1810s

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The 1810s (pronounced "eighteen-tens") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1810, and ended on December 31, 1819.

The decade was opened with a very hostile political climate around the world.

Napoleon's attempts to conquer Russia, the War of 1812 (spillover to America), and the Battle of Waterloo (Napoleon's ultimate defeat). Imperialism began to encroach towards African and Asian territories through trade, as the United States saw mass-scaled migration that headed westward towards the American frontier (mostly through the opening of the Oregon Trail
.)

Politics and wars

See also:
List of sovereign states in the 1810s

Napoleonic Wars

Main article: Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic départements of the French Empire at its height in 1812.

In 1810, the French Empire reached its greatest extent. On the continent, the British and Portuguese remained restricted to the area around Lisbon and to besieged Cadiz. Napoleon married Marie-Louise, an Austrian Archduchess, with the aim of ensuring a more stable alliance with Austria and of providing the Emperor with an heir. As well as the French Empire, Napoleon controlled the Swiss Confederation, the Confederation of the Rhine, the Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of Italy. Territories allied with the French included: the Kingdom of Spain, the Kingdom of Westphalia, the Kingdom of Naples, the Principality of Lucca and Piombino, and Napoleon's former enemies, Prussia and Austria. Denmark–Norway also allied with France in opposition to Great Britain and Sweden in the Gunboat War.

Charles Minard's graph showing the diminishing strength of the Grande Armée during the French invasion of Russia in 1812

The

Spain and Portugal united to battle France in the War of the Sixth Coalition. Two-and-a-half million troops fought in the conflict and the total dead amounted to as many as two million. This era included the battles of Smolensk, Borodino, Lützen, Bautzen, and the Dresden. It also included the epic Battle of Leipzig
in October, 1813 (also known as the Battle of Nations), which was the largest battle of the Napoleonic wars, which drove Napoleon out of Germany.

Battle of Waterloo

The final stage of the War of the Sixth Coalition, the defense of France in 1814, saw the French Emperor temporarily repulse the vastly superior armies in the

Six Days Campaign. Ultimately, the Allies occupied Paris, forcing Napoleon to abdicate and restoring the Bourbons. Napoleon was exiled to Elba. Also in 1814, Denmark–Norway was defeated by Great Britain and Sweden and had to cede the territory of mainland Norway to the King of Sweden at the Treaty of Kiel
.

Napoleon shortly returned from exile, landing in France on March 1, 1815, marking the

Seventh Coalition, bound themselves to put 150,000 men each into the field to end his rule.[1] This set the stage for the last conflict in the Napoleonic Wars, the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, the restoration of the French monarchy for the second time and the permanent exile of Napoleon to the distant island of Saint Helena
, where he died in May 1821.

Spanish American wars of independence

Main article: Spanish American wars of independence

Spain in the 1810s was a country in turmoil. Occupied by

Napoleon from 1808 to 1814, a massively destructive "war of independence" ensued, driven by an emergent Spanish nationalism. Already in 1810, the Caracas and Buenos Aires juntas declared their independence from the Bonapartist government in Spain and sent ambassadors to the United Kingdom. The British blockade
against Spain had also moved most of the Latin American colonies out of the Spanish economic sphere and into the British sphere, with whom extensive trade relations were developed. The remaining Spanish colonies had operated with virtual independence from Madrid after their pronouncement against Joseph Bonaparte.

The Spanish government in exile (

Pedro Gómez Labrador, Marquis of Labrador) would cement international support for the old, absolutist
regime in Spain.

King

Ferdinand VII, who assumed the throne after Napoleon was driven out of Spain, refused to agree to the liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812 on his accession to the throne in 1814. The Spanish Empire in the New World had largely supported the cause of Ferdinand VII over the Bonapartist pretender to the throne in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars
. When Ferdinand's rule was restored, these juntas were cautious of abandoning their autonomy, and an alliance between local elites, merchant interests, nationalists, and liberals opposed to the abrogation of the Constitution of 1812 rose up against the Spanish in the New World.

The victory of General José de San Martín over Spanish forces at the Battle of Chacabuco, 12 February 1817

The arrival of Spanish forces in the American colonies began in 1814, and was briefly successful in restoring central control over large parts of the Empire.

Andes Mountains from Argentina to Chile, and went on to defeat Spanish royalist forces at the Battle of Chacabuco
in 1817.

Spain would also lose

Adams-Onís Treaty
, wherein Spain ceded the rest of Florida to the United States.

In 1820,

Cadiz with the aim of reconquest. However, Ferdinand's plans would be disrupted by Liberal Revolution, and Ferdinand was eventually forced to give up all of the New World colonies, except for Cuba and Puerto Rico
.

