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As part of the 1783 Treaty of Paris that formally ended the American Revolution (1776-1873), Britain had pledged to abandon its western forts on the American side of the border: Oswegatchie (Ogdensburg), Oswego, Niagara, Presque Isle, Sandusky, Detroit, and Michilimackinac (Mackinac), which were valuable to Britain because they were meeting points for its Indian allies. The British government knew that the United States would not respect the hunting grounds of the Indian tribes, so the inability of the American government to provide the agreed upon compensation for the Loyalist refugees in Canada was used as an excuse to not surrender the posts. However, the growing demands of the war with France led to the signing of Jay’s Treaty in 1794, where Britain agreed to abandon the posts in 1796, although Fort George and Fort Malden were built to monitor Niagara and Detroit respectively.

The loyalists who had abandoned the new republic settled in the Niagara region and since their customs and language separated them from the descendants of the original French settlers in Quebec, Canada was divided into Lower and Upper Canada in 1791 with the Ottawa River serving as a boundary. As was traditional, each community formed its own militia unit but they were haphazard organizations and defence was the responsibility of the British army and navy.

The British Navy was permitted to press any British citizen anywhere in the world for service on a warship, which was essentially legalized kidnapping. Like any kidnap victim, many of the sailors ran away at the first opportunity, and they often found employment on American merchant ships, lured by the high pay and right to leave the ship at the end of the voyage. This situation was complicated by the fact that the definition of a British citizen was extremely loose. The American government simply required five years of residence but the British only recognized birth or residency in the United States since before 1783. This irritating procedure became a serious problem because of the huge manpower needs of the navy during the Napoleonic Wars. The exact number is unknown but between five to nine thousand men were pressed from American ships between 1803 and 1812, and considerably more than two thirds were United States citizens. In defence of the Royal Navy, the high wages offered by American merchant ships enabled many British sailors to bribe American consuls and customs officers for fake papers.

Although the new born American republic was naturally sensitive to a perceived British lack of respect for its sovereignty, it was not considered worth going to war over but this almost changed during the Chesapeake Incident. A number of sailors deserted from a British warship anchored just of the American coast in the spring of 1807 and several of them signed up to serve on the American frigate USS Chesapeake. When the United States government refused to hand them over to the British because they claimed to be American citizens orders were sent to all British squadrons in the area to board the Chesapeake and retrieve the sailors. The ship was under the command of Captain Charles Gordon but since Commodore James Barron was on board, he was officially in charge. When the HMS Leopard tried to board the Chesapeake, Barron ordered Gordon to prepare the ship to fight but he proved to be an incompetent. Unable to fight back when the Leopard fired first a warning shot and then a full broadside, Barron had no choice but to surrender and the British retrieved the three deserters.

This seemed to be an act of war but neither side actually wanted a war. President Thomas Jefferson decided to employ an economic embargo and the British government recalled the admiral who had given the initial order. Most important, this was a warning to the American navy that it needed to be ready to fight.

Aside from the impressment issue, free trade had also become a problem, since Britain and France were each trying to prevent neutral America from trading with its respective enemy. Napoleon had made the first move in 1806 by ordering the seizure of any ship, neutral or not, transporting goods to Britain or its colonies. The weakened state of the French fleet reduced the value of this policy but it did give Britain the excuse to require all ships with cargoes bound for France to pay duties in a British port before sailing to France. This was intended to make trading with France too expensive to be worthwhile, and Napoleon responded by decreeing that any ship that complied with the British regulation would be considered as British property and seized. Although the French were willing to board American ships, the Royal Navy’s dominant position meant that American ships were much more likely to be boarded by the British, which fueled anger against Britain in the United States.

Faced with the threat of seizure if American ships traded with either France or Britain, Jefferson declared the Embargo Act of 1807, which forbade exports to any foreign port. With no ships at sea, there would be no problem with ships being seized. His hope was that Britain and France would see the error of their ways but many American ships simply smuggled goods to foreign ports, using the claim that they were blown off port as a cover, while smuggling across the Canadian border exploded. Even so, the economy took a heavy hit and Jefferson introduced a weaker version in his last week of office that allowed trade with any country other than Britain or France.

At the time, the British commanders in Canada felt that Quebec would be the main objective of any American invasion, so most troops were sent to defend Quebec and Upper Canada was given lesser priority. By 1811, the population of Upper Canada was roughly 77,000 against 275,000 in Lower Canada. Lieutenant General Sir George Prevost became military commander and governor of both Canada and the Atlantic colonies in September 1811. There were 5,600 British regulars in the Canadian provinces but the desperate nature of the war against Napoleon meant that Prevost could not expect more men. While the British and Canadian forces were still quite small, British ships dominated the Great Lakes, which were indispensable for an invasion of Canada.

When Major-General Isaac Brock took command of Upper Canada in 1811 it appeared increasingly likely that there would be war with America. However, he felt that the current plan of simply abandoning Upper Canada and concentrating all forces on the defence of Quebec was unfair to the residents of Upper Canada. Therefore, he felt that naval superiority on the Great Lakes and a solid alliance with Indian tribes was essential. In fact, he advocated taking the initiative but Prevost had been directly ordered to remain on the defensive. Also, Prevost felt that Montreal would be the Americans’ main target, so the defence of Lower Canada was still his main priority. It is worth mentioning that all of the military supplies came from Britain and had to be transported across 1,200 miles from Quebec to the most western fort, Fort St. Joseph, on Lake Huron. The main transportation system was still the waterways, which involved numerous exhausting portages around rapids, so it is understandable that he had little enthusiasm for devoting a large percentage of resources to defending the sparsely settled western frontier. At the same time, the Americans were so confident of victory that they made no effort to recruit Indian allies. In addition, Prevost prepared for an increasingly likely war with America by raising a rifle regiment from among recent Scottish immigrants and a battalion of light infantry from among the francophone residents of Quebec in the spring of 1812.

