War of 1812

The War of 1812 was between the United States and Great Britain.

From 1803 to 1815, the British were at war with France. During that time, their main goal was to defeat the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. From 1803 to 1815, the British were fighting Napoleon Bonaparte of France. Napoleon wanted to add more land to the French Empire by taking over Europe. The British did not want that to happen.The United States was officially neutral because the American population was divided. The Federalists generally supported Great Britain. The Democratic-Republicans generally supported France.

Federalists vs. Democratic-Republicans

The Federalist party and the Democratic-Republican party were two of the first political parties in the United States. The Federalists generally wanted a strong central government. The Democratic-Republicans generally wanted more rights for states. The two parties disagreed on American foreign policy.

How did the Napoleonic Wars affect American trade?

In the early 1800s, American ships often traded goods across the Atlantic. But during the Napoleonic Wars, the British and French wanted to keep goods from getting to their opponents. So, they would sometimes capture American ships headed for Europe.

Because the British were at war with France, they needed many men for their army and navy. To make sure they had enough men, they depended on the practice of impressment. Impressment was the practice of forcing sailors on foreign ships to serve in the British army or navy. In the years before the War of 1812, the British often impressed sailors on American ships.

Life in the British navy was difficult. Many sailors had run away to work on American merchant ships. So, the British used impressment to get them back. The British thought impressment was fair. They argued that they were only taking back sailors who had run away from the British navy.

However, it was often hard to tell which sailors were British and which were American. The British would sometimes take American sailors, too. That fact angered the United States.

The British used impressment more often in the years leading up to the War of 1812. Great Britain was at war with France, and Great Britain needed as many men as possible to fight. As more American sailors were taken, the United States government grew angrier.

The British actively supported Native American attacks against American settlers in the Northwest Territory.

The British worried that Americans in the Northwest Territory would try to take over parts of Canada. Great Britain controlled Canada and wanted to protect its land claims. However, Great Britain was busy fighting France. So instead of fighting the Americans themselves, the British provided Native American tribes with military supplies.

The British supported the Shawnee leader

Tecumseh.

Tecumseh worked to unite Native American tribes against American settlers. He knew that Native American tribes would have to work together to stop American expansion. Each tribe was too weak on its own.

Tecumseh's challenge

Trying to unite the tribes was a challenge. The tribes spoke different languages. They were spread out geographically. They had old rivalries with each other.

As Americans took more land from the Native Americans, Tecumseh's message of unity became more appealing. Tribes put aside their differences to work together.

What happened at the Battle of Tippecanoe?

In 1808, Tecumseh and other Native Americans had started gathering in a village called Prophetstown. American settlers in the Northwest Territory felt threatened. They were worried the Native Americans would rise up against them.

In the fall of 1811, Indiana Governor William Henry Harrison led some American soldiers towards Prophetstown. They wanted to destroy the town and the Native American movement. A battle between the two groups took place on November 7, 1811.

Both sides were badly hurt during the battle. But in the end, Governor Harrison's troops burned down Prophetstown. They also destroyed the Native Americans' food. The loss hurt the Native Americans' confidence and weakened Tecumseh's movement.

Americans were angry to learn that many soldiers died at the Battle of Tippecanoe. But they weren't only mad at the Native Americans. Many Americans blamed the British for causing the battle because the British funded the Native Americans with weapons and resources.

Leaders call for revenge

The Battle of Tippecanoe angered many Americans, including Major General Andrew Jackson. After he learned of the battle, he wrote these words to Governor William Henry Harrison:

The blood of our murdered countrymen must be revenged. The banditti ought to be swept from the face of the earth. I do hope that Government will see that it is necessary to act, and that this hostile band, which must be excited to war by the secret agents of Great Britain, must be destroyed.

banditti: bandits, robbers, outlaws

hostile band: enemy group

War hawk is someone favoring war in a debate over whether to go to war, or whether to continue or escalate an existing war. One war hawk, Henry Clay, a lawyer from Kentucky, was the Speaker of the House of Representatives during the War of 1812. He had a long political career. He was Secretary of State from 1825 to 1829 and served in both houses of Congress. He even ran for president three times, but lost.

The following were arguments in favor of going to war:

• • Not going to war would damage the nation's honor and threaten its independence. Many Americans felt that Great Britain was taking advantage of the United States by interfering in shipping and impressing sailors from American ships. They felt that a war was necessary to defend their country's honor.

  • A war would give the United States a chance to expand into Florida and Canada. Many Americans saw a war with Great Britain as a chance to expand into Canada and Florida. Canada was controlled by Great Britain, and Florida was controlled by Great Britain's ally at the time, Spain.

  • A war would end British-supported attacks against American settlers in the Northwest Territory.

  • Great Britain supported Native American attacks against American settlers in the Northwest Territory. Many Americans saw war with Great Britain as a way to end the attacks.

The following were arguments against going to war:

• Military power

Some politicians worried that the United States did not have a strong enough army or navy to fight the British. At the time, the British Royal Navy had over 500 warships. The United States, by contrast, had fewer than 20.

• New England merchants

New England's economy depended on trade with Great Britain. Many merchants worried that war with Great Britain would be bad for the economy. They wanted to keep their relationship with Great Britain strong.

James Madison was president from 1809 to 1817. He signed Congress's declaration of war on Great Britain in 1812. It was the United States' first declaration of war.

Causes of the War of 1812:

• The British actively supported Native American attacks against American settlers in the Northwest Territory.

