The Treaty of Ghent, signed on December 24, 1814, in Ghent, presently in Belgium, was the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The treaty largely restored relations between the two countries to status quo ante bellum. Due to the era's slow speed of communication, it took weeks for news of the peace treaty to reach America, well after the Battle of New Orleans had ended.
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Background
The British delegation was composed of the minor diplomats William Adams, James Lord Gambier, and Henry Goulburn. Meetings were often delayed a week or more as the British diplomats lacked the power to make direct negotiations and waited on orders from London while the American delegation, composed of John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Sr., Henry Clay, Albert Gallatin, and junior member Jonathan Russell, had full authority to negotiate. The war was regarded as futile by both sides. The United States had been resoundingly unsuccessful in its invasions of Lower and Upper Canada, while Britain had not made any significant gains, except for the burning of Washington D.C., with its retaliatory raids on American soil. War Hawks in Congress wanted to conquer Canada and Florida[1]. However, British military strength far surpassed that of America at the time. The pre-war issues of trade restraints and impressment were so closely tied to the war against Napoleon, now in exile, that they no longer mattered and were not mentioned. Public opinion in the United States strongly desired peace and there was no reason to continue the war. Most of the British public were oblivious to it as it was overshadowed by the far more important happenings in Europe.
The agreement
The treaty released all prisoners and restored all war lands, that is, returned to America approximately 10 million acres of territory near Lakes Superior and Michigan, in Maine, and on the Pacific coast [2]. The treaty made no major changes to the pre-war situation, but did make a few promises. Britain promised to return captured slaves, but instead a few years later paid the United States £250,000 for them. The British proposal to create an Indian buffer zone in Ohio and Michigan collapsed after the Indian coalition fell apart. The weak guarantees regarding American treatment of the Indians in article IX were ignored.
The aftermath
Fighting immediately stopped when news of the treaty finally reached the United States. The US Senate unanimously approved on February 16, 1815, and President James Madison exchanged ratification papers with a British diplomat in Washington on February 17; the treaty was proclaimed on February 18. Eleven days later, on March 1, Napoleon escaped from Elba, starting the war in Europe again, and forcing the British to concentrate on the threat he posed.
See also
References
- ^ American Military History, Army Historical Series, Ch. 6, p. 123, states "While the western "war hawks" urged war in the hope of conquering Canada, the people of Georgia, Tennessee, and the Mississippi Territory entertained similar designs against Florida, a Spanish possession".[1]
- ^ W.G. Dean et al. (1998). Concise Historical Atlas of Canada.
Sources
- American Military History: Army Historical Series. Chapter 6: The War of 1812. Center of Military History, U.S. Army, Washington, DC, 1989. Official US Army history, available online.
- Bemis, Samuel Flagg. John Quincy Adams and the Foundations of American Foreign Policy (1950).
- A. L. Burt. The United States, Great Britain and British North America from the Revolution to the Establishment of Peace after the War of 1812, 1940 (Online Edition.
- Engelman, Fred L. The Peace of Christmas Eve (1962), popular account; online excerpt from American Heritage Magazine (Dec 1960) v 12#1.
- Donald R. Hickey. The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (1990) pp. 281-98.
- Perkins, Bradford. Castelereagh and Adams: England and the United States, 1812-1823, 1964.
- Robert Vincent Remini. Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (1991) pp. 94-122.
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