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Home , War of 1812

The War of 1812 by Alan Brinkley

This reading is excerpted from Chapter Seven of Brinkley’s American History: A Survey (12th ed.). I wrote the footnotes. If you use the questions below to guide your note taking (which is a good idea), please be aware that several of the questions have multiple answers.

Study Questions 1. How did the try to avoid getting involved in the between Britain and France? 2. Why did the United States end up at war with Great Britain? NOTE: There should be a lot of bullet points under the above questions in your notes. 3. Why were and the Prophet such important Indian leaders? 4. Why did the end up as losers of the War of 1812? 5. Most felt like we won the War of 1812. Why? 6. Were the Americans who believed the War of 1812 was an American victory correct? Why or why not?

EXPANSION AND WAR Two very different conflicts were taking shape in the later years of ’s presidency that would, together, draw the United States into a difficult and frustrating war. One was the continuing tension in Europe, which in 1803 escalated once again into a full-scale conflict (the Napoleonic Wars). As the fighting escalated, both the British and the French took steps to prevent the United States from trading with (and thus assisting) the other. The other conflict was in itself, a result of the ceaseless westward expansion of white settlement, which was now stretching to the and beyond, colliding again with Native American populations committed to protecting their lands and their trade from intruders. In both the North and the South, the threatened tribes mobilized to resist white encroachments. They began as well to forge connections with British forces in and Spanish forces in Florida. The Indian conflict on land therefore became intertwined with the European conflict on the seas, and ultimately helped cause the War of 1812, an unpopular conflict with ambiguous results.

Conflict on the Seas The early nineteenth century saw a dramatic expansion of American shipping in the Atlantic. Britain retained significant naval superiority, but the British merchant marine1 was preoccupied with commerce in Europe and Asia and devoted little energy to trade with America. Thus the United States stepped effectively into the void and developed one of the most important merchant marines in the world, which soon controlled a large proportion of the trade between Europe and the West Indies. In 1805, at the , a British fleet virtually destroyed what was left of the French navy. Because France could no longer challenge the British at sea, now chose to pressure England through economic rather than naval means. The result was what he called the , designed to close the European continent to British trade. Napoleon

1 Merchant marine: merchant fleet issued a series of decrees barring British ships and neutral ships that had called at British ports from landing their cargoes at any European port controlled by France or its allies. The British government replied to Napoleon’s decrees by establishing—through a series of “”—a of the European coast. The blockade required that any goods being shipped to Napoleon’s Europe be carried either in British vessels or in neutral vessels stopping at British ports—precisely what Napoleon’s policies forbade. American ships were caught between Napoleon’s decrees and Britain’s orders in council. If they sailed directly for the European continent, they risked being captured by the British navy; if they sailed by way of a British port, they risked seizure by the French. Both of the warring powers were violating America’s rights as a neutral nation. But most Americans considered the British, with their greater sea power, the worse offender. British ships pounced on Yankee merchantmen all over the ocean; the French could do so only in European ports. Particularly infuriating to Americans, British vessels stopped United States ships on the high seas and seized sailors off the decks, making them victims of “.”

Impressment The British navy—with its floggings, low pay, and terrible shipboard conditions—was known as a “floating hell” to its sailors. Few volunteered. Most had to be “impressed” (forced) into the service. At every opportunity they deserted. By 1807, many of these deserters had joined the American merchant marine or the American navy. To check this loss of vital manpower, the British claimed the right to stop and search American merchant ships (although at first not naval vessels) and reimpress deserters. They did not claim the right to take native-born Americans, but they did claim the right to seize naturalized Americans born on British soil. In practice, the British navy often made no such distinctions, impressing British deserters and native-born Americans alike into service. In the summer of 1807, the British went to more provocative extremes in an incident involving a vessel of the American navy. Sailing from Norfolk, with several alleged deserters from the British navy among the crew, the American naval Chesapeake encountered the British ship Leopard. When the American commander, , refused to allow the British to search the Chesapeake, the Leopard opened fire. Barron had no choice but to surrender, and a boarding party from the Leopard dragged four men off the American frigate. When news of the Chesapeake-Leopard incident reached the United States, there was great popular clamor for revenge. If Congress had been in session, it might have declared war. But Jefferson and Madison2 tried to maintain the peace. Jefferson expelled all British warships from American waters, to lessen the likelihood of future incidents. Then he sent instructions to his minister in England, , to demand that the British government renounce impressment. The British government disavowed the action of the officer responsible for the Chesapeake-Leopard affair and recalled him; it offered compensation for those killed and wounded in the incident; and it promised to return three of the captured sailors (one of the original four had been hanged). But the British refused to renounce impressment.

