human flaws. I do not know where I said that the tribes fought nonstop for generations. However, it is far easier to employ divide and conquer tactics on groups that have been fighting amongst themselves. The whites had just gotten there, it was easy for them to exploit old animosities among the natives.
Edit: Also, fun fact. The original term "Indian Giver" was actually a term white people invented about natives themselves. The reason for this was how the natives viewed property and territorial rights. White people would come and negotiate the purchase of native lands from the tribe. The tribe viewed the "sale" price of the land as a payment to use the land for a season, not the permanent purchase of the land. The tribe would return to that tract of land a few seasons later to find farmlands and towns and want their land back. The term "Indian Giver" doesn't require force. It just requires to give something and then want that same thing returned back. This is why for instance the island of Manhattan was "bought" for a bunch of beads...that price seems a lot more fair when you realize the local tribe thought they were selling the hunting and fishing rights to the land for a season.
Edit #2: By the time of the Battle of Little Bighorn, the natives DID understand the existential threat the whites posed. This is why the battle wasn't just fought against the Sioux. The Arapaho, Pawnee, Shawnee, Shoshone and Sioux were all present. These tribes put aside their own issues to face the much larger threat. However, by this time it was too late.
2.4K Thumbs Up + Mine! 👍 You're welcome! Thanks! ☺️
Notes: My doctor advised me to begin a Mediterranean Diet because of my High Blood Pressure. So I'm trying. But I had already bought bacon! I was going to leave it for my father. There were two boxes of it. He did finish one. But I think that seeing two different reactions to the same video may explain why I finished the second box tonight! Well, it can't taunt me anymore. Nor can the white bread. But my supply of salads is gone.
Okay. The annexation of Canada is part of the game lore in the "Fallout" series. It made it much easier to fight China and get back Alaska. It didn't clarify if Canada suddenly became the largest state by far or if each providence became a state. 🤔
There are 2 cities called Vancouver, the one In British Columbia, and the one in washington state just below british Columbia.
Well, on the opposite (southern) side of Washington state, just across the river from Portland, Oregon.
The tourist thing is probably true. There were even people who went to some early civil war battles to have a fun picnic while watching the fight.
*me, a person from Washington State, watching this guy try to figure out how many Vancouvers there are :* first time?
The fight over the small island reminds me of the dispute between canada and denmark
35:15 He would’ve had to go around South America since the Panama Canal didn’t exist yet
There's also a city in washington state named Vancouver, that is the one that Fort Vancouver became
The Panama Canal was built in 1914, so yes the ship did have to go all the way around South America
Fort Vancouver is in Vancouver Washington. It's a historical site.
Back when this insident happened, there was no Panama Canal. They had to either go through the North Western Passage or go around South Africa.
🪶There were around 600,000 native Americans dotted throughout the Untied States in 1812.
600,000 ultimately isn't much in the vast western US, there was room to settle peacefully but obviously vastly different cultures have trouble coexisting.
Yeah true. I think American Government wronged the Natives big time. My DNA shows my ancestors were from Ireland & wales on moms side, and I have some Cherokee blood on my Dads side.. my great, great,Grandmother walked the miserable Trail of Tears in the dead of winter to be relocated from Tennessee to Oklahoma territory. I still live in Oklahoma today. Each state have their own flag & Oklahomas is a Native American design.
Mark 15:46. "Cow crap" when they have sheep? 😁🤔🤫
Oregon state universities mascot is the beaver and its also our state animal and there is a Vancouver in Canada and in Washington state
A little late here, and I'm sure someone has already written this, but there is also a Vancouver in Washington State. It's a much smaller town than the Vancouver in Canada.
I've been to San Juan Island, it's pretty great.
Please, beaver's just as valuable as ever
All of those bowler hats in the UK were made from beaver fur... Every one...Most men wore hats until the 1960s, John F. Kennedy being the first president who didn't wear a hat everyday... Harry Truman was a hat haberdasher...
Fort Vancouver is now Vancouver, WA. A city in Washington
Vancouver, Canada is in the area of Fort Vancouver, but there's also a Vancouver, Washington that's much closer. I only know this because I dated a girl from there.
Yeah I'm from there so I know there's quite a few people on the San Juan Islands now.
As how he got there. Central and South America is one of those old wives tales. It doesn't exist. Once you get to the end of Mexico there is nothing there.
Hey Luka, hopefully you see this but I am born and raised on San Juan Island. Growing up my mothers house actually bordered the British Camp reserve. I know lots about The Pig War and would love to maybe send you some things, physical or otherwise (like photos/videos), about The Pig War, San Juan Islands, or America. Let me know if you'd be interested in more information on The Pig War, I'd love to be your boots on the ground! As far as sending you things about America, well, your PO box is in the description, I suppose I can just do that on my own accord. I will say, your PO box opening videos have been really great, always enjoy those.
Also when this video trended number 1, Oversimplified basically said the war would start at Dawn
Converting today the money he wanted for the pig $3,389.61 or £2562.71
Honestly I’m a little surprised you’ve never heard of the Panama Canal
The pig war was something I only recently learned as a 23 year old American.
USA: bottle of water
UK: Bo oh of wo ah
General Winfield Scott is a badass
It's so weird seeing the region I live in being represented in one of these videos.
I'd prefer some great beaver to a diamond, personally.
a brit reacting to a brit vs US conflict that nearly escalated into bloodshed, let see what he thinks. I realized I misunderstood him saying 'thats like 3 months' when typing this message because I only thought he meant 1 of the 2 six weeks not both
I saw war pig at first. Thought we were going to listen to some Black Sabbath. 😂
To the beaver, look up castoreum and you will never look at certain food flavorings the same way again.
8:21 the sound of contextual confusion
34:59 Probably. The Panama Canal hadn’t been built yet
34:58 Yes, General Scott would have had to either of gone all the way around South America & then back north to get to San Juan Island, or, since the Panama Canal hadn't yet been built (that would come after the Spanish-American War), to have crossed through Panama (then a part of Columbia) and then boarded another ship on the other side of the isthmus. Which he did, I don't know, but it would have had to have been one of those 2 if he was travelling by ship.
Actually, the U.S. only really became the big bad-boy powerhouse we're thought of as today after the 2 World Wars. When all of the other superpowers of the day, pretty much all of whom were located in Europe, were trashed from the wars, we were the last man standing & were able to build ourselves up with a head start over all the other countries, and the 2 wars pushed us onto the international stage (until then, we were still trying to mostly keep to ourselves). And, actually, until the resolution of our Civil War, we were still trying to figure out what it meant to be "American". Solidifying our country in that war gave us our national identity.
34:58 - The Americans dug through central America making it possible to go through Central America. It’s called the Panama Canal.
Hah! The 2 continents were connected until the construction of the Panama Canal much later!
17,492 people live on these islands today.
35:10 there’s the panama canal
Did you actually forget about the existence of the Panama Canal?
There’s a Vancouver in the US too
Don't worry about not knowing this. It appears neither the US or the UK wanna talk about this. 😂