Talk:Origins of the War of 1812

message: Perhaps the most biased article on the War of 1812 I've ever read - another reason Wikipedia fails as an educational source - I know it's difficult for Americans to fathom that they were infact wrong and did infact take one serious military belting upon their failed imperialist attempts to annex Canada but comon... covering history up? I would advise some of you to read John Latimer's '1812: War with America'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.77.42.95 (talk) 15:55, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The article is based on the best Canadian and American scholarship. It avoids the myths that are taught to Canadian kids in 7th grade. Rjensen 03:31, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Origins of the War of 1812

message: Anyone know the importance of American failure to compensate Loyalists for seized territory and any other failed treaty obligations of the Treaty of Paris? Jztinfinity 00:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Treaty obligations

message: I didn't add the merge tags but it sounds like a very good idea to me. Impressment of American Seamen is not really relevant to any other episode of history. Anyone else have a view? The Land 19:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested Merge 

message: "Napoleon had no intention of honoring promise: Hickey, p. 22; Horsman, p. 188."
Fine, it's sourced, but it could be desirable to add some more explanations as to how Hickey and Horsman were able to guess what Napoleon's intentions were. --Anonymous44 01:53, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Napoleon 

message: The article currently contains no mention whatsoever of the Little Belt Affair. As it was significant in the ramp-up to hostilities, I will be adding a small section on it to the Origins article soon. However, there is no inclusion of it in the Origins of the War of 1812 Link Box in the top right corner of the article; it is the same box which gets plastered on many of the lead-up-to-the-War of 1812 articles. Should the Little Belt Affair be added to these boxes? I vote aye. Auror 13:24, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Little Belt Affair 

message: I agree with David R that this article presents an American point of view. Although the writer mentions using Canadian scholars, the one mentioned (Alfred L Burt) was a professor at the University of Minnesota. Also, there is a reference to Julius W Pratt's article, "Expansionists of 1812" but not what it says: "The belief that the United States would one day annex Canada had a continuous existence from the early days of the War of Independence to the War of 1812 [and] was a factor of primary importance in bringing on the war."
Also, there is no mention of the pretext that the British were arming Indians against the Americans (which of course was false).
It should also be noted that there has been very little academic research into the causes of the War of 1812, and all the sources quoted are over 40 years old. Since then there have been changes in attitudes toward American expansionism and the treatment of aboriginal peoples, who were the main victims of the War of 1812 and also Canada's primary defenders. --The Four Deuces (talk) 22:45, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can supply a reference to a reliable source which states the British did supply arms to the Indians during the Northwest Indian War. I don't know about Tecumseh's War. BradMajors (talk) 00:08, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

text: Might i suggest Pierre Berton who wrote a book called The Invasion of Canada Lingust (talk) 13:03, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  American Point of View 

message: "Almost all accounts of the 1811-1812 period have stressed the influence of a youthful band, denominated War Hawks, on Madison's policy. According to the standard picture, these men were a rather wild and exuberant group enraged by Britain's maritime practices, certain that the British were encouraging the Indians and convinced that Canada would be an easy conquest and a choice addition to the national domain. Like all stereotypes, there is some truth in this tableau; however, inaccuracies predominate. First, Perkins has shown that those favoring war were older than those opposed. Second, the lure of the Canadas has been played down by most recent investigators, a trend with which Pratt concurs" (Egan, 1974:74).
Egan, Clifford L. (1974). The Origins of the War of 1812: Three Decades of Historical Writing. Military Affairs, Vol. 38, No. 2 (April), pp. 72-75.
Stacyted (talk) 15:30, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Egan quotation 

message: It seems to me that establishing the "real cause" of complex events that develop and change over periods of years (like wars) is extremely difficult, but perhaps not quite as difficult as climbing into the heads of military and government leaders who are long dead and who participated in these events roughly 2 centuries ago, to determine their "intent". It is difficult enough to make a case in a courtroom based on intent when the event in question was a shooting that occurred 2 weeks ago and when all of the participants are alive, present, and able (even legally required) to testify. Into this lacuna about "real causes" and "intent" seem to creep all manner of conspiracy theories.
Stacyted (talk) 15:48, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical claims about causes and intent 

message: I added a section summarizing US goals, added Indians to British goals, and tweaked the bit about settlement of western Ontario, all with new citations. Rjensen (talk) 02:32, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  goals 

message: There is no inclusion of it in the Origins of the War of 1812 Link Box in the top right corner of the article; it is the same box that gets plastered on many of the lead-up-to-the-War of 1812 articles. The Leander Affair should be added to these boxes. It preceded the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair by a year and led to President Jefferson banning certain British warships and any warships subsequently commanded by their captains, from US waters.Acad Ronin (talk) 12:52, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: ''Leander'' Affair

