The Alaska Purchase
During the American Civil War, Confederate raiding ships, built in Great Britain, did significant damage to Union shipping. One of these and probably the most famous of all of them was CSS Alabama. After the war the United States demanded reparation from Great Britain for the damages done by the ships built in its shipyards. Although Alabama was but one of several such raiders, the dispute over the reparations became known as the Alabama Affair. The Alabama Affair took place at the same time that US Secretary of State William Seward was negotiating the purchase of Alaska from the Russians, a deal which was agreed to in 1867.
Seward was interested in more than just Alaska. He envisioned the United States controlling the Northwest coast all the way to Alaska, including British Columbia and what is now Manitoba. In conjunction with the powerful Senator Charles Sumner, who was driving the demands for British reparation, Seward also wanted Nova Scotia (Sumner wanted to annex all of Canada). Sumner announced his intent to demand $2 billion or the cession of all of Canada. Seward reduced the demands to give the United States the lands in the west, and full fishing rights off the Grand Banks (which at the time the Americans fished under license rather than right).
The British refused and the arguments ran back and forth as the United States Navy began an increased presence in the Northern Pacific waters after the Alaska Purchase. The British used propaganda in both British Columbia and the Dominion of Canada to arouse pro-British sentiment, and its negotiators in the Alabama Affair used delaying tactics as Canadian opposition to becoming part of the United States intensified. In 1871 British Columbia joined the confederation of provinces known as the Dominion of Canada. Meanwhile the United States arranged a commission of six representatives from Great Britain and six from the United States to resolve the Alabama Affair.
The commission met in Suitland, and in March 1871 it presented the Washington Treaty, which provided resolution of several minor disputes between the United States and Great Britain. Among them was the Alabama Affair. The treaty provided for the establishment of a tribunal with representatives from five nations (Britain, the United States, Italy, Switzerland, and Brazil) to arbitrate the dispute, with its findings binding on the opposing parties. Besides presenting this path to resolution of the Alabama Affair the Treaty of Washington declared the United States and Great Britain to be allies in perpetuity.
The tribunal found Great Britain liable for the damage done to the United States by the raiders built in British shipyards, and awarded the United States $15.5 million, which Great Britain paid in 1872. Seward’s attempts to acquire the Northwest Coast came to an end. The attempt added to the wariness of Canadians over American attempts to annex them into the United States. The United States turned its attention to the remaining years of reconstruction and the settlement of the west. In 1903, the United States did acquire a small part of British Columbia through arbitration of the borders of the Alaskan panhandle.