“The United States had been upset with British for several reasons. British failed to withdraw from American territory along the Great Lakes despite United States victory during the Revolutionary war. British military allegedly supported the Indians on American frontier; and their unwillingness to sign commercial agreements favorable to the United States.” American resentment grew during the United Kingdom’s ongoing war with Napoleon’s France. France had domination over the continent of Europe, while Britain had power over the seas. This affected many countries, and it particularly affected America’s trade.
During this time, Britain was at war with Napoleon and wanted to hurt France economically. To do so, Britain tried to restrict French trade with other nations, including America. “Not content with these occasional expedients for laying waste our neutral trade, the cabinet of Britain resorted at length to... ... middle of paper ... ...ended the hatred between American and British soldiers. Although America did not win The War of 1812, due to the Battle of Lake Erie, they did not lose it. The war was caused by the impressment of American soldiers, blockades on American trade, and Indian slaughters on the American frontier.
As a result England pressured America to send supplies to them and then England would turn around and seize the French ships that were sailing to America with goods. This caused the young nation to suffer and the Americans were growing tired of the British interference. The British were also guilty of supplying resources, weapons, and a promise of free land to Indian tribes if they would retaliate against the Americans pre battle and later on during the war. Tecumseh, the leader of the Shawnee tribe, led numerous attacks on the American’s prior to the war and he worked closely with British forces. In 1811 Tecumseh decided to side with the British after William Henry Harrison and his men destroyed his home, Prophetstown, during the Battle of Tippecanoe.
The War of 1812 has often been called America’s forgotten war. Wedged between the Revolutionary and Civil War, its causes, battles, and consequences are unknown to most Americans. The major causes of the War of 1812 were a series of economic revisions passed by the British and French against the United States as unintended consequences of the Napoleonic Wars and American unhappiness at the British practice of impressment, especially after the Chesapeake incident of 1807. In response to the 1806 British Orders in Council, which hurt American trade, the US (under Thomas Jefferson) first tried various retaliatory embargoes against the British. However these embargoes hurt the US far more than they did Britain, angering American citizens and helping the cause of War Hawks (people who favored going to war) in Congress like Henry Clay.
The northern New England Federalists quickly established conflicts with this group. The reason Americas war with Great Britain took place was because of England's unreasonable Trade blockade that blocked America's trade with Europe. So why did the seafaring New England oppose the war for a free sea? The answer is that pro-British Federalists in the northeast sympathized with Britain and resented the Republicans' sympathy with Napoleon whom they regarded as the "anti-Christ of the age". Federalist also opposed the invasion of Canada because it would add more agrarian states from the wild northwest (David, 2002).
Whether to Fight France or England That the United States was in a time of disrupted trade, economic distress and shaky foreign alliances, demonstrates that war with either France or England was inevitable, however, the United States was able to detain the war from happening for about twelve years. Relations between the United States and Great Britain had been strained after the United States won its independence in 1783, but the greatest problems developed during the war between England and France that broke out in 1793. To prevent American neutral shipping from helping the French, the British instituted extensive marine blockades of European ports. The resulting seizures of American merchant shipping quickly brought demands for retaliation in the United States. From 1794 on, however, tensions eased as the administrations of George Washington and John Adams worked to avoid diplomatic difficulties with the British.
From the end of the American Revolution in 1783, the United States had been irritated by the failure of the British to withdraw from American territory along the Great Lakes, their backing of the Indians on America's frontiers and their unwillingness to sign commercial agreements favorable to the United States. American resentment grew during the French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802) and the Napoleonic Wars (1803-15), in which Britain and France were the main combatants. In time, France came to dominate much of the continent of Europe, while Britain remained supreme on the seas. The two powers also fought each other commercially: Britain attempted to blockade the continent of Europe, and France tried to prevent the sale of British goods in French possessions. During the 1790s, French and British maritime policies produced several crises with the United States, but after 1803 the difficulties became much more serious.
List and discuss the events leading up to the War of 1812 and the impact it had on American and Great Britain relations, and the American economy. During Jefferson’s second term in office, fighting between Great Britain and France was posed as a threat to American shipping. Napoleon made the decision to exclude British goods from Europe. As a result, Great Britain decided to blockade Europe and prevent ships from entering or leaving the country. A year later, Britain confiscated American cargoes and seized more than a thousand American ships.
Ending in 1815 with the Treaty of Ghent, the war did not accomplish any of the issues it was being fought over. For the US, the War of 1812 seemed to just be one failure after another. Although the military suffered great failure during the war, these were the direct consequence of the failure of the citizens to unite for the causes of the war. Because of these failures, it is quite valid to call the War of 1812 "America's worst-fought war". When the war began, it was being fought by the Americans to address their grievances toward the British.
Napoleon retaliated with a similar system of blockades under the Berlin and Milan decrees, confiscating vessels and cargoes in European ports if they had first stopped in Britain. Collectively, the belligerents seized nearly 1500 American vessels between 1803 and 1812, thus posing the problem of whether the United States should go to war to defend its neutral rights. Americans at first prepared to respond with economic coercion rather than war. At the urging of President Thomas Jefferson, Congress passed the Embargo Act of 1807, prohibiting virtually all U.S. ships from putting to sea. Subsequent enforcement measures in 1808-1809 also banned overland trade with British and Spanish possessions in Canada and Florida.