BOUNDARIES
Both sides were dissatisfied with parts of the boundary between British North America and the United States. Three commissions, each consisting of an American and a British member, were set up in 1816 to try to settle all these problems. They reached agreement on most issues, and this helped to reduce the potential for future conflict.
The first line agreed upon was from the St. Lawrence to the western end of Lake Superior. Some of the major islands were given to the United States, others to Canada. This settled the boundary between the most heavily populated parts of the two countries, where problems were most likely to occur. The same commission could not agree on the boundary from Lake Superior to Lake of the Woods. That was not finally settled until the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842.
Map of Huronia showing highways as they appear in the mid- 1900s.
[Adapted from The Establishments at Penetanguishene: Bastion of
the North 1814–1856, by E.M. Jury (London, Ontario: The
University of Western Ontario, Museum of Indian Archaeology,
Bulletin No. 12, 1959), p. 55.]
The boundary along the 49th parallel from Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains was quickly decided, but the two sides disagreed on the line from the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean. They decided on joint occupation for ten years and, finally, an 1846 treaty established the 49th parallel as the boundary for this area as well. There was much argument about the boundary in Passamaquoddy Bay and between Maine, New Brunswick, and Lower Canada.
The British insisted on keeping Grand Manan Island, and in 1817 the Americans agreed in return for several other islands in the bay. The boundary along the St. Croix River was not in dispute, but from its source to the St. Lawrence, each side had very different views. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty eventually decided this boundary.
The Treaty of Ghent had also left the fisheries issue for later negotiations, but before these were undertaken, trouble occurred along the east coast. British warships seized American vessels fishing within the coastal limits of British North America. For a while there was a danger that the Americans would respond with force. Realizing that to exclude American fishing vessels from these waters would require a large fleet and great expense, the British offered to compromise. The Americans accepted. In their turn, they recognized that they were unlikely to obtain everything they wanted without fighting Britain.
Negotiations proceeded slowly until 1818. In the agreement of that year, the Americans received the right to fish along the western and southern coasts of Newfoundland, around the Magdalen Islands, and along the Labrador coast. They could enter any bay to obtain wood and water, to shelter from a storm, or to repair damage.
The solution was not perfect, and there have since been many disputes between Canada and the United States over east coast fisheries. But the agreement of 1818 was a very important step towards the peaceful settlement of the problem.
PEACE
By the 1820s, Britain and the United States had created a strong foundation for lasting peace between them. Much of the fear of renewed war had faded, and problems that could have caused armed clashes had been resolved. The war provided a lesson that the British and American governments appear to have learned: war between them would cause a great deal of death and destruction and neither side would win a total victory.
In the United States, the end of the conflict and the drawing of definite boundaries opened the way for massive population growth and territorial expansion. Roads, canals, and soon railways were being built. New towns and industries sprang up. Americans felt their country was strong, truly independent, and important. What Albert Gallatin, one of the American negotiators at Ghent, wrote in 1816 was indeed happening:
The war has been productive of evil and of good, but I think the good preponderates. . . . The war has renewed and reinstated the national feelings and character which the Revolution had given, and which were daily lessening. The people have now more general objects of attachment, with which their pride and political opinions are connected. They are more Americans; they feel and act more as a nation, and I hope that the permanency of the Union is thereby better secured.3
THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE
The war affected the lives of most Canadians, but very few enjoyed economic gains. When the war started, prices of goods and services rose. This benefited farmers who could grow more crops or who had horses and wagons for hire, as well as merchants who imported, shipped, and sold goods. Skilled workers received higher wages. But many farmers as well as townspeople experienced harder times because their living costs rose. For example, the price of a barrel of flour in Upper Canada went from about $7.50 in 1812 to $14.00 in 1814 and that would mean a considerable increase in the cost of bread, a basic food staple.4 People whose homes or farms were destroyed and the families of militiamen who had been killed or wounded suffered even more severely.
Reinternment of soldiers, Lundy’s Lane Methodist Church,
Lundy’s Lane, c. 1900.
[Courtesy of the Archives of Ontario, S8492-6326.]
Shortages of food and high prices were caused partly by the need to feed more soldiers and sailors, by the absence of militiamen from their farms, and by the destruction of houses, barns, and mills in Upper Canada. The end of the war removed these causes, but reconstruction of farms and businesses would take several years. An American travelling from the Niagara River to Detroit in 1816 wrote, “I was most sensibly struck with the devastation which had been made by the late war, [farms] formerly in high cultivation, now laid waste; houses entirely evacuated and forsaken; provisions of all kinds very scarce; and, where peace and plenty abounded, poverty and destruction now stalked over the land.”5
To add to the woes of the people, food shortages were aggravated by poor harvests resulting from bad weather in 1812, 1814, and for several years after the war.