2 was Jefferson’s Secretary of State. “Peaceable Coercion” In an effort to prevent future incidents that might bring the nation again to the brink of war, Jefferson presented—and Republican legislators promptly enacted—a drastic measure known as the Embargo, and it became one of the most controversial political issues of its time. The Embargo prohibited American ships from leaving the United States for any foreign port anywhere in the world. (If it had specified only British and French ports, Jefferson reasoned, it could have been evaded by means of false clearance papers.)... The law was widely evaded, but it was effective enough to create a serious depression through most of the nation. Hardest hit were the merchants and shipowners of the Northeast, most of them Federalists. Their once lucrative shipping business was at a virtual standstill, and they were losing money every day. They became convinced that Jefferson had acted unconstitutionally. The election of 1808 came in the midst of the Embargo-induced depression. James Madison... won the presidency. But the Federalists ran much more strongly than they had in 1804. The embargo was clearly a growing political liability, and Jefferson decided to back down. A few days before leaving office, he approved a bill ending his experiment with what he called “peaceable coercion.” To replace the Embargo, Congress passed the Non-Intercourse Act.... The new law reopened trade with all nations [except] Great Britain and France. A year later, in 1810, Congress allowed the Non-Intercourse Act to expire and replaced it with Macon’s Bill No. 2, which reopened free commercial relations with Britain and France, but authorized the president to prohibit commerce with either belligerent3 if one should continue violating neutral shipping after the other had stopped. Napoleon thus announced that France would no longer interfere with American shipping, and Madison announced that an embargo against Great Britain alone would automatically go into effect early in 1811 unless Britain renounced its restrictions on American shipping....

The “Indian Problem” and the British Given the ruthlessness with which white settlers in North America had dislodged Indian tribes to make room for expanding settlement, it was hardly surprising that ever since the Revolution many Native Americans had continued to look to England—which had historically attempted to limit western expansion4—for protection. The British in Canada, for their part, had relied on the tribes as partners in the lucrative and as potential military allies.... Jefferson offered the Native Americans a choice: they could convert themselves into settled farmers and assimilate—become a part of white society; or they could migrate to the west of the Mississippi. In either case, they would have to give up their claims to their tribal lands in the Northwest.5 Jefferson considered the assimilation policy a benign alternative to continuing conflict between Indians and white settlers, conflict he assumed the tribes were destined to lose. But to

3 Belligerent: engaged in war 4 You might remember the Proclamation Line of 1763. 5 Remember that this is the Old Northwest, not and . the tribes, the new policy seemed far from benign, especially given the bludgeon-like efficiency with which [ of the Territory William Henry] Harrison set out to implement it.... By 1807, the United States had extracted from reluctant tribal leaders treaty rights to eastern , southern Indiana, and most of Illinois.6 Meanwhile, in the Southwest, white Americans were taking millions of acres from other tribes in , , and Mississippi. The Indians wanted desperately to resist, but the separate tribes were helpless by themselves against the power of the United States. They might have accepted their fate passively but for the emergence of two new factors. One factor was the policy of the British authorities in Canada. After the Chesapeake incident and the surge of anti-British feeling throughout the United States, the British colonial authorities began to expect an American invasion of Canada and took desperate measures for their own defense. Among those measures were efforts to renew friendship with the Indians and provide them with increased supplies.

Tecumseh and the Prophet The second, and more important, factor intensifying the border conflict was the rise of two remarkable Native American leaders. One was , a charismatic religious leader and orator known as the Prophet.... Having freed himself from what he considered the evil effects of white culture, he began to speak to his people of the superior virtues of Indian civilization and the sinfulness and corruption of the white world. In the process, he inspired a religious revival that spread through numerous tribes and helped unite them.... The Prophet’s brother Tecumseh—“the Shooting Star,” chief of the —emerged as the leader of... secular efforts. Tecumseh understood, as few other Indian leaders had, that only through united action could the tribes hope to resist the advance of white civilization. Beginning in 1809... he set out to unite all the Indians of the Mississippi Valley, north and south.... In 1811, Tecumseh... traveled down the Mississippi to visit the tribes of the South and persuade them to join the alliance. During his absence, Governor Harrison saw a chance to destroy the growing influence of the two Native American leaders.... The (named for the creek near the fighting) disillusioned many of the Prophet’s followers, who had believed that his magic would protect them. Tecumseh returned to find the confederacy in disarray. But there were still many warriors eager for combat, and by the spring of 1812 they were active along the frontier, from Michigan to Mississippi, raiding white settlements and terrifying white settlers. The bloodshed along the western borders was largely a result of the Indians’ own initiative, but Britain’s agents in Canada had encouraged and helped supply the uprising. To harrison and most white residents of the regions, there seemed only one way to make the West safe for Americans. That was to drive the British out of Canada and annex that province to the United States—a goal that many westerners had long cherished for other reasons as well.