message: I dropped new text by  Rwenonah that incorrectly states the views of two historians. Nugent (Habits of Empire p 74) says that British aid to Indians in the US was a cause of the war. He says that AFTER the war started the US forces tried to invade Canada.  Carlisle and Colson Manifest Destiny and the Expansion of America have a sentence about Americans wanting land --many thousands did move  to Canada after 1790--but they do not say it  caused the war. Instead they say the Americans went to war to uphold their honor. (p 43) The call the war an American Victory, by the way. Rjensen (talk) 22:26, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: You have completely misrepresented  Carlisle and Colson and seriously misrepresented Nugent. he says the Canada business was to stop the Indian attacks on American expansion.  p 78. as for permanent acquisition of Canada he always hedges and says only it was a possibility. "A second reason for occupying and possibly annexing Canada was economic." (p 78) The main reasons for war he says were in opening trade, ending impressment and ending insults to national honor. (p 79) Rjensen (talk) 23:41, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: No the statement you wrote is "However,historians are not in agreement as to whether this was the cause of the war or not, and there is still dispute as to whether this brought on the the war or not." That is not supported by Carlisle and Golson who do NOT list expansion as a cause of the war. Nugent says, "Would the United States have declared war on Britain solely to stop her intrigues with the Northwest Indians? Or solely to invade, capture, and annex Canada? Almost certainly not. The national interest lay chiefly in opening trade, stopping impressment, and ending insults to the nation's honor." p 79
I don't say that the war started solely due to the American desire to annex Canada. Neither does Nugent-he does say, however,that expansion was an objective,which fully supports me. Carlisle and Golson say that Americans harboured ideas of Canadian annexation throughout the nineteenth century. Which,once again, supports me,if less fully. Your refusal to accept this idea should stay off of WikipediaRwenonah (talk) 10:56, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Carlisle and Colson have a list of the causes of the war. they do NOT include " ideas of Canadian annexation" (they mention that in another context on another page and do not link it to 1812).  That's because they do not believe annexation was a cause of the war. Nor does Nugent. Only Rwenonah says that and it's not based on any RS he has seen. Rjensen (talk) 13:20, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Expansion issue

message: By 1813, the Americans controlled all of Ohio, all of Indiana, most of Illinois, and the Detroit region of Michigan. The British and their Indian allies controlled the rest of Michigan and all of Wisconsin.  (by the way  RS do not call the Indian forces "troops".)  With the Americans in  control of Lake Erie and Southwestern Ontario, the British were largely cut off from their units in Michigan and Wisconsin. Reinforcing them, and even bringing in supplies of guns and gunpowder would be difficult, as a glance at the map shows. Wellington in 1814 made this point in his refusal to take command of the British efforts in Canada. It's important to mention that at all times be American negotiators at Ghent refused to negotiate any buffer state whatsoever. That's because the peace treaty of 1783 and the Jay Treaty of 1794 gave the Americans full control over Michigan, Wisconsin, and points south.  Citation: Michigan:. All the Indian forces left Indiana in 1813 to follow Tecumseh says: . they left Ohio too:   The Brit-Indian forces held Wisconsin in 1814:   Rjensen (talk) 22:54, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup, although it's important to note that British and British-allied Indian forces also held a large part of Illinois as well as the whole Upper Missisippi Valley, including what is today Iowa.The British controlled Lake Huron throughout the war after the Engagements on Lake Huron and could resupply (as indeed they repeatedly did) through the Nottawasaga River, which linked York to Lake Huron. Supplies brought through this route kept the garrisons in Mackinac and in Prairie du Chien supplied through the war, and reinforcements repeatedly were transported this way. Although this was a roundabout and inconvenient supply line which was much more difficult than the "easy southern routes" held by the Americans, it worked throughout the war (Fighting Sail on Lake Huron and Georgian Bay:The War of 1812, Barry M. Gough). As Pierre Berton notes in War of 1812 (pg. 696-697), the Americans attempted and failed to cut this route, recognizing its importance to the British position in the Old Northwest. It's interesting to note that he also mentions that sufficient quantities of powder to blow up a schooner, as well as a shipload of "shoes, leather, candles, flower, pork", so clearly large quantities could be and were moved by this route. The Americans refused to accept a buffer state at Ghent, but negotiations are a two-way street, and the British also had to drop the demand, as part of their larger abdomen tot their Indian allies. It's also interesting to note Ghent stipulated the Indians were to regain all territory lost as a result of the war. Rwenonah (talk) 23:38, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I quite agree.  But the main British reason by 1814 for a buffer state was the fur trade, and it was far smaller than the overall trade with US. So they gave it up.  As for the Indians, they were not a high British priority.  Keeping US territory after 1815 was a formula for never-ending warfare with USA that eventually would take all of Canada.  Rjensen (talk) 20:17, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  buffer state 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: RS have repeatedly pointed out that the British largely ignore the war and the vast bulk of the RS are based in Canada and the U.S.A. That indicates that Canadian and American English have priority.  In cases such as "honour" and "honor" which are standard in both Canadian and American English (according to  "Gage Canadian Dictionary (1983) page x) we can ignore the British variant spelling . The Wiji guideline is that the first edit of an article sets the spelling convention, and in it "honor" is used and "honorable." see  https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Origins_of_the_War_of_1812&oldid=25453079  Rjensen (talk) 21:35, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: No spelling variant has been chosen for this article. Since there is a reason to use U.S. spelling I would agree with that - we need to add a template. "Our" endings are preferred in Canada, particularly in Ontario, although in 1812, American English spellings were the norm. (See "Canadian English: A Linguistic Reader." TFD (talk) 18:37, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Language: Canadian and American scholarship dominates the RS on this topic