Food and lumber came into Canada before 1812 from northern New York and northern Vermont. Some of the products were exported down the St. Lawrence to Britain. During the war, these supplies continued to be imported and were very important to the British forces as well as to the civilian population. Such trade was illegal in wartime, but the American government was unable to stop it. The trade continued after the war, but as Upper Canadian farms were restored, as immigrants came in and began farming, and as British troops were withdrawn, dependence on American food supplies decreased. By the 1820s Upper Canadian farmers were even selling their produce to Lower Canada, where agriculture was less productive. Soon Upper Canada would become a big exporter of wheat, much of it to the British market.
The war increased employment for both skilled and unskilled workers. They found jobs building ships, forts, barracks, and roads as well as transporting men and supplies. Wages for militiamen could be another source of income for some families, but these were not always paid on time. For years after the war ended, militiamen were still demanding back pay.6 The small number of poor people in Canada before the war grew because of wartime destruction and a postwar depression.
Until 1817, the Loyal and Patriotic Society continued to give money to help the families of militiamen killed or wounded during the war. The small amount of money left after that year was given to a society that helped poor people. In 1819 a contribution of £4,000 arrived from England. The society decided to use the money to found a hospital at York, which later became the Toronto General Hospital.
By stimulating trade up the St. Lawrence-Great Lakes route, the War of 1812 became one of the factors that led to later canal-building. Trade continued to grow after 1815. Food, lumber, and furs went downriver and manufactured goods came upriver. But the high costs of this route restricted Upper Canada’s export trade, especially in bulky foodstuffs. Merchants in Upper Canada joined with Montreal businessmen in proposing canals as the answer to the problem. By 1824 the Lachine Canal had opened and construction of the Welland Canal was underway.
One lasting effect of the war was on immigration. American
pioneers had been important in settling Upper Canada ever since the end of the American Revolution. That immigration stopped in 1812. Even after the war, the British government, remembering the problems of disloyalty, did not want Americans to come to Upper Canada. The government, therefore, adopted a two-part policy.
First, it tried to discourage American immigrants by instructing the lieutenant-governor not to grant them land or administer the oath of allegiance. Opposition came from large landowners who wanted to sell land to Americans and from residents who had come earlier from the United States and who now feared they would lose their right to vote, hold office, and perhaps even to own land. The quarrel over this issue created much political turmoil for several years.
Next, the government sought to populate Upper Canada with people whose loyalty could be relied on. A number of British regiments were disbanded in Upper Canada and the men were given land. Emigration from Britain was encouraged and financed. As a result, parts of Upper Canada were settled sooner than they might otherwise have been.
Soldiers were encouraged to settle in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick as well. From 1813 to 1816, nearly two thousand blacks were also settled in these colonies. They were slaves who had fled to freedom on British ships raiding the American coast.
These small groups, settled with government help, hinted at what was to come. About 600,000 people from the British Isles would emigrate to British North America between 1815 and 1841. Peace in North America was an important cause of this massive movement.
OTHER LEGACIES
Many reminders of the War of 1812 still exist — forts along the border, weapons and uniforms in museums, the Nancy at Wasaga Beach, the Hamilton and Scourge in Lake Ontario, Perry’s Niagara at Erie. Another legacy is people’s memories, for there are Canadians who have not forgotten that their ancestors fought in the war.
Reaction to the war strongly affected the society and politics of Upper Canada for many years after 1814. These legacies have faded but not disappeared entirely from Canada.
The attempt to stop American immigration had limited success, for most Upper Canadians and their elected representatives did not support it. Ties of trade, family, and friendship across the border continued or were created. Yet there were Upper Canadians, particularly the leaders of society and government, who disliked what the United States represented. It stood for republicanism and democracy in contrast to their own values of monarchy, an established church, and an ordered (or class) society. They believed that American political principles and social practices produced lawlessness and disorder, and undermined religion and morality.
The coat of Sir Isaac Brock, containing the fatal bullet-hole.
[Courtesy of the Archives of Ontario, S1427.]
Chippawa: scene of the battle.
[Courtesy of the Archives of Ontario, S9092-6355.]
The men who had been civilian leaders of Upper Canada during the war (Reverend John Strachan, William Allan, John Beverley Robinson, Christopher Hagerman) believed they should continue to lead afterwards. They became known as the Family Compact, and one of the ties among them was that of proven loyalty during 1812–14. The war, therefore, provided one basis for the rule of the province by a small group. It also enabled the Compact to attack their opponents with the very powerful charge of being disloyal. They denounced reformers’ demands for changes in the system of government, land-granting, and education as being pro-American — which automatically made them dangerous.
Many historians claim that the war helped to create a sense of patriotism or British-Canadian “nationalism” in Upper Canada.7 Its men had fought in the militia or other forces to defend their homes, but this had also been defence of the Empire. They could glorify Brock, a British general, and make him a Canadian hero. In part, this was because flank companies of the militia had fought under him and he had praised them. Events such as these strengthened belief in the militia myth.
