The 49th Parallel and the HMS Racoon

“If you look at a map, they drew just a straight artificial line between Canada and the U.S. Somebody did it a long time ago, and it makes no sense” -President Trump, 2025

The Mechanics' Institute is hosting a two-part lecture in its history program to tell the fascinating story of imperial greed, aggression, betrayal and diplomatic bungling that placed the US-Canadian border where it is today.

Part 2:

In Part 1 in the aftermath of the War of 1812 the 49th Parallel boundary was defined only as far west as the Rocky Mountains. The future of the Pacific Northwest remained undecided. Was it to be British or American? How this question was resolved is a sea story.

How, in the war of 1812, the action of a headstrong British commander, the Captain of His Majesty’s Ship Racoon changed the geography of the Western US. HMS Racoon was originally part of a British squadron sent to the Pacific to hunt down the American frigate USS Essex and Raccoon Straits between Tiburon and Angel Islands is named after it -the only direct connection California has with the War of 1812.

About the Speaker
Philip Williams has three national identities. His father was a Royal Navy officer, so Phil spent his youth immersed in British Imperial history around British warships in Portsmouth Harbor in Hampshire. He has strong family connections to British Columbia and emigrated there after receiving his Ph.D. from London University. Then after visiting San Francisco he emigrated to the USA, founded an environmental consulting firm based in San Francisco dedicated to environmental restoration and management. On his retirement after a spell teaching at UC Berkeley, Phil has become immersed in the nautical history of the Pacific Coast and is a Board member of the Drake Navigators Guild. He has been a member of the Mechanics Institute Library for the last 40 years.

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Host or Publisher Mechanics' Institute