The War of 1812 Essay Example

The War Of 1812 was caused by multiple reasons, the main idea is America's failure as a nation. As the tensions rose when Britain created a blockade for American ships coming to Europe, staying neutral became difficult. When Canada was able to fight off Americans that tried to invade, navel issues, and finally trying to corrupt the British trading system.

With 1,600 people defending, upper Canada made it look easier to invade for the Americans than the rest of Canada because the other parts were protected by British sea power and the fortress of Quebec. The British had an army but the downside was that they didn’t know where their loyalties and reliability laid with them. As they were growing a sense of national identity since they were able to fight America off, they didn’t fight because they were forced to but because they were Canadians. This meant Canada was able to keep their land. While Major General Sir Isaac Brock had been reinforcing the forts in Quebec, training the army, but most importantly been developing alliances with first nations waiting for this war to happen.

Marsh, J. H., & Berton, P. (2012, March 6). American and British planning. The Canadian Encyclopedia. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/war-of-1812 

Napoleon was the first to order a blockade of shipping in 1806 designed to corrupt British trade; At the time Canada was a colony with Britian so the recent blockade of trade didn’t affect them very much; they mostly traded with Britian. The blockade was purely targeted towards America and Britian.  All the European ports under his control had been closed to British ships.  When the U.S congress revoked Thomas Jefferson’s Embargo Act a year later, Napoleon hinted that he would stop restrictions, shortly after President James Madison blocked trade with Britain that November. Soon later the congress kicked out Herny Clay and C. Calhoun as they began to disturb the war based on their anger for Britain’s violations of the Maritimes rights which later caused the encouragement of Britain’s Native American hostility against Americans.

A&E Television Networks. (December 8, 2021). War of 1812. With  https://www.history.com/topics/war-of-1812/war-of-1812#section_1 

Meanwhile, America had been struggling to remain a neutral nation as the British started blocking American ships from coming to Europe and trading, the ships that made it though  would undergo a search for “contraband” because of the deserters who fled the Royal Navy due to its conditions. By 1812 the British captured over 15,000 U.S sailors off vessels however the captains wanted native-born Americans to use them in the Napoleonic Wars with France because of the lack of manpower on their ships, with being provided low pay, and the lack of qualified men for the job, with proof of being an American citizen, didn’t get you anywhere with the British. When they were out at sea most of them were taken as armed gangs would board and ransack these ships. Before they delared war the U.S sent warships to atlanic Canada, they’re reasoning behide this was to attempt to capture British Vessels eventhough they were successful they lost 20% of their men. 

Marsh, J. H., & Berton, P. (2012). Causes of the War of 1812. The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved March 6, 2012, from https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/war-of-1812 

History Detectives. (n.d.). British navy impressment. Oregon Public Broadcasting. https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/british-navy-impressment/ 

John R. Grodzinski (2011) Atlantic Campaign of the War of 1812. The Candian Encyclopdia. Retrieved March 27, 2011, from https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/atlantic-campaign-of-the-war-of-1812 

In 1807 a U.S vessel named Chesapeake was leaving Norfolk, the British removed four people from the crew who claimed that they were British deserters. Impressment came with the right to search ships for deserters in which Canada had little sovereignty so it was left up to Britain and they never felt intrigued to serach the vessels to claim their sovereignty since they felt there was no threat nor invison and the American's considered this to be an insult to their sovereignty and that issue was fought because it contained sovereignty in the impressment and they took they sovereignty very seriously because they wanted to be the number one nation. But in later years Canada got full sovereignty of the jurisdiction because it is passed on not by the by the crown not the Canadian parliament nor the Governor General 

Niagara Falls Museum (n.d.). Causes of the War of 1812.https://niagarafallsmuseums.ca/discover-our-history/history-notes/1812causes.aspx 

By the end of the war we found out that Canadians fought off the Americans, how Canada was affected by the blockade of trade, that later on Canada got their sovereignty, and how Atlantic Canada let the U.S use their ocean to attempt to capture some British ships.