what event caused great britain to enter the war
The actual causes of the War of 1812 are difficult to determine, in role because much of the war-fourth dimension propaganda obscured the truthful causes.
That being said, most historians don't believe there was a single crusade merely rather a variety of causes, some of which were official while others were unofficial.
The official causes were originally listed in a message that President James Madison sent to Congress on June one, 1812, in which he listed complaints most British behavior toward America.
According to an commodity by the Role of the Historian on the U.South. Department of State'south website, the true causes are varied but are evident in the treaty that ended the state of war, the Treaty of Ghent, which was signed in 1814:
"On Christmas Eve British and American negotiators signed the Treaty of Ghent, restoring the political boundaries on the North American continent to the status quo ante bellum, establishing a boundary commission to resolve further territorial disputes, and creating peace with Indian nations on the frontier. As the Ghent negotiations suggested, the real causes of the war of 1812, were not merely commerce and neutral rights, just too western expansion, relations with American Indians, and territorial command of North America."
The following is a list and explanation of the possible causes of the War of 1812:
These complaints were:
Impressment of American sailors.
Continual harassment of American commerce by British warships.
British laws, known as Orders in Council, declaring blockades confronting American ships bound for European ports.
Attacks by Native-Americans on American frontiers believed to be instigated by British troops in Canada.
The unofficial causes were never mentioned publicly and instead have been pieced together by historians over the years.
The following is a list of the possible causes of the War of 1812:
Impressment:
Impressment is the human action of forcing men into military service. Britain had a long history of using impressment but escalated this practice after the Napoleonic Wars began in 1803.
Between 1803 – 1812, the British Navy reportedly captured between v,000 – 9,000 American sailors at sea and "pressed" them into their navy every bit a way to bargain with manpower shortages (Borneman twenty.)
Impressment of American seamen, illustration published in Harper's Monthly Mag, circa 1884
The issue of impressment caused a public outrage in America and is believed to be 1 of the main causes of the State of war of 1812.
Impressment became a popular consequence in the printing earlier information technology fifty-fifty appeared on President James Madison's list of grievances against U.k. in his June 1, 1812 message to Congress.
Yet, some historians now question how much of a factor impressement actually was in the build up to the war. According to an article by John P. Deeben on the National Archives website, out of the full population of three.9 to 7.2 million Americans, the impressment of fewer than x,000 Americans between 1789 and 1815 was rather insignificant.
Furthermore, Americans sometimes proficient impressment themselves, such as the case with British seamen Charles Davis who was captured and forced to serve aboard the USS Constitution in 1811. (Deeben par 3.)
According to Denver Brunsman in his book The Evil Necessity, whether impressment was the cause of the War of 1812 or not, information technology definitely became the justification for information technology:
"American historians have argued for generations most the causes of the War of 1812, from impressment and the Orders in Council to American expansionist desires and the rivalry between Republican and Federalist parties. One point is irrefutable: Impressment served as the central justification for the war in one case it began. On June 23, 1812, the British government repealed the Orders in Council without knowing (because of normal delays in transatlantic advice) that the United States had declared war on Britain five days earlier. Thereafter, America's only remaining condition for peace was that Great britain concur to stop impressing from American merchant ships."
Republican politicians of the fourth dimension often compared impressed American sailors to white slaves equally a fashion to evoke strong public reactions. In fact, on November 29, 1811, the House Strange Relations Committee report charged that Britain "enslaves our seamen."
When the argument that British Orders in Council were infringing on American trade rights failed to ignite the public's anger in the build upward to the war, politicians began to lean fifty-fifty more heavily on the impressment upshot.
British Orders-In-Council:
The Orders In Council in Great Uk were a series of Parliamentary Acts intended to gain control of the neutral merchant shipping trade with Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries.
When the Napoleonic Wars bankrupt out between France and Great Uk in 1803, both sides tried to prevent neutral countries, such as the United states, from trading with the other in an endeavour to deprive their opponent of supplies.