6 The last of these was soon to become the nation’s greatest state. Florida and War Fever While white “frontiersmen” in the North demanded the conquest of Canada, those in the South wanted the United States to acquire , a territory that included the present state of Florida and the southern areas of what are now , Mississippi, and . The territory was a continuing threat to whites in the . Slaves escaped across the Florida border; Indians launched frequent raids north into white settlements from Florida.... By 1812, war fever was growing on both the northern and southern borders of the United States. In the congressional elections of 1810, voters from these regions elected a large number of representatives of both parties eager for war with Britain. They became known as the “war hawks.” Some of them were ardent nationalists fired by passion for territorial expansion— among them two men who would play a great role in national politics for much of the next four decades: of Kentucky and John C. Calhoun of .... [B]oth men began agitating for the conquest of Canada. Madison still hoped for peace. But he shared the concerns of other Republicans about the dangers to American trade, and he was losing control of Congress. On , 1812, he gave in to the pressure and approved a declaration of war against Britain....

The Revolt of With a few notable exceptions, such as the Battles of Put-In-Bay and ,7 the military operations of the United States between 1812 and 1815 consisted of a series of humiliating failures. As a result, the American government faced increasing popular opposition as the contest dragged on. In New England, opposition both to the war and to the Republican government that was waging it was so extreme that some Federalists celebrated British victories. In Congress, in the meantime, the Republicans had continual trouble with the opposition, led by a young congressman from New Hampshire, , who missed no opportunity to embarrass the administration. By now the Federalists were a minority in the country as a whole, but they were still the majority party in New England. Some of them began to dream again of creating a separate nation in that region, which they could dominate and in which they could escape what they saw as the tyranny of slaveholders and backwoodsmen. Talk of secession revived and reached a climax in the winter of 1814-1815. On December 15, 1814, delegates from the New England states met in Hartford, , to discuss their grievances. Those who favored secession at the were outnumbered by a comparatively moderate majority. But while the convention’s report only hinted at secession, it reasserted the right of nullification and proposed seven amendments to the Constitution... designed to protect New England from the growing influence of the South and the West.

7 The former was a naval battle on . The latter was a substantial American victory that was actually fought several weeks after the peace treaty ending the war had been signed; news of the treaty had not yet crossed the Atlantic to the United States. This victory vaulted the American commander at New Orleans to national prominence. His name was . Because the war was going badly and the government was becoming desperate, the New Englanders assumed that the Republicans would have to agree to their demands. Soon after the convention adjourned, however, the news of Jackson’s smashing victory at New Orleans reached the cities of the Northeast. A day or two later, reports arrived form abroad of a negotiated peace. In the euphoria of this apparent triumph, the Hartford Convention and the came to seem futile, irrelevant, even treasonable. The failure of the secession effort was a virtual death blow to the Federalist Party.

The Peace Settlement Peace talks between the United States and Britain had begun even before fighting in the War of 1812 began. , Henry Clay, and led the American delegation. Realizing that, with the defeat of Napoleon in Europe, the British would no longer have much incentive to interfere with Americans commerce, the Americans gave up their demand for a British renunciation of impressment and for the cession of Canada to the United States. Exhausted and in debt from their prolonged conflict with Napoleon and eager to settle the lesser dispute in North America, the British abandoned their call for the creation of an Indian in the Northwest and made other, minor territorial concessions. The negotiators referred other disputes to arbitration. Hastily drawn up, the treaty was signed [at in the Netherlands] on Christmas Eve 1814. Other settlements followed the and contributed to a long-term improvement in Anglo-American relations. A commercial treaty in 1815 gave Americans the right to trade freely with England and much of the . The Rush-Bagot agreement of 1817 provided for mutual disarmament on the .... For the other parties to the War of 1812, the Indian tribes east of the Mississippi, the Treaty of Ghent was of no lasting value. It required the United States to restore to the tribes lands seized by white Americans in the fighting, but those provisions were never enforced. Ultimately, the war was another disastrous blow to the capacity of Native Americans to resist white expansion. Tecumseh, their most important leader, was dead. The British, their most important allies, were gone from the Northwest. The alliance that Tecumseh and the Prophet had forged was in disarray. And the end of the war spurred a great new drive by white settlers deeper into the West, into land the Indians were less than ever able to defend.