The End of the War of 1812

1. The End of the War of 1812 February 19, 2013

2. Who won? • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAeIydgtzlA

3. Russian Peace Plan • The first serious suggestion that the two sides come together to end the war came neither from London nor Washington, but from St. Petersburg. • Czar Alexander I of Russia, eager to trade with both countries, wanted to end the war and thereby make high seas commerce safer and more lucrative. • In March 1813 he offered to host mediations. Madison accepted immediately, but the British, who were doing well in the war, were in no mood to talk.

4. What is a Treaty? • an agreement or arrangement made by negotiation • a contract in writing between two or more political authorities (as states or sovereigns) formally signed by representatives duly authorized and usually ratified by the lawmaking authority of the state • Merriam and Webster

5. U.S. and U.K. decided to meet… • …in Ghent, Belgium

7. August 1814 • Met on neutral ground • Britain’s initial instructions were to be forceful • Washington delegation wanted a return to the status quo ante bellum, because trade relations were worsening • British negotiators wanted utipossidetis, that each side could keep what it had won during the war

8. Need for Peace • Ten years of constant warfare made most British diplomats eager for peace. • Britain had spent ten million pounds fighting the Americans. • The United States was nearly bankrupt.

9. The Negotiations: • Diplomats from America struggled communications took at least 6 weeks, and were largely on their own • Americans used better negotiators • proximity allowed the British chief negotiators a false sense of advantage: Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh and Secretary for War and the Colonies, Lord Bathurst, chose not to attend day-to-day talks, but sent a less-skilled team

10. Topics for Discussion • impressments, U.S.-Canadian border disputes, fishing rights and Native lands • The British demanded that Native lands in the state of Ohio, and in the Indiana and Michigan Territories by respected by the U.S • They wanted a buffer state to protect Canada

11. “The Indians are but a secondary object,” Henry Goulburn (British Diplomat) wrote. “As the Allies of Great Britain she must include them in the peace…But when the boundary is once defined it is immaterial whether Indians are upon it or not. Let it be a desert. But we shall know that you cannot come upon us to attack us without crossing it.”

12. Henry Clay, a leader of the War Hawks, would not bargain away the hard-won land of the Northwest Territories. Clay and the other Americans refused to cede any territory to the Natives. Goulburn was taken aback. “Till I came here,” he wrote Bathurst, “I had no idea of the fixed determination which there is in the heart of every American to extirpate the Indians and appropriate their territory.”

13. Stalemate • The talks dragged on, while events in North America, reported in the European papers. In the first three months of negotiations Washington was burned, Baltimore defended, Prevost turned back at Plattsburgh. Still, the border between the U.S. and Canada had not changed. • The advantage seesawed between the teams, neither had enough leverage to claim a full diplomatic advantage.

14. The Treaty • The final 11 articles became the Treaty of Ghent before Christmas Day 1814. • All conquests were to be returned. • Hostilities against the First Nations were to be terminated by both sides, and Britain was not to arm the Aboriginals for operations against the US.

15. None of the issues that had caused the war or that had become critical to the conflict were included in the treaty! (neutral rights or impressment) • All captured territory in Upper and Lower Canada and the US was returned to its original owner. • War prisoners were to be returned to their home countries.

16. Natives and the Treaty • Article IX contained a tragically unenforceable clause for the Natives. • The negotiators agreed to restore the Indians to “all possessions, rights and privileges which they may have enjoyed, or been entitled to in 1811.” • But without a clearly-drawn map of Native land reserves, this clause was meaningless. • Tecumseh’s confederacy was destroyed, and Harrison’s victories could not be reversed. The Natives were simply in the way.

17. Review: Key points I • Americans called for negotiations first, giving the British the Upper Hand • British had the ‘proximity edge’ which, in the end, hurt them, rather than helped them • Negotiations took weeks because correspondence took a long time to go back and forth across the Atlantic. • Americans were desperate for ‘status quo’ • British wanted the Natives protected

18. Review: Key Points II • Neither side gained diplomatic advantage • Even though the British were doing well, the British Navy had failed to control the Great Lakes, British Army had failed to occupy substantial territory in the United States. • Natives were given nothing • Resolution: let each side get on with the business of trade and expansion. In the end, they simply agreed to call the whole thing off.

19. Impact of War of 1812: US • US gained international respect for being able to withstand the British, a great military power • This left the morale of the citizens high. • It became “the Second War of Independence” • Sidenote: British blockade of the American coast created a shortage of cotton cloth in the United States, leading to the creation of a cotton-manufacturing industry

20. Impact on Great Britain • The War of 1812 had little impact in Great Britain and was generally forgotten, since it was considered to be insignificant when compared to the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo on 18 June 1815.

21. Impact: Canada • The war had been a matter of national survival. • The war united the French-speaking and English-speaking colonies against a common enemy, giving many inhabitants a sense of nationhood as well as a sense of loyalty to Britain.

22. Canadian Nationalism Born • This nationalistic sentiment also caused a great deal of suspicion of American ideas like responsible government which would frustrate political reform in Upper and Lower Canada until the Rebellions of 1837. • However, the War of 1812 also started the process that ultimately led to Canadian Confederation in 1867.

23. Impact on Canada • For the Canadas, the war also bred the infamous “militia myth,” that the chief battles had been won by and large by part-time citizen soldiers. • This negated the need for the colonies to invest in professional soldiers. • This myth, which negated the incredible influence of career soldiers like Isaac Brock and First Nations chiefs like Tecumseh, would continue to influence military affairs in Canada until the First World War.

24. So who won? Many Canadians considered the War of 1812 to have been an American defeat because the American invasions of 1813 and 1814 had been repulsed. Supporting this view is the fact that the British occupied some American territory at the end of the war, while the Americans did not occupy any British territory. But in the end, the Canadians did not gain any physical territory

25. 1812 coming to life… • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLa0mUWAiVk