A great many boundaries in life are quite simply arbitrary, no matter how strongly one may feel about them. Even many important things, with a look at history, appear to have been decided on a whim, or even by accident.
Take, for example, national borders.
While today they may seem fairly concrete (especially a country such as the United States), this was not always so. Especially in the nation's earlier days, when borders and territories and provinces and governments were constantly changing, moving, evaporating and conjoining these were very confusing times in terms of border.
The American-Canadian Border
One of the more interesting examples of this change is the case of the northeast America/Canada border, between the present day state of Main and the Canadian province of New Brunswick.
Friction between Great Britain (the owners of Canada in the first half of the nineteenth century) and America regarding this boundary began to arise seriously in the late 1830's, while Martin Van Buren was president.
In fact, the whole situation very nearly started a third war between the United States and England (the first two, just as a reminder, being the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812).
This, however, would have been a different kind of war. This could have been the kind of war about which grand and award-winning films are made and books are written. This would have been a lumberjack war.
While the line between the United States and British Canada did exist at this point, it was not exactly set in stone. The line had been decided in the Versailles Treaty of 1783 (the treaty which ended the Revolutionary war), and had been defined by way of the Mitchell Map, a map of America made by one John Mitchell.
The Lumberjack War
And so, being only as exact as a line on a single piece of paper, this border was somewhat vague to begin with. And this is what started the Lumberjack War (or, as it is better known by more serious historians, The Aroostook War, after the valley in which these events took place).
It was, as the name implies, a war between lumberjacks – American lumberjacks and Canadian lumberjacks, both doing their lumberjacking business within this continually disputed territory, both thinking that they were still in their own country, while at the same time believing the other to have crossed over the boundary (which didn't really exist in the first place).
While no actual battles took place in this war, things did get rather intense between the involved parties. The governors of both territories, Maine and New Brunswick, each called out their militias, thinking that they were going to be forced to get into a shooting war with each other (marking the first and only time a state governor has ever declared war on a foreign nation – a job usually reserved for the President), and a standoff ensued.
Fortunately, at this point, President Van Buren was able to negotiate with the British in order to ease tensions in the area, but only temporarily. Though no loggers were killed in this brief war, the question regarding the boundaries between these two countries remained just as forefront as ever.
Tensions continued to mount over the following few years, as Van Buren left the White House and William Henry Harrison took over, to be replaced after only a month by John Tyler.
The other key figure in this story, Daniel Webster (one of the premier members of the Whig party at the time) was then Secretary of State. In 1841, the British were intent on building a road through the disputed Aroostook valley, and war seemed to be threatening once again.
Webster and Ashburton
This is when Daniel Webster stepped in, along with his British counterpart, Lord Alexander Ashburton, whom the British sent to negotiate. What followed was a fabulously executed negotiation by Daniel Webster (even though he perhaps gave the British a little more than he should have).
Over a bottle of brandy, the two negotiated at great length regarding the many grievances the two nations had with each other. In the end, feeling exceptionally kind, Webster proposed that the border between Maine and New Brunswick be well-defined, this time a famous map drawn by Benjamin Franklin.
However, Webster informed, the original map had been lost. And so, showing a bit of kindness to Lord Ashburton, Webster took it upon himself to draw up a new version of the map, with a new line drawn – one which they both could agree on, and which would cause the two nations no more quarrels.
Also decided in this meeting was the shared use of the northern great lakes and a few geographical oddities which required restructuring of the border.
The Treaty
The Webster-Ashburton Treaty was signed by the two men on August 9th, 1842, and effectively ended all hostilities between the two countries.
A few years later, the real Franklin map surfaced once again, showing that the United States had actually been shorted out of quite a bit of land, but the deed was done and there was no going back.
And so, that is how the Maine-New Brunswick border came to be. A simple red line on a forged map, presumed to be drawn by Benjamin Franklin, but in truth, not at all.
Just another example of things that are so often taken for granted.
References:
“The Bloodless Aroostook War and Maine’s Northern Border.” Strange Maps.
“Webster-Ashburton Treaty.” U.S. Department of State.
