The War of 1812 (2 page)

The Napoleonic Wars in Europe dragged on for years (from 1792 to 1815 with some gaps) and often involved huge armies fighting long battles and suffering terrible losses. By contrast, the War of 1812 lasted two and a half years and was fought by tiny armies and navies in short engagements. Wellington's casualties at Waterloo (fifteen thousand) were virtually equal to the total combined casualties suffered by the two sides fighting in North America. Does all this mean that the War of 1812 lacks importance and really deserves no more than passing attention? Not at all. The war was brief but its scope was continent-wide, for it ranged from the eastern seaboard of the United States to the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific coast and from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico. The American Adjutant General later estimated that there had been more than 500,000 enlistments in various American forces during the war, a figure that represented 47 percent of the white male population between the ages of 16 and 45.
¹
This suggests that the experience of enlistment was widespread and affected many families.

The War of 1812 changed the lives of many Canadians and Americans. It significantly influenced the development of each
country. The curious little war provides a fundamental reason for Canada's existence as a nation today and still affects what being Canadian means. The United States was perhaps less profoundly affected, but afterwards, there was an increased pride in the nation and a feeling of greater security because both the British and the Indian threats had been eliminated from the northeast.

Finally, the war brought no victory or benefit to the native peoples south and west of Lake Erie. To them this was not a little or insignificant war, but a war of survival, and by 1814 they could see that they had lost.

Napoleon created a sprawling empire in Europe between 1802 and 1812 through military conquest and alliances. But his ability to extend his power beyond the continent ended in 1805 when Admiral Nelson destroyed the French fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar. From that point on, the Royal Navy stood between Napoleon and invasion across the Channel. He could not assault the fortress of Britain nor could he prevent the British from sending armies to support his enemies on the continent. Napoleon therefore turned to the only weapon left by which he might hope to defeat the “nation of shopkeepers”: economic warfare.

In November 1806, Napoleon ordered all European ports under his control closed to British ships. Later he decreed that neutral ships would be seized if they visited a British port before entering a continental port. Britain replied with a series of Orders in Council. These required all neutral ships to enter British ports and obtain a licence before they could sail to Europe. Neutrals had to obey French decrees or British orders. What choice could a ship's master make? It was Britain that had the seapower to enforce its blockade and require neutral ships to obey its rules. The most important neutral nation trading with Europe was the United States. British interference with American ships would help bring on the War of 1812.

Eastern North America, 1812

[Reprinted from
The War of 1812: The War for Canada,
by
W.B. Turner (Toronto, Grolier Limited, 1982), p. 9.]

On the eve of the war, Britain's North American colonies stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the western end of Lake Erie and the shores of Lake Huron. Their populations were growing steadily but slowly. Lower Canada (later Quebec province) had about 270,000 people; New Brunswick and Nova Scotia had perhaps 80,000; and estimates for Upper Canada (Ontario) range from 60,000 to 80,000.

The smaller populations of Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, and Cape Breton brought the total to something over half a million. Numbers are only part of the story, for the inhabitants were scattered, living mostly on farms. Towns were small and industries few. These colonies possessed scanty means of making war.

When war threatened, it quickly became clear that Upper Canada was the most vulnerable of the colonies. The biggest problem was transportation. Roads were few and those that did exist were dreadful: deeply rutted sticky mud in the spring thaw and whenever rain fell. Even in dry weather holes, tree stumps and unbridged rivers discomforted and delayed travellers. Transportation by water was better, but rapids on the St. Lawrence River prevented ships sailing the three hundred kilometres from Montreal to Kingston. A few canals had been built around these obstacles, but only small, flat-bottomed boats (bateaux) could navigate through them. At the rapids, goods had to be taken off the boats and carried around. The journey took several days. Travel was easier and faster west of Kingston because ships could sail to York (now Toronto) and Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake). To go farther required another portage from Queenston up the Niagara River along the Portage Road to Chippawa. Sailing ships could then take people and goods to the few small settlements that dotted Lake Erie's shores.

Upper Canada was too weak to defend itself. Its small population was scattered along the 1,300 kilometres from Cornwall on the St. Lawrence to Amherstburg on Lake Erie. The people did not grow all the food nor did they make all the goods they needed. With their own resources, they could not provide an army or even support British troops. Help from Britain in the form of men, money, supplies, and ships was essential.