This view of the unifying effect of the war is now under challenge. Historian George Sheppard argues that most Upper Canadians wanted no part in the war and the men did not willingly serve in the militia. He describes the colony’s population as divided before the war and says that the divisions intensified, leading to years of bitter political and social conflicts. A sense of “shared nationality” did not develop until the 1840s.8 This continuing debate suggests that the war still matters to some Canadians.
It took several decades before other heroic figures received recognition, namely, Laura Secord, Billy Green, and Salaberry. Lately, Canadians have come to a greater awareness of the Indian contribution and recognize men like Tecumseh and Norton as courageous and important leaders.
In the Maritimes, merchants and others criticized British concessions to the Americans on the New Brunswick boundary and the fisheries. Yet the sense of being loyal British subjects remained strong throughout this region. As well, Maritimers may have felt a kinship with distant Upper Canada because they had sent soldiers, supplies, and money to help its defence against a common enemy.
Anti-American and pro-British attitudes in Lower Canada were strengthened by the war, although naturally there was not the same feeling of kinship with Britain because of differences in language, law, and religion. French-Canadians appreciated Britain’s role, but, above all, they glorified their own part in the war, particularly at the battle of Chateauguay. A sense of French-Canadian nationalism had existed before 1812 and the war enhanced it. At this point, nationalism was not directed towards breaking away from British rule.
WHO WON THE WAR?
There is one final question: who won the war? The answer depends almost entirely on what country you live in.
The Americans tend to think they did. They won several big land battles that in certain cases prevented major British invasions. They conquered part of Upper Canada and won control of two lakes. They still take great pride in several single-ship victories. Combat at sea and on land created heroes and inspired traditions in the navy and army. For instance, there is the view that the grey dress uniform worn by the cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point commemorates the victory at Chippawa (1814) where the troops wore grey. Finally, the United States did not lose anything. In fact, Americans believed that their country was more respected as a result of the war, that it proved its strength and independence.
The Canadian view is different. Canadians believe the main American aim was to conquer Canada. This was not achieved, and therefore the Canadian side won the war. Certainly, the major American war effort was on land and was directed against Canada, particularly Upper Canada. Canadians remember the defeat of large American forces by smaller numbers of defenders. They forget or disregard western Upper Canada or American victories on Lakes Erie and Champlain as well as in single-ship fighting at sea. Canada did not have war aims because it did not seek war. Simply, the fact that Canada survived is an argument that the defenders won.
There was a group who clearly lost as a result of this war: native peoples south and west of Lake Erie. The death of Tecumseh took the heart out of much of the western Indians’ resistance to United States expansion. The peace negotiations offered them some hope, but the expectation of a separate Indian nation probably allied with Great Britain was not realistic and Britain lacked the power to force such a settlement upon the United States. Probably the most decisive effects of the war were for the native peoples of the Great Lakes basin.
The War of 1812 receives little attention in British history books because it was such a minor war compared to the long and hard-fought Napoleonic Wars. Britain did not lose anything and was not forced to renounce its policies of impressment and blockade. But these were wartime policies that Britain did not need to use after 1814. The growth of British power, prestige, and wealth during the nineteenth century pushed this little war far into the background. If there is a British point of view, it probably agrees with the Canadian one.
Any study of the War of 1812 shows that history is not simply the fa
cts of what happened. It is a study of people’s actions and beliefs combined with an attempt to understand and interpret them. History is about the how and why of the past. That is why it lives and, like all living things, changes.
—APPENDIX—
Weapons of Period Armies and Navies
How campaigns were conducted, how battles were fought, and how fighting men were trained depended to a great extent on the weapons that were used. Muzzle-loading was done by ramming the powder and projectile into the barrel from the muzzle (open end of the barrel) to the rear with a rammer.
INFANTRY WEAPONS
Musket: The smooth-bore, muzzle-loaded flintlock musket was the basic infantry weapon of both armies. Rate of fire by trained infantry was optimum 4–5 rounds per minute, but in battle conditions 2–3 rounds per minute.
AMERICAN Model 1795 Musket: was 5 feet long, weighed 11 pounds, fired a soft lead ball of .65 in. weighing under 1 ounce or “buck and ball” combination of one musket ball and three buckshot. Range: theoretically less than 250 yards, effective range 100–150 yards. Bayonet was usually 15 inches. These muskets were made in the US, but American forces also used French and British weapons.
BRITISH, The India Pattern had a 39 inch barrel, weighed 9 pounds and 11 ounces, fired a ball of .71 calibre weighing just over 1 ounce. Range: theoretically 250 yards but effective range 100–150 yards. Bayonet 17 inches. There was also the Short Land pattern which had a 42-inch barrel.
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