Treaty of Ghent
Type | Bilateral peace treaty |
---|---|
Signed | December 24, 1814 |
Location | Ghent, Sovereign Principality of the United Netherlands |
Effective | February 17, 1815 |
Parties | United Kingdom United States |
Full text | |
Treaty of Ghent at Wikisource |
The Treaty of Ghent (8 Stat. 218) was the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom. It took effect in February 1815. Both sides signed it on December 24, 1814, in the city of Ghent, United Netherlands (now in Belgium). The treaty restored relations between the two parties to status quo ante bellum by restoring the pre-war borders of June 1812.[a][1]. Both sides were eager to end the war. It ended when the treaty arrived in Washington and was immediately ratified unanimously by the United States Senate and exchanged with British officials the next day.
The treaty was approved by the
The treaty began more than two centuries of peaceful relations between the United States and the United Kingdom despite a few tense moments, such as the Aroostook War in 1838–39, the Pig War in 1859, and the Trent Affair in 1861.
Background
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After the abdication of Napoleon in April 1814, British public opinion demanded major gains in the war against the United States. The senior American representative in London, Reuben Beasley, told US Secretary of State James Monroe:
There are so many who delight in War that I have less hope than ever of our being able to make peace. You will perceive by the newspapers that a very great force is to be sent from Bordeaux to the United States, and the order of the day is division of the States and conquest. The more moderate think that when our Seaboard is laid waste and we are made to agree to a line which shall exclude us from the lake; to give up a part of our claim on Louisiana and the privilege of fishing on the banks, etc. peace may be made with us.[3]
However, the prime minister, Lord Liverpool, aware of growing opposition to wartime taxation and the demands of merchants in Liverpool and Bristol to reopen trade with America, realized that Britain had little to gain and much to lose from prolonged warfare.[4][5][b]
After rejecting American proposals to broker peace negotiations, Britain reversed course in 1814. With the defeat of Napoleon, the main British goals of stopping American trade with France and
Negotiations
At last in August 1814, peace discussions began in neutral Ghent. As the peace talks opened, American diplomats decided not to present President Madison's demands for the end of impressment and his suggestion for Britain to turn Canada over to the United States.[9] They were quiet, and so the British instead opened with their demands, the most important of which was the creation of an Indigenous state in the former Canadian southwest territory (the area from Ohio to Wisconsin).[10] It was understood that the British would sponsor the Indigenous state. For decades, the British strategy had been to create a buffer state to block American expansion. The Americans refused to consider a buffer state or to include Indigenous nations directly in the treaty in any fashion. Henry Goulburn, a British negotiator who took part in the treaty negotiations, remarked after meeting with American negotiators that "I had, till I came here, had no idea of the fixed determination which prevails in the breast of every American to extirpate the Indians and appropriate their territory."[11] Adams argued that there was no precedent for including allied Indigenous nations in bilateral peace treaties and to do so would in effect mean the United States was abandoning its sovereign claims over Indigenous territories, especially under a foreign protectorate like Britain. In doing so, Adams articulated a strong imperial claim of sovereignty over all peoples living within the boundaries of the United States. The British negotiators presented the barrier state as a sine qua non for peace, and the impasse brought negotiations to the brink of breakdown. In the end, the British government backed down and accepted Article IX, in which both governments promised to make peace with their indigenous foes and to restore Indigenous nations to "all possessions, rights and privileges which they may have enjoyed, or been entitled to in 1811."[12][page needed]
The British, assuming their planned invasion of New York State would go well, also demanded that Americans not keep any naval forces on the Great Lakes and that the British have certain transit rights to the Mississippi River in exchange for continuation of American fishing rights off of Newfoundland. The United States rejected the demands, and there was an impasse.[13][14] American public opinion was so outraged when Madison published the demands that even the Federalists were willing to fight on.[15]
During the negotiations, the British had four invasions underway. One force carried out a burning of Washington, but the main mission failed in its goal of capturing Baltimore. The British fleet sailed away when the army commander was killed. A small force invaded the District of Maine from New Brunswick, capturing parts of northeastern Maine and several smuggling towns on the seacoast and re-established the New Ireland colony with the ultimate purpose of incorporating Maine into Canada. Much more important were two major invasions. In northern New York State, 10,000 British troops marched south to cut off New England until a decisive defeat at the Battle of Plattsburgh forced them back to Canada.[16] Nothing was known at the time of the fate of the other major invasion force that had been sent to capture New Orleans and control the Mississippi River.
