Chapter 7: Expansion and War

Chapter 7: Expansion and War Objectives:

• We will examine how the growing expansion to Western land and growing conflict with Native Americans contributed to the War of 1812.

• We will examine the policy decisions of both Jefferson and Madison that contributed to the War of 1812

• We will examine the various battles during the War of 1812.

• We will analyze the impact the War of 1812 had to both British-American relations and how it affected the Indians.

(1Co 9:7) Who goeth a warfare any

time at his own charges? who

planteth a vineyard, and eateth not

of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth

a flock, and eateth not of the milk

of the flock?

EXPASNSION AND WAR:

• Two different conflicts were taking shape in the later years of Jefferson’s presidency that would draw America 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.)

EXPASNSION AND WAR:

• As the fighting escalated, both the British and the French took steps to prevent the U.S. from trading with and thus assisting the other.

• The other was in North America itself as settlers expanded West, Native Americans resisted.

• And sought to link up with the British forces in Canada and Spanish forces in Florida.

• This would intertwine to help cause the War of 1812.

Conflict on the Seas:

• American shipping deeply expanded

in the Atlantic as its Merchant

Marines were considered one of the

most important in the world because

it soon controlled a large proportion of

the trade between Europe and the

West Indies.

• The British were preoccupied with

commerce in Europe and Asia.

Conflict on the Seas:

• In 1805, at the Battle of Trafalgar, a British fleet virtually destroyed what was left of the French navy.

• France could no longer challenge the British at sea so it attempted to close the European continent to trade from Britain.

• Britain blockaded France.

• It required 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.

Conflict on the Seas: • American ships were caught between

Napoleon’s decree and Britain’s blockade.

• If they sailed directly to Europe they risked being captured by the British navy.

• If they sailed by way of a British port, they risk seizure by the French.

• The warring powers were violating America’s rights as a neutral nation.

• British ships were seen as the worst offender when British vessels stopped U.S. ships on the high seas and seized sailors off the decks making them victims of impressment.

Impressment:

• The British navy was known for terrible conditions and low pay and few volunteered most were 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 stop loosing men to desertion, the British claimed the right to stop and search American merchant ships and re-impress deserters.

Impressment:

• 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

impressed both British deserters

and native born Americans alike

into service.

Impressment:

• An incident occurred between a American frigate Chesapeake that allegedly carried deserters from the British navy as part of their crew encountered the British vessel Leopard.

• When the American commander refused to allow the British to search his ship, the British opened fire and the Americans had no choice but to surrender.

Impressment:

• Four men were taken.

• News of the incident reached America

and there were cries for revenge.

• Jefferson expelled all British warships

from American waters and instructed

his minister in England, James

Monroe to demand the British

government renounce impressment.

Impressment:

• The British government offered compensation, recalled the officer responsible and disavowed.

• (Said he was acting on his own and not in behalf of the nation) and offered compensation of those killed and wounded and promised to return three of the captured sailors (one was hanged).

• But the British refused to renounce impressment.

Peaceable Coercion:

• In an effort to prevent future incidents that might bring the nation again to the brink of war, Congress enacted an Embargo.

• It prohibited American ships from leaving the U.S. for any port in the world.

• But it caused a depression and hardest hit were merchants and ship owners of the Northeast most of them Federalists.

Peaceable Coercion:

• The election of 1808 came in the middle of the depression and James Madison; Jefferson’s secretary of state won the presidency.

• But the embargo was a growing political liability and Jefferson decided to back down.

• Jefferson called for peaceful coercion.

• Which included: Non-Intercourse Act where the law reopened trade with all nations except Great Britain and France.

Peaceable Coercion: • A year later Congress replaced it with Macon’s

Bill No. 2 which conditionally reopened free commercial relations with Britain and France.

• Napoleon announced that France would no longer interfere with American shipping.

• Madison announced that Embargo against Great Britain alone would automatically go in effect early in 1811 unless British renounced its restriction on American shipping.

• The British government repealed its blockade of Europe but the repeal came too late to prevent war.

The Indian Problem and the British:

• The 1807 war crisis revived the conflict between Indians and White Americans.

• A leading player was William Henry Harrison.

• Harrison was an advocate for western expansion and for settlement of Indian lands.

• In 1801 he became governor of Indiana Territory to administer the president’s proposed solution to the Indian problem.

The Indian Problem and the British:

• 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 west of the Mississippi.

• In either case, they would have to give up their claims of tribal lands in the Northwest.

The Indian Problem and the British:

• Harrison played one tribe against another and used threats, bribes, trickery, and whatever other tactics he felt would help him conclude treaties.

• In fact the number of western Americans who had settled east of the Appalachians had grown to more than 500,000, a population far larger than that of the Native Americans.

The Indian Problem and the British:

• It was become almost inevitable as a result that the tribes had to relocate.

• Indians desired to resist but the separate tribes were helpless by themselves.

• But new factors came to play.

• British authorities in Canada expected an American invasion of Canada with the surge of anti-British feelings after the Chesapeake incident and took 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.

• Who together helped create an age

of religious fervor and prophecy.

