General Harney decided to send 66 American soldiers to protect Cutlar at the San Juan Island. The Britishers got offended by this show of aggression from the American side. Soon, they decided to send three warships to the San Juan island. With all these kinds of aggression from both the sides, there was a little standoff. Both the countries were busy in strengthening their arsenal at the San Juan island. The situation escalated when Britishers had five warships and Americans had over 400 soldiers deployed with cannons at the San Juan island.
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The situation escalated to such a level that officials sitting in London and Washington also heard about this. They tried to pacify the situation immediately. To control the situation at the San Juan island, they immediately reduced the number to only 100 people from both the sides.
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The officials sitting at London and Washington decided to separate the people belonging from both the countries. They gave the top part of the island to the Britishers and the southern part to the Americans. The arrangement was made until the time a formal agreement was formulated regarding the sovereignty of the island.
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Finally, in 1872, Germany came in to arbitrate the disagreement of the island. After a lot of confrontations which happened on the San Juan island, the land was formally handed over to America. However, the island is still known because of the confrontations and also because of the fact that Britain and America had almost gone into war over the death of a pig. This was a unique incident in the world history which will be remembered for a long time.
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