War of 1812

In 1812, the United States declared war on Britain in the War of 1812. The U.S. reasons for war included the humiliation in the "Chesapeake incident" of 1807, continued British impressment of American sailors into the Royal Navy, restrictions on trade with France, and arming hostile American Indians in Ohio and the western territories.[2] United States President James Madison signed a declaration of war on June 18, 1812.

The United States conducted two failed invasion attempts in 1812, first by General William Hull across the Detroit River into what is now Windsor, Ontario, and a second offensive at the Niagara peninsula. A major American success came in 1813, when the American Navy destroyed the British fleet on Lake Erie, and forced the British and their American Indian allies to retreat back toward Niagara.[3] They were intercepted and destroyed by General William Henry Harrison at the Battle of the Thames in October 1813. Tecumseh, the leader of the tribal confederation, was killed, and his Indian coalition disintegrated.[4]

At sea, the powerful Royal Navy blockaded much of the coastline, conducting frequent raids. The most famous episode was a series of British raids on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, including an attack on Washington that resulted in the British burning of the White House, the Capitol, the Navy Yard, and other public buildings, in the "Burning of Washington" in 1814.

Once Napoleon was defeated in 1814, France and Britain became allies and Britain ended the trade restrictions and the impressment of American sailors. Running out of reasons for war and stuck in a military stalemate, the two countries signed the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814. News of the peace treaty took two months to reach the U.S., during which fighting continued. In this interim, the British made one last major invasion, attempting to capture New Orleans, but were decisively defeated with very heavy losses by General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815. The ending of the war opened a long era of peaceful relations between the United States and the British Empire.

1804–1813 Russo-Persian War

The

Lenkoran, in 1812 and 1813 respectively. Upon the Persian surrender, the terms of the Treaty of Gulistan ceded the vast majority of the previously disputed territories to Imperial Russia. This led to the region's once-powerful khans
being decimated and forced to pay homage to Russia.

Concert of Europe

National boundaries of Europe as set by the Congress of Vienna, 1814.
Main article: Concert of Europe

By 1815, Europe had been almost constantly at war. During this time, the military conquests of France had resulted in the spread of

Napoleonic code. Largely as a reaction to the radicalism of the French Revolution,[5] the victorious powers of the Napoleonic Wars resolved to suppress liberalism and nationalism, and revert largely to the status quo of Europe prior to 1789.[6]

Congress Vienna, Jean Godefroy – Jean-Baptiste Isabey

The result was the

Klemens Wenzel, Prince von Metternich and Tsar Alexander I of Russia
.

The Kingdom of Prussia, Austrian Empire and Russian Empire formed the Holy Alliance with the expressed intent of preserving Christian social values and traditional monarchism.[7] Every member of the coalition promptly joined the Alliance, save for the United Kingdom.

Among the meetings of the Powers in the latter part of the 1810s were the Congresses of Vienna (1814–1815), Aix-la-Chappelle (1818), and Carlsbad (1819).

Other political events

Australia

Asia

Europe

Africa

North America

Aug. 15: Alabama Territory new.
Dec. 10: Mississippi statehood.

South America

  • 1814: Guyana is transferred from the Netherlands to Britain; it is renamed British Guiana.
  • August 22, 1817 – The city of Araraquara, Brazil is founded.
  • The Spanish
    Latin American revolutions
    . Several states declare their independence from Spain.
  • 1817: The
    Pernambucan Revolt
    breaks out in Brazil.

Commerce

Trading companies

Establishments

Slavery, Serfdom and Labor

Luddites

Economics

Science and technology

Goethe publishes Theory of Colours

Astronomy

Steamboats

"Enterprise on her fast trip to Louisville, 1815"

The 1810s continued a trend of increasing commercial viability of

St. Lawrence and in Canada.[10] Unlike Fulton, Molson did not show a profit. Molson had also two paddle steamboats "Swiftsure" of 1811 and "Malsham" of 1813 with engines by B&W.[11] The experience of these vessels, especially that they could now offer a regular service, being independent of wind and weather, helped make the new system of propulsion commercially viable, and as a result its application to the more open waters of the Great Lakes was next considered. That idea went on hiatus due to the War of 1812
.

