War of 1812

The War of 1812 was fought from 1812 (or in reality, 1811) to 1815 by the United States on one side and on the other the British Empire and a confederacy of indigenous nations (then-called "Indians").

United States historical travel topics:
Indigenous nations → Pre-Civil War → Civil War → Old West → Industrialization → Postwar
African-American history • Mexican American history • Presidents

Understand

The war was the continuation of a number of preexisting conflicts: it took place less than twenty-five years after the American Revolution and in the context of both an American population boom and westward expansion, and the Napoleonic Wars happening in Europe at the same time. The bulk of the fighting took place along the present-day border between Canada and the U.S.A. near the Great Lakes, particularly in the Niagara Peninsula. But battles occurred as far afield as Chalmette, Louisiana in the south. As so often with wars, the people making the decisions, like U.S. President James Madison, the so-called "hawks" in Congress, or the Governor General of British North America, George Prévost, did not suffer the burdens of the war - mostly borne by rank-and-file soldiers, civilians in the affected regions, and most especially, the indigenous peoples. After years of bloody back-and-forth raids that included the burning of the White House in Washington, D.C., the war ended without any change in borders between British Canada and the U.S.A., but the indigenous peoples of the Ohio valley and Great Lakes were left devastated by the fighting. Britain and America went on to patch up their differences and the Americans continued to extend into indigenous land. Because of the inconclusive and wasteful nature of this war, Britons and Americans tend not to think of the war as particularly important or noble part of their histories, but in Canada (especially Ontario) it is looked at as something like a "war of independence" against American invasion, and there are many historic sites and museums dedicated to it, and for indigenous nations around the Great Lakes, it is remembered as a calamitous tragedy.

Routes

Sites
  • 🌍 Tippecanoe Battlefield Park, near Lafayette, Indiana. The location of the battle in 1811 between the United States and the Shawnee that forced the Shawnee to flee to Canada seeking British support — one of the principal causes of the U.S.-British war one year later. (updated Feb 2023)

Guidebooks
  • Gilbert Collins, Guidebook to the Historic Sites of the War of 1812
  • John Grant and Ray Jones, The War of 1812: A Guide to Battlefields and Historic Sites
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