On January vii, 1807, Uk issued the following Order in Council:
". . . it is hereby ordered, that no vessel shall be permitted to trade from one port to another, both which ports shall belong to, or be in the possession of France or her allies, or shall be then far nether their control every bit that British vessels may not freely trade thereat; and the commanders of his majesty's ships of state of war and privateers shall be, and are hereby instructed to warn every neutral vessel coming from any such port, and destined to some other such port, to discontinue her voyage, and non to continue to any such port; and any vessel, after being so warned, or any vessel coming from any such port after a reasonable time shall take been afforded for receiving information of this his majesty's orders which shall be constitute proceeding to another such port, shall exist captured and brought in, and together with her cargo, shall be condemned as lawful prize."
This prescript prohibited neutral ships from carrying goods betwixt ports inside Napoleon'southward empire and declared that the Royal Navy would board any ship suspected of carrying goods to French ports and confiscate the contents to sell as prizes of war. The decree stated that any nation wishing to trade with airtight ports must kickoff pay transit duties.
This was followed past a second edict issued on Nov 11, 1807, which banned all neutral trade with any port on the European continent.
On December 17, 1807, Napoleon responded with the Milan Decree, which alleged that the French navy would capture all ships trading with Bang-up Uk or its colonies and confiscate their goods.
The British Orders In Council are considered one of the many causes of the War of 1812 and were listed on Madison's list of grievances to Congress in 1812.
Yet some historians, such equally Alan Taylor, doubt the orders in council were a factor at all in the declaration of war.
Alan Taylor argues in his book, The Civil State of war of 1812, that if the orders in quango were the crusade, in that location would have been an easy solution to the problem:
"Moreover, if the orders had been the sole and pressing cause for declaring war, the conflict would have been brief. On June 16, 1812, simply before the Americans alleged war, the British suspended the Orders in Quango. They acted to amend a depressed economy in United kingdom and to avoid a costly war with America. Hastening the news by send across the Atlantic to America, the British expected the Madison administration promptly to restore peace, as it would accept washed had the orders truly been the sole major cause of the war. Just Madison and the Republican Congress fought on, citing impressed sailors and attacking Indians as enduring grievances" (Taylor 134.)
Taylor goes on to explicate that politicians at first tried to use the Orders in Council equally a way to drum up support for the war but the public was indifferent to the issue:
"At starting time, in November of 1811, the president and Congress did emphasize the British Orders in Council equally a justification of war. Simply the complicated issues of maritime restrictions did not suffice to stir the common Americans needed to win elections, homo privateers, and serve in the army. Equally the push for war intensified, Republicans turned upward the rhetorical oestrus by emphasizing impressment as a chief grievance. Beginning in February, the nation's most influential newspaper, the Aurora, devoted far more space to impressment than to the Orders in Quango…Impressment likewise loomed large in Madison'southward address of June 1, 1812, and larger still in the response past Calhoun and the House of Foreign Relations Committee" (Taylor 135.)
Every bit the Orders in Council failed to ignite public outrage in the build upwards to the state of war, it became less of a focal point for Republican politicians and they instead started to focus their efforts on other issues like impressment.
Indian Attacks Instigated past the British in Canada:
A common complaint against the British at the time was that they were supplying Indian tribes of the Ohio Valley and the Great Lakes with weapons and were instigating Indian attacks confronting American settlements, according to an commodity on the American Battlefield Trust website:
"The British, eager to slow the Us' rise, supported an 'Indian State' around the Nifty Lakes to check American expansion and create a buffer for British Canada. Fur trade in the region was booming, giving the British added incentive to cooperate with the Native Americans. To facilitate this, the British occasionally provided the Native tribes with artillery and supplies. These pocket-sized provisions were exaggerated, in turn, past indignant and worried Americans. Continued British involvement was seen equally an affront to American sovereignty."
To that avail, some politicians, such as Thomas Jefferson, argued that conquering Canada and expelling the British from the American frontier was the just way to end these Indian attacks, according to Taylor:
"To return the war pop, Jefferson advised Madison that he needed, higher up all, 'to stop Indian barbarities. The conquest of Canada will practice this.'" (Taylor 137.)