Tecumseh and the Prophet:

• One was Tenskwatawa a charismatic religious leader and orator known as a prophet.

• He overcame alcohol and preached that the White Civilization was corrupt and sinful and that Indians should separate completely from white culture and embrace Indian culture which was superior.

Tecumseh and the Prophet: • Their base of operation was known as Prophetstown.

• His brother Tecumseh the chief of the Shawness was more militant.

• Techumseh understood that only through united action could tribes hope to resist the advance of White civilization.

• So he visited tribes and promised that they would together halt white expansion recover the Northwest, and make the Ohio River the boundary between the U.S. and the Indian Country.

• He maintained that the treaties negotiated with individual tribes with Harrison had no retitle to land.

• The land belonged to all tribes.

Tecumseh and the Prophet:

• In 1811, Tecumseh left Prophetstown and traveled down the Mississippi to visit tribes of the South, hoping to persuade them to join the alliance.

• During his absence, Harrison camped near Prophetstown with 1,000 soldiers.

• On November 7, 1811 he provoked a battle.

• The white forces suffered losses as heavy as those of the natives but Harrison drove off the Indians and burned the town down.

Tecumseh and the Prophet: • Tecumseh returned to find the confederacy in

disarray.

• Nevertheless many warriors were still eager for combat and in the spring of 1812 they were raiding white settlements and terrifying white settlers.

• British agents in Canada encouraged and helped supply the uprising.

• To Harrison and most of the White residents of the regions, there seemed only one way to make the West safe for Americans: drive the British out of Canada and annex that province to the US.

Florida and War Fever: • White frontiersmen in the North demanded

the conquest of Canada.

• Those in the South wanted the US to acquire Spanish Florida, a territory that included the present state of Florida and the southern areas of what are now Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

• The territory was a continuing threat to whites in the Southern U.S.

• Slaves escaped across the Florida border; Indians launched frequent raids north into white settlements from Florida.

Florida and War Fever:

• White Southerners also coveted Florida because it ran rivers that could provide residents of the Southwest access to valuable ports on the Gulf of Mexico.

• In 1810, American settlers in West Florida (an area that is part of Mississippi and Louisiana today) seized the Spanish fort at Baton Rouge and asked the federal government to annex the captured territory to the U.S.

• President Madison happily agreed and began planning to get the rest of Florida too.

Florida and War Fever:

• The desire for Florida became yet another motivation for war with Britain.

• Spain was Britain’s ally and a war with Britain might provide a pretext for taking Spanish territory.

• By 1812 War fever was growing.

• In the Congressional elections of 1810, a large number of representatives were elected who were of both parties who were eager for war with Britain.

• They were known as “war hawks.”

Florida and War Fever:

• 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.

• Henry Clay of Kentucky and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina.

• Others were men impassioned in their defense of Republican values.

• Together they formed a powerful coalition in favor of war.

Florida and War Fever:

• Clay became the Speaker of the House in 1811 and he filled committees with those who shared his eagerness for war.

• He appointed Calhoun to the crucial committee on Foreign Affairs, and both men began agitating for the conquest of Canada.

• Madison still hoped for peace.

• He shared concerns about the dangers of American trade and he was losing control of Congress, on June 18, 1812, he gave in to the pressure and approved a declaration of war against Britain.

The War of 1812:

• Britain largely ignored for a time America’s declaration of war with their sights on Napoleon.

• But Napoleon launched a catastrophic campaign against Russia that left his army in disarray allowing the British to shift their focus on the Americans.

Battle with the Tribes:

• Americans entered the War of 1812 with great enthusiasm but their initial campaigns in invading Canada was a failure.

• In fact they lost Fort Dearborn (Chicago) before an Indian attack.

• Things went slightly better in the seas.

• At first American frigates won some spectacular victories over British warships and American privateers destroyed or captured many British merchant ships.

Battle with the Tribes:

• By 1813 the British navy now less

preoccupied with Napoleon was

counterattacking effectively driving

the Frigates and imposing a

blockade on the U.S.

Battle with the Tribes:

• The U.S. did achieve significant early military success at the Great Lakes.

• First Americans took control of Lake Ontario that permitted them to raid and burn York (Toronto) the capital of Canada at that time.

• Lake Erie was seized mainly through the work of youthful Oliver Hazard Perry who engaged and dispersed a British fleet at Put-in-Bay on September 10, 1813.

Battle with the Tribes:

• This made another invasion of Canada by way of Detroit.

• William Henry Harrison who commanded the American forces in the west, won a notable victory for the death of Tecumseh who served the British as a general.

• This was called the Battle of Thames and weakened and disheartened Native Americans of the Northwest and greatly diminished their ability to defend their claims to the region.

Battle with the Tribes:

• In the Southwest, Andrew Jackson a

wealthy Tennessee Planter and a

general in the state militia engaged

the Creek Indians and on March 27,

1814, in the Battle of Horseshoe

Bend.

• Jackson and his men took terrible

revenge killing warriors including the

slaughter of women and children.

The War of 1812:

• This led to the Creek tribe to cede most

of its land to the U.S. and retreated

westward, farther into the interior.

