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The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States declared war on Britain on 18 June 1812. Although peace terms were agreed upon in the December 1814 Treaty of Ghent, the war did not officially end until the peace treaty was ratified by the ...
- Overview
- Major causes of the war
The commercial restrictions that Britain’s war with France imposed on the U.S. exacerbated the U.S.’s relations with both powers. Although neither Britain nor France initially accepted the U.S.’s neutral rights to trade with the other—and punished U.S. ships for trying to do so—France had begun to temper its intransigence on the issue by 1810. That, paired with the ascendance of certain pro-French politicians in the U.S. and the conviction held by some Americans that the British were stirring up unrest among Native Americans on the frontier, set the stage for a U.S.-British war. The U.S. Congress declared war in 1812.
Read more below: Major causes of the war
Napoleonic Wars: Great Britain, France, and the neutrals, 1800–02
Read more about Britain’s involvement in the Napoleonic Wars.
How did the War of 1812 end?
Peace talks between Britain and the U.S. began in 1814. Britain stalled negotiations as it waited for word of a victory in America, having recently committed extra troops to its western campaign. But news of their losses at places like Plattsburgh, New York, and Baltimore, Maryland, paired with the duke of Wellington’s counsel against continuing the war, convinced the British to pursue peace more genuinely, and both sides signed the Treaty of Ghent in December 1814. The final battle of the war occurred after this, when a British general unaware of the peace treaty led an assault on New Orleans that was roundly crushed.
The tensions that caused the War of 1812 arose from the French revolutionary (1792–99) and Napoleonic Wars (1799–1815). During this nearly constant conflict between France and Britain, American interests were injured by each of the two countries’ endeavours to block the United States from trading with the other.
American shipping initially prospered from trade with the French and Spanish empires, although the British countered the U.S. claim that “free ships make free goods” with the belated enforcement of the so-called Rule of 1756 (trade not permitted in peacetime would not be allowed in wartime). The Royal Navy did enforce the act from 1793 to 1794, especially in the Caribbean Sea, before the signing of the Jay Treaty (November 19, 1794). Under the primary terms of the treaty, American maritime commerce was given trading privileges in England and the British East Indies, Britain agreed to evacuate forts still held in the Northwest Territory by June 1, 1796, and the Mississippi River was declared freely open to both countries. Although the treaty was ratified by both countries, it was highly unpopular in the United States and was one of the rallying points used by the pro-French Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, in wresting power from the pro-British Federalists, led by George Washington and John Adams.
After Jefferson became president in 1801, relations with Britain slowly deteriorated, and systematic enforcement of the Rule of 1756 resumed after 1805. Compounding this troubling development, the decisive British naval victory at the Battle of Trafalgar (October 21, 1805) and efforts by the British to blockade French ports prompted the French emperor, Napoleon, to cut off Britain from European and American trade. The Berlin Decree (November 21, 1806) established Napoleon’s Continental System, which impinged on U.S. neutral rights by designating ships that visited British ports as enemy vessels. The British responded with Orders in Council (November 11, 1807) that required neutral ships to obtain licenses at English ports before trading with France or French colonies. In turn, France announced the Milan Decree (December 17, 1807), which strengthened the Berlin Decree by authorizing the capture of any neutral vessel that had submitted to search by the British. Consequently, American ships that obeyed Britain faced capture by the French in European ports, and if they complied with Napoleon’s Continental System, they could fall prey to the Royal Navy.
Britannica Quiz
A History of War
The Royal Navy’s use of impressment to keep its ships fully crewed also provoked Americans. The British accosted American merchant ships to seize alleged Royal Navy deserters, carrying off thousands of U.S. citizens into the British navy. In 1807 the frigate H.M.S. Leopard fired on the U.S. Navy frigate Chesapeake and seized four sailors, three of them U.S. citizens. London eventually apologized for this incident, but it came close to causing war at the time. Jefferson, however, chose to exert economic pressure against Britain and France by pushing Congress in December 1807 to pass the Embargo Act, which forbade all export shipping from U.S. ports and most imports from Britain.
Mar 30, 2017 · January 8 – The Battle of New Orleans; death of Edward Packenham. February 16 – The United States Senate ratifies the Treaty of Ghent. February 18 – The Treaty of Ghent is declared; the War of 1812 is over. February 20 – USS Constitution engages the HMS Cyane and HMS Levant, not knowing the war was over. April 6 – Seven American ...
Oct 27, 2009 · In the War of 1812, the United States took on the greatest naval power in the world, Great Britain, in a conflict that would have an immense impact on the young country’s future. Causes of the ...
Mar 30, 2017 · The War of 1812 began on June 18th, 1812 with the Unites States formally declaring war on the United Kingdom. The war lasted from June 1812-February 1815, a span of two years and eight months. When did the War of 1812 end? Peace negotiations began in late 1814, but slow communication across the Atlantic (and indeed across the United States ...
Mar 30, 2017 · On June 18, 1812, buoyed by the arrival of "war hawk" representatives, the United States formally declared war for the first time in the nation's history. Citizens in the Northeast opposed the idea, but many others were enthusiastic about the nation's "Second War of Independence" from British oppression. Ironically, the British Parliament was ...
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For the United States, the Creek War was an important side conflict to increase their control in the South at the expense of Native American factions allied with and supplied by the British, while the Hartford Convention of the Federalist Party (December 1814 – January 1815) played a significant role in voicing strong opposition to the U.S ...