All these defence needs depended on a route that the Americans could easily cut. They had only to march an army north and block the St. Lawrence south of Montreal, and Upper Canada would fall into their hands without their even having to fight there. The British government and the authorities in Canada were always very concerned about the safety of the route from Montreal to Amherstburg.

The United States, with its rapidly growing population of almost 7.5 million was clearly much stronger than Canada. Settlers were filling up New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, moving ever closer to the Canadian border. Along the Niagara River, pioneer communities like Buffalo, Black Rock, and Lewiston were still small, but roads connected them with well-populated areas to the east and south. Not far distant were rich farms and expanding cities with factories. The American population could provide thousands of soldiers, and the farms and factories could supply most of their needs. American supply routes ran overland and out of easy range of British forces.

Farther west in Pennsylvania, Ohio and the Michigan Territory, roads were so few that travel was mostly by river or along forest paths. These routes were not only more difficult but also more vulnerable to sudden Indian attack.

Indians had been resisting the advance of American settlement in the Old Northwest (south of Lake Erie, north of the Ohio River) since the 1780s. Nonetheless, thousands of Americans moved into the area every year, raising Ohio's population to over 230,000 people and Kentucky's to about 400,000 by 1810. These settlers wanted to drive out the Indians in order to farm the land.

A Shawnee leader, the Prophet (Tenskwatawa), recognized that disunity among the tribes was the principal weakness of his people. Beginning in 1805, he tried to organize a confederacy of all the Indian tribes in the territories threatened by advancing American settlement. After 1808, his older brother, the war chief Tecumseh, became increasingly prominent and traditionally has be given the major credit for organizing Indian resistance to the Americans.

Cartoon depicting British/Indian relations.

[Courtesy of Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington,
Indiana.]

On its own, a tribe could be forced to surrender its lands or be bribed into trading them away. Between 1803 and 1809, Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory did this repeatedly with Indians south and west of Lake Erie. Sometimes two tribes claimed the same lands and there would be conflict between them. Only by uniting, Tecumseh and the Prophet insisted, could the Indians settle quarrels among themselves and be strong enough to resist American pressure. They urged Indians to rely on their own abilities to create a great Indian nation instead of adopting the white man's ways. But until such a state came into being, they needed allies, and looked for help to the British in Canada. Many Indians had supported the British side in the American Revolution and as an aftermath of that war, some of the Iroquois, the Miamis, the Shawnees, and other tribes had been trying to establish an Indian state south and west of Lake Erie. In such a state Indians would control their own lives and land. American settlers would not be able to move in whenever they wanted.

The British government supported this idea of an Indian state because it would provide a buffer for Upper Canada. While few British immigrants were coming to the province, many Americans were. The government feared that if many more moved in, they might become strong enough to pressure the American government into attempting to annex Upper Canada. This danger would be lessened considerably if there were Indian-held territory along the Canadian border.

Fur traders also supported the idea of an Indian state. They wanted to continue trading with the Indians around the Great Lakes and to the west. But the advance of American settlement was steadily (and, as it turned out, permanently) ending the fur trade. The traders and their Indian allies would play an important role in the war to come.

Every year Indians came to Amherstburg, Fort St. Joseph, and other British posts to receive presents of food, clothing, guns, and ammunition from the British government, distributed through the Indian Department. This department's officers, or agents, met Indians at the posts, visited their villages, and sometimes married Indian women. These men thus learned to understand Indians and their feelings. Their services were of great value to the British, for they attended Indian councils to listen and to give advice.

Many Indians, including Tecumseh and the Prophet, did not like their dependence on the British, feeling that it undermined Indian culture and self-respect. But most could not give up the presents they
were given because they had no other way to obtain these goods, particularly the weapons they needed to defend their lands against the Americans. Thus, when war came, Tecumseh and his followers, such as the Wyandot chiefs Roundhead and Split Log, felt they had no choice but to support the British. These Indians fought for their survival, not to maintain British rule over Canada.

The Americans viewed British support of the Indians as a threat to their government's policy of trying to force the Indians to give up their hunting lands and become farmers like American settlers. They believed that the British were stirring up the Indians to fight and supplying them with weapons for that purpose, endangering thousands of American lives. The British insisted, on the contrary, that they were trying to restrain the Indians from attacking American settlers. Although the Americans would never believe it, this was in fact true. The British did not want an Indian war because they knew it would increase the chances of conflict between Britain and the United States. Nonetheless, they could not stop all supplies to the Indians, for this would completely end their influence over them.