Negotiating in the north woods
| Title | Map of the Northern Part of the State of Maine and of the Adjacent British Provinces: Shewing the Portion of That State to Which Great Britain Lays Claim |
| Creator | S.L. Dashiell; William James Stone |
| Year | 1839 |
| Dimensions | 41 × 38 cm |
| Location | Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library |
The Aroostook War (1838-1839), sometimes called the “battle of maps,” was set in motion by a dispute between the United Kingdom and the United States concerning the location of the boundary separating the British colonies of Lower Canada and New Brunswick from the state of Maine. After fighting the War of 1812 and negotiating the 1814 Treaty of Ghent, the border between the territories was still a point of contention, having never been fully resolved in the Treaty of Paris that had ended the American Revolution.
In 1830, the two nations submitted their statements and supporting materials to King William I of the Netherlands for arbitration. The king’s commission set about determining which nation provided stronger evidence documenting, among other things, the location of the “northwest angle of Nova Scotia” and the “Highlands.” In January 1831, William I presented his “royal award,” a compromise along an “intermediate border” that ensured the U.K. would be able to construct a road connecting New Brunswick and Quebec. Maine’s legislature was dissatisfied, however, and the border remained a point of contention ().
When hostiles began again in 1838 near the Aroostook River, the U.S. Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, and a special British emissary, Alexander Baring, First Baron Ashburton, were called upon to resolve the disputed border.
Webster utilized a copy of a John Mitchell map, similar to the one referenced by Sullivan during the 1796-1798 commission—but rather than submitting it as evidence against the British claim, he used it to convince the Maine legislature to compromise. Webster also presented a sketch of another map from an archive in Paris that Harvard historian Jared Sparks believed to be the boundary as agreed upon in the 1783 treaty. Both maps seemed to indicate that the British claim had merit and convinced the Maine legislature to send commissioners who could reach an agreement. Similarly, Lord Ashburton was successful in persuading critics of the agreement to uphold the treaty, due to the consultation of another John Mitchell map presumed to have been annotated by British peace commissioner Richard Oswald during the 1783 treaty. This version, however, appeared to support American border claims. The accuracy and meanings of all of the maps were questionable, yet they were sufficient to persuade both parties to ratify the Webster-Ashburton treaty ().
While the Webster-Ashburton treaty resolved many of the disputes along what is now the U.S.-Canadian border, the boundary continues to raise questions about sovereignty and land-use rights. As recently as 1999, a Supreme Court of Canada ruling related to fishing rights encouraged the Point Pleasant band of the Passamaquoddy to claiming rights separate from those of Canadian and American citizen. Then chief Ernie Alvater explained that the despite the violence caused by the dispossession and division of their lands, “We’ve been fishing and hunting on both sides of the imaginary line for a long time and will continue to do so.” ().
More about this map
The northeast woodlands are the ancestral homeland of the Abenaki, Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, Mi'kmaq, and other native nations. The boundary disputes and subsequent division of the peninsula were among the violent disruptions caused by European and American colonization of the region. In the sixteenth century, Portuguese, Spanish, French and English fisheries and trading posts began to encroach on native-controlled networks and economies. However, the peninsula largely remained a space of indigenous power until well into the eighteenth century. “Thus imperial spaces of power negotiated among ministers and diplomats in Europe were influenced by the ways Europeans in the northeast had adapted themselves to native spaces of power.” () The Passamaquoddy Nation prevented a British surveyor from marking out plots on their lands in 1783 by force and allied with other native nations to contest British and American encroachment in the region ().
In 1796, the United States and Great Britain chose arbiters to form a commission to determine the exact meaning of “the River St. Croix” boundary referenced in the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolution and acknowledge the independence of the thirteen colonies. Considerable attention focused on the border between New Brunswick and Massachusetts (what we now know as Maine was a part of Massachusetts until 1820). Which river, exactly, was the St. Croix? New Brunswick officials identified the boundary as the “westernmost river” in Passamaquoddy Bay, in the hopes that the recently established parish of St. Andrews would be included on the New Brunswick side of the border. St. Andrews was created on Passamaquoddy lands, Kwanoskwamkok, a village near the river that the Passamaquoddy referred to as the “Schoodic River.” Meanwhile, the United States claimed that the St. Croix referred to the Magaguadavic River, east of St. Andrews, placing the parish within American territory ().
Ward Chipman and James Sullivan, the representatives of Great Britain and the United states respectively, were tasked with providing the commission with evidence that proved unequivocally the location of the River St. Croix. Chipman argued that archival and archaeological materials indicated that the Schoodic River was the River St. Croix named by French cartographer Samuel de Champlain in 1604. Sullivan, however, argued that the river that Champlain called St. Croix may not have been the same river that the negotiators of the 1783 Treaty of Paris intended. He submitted as evidence John Mitchell’s 1775 map of North America, used by the treaty negotiators, which he claimed represented the Magaguadavic river as St. Croix ().
However, Chipman called into question the accuracy of the Mitchell map and even the use of “cartographic knowledge” as evidence. He contended that:
Geography is a description of the Earth; when therefore a Map of any of the Earth is said to be Geographically certain, it can only mean that the places, laid down in it under particular names, represent the places described under the same names respectively in the authentic histories and accounts of the Country in which they are situated.
Chipman pointed out the ways that maps are imperfect representations in order to delegitimize the U.S. claim. He also rejected testimony from native peoples during the preliminary hearings, insisting instead on French and British historical records, even though they relied on native toponyms to describe the geography of the region. (). Both empires appropriated native knowledge of geography and place names in order to make their arguments, but did not invite them to participate in the negotiations. In fact, the purpose of setting a border was largely to undermine the sovereignty of native nations by claiming their lands and eliminating ambiguity about authority in the region.
After two years of briefings, surveys, and even more maps, the commission found in favor of the British claim that the St. Croix River described in the treaty referred to the Schoodic River. The decision divided the Passamaquoddy Nation in two and placed St. Andrews within New Brunswick.
Bibliography
- Demerrit 1997
- David Demeritt, “Representing the ‘True’ St. Croix: Knowledge and Power in the Partition of the Northeast,” The William and Mary Quarterly 54, no. 3 (July 1997): 515. doi:10.2307/2953838
- Mancke 2005
- Elizabeth Mancke, “Spaces of Power in the Early Modern Northeast,” in Stephen J. Hornsby and John G. Reid, eds., New England and the Maritime Provinces: Connections and Comparisons, (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005): 32-49.
- Dunbabin 2002
- John P. D. Dunbabin. “The 1831 Dutch Arbitration of the Canadian-American Boundary Dispute: Another View.” The New England Quarterly, 75, no. 4, (2002): 622–646.
- Dunbabin 2011
- John P.D. Dunbabin.“‘Red Lines on Maps’ Revisited: The Role of Maps in Negotiating and Defending the 1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty.” Imago Mundi 63, no. 1 (2011): 39-61.
- Wicken 2005
- William Wicken, “Passamaquoddy Identity and the Marshall Decision,” in Stephen J. Hornsby and John G. Reid, eds., New England and the Maritime Provinces:Connections and Comparisons, (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005): 50-58.