In reality, many historians believe the claims of Indian attacks beingness instigated by the British were exaggerated and were merely an alibi to conquer and annex Canada.
A scene on the frontiers as practiced past the humane British and their worthy allies, illustration past William Charles, published in Philadelphia circa 1812. This drawing may have been prompted by the August 1812 Native American assault on Fort Dearborn and the purchase of American scalps there past British Colonel Proctor.
As Troy Bickham points out in his book, The Weight of Vengeance: The Us, The British Empire and the War of 1812, conflicts between the colonists and the American Indians, whom the British had a long-standing alliance with, were aught new in Northward America and they had never been grounds for state of war with Britain in the past so information technology is unlikely they would exist in 1812.
Expansionism:
American expansion into British-held Canada is considered yet another cause of the War of 1812. If America could learn Canada, it would not but double its land mass but too banish the American Indian's greatest allies, the British.
Without support from the British, it would exist hard for the American Indians to attack American settlers or to stop American settlers from seizing the native's lands in the northward and the west, thus allowing for greater American expansion, according to Alastair Sweeney in his book Fire Along the Frontier: Great Battles of the War of 1812:
"For many Americans, especially those with their optics on western belongings, 1812 was a war to seize and command vast tracts of country, and boot out the Indian inhabitants. As such it was a form of block busting. In this respect, the War of 1812 was astonishingly successful" (Sweeney 20.)
In addition, there were also a number of financial and strategic armed forces reasons to expand into Canada, co-ordinate to Taylor:
"Many Republican Congressmen longed to oust the British from the continent and to annex Canada…Expansionists argued that annexing Canada would compensate Americans with country for their commercial losses at sea and for the military machine price of invasion. Annexation would also deprive the British fleet of a valuable source of timber. In a higher place all, the conquest would sever the British connection to the Indians who blocked American expansion westward." (Taylor 137.)
Yet, Taylor argues that some historians believe expansion was simply a means of waging state of war, not a reason for starting it:
"Historians accept long debated the primary crusade of the declaration of state of war. Early in the twentieth century, they stressed the longing of western politicians to conquer Canada…But subsequent historians discounted the force of western interests and of the drive to seize Canada. 'The conquest of Canada was primarily a means of waging war, non a reason for starting it,' Reginald Horsman claims. Stressing that the three western states had merely ten of the House'due south 142 members, these scholars insist that southern and Pennsylvania Republicans pushed the war and that they had no particular animalism for Canada. Co-ordinate to this estimation, these congressmen primarily reacted confronting the British meddling with American ships on the high seas. Stressing the British Orders In Council, these scholars downwardly-play all other issues, even impressment." (Taylor 134.)
Reginald Horsman argues, in his book The Causes of the War of 1812, that historians often quote the speeches of war hawks of the time, such as Henry Clay, Richard M. Johnson, Peter B. Porter and Felix Grundy, to support the statement that expansion was a cause of the war yet, if you examine their speeches to Congress in the build up to the war, the dominating theme of these speeches are maritime rights, particularly the right to export American produce without interference.
In improver, not everyone was on board with the thought of conquering Canada at the fourth dimension. Many politicians felt that acquiring and maintaining such a large corporeality of land wasn't the best idea for America considering information technology would be too expensive and hard to manage and might lead to the creation of more northern states which would threaten the country's regional balance of power.
Equally a solution, a program was proposed to use any newly conquered land "as a bargaining chip in a peace treaty, restoring Canada to Britain in substitution for maritime concessions." (Taylor 139.)
This idea made the conquest of Canada even less highly-seasoned though because many wondered why the regime should invest so much time, coin and resource into something that they were just going to give abroad at the cease of the war.
Congress fifty-fifty went then far every bit to vote on a program to create a temporary provisional government in Canada until it could be returned to British rule in a peace treaty only the bill was defeated, with xvi opposed and xiv in favor.
Even though Americans were uncertain what to exercise with Canada, they invaded anyway. Without a clear program in place, Canadians were unwelcoming of American troops and viewed them as invaders rather than liberators of British rule, greatly hampering the war effort in that location.
