Lecture 21

Question 1

Why were Britain and France impressing American ships in the early 1800s? How many American ships were impressed?

Answer 1

• France was at war with Britain (the Napoleonic Wars), so Britain and France were impressing American vessels.
• Conditions tor British sailors were awful, so Britain had a manpower problem because their navy would desert or join the US.
• Around 6,000 American ships were impressed.

Question 2

What were the causes of the War of 1812?

Answer 2

• Trading rights and impressment of American ships (also Americans impressing British ships…).
• The Chesapeake-Leopard Affair and the consequent Embargo Act of 1807.
• Conflict with American Indians and British help of the American Indians in combatting American expansion to the West; Battle of Tippercanoe.
• War Hawks.

Question 3

Explain the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair.

Answer 3

• Chesapeake was an American ship, and the Leopard was a British ship.
• Chesapeake was in the Atlantic when the Leopard pulled them over and tried to board the Chesapeake.
• Chesapeake refused to cooperate, so the Leopard fired on them, killing 3 Americans any wounding many.
• 4 British deserters were seized and impressed by the Leopard.
• Led to outrage and the Embargo Act of 1807.

Question 4

Explain the Embargo Act of 1807.

Answer 4

• Intended to avoid war; ended exportation of goods from the US.
• Rationale was that Europeans would be so reliant on American goods that they would be forced to accept American terms of neutrality in the Napoleonic Wars.
• Britain and France didn’t really care; primarily hurt US farmers and merchants, and when Madison became President in 1809 he relaxed the law, causing Britain and France to return to their impressment. So overall it just hurt the US economy.

Question 5

Why were American Indians in the early 1800s angry with the US, and how did Britain play into all of this?

Answer 5

• Indians disliked American expansion: a lot of the treaties being negotiated between the US and Indians were based on relations with Indian people who didn’t have actual authority or certain groups that didn’t have anything to do with the affected groups in the treaties.
• Further, American settlers on the frontier (east of the Mississippi River) would often just ignore and violate the treaties made by the US gov’t.
• The British maintained forts in the region that they still refused to evacuate; they also helped Indians to combat the US.

Question 6

Explain Prophet Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh.

Answer 6

• Indian brothers.
• Tenskwatawa was just called “the prophet.”
• Worked to unite the Indians into a confederacy to combat the US expansion.

Question 7

How did the US react to the prophet and Tecumseh?

Answer 7

• Gov’t sees them as a threat.

* William Henry Harrison—governor of Indiana—starts to build an army.

Question 8

Explain the Battle of Tippercanoe

Answer 8

• Preceding the battle, the prophet had attacked William Henry Harrison’s forces while Tecumseh was out of town, as they saw the military build up as a threat.
• To the US this looks like overt aggression, so Harrison’s forces attack the prophet and burn down the town Prophetstown near Tippercanoe/Wabash Rivers’ confluence.
• Harrison became a “hero” because of this, and Tecumseh is convinced that he must ally with the British.

Question 9

Explain the war hawks—who were some prominent war hawks and what were they trying to accomplish? Where did most of their support come from?

Answer 9

• Young congressmen; they demanded war with Britain despite Britain having the largest navy and being a major military power.
• Also wanted to annex Canada.
• Most of their support came from the south and west.
• Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun were prominent war hawks.

Question 10

How did the federalists react to the War of 1812?

Answer 10

• They thought it was crazy.

* Named it “Mr. Madison’s War”

Question 11

Battle of the Thames

Answer 11

• 1813.
• Tecumseh is killed by American forces.
• Kills all Indian resistance during the War of 1812, thereby also ending the support the British received during the war from Indians.

Question 12

Battle of Bladensburg

Answer 12

• British defeat American forces.

* Significant because they burn down the President’s home.

Question 13

The Treaty of Ghent—how did the War of 1812 go for the US?

Answer 13

• Ended the war in 1814.
• Signed December 24, 1814, although it took 2 months for the news to reach America that the war had actually ended, so fighting continued.
• War between Britain and France had ceased at this point, so shipping rights and impressment aren’t even discussed.
• There were no really decisive victories for the US, and it was good that Britain was also occupied with France, as it divided their attention and army, which could have easily crushed the US.
• Treaty returns relations to what they were before the war.

Question 14

Battle of New Orleans

Answer 14

• 1815 (so the War of 1812 had already ended).
• Andrew Jackson led American forces against 6,000 Brits.
• Although it had literally no effect on the war as it had already ended, it was regarded as a glorious American victory, and Jackson was made into an American hero.

Question 15

Hartford Convention

Answer 15

• Begins in 1814.
• Federalists say that America had no business in that war, and that the US pushed Britain into a useless war for no reason.
• Federalists propose amendments: declaring war takes a 2/3 majority in Congress, and they wanted to ban having 2 Presidents consecutively from the same state.
• Battle of New Orleans took place during the midst of this, riled up American patriotism, and lead to the public calling the Federalists traitors, accusing them of treason, and overall killing the Federalist party completely.