In a 25-day trip in 1815, the Enterprise further demonstrated the commercial potential of the steamboat with a 2,200-mile voyage from New Orleans to Pittsburgh.[12][13] In 1817, a consortium in Sackets Harbor, New York, funded the construction of the first US steamboat, Ontario, to run on Lake Ontario and the Great Lakes, beginning the growth of lake commercial and passenger traffic.[14]

The first commercially successful steamboat in Europe, Henry Bell's Comet of 1812, started a rapid expansion of steam services on the Firth of Clyde, and within four years a steamer service was in operation on the inland Loch Lomond, a forerunner of the lake steamers still gracing Swiss lakes. On the Clyde itself, within ten years of Comet's start in 1812 there were nearly fifty steamers, and services had started across the Irish Sea to Belfast and on many British estuaries. P.S."Thames", ex "Argyle" was the first seagoing steamer in Europe, having steamed from Glasgow to London in May 1815.[15] P.S."Tug", the first tugboat, was launched by the Woods Brothers, Port Glasgow, on November 5, 1817; in the summer of 1817 she was the first steamboat to travel round the North of Scotland to the East Coast.[16]

Karl Drais' laufmaschine

The first steamship credited with crossing the Atlantic Ocean between North America and Europe was the American ship SS Savannah, though she was actually a hybrid between a steamship and a sailing ship. The SS Savannah left the port of Savannah, Georgia, on May 22, 1819, arriving in Liverpool, England, on June 20, 1819; her steam engine having been in use for part of the time on 18 days (estimates vary from 8 to 80 hours).

Locomotives

Other transportation

Natural events

Year Without a Summer

April 5–April 12: Mount Tambora explodes, changing climate.
Main article: Year Without a Summer
  • April 5–April 12, 1815 – Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies blows its top explosively during an eruption, killing upwards of 92,000 and propelling thousands of tons of aerosols (Sulfide gas compounds) into the upper atmosphere (stratosphere). The following year (1816) becomes known as "Year Without a Summer", as the high level gases reflect sunlight and cause the widespread cooling (known as a volcanic winter) and heavy rains, snows in June and July in the northern hemisphere, and widespread crop failures.

Culture

Literature

Don Juan
.

Other events in literature:

Fashion

Main article:
1795–1820 in fashion

Theatre

  • 1818:
    Old Vic
    founded (as Royal Coburg Hall).

Music

Other

Elgin Marbles displayed.

People

Authors

Disasters

Establishments

Other events

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to 1810s.
  1. ^ Hamilton-Williams, David p. 59
  2. ^ Wood, Empire of Liberty (2009) ch 18
  3. ^ Heidler and Heidler, Encyclopedia of the War of 1812, pp 290-93
  4. ^ Hickey, War of 1812 p. 183
  5. ^ Wood, Empire of Liberty (2009), pg. 329.
  6. ^ Wood, Empire of Liberty (2009), pg 330.
  7. ^ Spahn, M. (1910). Holy Alliance. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved May 15, 2010, from New Advent.
  8. ^ a b c "An 1820 Claim to Congress: Alabama Territory : 1817", The Intruders, TNGenNet Inc., 2001, quick webpage: TN-537[permanent dead link].
  9. ^ [1] Archived September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ "Canadian Encyclopedia", 2010.
  11. ^ Boulton & Watt Engine Order Book, Birmingham Public Library, England.
  12. ^ Western Courier [Louisville, Ky.], 1 June 1815: "Arrived in this port, in 25 days from New-Orléans, the Steam-Boat Enterprize, capt. SHRIEVE. The celerity and safety with which this boat descends and ascends the currents of these mighty waters, the improvement of the navigation of which is so advantageous to the western world, must be equally interesting to the farmer and the merchant. The facility and convenience of the passage, in ascending the rivers, are such as to give a decided preference to this mode of navigation, while the size and construction of the boat entitles it to all the advantages which the Ætna and Vesuvius have in vain attempted to monopolize over the free waters of our common country."
  13. ^ American Telegraph [Brownsville, Pa.], 5 July 1815: "Arrived at this port on Monday last, the Steam Boat Enterprize, Shreve, of Bridgeport, from New Orleans, in ballast, having discharged her cargo at Pittsburgh. She is the first steam boat that ever made the voyage to the Mouth of the Mississippi and back. She made the voyage from New Orleans to this port, in fifty four days, twenty days on which were employed in loading and unloading freight at different towns on the Mississippi and Ohio, so that she was only thirty four days in active service, in making her voyage, which our readers will remember must be performed against powerful currents, and is upwards of two thousand two hundred miles in length."
  14. ^ Barlow Cumberland Archived 2005-02-06 at the Wayback Machine, A Century of Sail and Steam on the Niagara River, 1911, accessed 20 August 2010
  15. ^ John Kennedy, "The History of Steam Navigation" Liverpool,1903.
  16. ^ A.I.Bowman, "Swifts & Queens", Strathkelvin, 1983.
  17. ^ Steinberg, Michael. "The Symphony: a listeners guide". pp. 44–47. Oxford University Press, 1995.
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