• The battle also won Jackson commission

as a major general in the US. Army and in

that capacity, led his men farther south

into Florida and seized the Spanish fort

at Pensacola on November 7, 1814.

Battles with the British:

• Victories over the tribes were not

enough for the U.S. to win the war.

• After Napoleon surrendered in 1814,

England sent an invasion armada that

landed near the outskirts of

Washington and it dispersed a poorly

trained American force of militiamen.

Battles with the British:

• On August 24, 1813, the British troops entered Washington and set fire to several public buildings including the White House as retaliation for earlier American forces burning down the Canadian capital, York.

• This was the low point of American fortunes in the war.

Battles with the British:

• Leaving Washington in partial ruins, the British army proceeded up the bay toward Baltimore.

• But to get to Baltimore it had to get past Fort McHenry.

• To block the British fleet, the Americans sunk several ships to clog the entry of the harbor.

• Forcing the British to bombard in a distance.

Battles with the British: • Through the night of September 13,

Francis Scott Key a Washington lawyer who was on board one of the British ships trying to secure a release of an American prisoner watched the bombardment.

• The next morning, he could see the flag of the fort still flying, he scribbled a poem called “The Star Spangled Banner,” on a back of an envelope.

• The British withdrew from Baltimore.

• Key’s poem was set to the tune of an old English drinking song and in 1931, this became the official national anthem.

Battles with the British:

• Meanwhile American forces

repelled another larger

British naval invasion force

in northern New York at the

Battle of Plattsburgh on

September 11, 1814.

Battles with the British:

• In the South, hardened British veterans fresh from battle against the French in Spain landed below New Orleans and prepared to advance north up the Mississippi.

• Awaiting the British was Andrew Jackson and with a collection of both regular army troops and militia-men including African Americans and Pirates constructed earthen fortifications.

Battles with the British:

• On January 8, 1815 the British advanced, but were no match for Jackson’s well protected men.

• The British retreated, leaving 700 dead including their commanding officer, 1,400 wounded and 500 prisoners.

• American losses were 8 killed and 13 wounded.

• Only later did news reach America that the U.S. and Britain signed a peace treaty several weeks before the battle of New Orleans.

The Revolt of New England:

• Most of the military operations of the U.S. between 1812 and 1815 consisted of a series of humiliating failures.

• As a result, the American government faced increasing popular opposition as the war dragged on.

• Some Federalists celebrated British victories.

• In Congress Republicans had persistent trouble with the Federalist opposition led by a young congressmen from New Hampshire, Daniel Webster who was constant critic of the president.

The Revolt of New England:

• The Federalists were a minority in the country as a whole but a majority in New England.

• Some wanted to create a separate new nation for New England free from the tyranny of slaveholders and backwoodsmen.

• The party met in what is called the Hartford Convention in Hartford, Connecticut on December 15, 1814.

• Those who favored secession were outnumbered by a moderate majority.

The Revolt of New England:

• It did however reassert its right of

nullification and proposed seven

amendments to the Constitution

(presumably the condition of New

England remaining in the union).

• Amendments designed to protect New

England from the growing influence of

the South and the West.

The Revolt of New England:

• Because of the war going badly, the New Englanders assumed that the Republicans would have to agree to their demands.

• But when the news of Jackson’s victory in New Orleans and peace was negotiated; the Federalists became irrelevant, and were considered traitors.

• Their actions could be interpreted as treason.

• The failure of the secession effort was a virtual death blow to the Federalist Party.

The Peace Settlement:

• Peace talks had begun even before

the fighting in the War of 1812.

• John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and

Albert Gallatin led the American

delegation.

• In negotiations, Americans gave up

their demands for a British

renunciation of impressment and for

the cession of Canada to the U.S.

The Peace Settlement:

• The British abandoned their call for

the creation of an Indian buffer

state in the Northwest.

• Hastily drawn up treaty was signed

on Christmas Eve 1814.

• It was named the Treaty of Ghent

after the Dutch City in which it was

signed.

The Peace Settlement:

• Other settlements followed the

Treaty of Ghent 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

British Empire.

The Peace Settlement:

• The Rush-Bagot agreement of 1817 provided for mutual disarmament on the Great Lakes; eventually although not until 1872, the Canadian boundary became the longest unguarded frontier in the world.

• 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 U.S. to restore to the tribes lands seized by white Americans in the fighting, but those provisions were never enforced.

The Peace Settlement: • Ultimately the war was another disastrous blow

to the capacity of the Native Americans to resist white expansion.

• Tecumseh their most important leader was dead.

• The British their most important allies were gone.

• The alliance that Tecumseh and the prophet had forged was in disarray.

• The end of the war spurred a great new drive by white settlers deep west into land the Indians were less than ever able to defend.

Looking Back

• Jefferson desired to bring America back to an agrarian republic isolated from the corruption and intrigue of Europe.

• But the dream became impossible. Cities were growing and its commercial life became more important.

• Jefferson aided to the growth of the U.S. with the Louisiana Purchase, that brought White settlers further west.

• This would lead to wider battles between both Great Britain and the Native Americans.