War Of 1812

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The war of 1812 was a very important, yet overlooked war that had a great affect on the history of early America. The clash was between the United States, and the British forces. The War was unique in many ways; Britain was currently involved in another struggle called the Napoleonic Wars at the same time. And, In December of 1814, a peace treaty to end the war was established and signed. Interestingly, the last battle of the war, the Battle of New Orleans, was not fought until spring of 1815. Ever since the United States won its independence in 1783, the status of relations between the United States and Britain had been steadily decaying. As a result of the war between England and France in 1793, the British set up blockades of European ports to prevent American neutral shipping from helping the French commerce. Consequently, the American economy was damaged, and this quickly brought demands for retaliation in the United States. Until the 19th century however, tensions eased as the administrations of George Washington and John Adams attempted to keep peace with the British to avoid a war that the Americans were not prepared to fight. Beginning in 1805 the British developed much stricter maritime blockades; in addition, British navy claimed the right to stop neutral vessels on the high seas to look for deserters. During the search of American ships, many American seamen were impressed into the British navy, angering the Americans. Britain claimed that all of the American men impressed were by complete accident. In June of 1807 the British vessel, the Leopard ordered the American vessel, the Chesapeake to stop and allow a search. Upon refusal, the Leopard used force, wounding 18 Americans and killing 3. These actions by the British enraged the Americans, and many more people began demanding retaliation.1 From 1807 to 1811 the administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison attempted to change British policies by hurting their economy. They planned to do this by restricting British imports as well as American exports to Great Britain. The Embargo Act was passed in December 1807, and banned all exports and confined American shipping to the coastal trade. This act was later repealed and replaced with the Nonintercourse Act, prohibiting trade with Britain and France.

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