>>89950107basically all the british wanted was a border far south enough they could actually, you know, farm, and to americans who already had way too much god damn empty (because we killed the people who lived there or forced them to move to fuckin oklahoma lmao) land to absorb so there was a more or less peaceful agreement to pin the border to the 49th parallel. there were some people who disagreed, particularly over oregon territory, which at the time made up southern british columbia and the US states of washington and oregon. there was a movement in the US to demand everything up to the 54th parallel (only in the oregon territory, which was a dual colony held by the US and UK) whose motto was '54-40 or fight' but pretty much everyone agreed that fighting the global hyperpower over some rainy mountains on the opposite end of the continent with 12 people living in it was fucktarded. anyway you may notice that vancouver island is actually *below* the 49th parallel and there's some islands in the salish sea/puget sound that are as well. the treaty didnt really acknowledge that and so both kept colonizing those areas. one day, a british farmer's pig got into an american farmer's potatoes and got a face full of buckshot, and when the british authorities made moves to arrest the american farmer he and his friends called up the local militia. the british responded by sending 4 warships, a continent of marines, etc, and both sides began building forts on their respective ends of san juan island. eventually there was international mediation and the german kaiser awarded san juan to the US which is good, because the militia the US had on hand was vastly outmatched and, bizarrely, led by one future general picket famous for losing the civil war for the south at gettysburg a few years later. to this day the old british fort is the only place in the continental US where the british flag still flies
