021: The Pig War (Canadian Almost War 5)

On June 8, 2025 By Trevor CulleyIn America: Secret Wars, Podcast EpisodesLeave a comment

George Vancouver’s Map of the San Juan Islands, 1798

Charles Wilkes’ Map of the Oregon Country, 1845

America: Secret Wars is back with a five part series about the skirmishes between the US and Canada that almost led to a third war with the British Empire in the 1830s. In Part 5, Trevor is joined Bailey and Nic from Totalus Jeffianus (@jeffianus.bsky.social) to discuss the Pig War and the boundary disputes that gave us Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.
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Totalus Jeffianus – https://pod.link/1689272611

Unfortunately, production on this series has been a nightmare and the full bibliography was lost in a technical error (not realizing my laptop had disconnected from wifi and stopped auto-saving). Here is an abbreviated version:

Coleman – The Pig War: The Most Perfect War in History
Shewmaker – Daniel Webster and the Oregon Question Available to Purchase
Polk – Inaugural Address
Polk – First Annual Message to Congress
Vancouver – A chart shewing part of the coast of N.W. America
Wilkes – Map of the Oregon Territory
Oregon Treaty, 1846
Treaty of Washington, 1871

20: The Creole Case (Canadian Almost War 4)

On April 27, 2025 By Trevor CulleyIn America: Secret Wars, Podcast EpisodesLeave a comment

Joseph Cinquez was the leader of a revolt among African slaves aboard the Spanish ship "Amistad" en route to Cuba in June 1839. The slaves seized control of the ship but were soon recaptured and charged with murder and piracy. This portrait was done while Cinquez (or "Cinque") awaited trial in New Haven, Connecticut. John Quincy Adams represented the Africans before the Supreme Court, and thanks to his eloquence, they were set free and allowed to return to Africa. Sheffield's portrait is sympathetic and informal. The text quotes Cinquez's sober and moving speech to his comrades on board ship after the mutiny. He said, "Brothers, we have done that which we purposed, our hands are now clean for we have Striven to regain the precious heritage we received from our fathers. . . . I am resolved it is better to die than to be a white man's slave . . ." Commissioned by the publisher of the New York "Sun," the print was described and advertised for sale in the account of the capture of the "Amistad," published in that newspaper's August 31, 1839 issue. (The "Sun" account, evidently erroneous in this detail, names the artist as "James" Sheffield.) The Library's impression of the lithograph was deposited for copyright the same day. - from Wikimedia Commons — Print portrait of Sengbeh Pieh (a.k.a. Joseph Cinquez) in The Sun, August 31, 1839. Possibly the same portrait that Madison Washington reportedly saw during his time in Philadelphia.

America: Secret Wars is back with a five part series about the skirmishes between the US and Canada that almost led to a third war with the British Empire in the 1830s. In Part 4, Trevor is joined Bailey and Nic from Totalus Jeffianus (@jeffianus.bsky.social) to discuss the Creole Case, the struggle for emancipation in antebellum America, and how the slaver states wanted to use a war against British Canada to their own advantage.
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Totalus Jeffianus – https://pod.link/1689272611

Douglass – The Heroic Slave

Home – Negro Comrades of the Crown: African Americans and the British Empire Fight the U.S. Before Emancipation

Jervey and Huber – The Creole Affair

Jones – The Influence of SLavery on the Webster-Ashburton Negotiations

Momodu – The Creole Case

National Archives – The Amistad Case

Rediker – The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom

Sorrell and Berry – This 1841 Rebellion at Sea Freed More Than 100 Enslaved People

US DOS – The Amistad Case, 1839

Webster-Ashburton Treaty

019: The Patriot War (Canadian Almost War 3)

On March 29, 2025 By Trevor CulleyIn America: Secret Wars, Podcast EpisodesLeave a comment

The Battle of Saint-Eustache by Lord Charles Beauclerk, 1840

America: Secret Wars is back with a five part series about the skirmishes between the US and Canada that almost led to a third war with the British Empire in the 1830s. In Part 3, Trevor is joined Bailey and Nic from Totalus Jeffianus (@jeffianus.bsky.social) to discuss the Patriot War, a failed Canadian Revolution where the US somehow managed to fight and lose on both sides.
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Totalus Jeffianus – https://pod.link/1689272611

Guillet – The lives and times of the patriots; an account of the Rebellion in Upper Canada

The Webster-Ashburton Treaty

Bonthius – The Patriot War of 1837-1838: Locofocoism with a Gun?

Dictionary of Canadian Biography

Ducharme – Closing the Last Chapter of the Atlantic Revolution

Forcese – Destroying the Caroline: The Frontier Raid that Reshaped the Right to War

Kilbourn – The Firebrand: William Lyon Mackenzie and the Rebellion in Upper Canada

Kinchen – The Rise and Fall of the Patriot Hunters

Read – The Rising in Western Upper Canada 1837-8: The Duncombe Revolt and After

Sewell: Mackenzie: A Political Biography

Waxman – The Caroline Affair in the Evolving International Law of Self-Defense

018: The Aroostook War (Canadian Almost War 2)

On March 15, 2025 By Trevor CulleyIn America: Secret Wars, Podcast EpisodesLeave a comment

Map of the Aroostook Border dispute (and Indian Stream) via Wikimedia

America: Secret Wars is back with a five part series about the skirmishes between the US and Canada that almost led to a third war with the British Empire in the 1830s. In Part 2, Trevor is joined Bailey and Nic from Totalus Jeffianus (@jeffianus.bsky.social) to discuss the Aroostook War, a conflict between the United States, British New Brunswick, and the forces of nature.
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Totalus Jeffianus – https://pod.link/1689272611

Aroostook War Songs:
Greenwood & Burns – Aroostook War Fighting Song

Wallace House – The Soldier Song (Aroostook War)

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Campbell and Campbell – The Aroostook War of 1839

Carroll – The Passionate Canadians: The Historical Debate about the Eastern Canadian-American Boundary

Maine Council – Aroostook War: HIstorical Sketch and Roster of Commissioned Officers and Enlisted Men

Meander Maine – The Pork and Beans War

Paradis – John Baker and the Republic of Madawaska

Perry – “Maine and Her Soil or Blood!” Political Rhetoric and Spatial Identity During the Aroostook War in Maine