• Impressment

• America wanting to expand into Florida and Canada

From 1803 to 1815, Great Britain was involved in a series of wars with Napoleon Bonaparte, the French emperor.

Napoleon wanted to expand the French Empire by taking over Europe. The British did not want that to happen.

In one of the first battles of the war, the USS Constitution faced the British warship HMS Guerrière on the high seas.

Why was the USS Constitution's victory important?

The battle between the USS Constitution and the HMS Guerrière had little impact on the outcome of the war. However, the Constitution's victory boosted American morale. Morale is the enthusiasm or self-confidence of a group.

To many Americans, the victory proved that the United States could beat Great Britain in a fair fight.

The main weapons used during the battle between the USS Constitution and HMS Guerrière was the cannon. The cannons on the USS Constitution could fire 24-pound cannonballs over 1,200 yards!

Following the battle against the British warship HMS Guerrière, the USS Constitution was given the name Old Ironside.

The unsinkable Old Ironsides

The USS Constitution became famous for surviving enemy attacks in the War of 1812. But the ship has also survived ever since. In the 1930s, it went on a 3-year tour around the world, even though it was over 100 years old!

Today, the USS Constitution is a floating museum in Boston. You can walk right onto Old Ironsides and explore its history in person.

Why did the United States want to take over parts of Canada?

Historians do not agree on why the United States wanted to take over parts of Canada. Some say the Americans wanted to expand their territory. Others say the Americans only wanted to control Canada to end the war.

The War of 1812 was not the first time the Americans invaded Canada. They also invaded during the Revolutionary War, in 1775. The Americans hoped Canada would join the revolution against Great Britain. But the invasion failed. So, Canada remained a part of Great Britain. It remained a British colony until 1931.

Why did Tecumseh support the British in the War of 1812?

The United States wanted to expand westward into Native American lands. Tecumseh was a leader of the Shawnee tribe, which lived in present-day Ohio. Tecumseh wanted to protect his people's land from the Americans. So, he supported the British in their fight against the United States.

What happened to Tecumseh's people?

Tecumseh's death left the Native American tribes in the Northwest Territory without a leader. After the war, the United States took advantage of this weakness and took even more land from the Native Americans.

Master Commandant Oliver Hazard Perry led the American fleet to victory in the Battle of Lake Erie.

In August of 1814, the British nearly destroyed Washington DC. The British set fire to many of the buildings in Washington, D.C, including the White House. At the time, this building was known as the President's House.

The British attacked Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore was the third-largest American city and a major port.

A port is a city with a harbor where ships load and unload goods.

The following poem by Francis Scott Key was inspired by the battle over Baltimore's Fort McHenry in 1814.

"The Star-Spangled Banner" was first a poem, but it later became a song. People combined the words with a popular tune. The song became the official national anthem for the United States in 1931.

O say can you see, by the dawn's early light,

What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming,

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight

O'er the ramparts we watch'd were so gallantly streaming?

And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

perilous: dangerous

o'er: over

ramparts: walls of a fort

gallantly: bravely

spangled: covered with shiny decorations

The Battle of New Orleans was in 1815.

On December 24, 1814, Great Britain and the United States signed a peace treaty in Europe. The Battle of New Orleans was two weeks later, on January 8, 1815 because news had not reached the United States from Europe.

How long did it take news to cross the Atlantic in 1815?

The Battle of New Orleans was only fought because news traveled so slowly. New Orleans was thousands of miles from Ghent, the city in Belgium where the treaty was signed. At the time, news from Europe had to travel by ship across the Atlantic. The journey would usually take about six weeks.

Within a few decades, however, sending news across the Atlantic became much faster:

• • In the mid-1800s, people began using steamships to cross the Atlantic. Traveling by steamship was much faster than traveling by sail. The journey would usually take less than 15 days.

  • By the 1860s, people could use telegraphs to send information across the Atlantic. Telegraphs use electrical signals to send messages over cables, or wires. A permanent transatlantic telegraph cable was finished in 1866.

Before the War of 1812, Andrew Jackson had been a lawyer and worked in politics. He served in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

His victory at the Battle of New Orleans made him a national hero. In 1828, he was elected president of the United States.

Why did the Battle of New Orleans matter?

Since a peace treaty had already been signed, the victory had no effect on the outcome on the war. It did, however, increase Americans' confidence in their country. It also made future president Andrew Jackson a national hero.

The Canadian border did not change.

The peace treaty required that both countries give back any territory acquired during the war.

During the Napoleonic Wars, Great Britain and France would capture American merchants ships in order to keep goods from getting to their opponents. This interference stopped when Great Britain and France stopped fighting each other.

The War of 1812 was a victory to American because it was able to defeat Great Britain, a large military.

Great Britain thought the War of 1812 was a victory because it had prevented the United States from meeting any of its prewar goals. The Treaty of Ghent did not address any of the Americans' original complaints:

• impressment of sailors on American ships

• interference in American shipping to Europe

• British support of Native American attacks on American settlers

Additionally, the United States failed to take over any land in Canada or Florida.

The War of 1812 is considered pivotal in Canadian history because the United States failed to take it over. Canada might have become part of the United States if the Canadians hadn't successfully stood their ground.

How Native Americans lost in the War of 1812

Many different Native American tribes had agreed to work together with Tecumseh. But when Tecumseh died in 1813, the tribes no longer had a unifying leader. His death ended the unified movement to drive back American settlers. After the war, the United States took even more land from the Native Americans.