Tensions soon calmed down except for the frontier areas, where people were looking eagerly at Canada. At the same time, American leaders on the frontier skillfully played the Indian tribes against each other to gain concessions and claims to land, so that more and more settlers poured into Indiana Territory. As Shawnee chieftain Tecumseh tried to build an Indian Confederacy to oppose the influx of white settlers, the governor of the territory, William Henry Harrison, led a force of 900 regulars and militia to Prophetstown, Tecumseh’s home, on November 7, 1811. Harrison was close to many land speculators and needed more white settlers to come so that the territory could qualify to become a state. He had come looking for a fight but he did not want to appear to start the fight. With Tecumseh absent, his brother the Prophet rose to the bait and attacked Harrison’s camp near Tippecanoe at night. A veteran of Indian fighting, he had posted enough sentries that he was not taken completely by surprise, and although the initial losses were high, the Indians proved unable to penetrate the perimeter. The failure of the attack forced the Prophet to abandon the town, which was promptly burned. The Indians’ defeat damaged the Prophet’s aura of invincibility and wrecked Tecumseh’s hope for a confederacy. More important, Tecumseh had no choice but to seek assistance from the British and people began to believe that the British were behind the attack.

James Madison had served two terms as Jefferson’s secretary of state and was his handpicked successor. This was made easier by the fact that the Republicans dominated the new Congress that formed a few days after Tippecanoe. Key positions in Congress were filled by Republican leaders who were too young to remember the horrors of war and thirsted for expansion. In particular, they sought a forceful end to the Indian threat, which they believed was supported and encouraged by the British. Madison may have become president but was not the leader of the Republicans and he did not control the war hawks. Despite the impressment issue and the cost of the trade restrictions, the New England states opposed war, even though these issues directly affected them because they were already making a profit by avoiding the rules.

Part of the problem was that the Americans never fully appreciated that Britain was engaged in a life and death struggle, so it simply did not have the energy to deal with what was considered a trivial issue. At the same time, the British government was well aware that it depended on America for supplies to keep its war machine functioning, it just never had the energy or leadership needed to keep the United States satisfied, and it realized too late that the increasingly influential war hawks genuinely thirsted for war.

Although he felt that the conquest of Canada would be a mere matter of marching, Jefferson’s desire to avoid a standing army meant that America was not ready for war and there was no army with which to invade Canada. In January 1812, the regular army consisted of 4,000 officers and men, while state militias generally refused to serve outside the borders of their state. Strenuous efforts to increase the numbers of the army ensured that it had grown to almost 7,000 by June. The war hawks’ refusal to give any money to the navy, which had only five frigates on active duty and another five being repaired, reflected their thirst for Canada rather than anger against British seizures of ships. Fortunately, Britain was much more preoccupied with Napoleon.

initially, there was a lack of agreement over whether the main enemy was Britain or France, since France had seized more ships since 1807. In the end, Madison finally gave in and sought Congress’s permission to go to war with Britain because he knew that the fall elections would go badly without the support of the war hawks. The vote in favor of war was not overwhelming, 79 to 49 in the house and 19 to 13 in the senate. In fact, the Madison administration hoped to pressure Britain to change its policies and come to terms.

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Related Movies:

Brave Warrior (1952)
Directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet, starring Jon Hall and Jay Silverheels
In Indiana Territory in the early 1800’s, Tecumseh tries to live in peace with the white settlers but his brother allies with the British, who are trying to incite conflict between the Indians and the settlers, and challenges his leadership of the tribe.

Further Reading:

1812: The War That Forged a Nation-Walter R. Borneman, New York: Harper Collins, 2004.

Although it is told from the American point of view, it is a good single volume account of the war that is both readable and well-researched. He provides a perceptive background to the simmering tensions that were building up before war was declared. For those confused by terms such as the weather gauge, Borneman provides brief but effective explanations of the complexities of naval battles. My sole frustration is that the maps are fine for individual campaigns but there no decent maps of the overall strategy.

1812: War with America-Jon Latimer, Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007.

While it is written from the British perspective, the book is a fair and surprisingly in-depth presentation of the war with very good maps. Latimer rightly points out that the desire to conquer Canada was a primary motivation for the Americans and the failure of the invasion guaranteed Canada’s independence. He explains the nuts and bolts of the British military well, including how much food and alcohol the sailors and soldiers were guaranteed respectively. The effect of privateers and the blockade on both American and British trade, and the illegal but widespread trade between Canada and New England are examined, so it is a good choice for those more interested in the economic aspect of the war. His concluding chapter summarizes how the war affected Anglo-American relations for the next generation and how the war has been viewed by American and British historians over the years.

The Incredible War of 1812: A Military History-J. Mackay Hitsman (updated by Donald E. Graves), Toronto: Robin Brass Studio, 1999.

The introduction by Graves shows that previous writing on the War of 1812 had entrenched the myth that the militia of Upper Canada with only token assistance from British regulars had repeatedly thrown back the American invaders and preserved the independence of Canada, ignoring political, diplomatic or economic aspects of the war. Therefore, the book was pretty much the first even-handed approach to the war that appeared in Canada. At the time, his respectful treatment of Prevost was considered controversial since he had previously been viewed as a dangerous incompetent. The original version did not include his references for all of the quotations and since he passed away from cancer shortly after it was published, four historians collaborated to produce references for the new edition. Hitsman provides a good explanation of the organization of the British military, the system for purchasing officer ranks and the type of people who were recruited into the army. As the title states, it is a military history and people might be put off the large amount of detail devoted to movements of troops and huge variety of units’ names, so it is best suited for the student of the era, rather than the general reader.


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