Trouble on the High Seas - Jay's Treaty, impressment, embargo, free trade Trouble on the High Seas Jay's Treaty, impressment, embargo, free trade Early Republic U.S. Foreign Policy Unit

We are free! We declared our independence as a country! Now we can start building our own trade practices. There's only one problem. Our biggest trading partner, Britain, is not happy about our being our own country. Still, in order for our country to last, we have to get them to keep trading with us. How can we become a strong player in the world market without making Great Britain mad? That will be harder than it sounds.

After we became our own country, it took us eighteen years to come to peace with Great Britain. On November 19, 1794, both sides signed Jay's Treaty, which opened trade between the two countries and made sure America stayed neutral when it came to war. This treaty did not do much for the U.S. It blocked us from trading in some of the best trading places on Earth. Americans were not happy with this, but it was necessary. After the war, we kept buying a lot of British goods, but we could not sell any of our own goods because of trade blocks and high tariffs. If this had kept going, we would have gone broke.

Too bad the treaty did not do much to help us. The British ignored it and they kept doing things that not only stopped American trading, but made us lose money. Impressment is when someone catches someone else and makes them work as sailors. Not only did the British block trade for the U.S., they also took our ships and kept our sailors. America was a new independent country, but Britain would not treat it as such.

After the treaty was signed, the U.S. believed they'd be able to set out into the world and make money

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through trade, building up their economy. Free trade is when someone is allowed to trade with other countries without any restrictions like taxes or tariffs. Even though they had agreed to give America this right, the British changed their minds because it wasn't to their benefit. They wanted to make as much money as they could by selling all of their goods to America. They also wanted to tax American goods they were buying. They also wanted to steal our soldiers and our ships. It's no wonder the U.S. became fed up.

Lucky for us, a chance to put all of this to an end came along. Great Britain got into a war with France, and they both needed money. Seeing a chance to change everything, Thomas Jefferson signed the Embargo Act of 1807. An embargo is when selling goods from one country becomes against the law. By not sending any more goods to Britain, they would have to stop taking our ships and to lift all blocks. Or so we hoped. Something much different happened.

After the U.S. became its own country, it thought it would be treated like all of the other countries in world trade. That is not what happened though. Great Britain ignored Jay's Treaty, which said America could trade with them while not fighting in any wars. They kept impressing our sailors, by stealing our ships and making the men aboard work for the king. Even though America was supposed to be part of the free trade, trading with no blocks, they were not. And so they had to put an embargo on their goods, making it against the law to ship any goods to other countries. This did not make Britain happy and America started to suffer from the lack of trade. Clearly it was going to take more than a treaty to fix this. In order to survive as a country, what other choice did the U.S. have than to declare war in 1812?

References:

Office of the Historian. "John Jay's Treaty, 1794-95" state.gov, 2012.

PBS. "The War of 1812" pbs.org, 2010.

Mariner's Museum. "Impressment of American Sailors" marinersmuseum.org, 2011.

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