American Sovereignty:
In his book, The Weight of Vengeance: The The states, The British Empire and the War of 1812, Troy Bickham argues that the War of 1812 was really about America asserting its independence from Great Uk one time and for all.
Bickham states that the United Country's long list of grievances against Great Britain in its declaration of war all boils down to this one single issue:
"Although each issue was important and claim individual investigation, treating them only as a checklist misses the larger subject at pale: sovereignty of the The states in a postcolonial world…Madison'due south war bulletin is a certificate that aims for consensus – or at least enough agreement to laissez passer a announcement of state of war – and then information technology selects those issues on which a majority of members of Congress could concur. And those issues all speak to a unmarried theme: equality of the Us among European nations and sovereignty over its own affairs…." (Bickham 21)
Bickham goes on to say that the war was non merely virtually British impressment of American sailors or the Royal Navy interfering in American merchandise with French republic but was instead most stopping Great Britain, and other European nations, from believing they could do these things in the first identify:
"The authorities of the United states of america and its supporters believed that for as well long Britain had directed the Anglo-American relationship, fostering deep-seated resentment for what many believed was United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland's continuing royal attitude. Declaring war in June of 1812 was an American attempt to redefine that relationship and turn the United States into a leading protagonist" (Bickham 21.)
Yet, other historians, such as Sweeney, don't agree and argue that the war was well-nigh expansion, not independence:
"Some have argued that 1812 was the 2nd American Revolutionary War. Information technology was non. It was the first American Expansionary State of war. In the state of war of independence, France had to stride in to salvage the colonists, a fact that severely rankled the British. Only in 1812 in that location was no rich Oncle Louis across the seas to ship his navy and regiments of troops to Yorktown. In that location was a rapacious new emperor named Napoleon, whose just real interests were European. In substitution for cash, and for attacking the British in Northward America while he invaded Russian federation, Bonaparte donated Florida and Louisiana to his American friends, and gave them a western destiny" (Sweeney 23.)
If American sovereignty was a cause for war, information technology's not clear how much of a gene it was since it was never accounted an official crusade and was never listed in Madison's grievances confronting the British.
To learn more about the War of 1812, check out the following article on the Best Books Near the War of 1812.
Sources:
"War of 1812-1815." Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs, U.s.a. Section of Land, history.state.gov/milestones/1801-1829/state of war-of-1812
Bickham, Troy. The Weight of Vengeance: The U.s.a., The British Empire and The War of 1812. Oxford University Printing, 2012.
Springer, Paul J. "The Causes of the State of war of 1812." Foreign Policy Research Institute, 31 March. 2017, www.fpri.org/article/2017/03/causes-war-1812/
Borneman, Walter. 1812: The War That Forged a Nation. Harper Perennial, 2004.
Taylor, Alan. The Civil State of war of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies. Vintage Books, 2010.
"Two Wars for Independence." American Battleground Trust, world wide web.battlefields.org/learn/articles/ii-wars-independence
"The War of 1812 Could Take Been the War of Indian Independence." Indian Country Today, 17 May. 2017, newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/annal/the-war-of-1812-could-have-been-the-war-of-indian-independence-NgDgX3JKHEaPWtiUIyMxBA/
"Entanglement in World Affairs." The Mariner's Museum, world wide web.marinersmuseum.org/sites/micro/usnavy/08/08d.htm
Brunsman, Denver. The Evil Necessity: British Naval Impressment in the Eighteenth Century Atlantic World. University of Virginia Press, 2013.
Deeben, John P. "The War of 1812: Stoking the Fires." National Athenaeum, world wide web.athenaeum.gov/publications/prologue/2012/summer/1812-impressment.html
Sweeney, Alastair. Burn Forth the Borderland: Great Battles of the War of 1812. Dundurn Press, 2012.
Foreman, Amanda. "The British View the War of 1812 Quite Differently Than Americans Practise." Smithsonian Mag, Smithsonian Establish, July. 2014, world wide web.smithsonianmag.com/history/british-view-war-1812-quite-differently-americans-do-180951852/
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Source: https://historyofmassachusetts.org/war-of-1812-causes/
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