The Royal Navy, which grew to a strength of about 145,000 men and some 700 ships by 1812, faced enormous demands for manpower.[5] The chief method — although not the only one — that the navy used to obtain seamen was impressment. A press-gang of reliable seamen was sent ashore in a British port and they went about seizing men from streets and taverns and even homes. Crews of outward-bound ships were exempt but not those of returning merchant vessels, and those men might be snatched before their ships even docked. Other categories of people were exempt, including foreigners, but it was often difficult for Americans to prove their citizenship and the burden of proof fell upon the victim of the press-gang. Once taken, the men were locked up aboard a small ship and asked if they wanted to volunteer. If they said yes, they received a cash bounty; if no, they were still pressed into the service but without a bounty. It was a brutal process, widespread around the coasts of England and Scotland and often resisted by force.
One of the greatest irritants in Anglo-American relations arose from the Royal Navy’s practice of boarding neutral ships in order to impress British subjects and deserters from the navy. Many American ships were stopped on the high seas and sometimes American-born seamen were taken. It was not always easy to determine who was a genuine American citizen because certificates of citizenship were freely issued and even forged ones could be bought. Furthermore, the British government held the view that a British subject could not renounce his nationality without permission. The American view was different and it is not surprising that the United States government strongly resented the often high-handed behaviour of Royal Navy captains. Between 1793 and 1812, an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 American seamen were pressed into the British Navy, with the largest number, some 6,000, taken between 1803 and 1812.[6] Impressment actions, at times, produced conflict between British and American ships — which will be looked at later.
In June 1808, when Napoleon put his brother Joseph on the throne of Spain, the French emperor seemed to be at the height of his power; but the Spaniards rose up in revolt and their new monarch fled. In August, Arthur Wellesley landed in Portugal with British troops and took possession of Lisbon. This was the beginning of the Peninsular War which tied down thousands of French troops there, but likewise committed Britain to major land warfare for an unpredictable future. Therefore, from 1808, Britain could spare little in troops or supplies for defence in North America. A large reinforcement (the 7th, 8th, 23rd, and 13th regiments of foot with equipment) had been sent under Sir George Prevost to Bermuda, Halifax, and Quebec early in 1808, but not much else could be done until 1814 when Wellington’s veterans became available for this distant war.
Ironically, Wellington’s Peninsular Army depended on American grain for its food supply and this need would affect Britain’s naval strategy toward the United States when war came. The British issued licences so that American ships carrying “Flour and other dry Provisions” to Portuguese or Spanish ports would not be seized by the British Navy or privateers. There is a reference to the British in one month in 1812 issuing 722 licences for such shipments to Lisbon and Cadiz.[7] The effect of licences issued by British officials as well as by Vice-Admiral Herbert Sawyer and Sir John B. Warren was to retain New England’s goodwill. American ships also carried American newspapers, which were valuable sources of information. The cost was high because all transactions had to be paid in specie. So while troops fell up to six months in arrears of pay and Portuguese muleteers and middlemen as much as a year, American merchants returned loaded with British gold and silver “that would gorge New England’s banks by the war’s end and help pay for subsequent industrial development.”
After the War of Independence, one of the most serious issues facing the United States government was relations with aboriginal peoples. Americans were rapidly moving westward and their government’s policy toward native peoples was based upon assumptions that within United States boundaries aboriginals were a conquered people who could expect their land rights to be extinguished to accommodate American expansion. In the 1780s, through several treaties and military actions, it became clear that the United States government intended to push settlement well beyond the Ohio Valley.[8] The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 reasserted American sovereignty over the region and provided for new states between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The ordinance declared that native “lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent;” but it went on to state, “they shall never be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars, authorized by Congress.”[9] To many American officials, as well as land-hungry pioneers, this ordinance made no difference to their actions and demands on Indian tribes. The result was almost continuous frontier warfare in the 1790s.[10]
In August 1794, at Fallen Timbers in Ohio, an American Army led by Major-General Anthony Wayne inflicted a crushing defeat on a confederacy of tribes. Their hopes of British help were dashed when the commander of Fort Miami held back his troops and closed the fort’s gates to native refugees. That refusal would be long remembered.
The native leaders were also aware of the outbreak of war in Europe, which meant that their old ally, Britain, would have to concentrate on its own defence at the expense of aid to them. Both Britain and the United States desired to settle a number of disputes, one being the continued British occupation of “frontier posts” within the boundaries of the United States.[11] In November 1794 the two countries made a Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation (named Jay’s Treaty after the American secretary of state) and the British agreed to evacuate the western posts by June 1, 1796. The posts they withdrew from included such major forts as Detroit, Niagara, and Mackinac (also known as Fort Michilimackinac). Western New York and all the territory north and west of the Ohio River was now firmly on the United States side of the boundary. Aboriginal nations had little choice but to accept Wayne’s offer to negotiate and the outcome was the Treaty of Greenville (August 3, 1795) by which the natives surrendered the greater portion of the Ohio Valley.
New states soon appeared: Kentucky in 1792, Tennessee in 1796, and Ohio in 1803, the same year that saw the purchase of Louisiana. President Jefferson, in a special message to Congress in January 1803, made it clear that his government’s policy would continue to encourage native peoples to abandon their traditional way of life in favour of agriculture, “domestic arts,” and industry (i.e., become like Americans). In a private letter in February, he made it clear that any tribe that resisted would be defeated and driven out of its territory.[12] The Greenville boundary rapidly became redundant as settlers poured across it and native lands continued to be purchased, particularly by the Treaty of Fort Wayne of 1809, which led to the acquisition of much of eastern and southern Indiana. The author of the treaty was William Henry Harrison, governor of the Indiana Territory since 1800, who repeatedly used divide-and-conquer tactics to acquire lands along the Wabash River for American settlers.[13]
Desperate resistance to American expansion continued in the Ohio Valley, but tribes were driven westward and along the Wabash River they reached the furthest limits of their traditional territory. If they retreated westward, they would intrude into lands of other aboriginal peoples, some of whom were traditional enemies. The dispossessed tribes “were perplexed and disorganized. All they needed was a sign, a Messiah.”[14] He appeared in the person of a Shawnee prophet, who took the name Tenskwatawa and preached a doctrine of return to a traditional life and rejection of white ways. His teachings found wide appeal