The British prime minister, Lord Liverpool, wanted the Duke of Wellington to go to command in Canada with the assignment of winning the war. Wellington replied that he would go to America but believed that he was needed in Europe.[17] He also stated:
I think you have no right, from the state of war, to demand any concession of territory from America... You have not been able to carry it into the enemy's territory, notwithstanding your military success, and now undoubted military superiority, and have not even cleared your own territory on the point of attack. You cannot on any principle of equality in negotiation claim a cession of territory except in exchange for other advantages which you have in your power... Then if this reasoning be true, why stipulate for the uti possidetis? You can get no territory: indeed, the state of your military operations, however creditable, does not entitle you to demand any.[18]
The government had no choice but to agree with Wellington. Lord Liverpool informed the Foreign Secretary, Lord Castlereagh, who was at Vienna: "I think we have determined, if all other points can be satisfactorily settled, not to continue the war for the purpose of obtaining or securing any acquisition of territory." Liverpool cited several reasons, especially the unsatisfactory negotiations underway at Vienna, the alarming reports from France that it might resume the war, and the weak financial condition of the government. He did not need to tell Castlereagh that the war was very unpopular and that Britons wanted peace and a return to normal trade. The war with America had ruined many reputations and promised no gain.[19][20][page needed]
After months of negotiations, against the background of changing military victories, defeats, and losses, the parties finally realized that their nations wanted peace and that there was no real reason to continue the war. Each side was tired of the war since export trade was all but paralyzed, and after the fall of Napoleon in 1814, France was no longer an enemy of Britain and so the Royal Navy no longer needed to stop American shipments to France or more seamen. The British were preoccupied in rebuilding Europe after the apparent final defeat of Napoleon. Liverpool told British negotiators to offer a status quo. That was what the British government had desired since the start of the war and was offered by British diplomats immediately to the US negotiators, who dropped demands for an end to British maritime practices and Canadian territory, ignored their war aims, and agreed to the terms. Both sides would exchange prisoners, and Britain would return all slaves that they had freed from their American enslavers or offer financial compensation instead.[21]
Agreement
On December 24, 1814, the members of the British and American negotiating teams signed and affixed their individual seals to the document. That did not itself end the war, which required formal ratification of the treaty by both governments, which came in February 1815.[22]
The treaty released all prisoners and restored all captured lands and ships between the United States and Britain (
The British promised to return all freed slaves that they had liberated during the war back to the United States. However, in 1826 Britain instead paid the U.S. government US$1,204,960 (equivalent to $32,448,864 in 2023) to compensate American slaveholders instead.[25] Both nations also promised to work towards the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade.[24]
The negotiations in Ghent were concluded in 1814 in anticipation that the two governments would pursue further discussions in 1815 to frame a new commercial agreement between the United States and the British Empire.
Pierre Berton wrote of the treaty:
It was as if no war had been fought, or to put it more bluntly, as if the war that was fought was fought for no good reason. For nothing has changed; everything is as it was at the beginning save for the graves of those who, it now appears, have fought for a trifle [...]. Lake Erie and Fort McHenry will go into the American history books, Queenston Heights and Crysler's Farm into the Canadian, but without the gore, the stench, the disease, the terror, the conniving, and the imbecilities that march with every army.[26]
Aftermath
In the century of peace between both countries that followed from 1815 to World War I, several more territorial and diplomatic disputes arose, but all were resolved peacefully, sometimes by arbitration.[27]
The course of the war resolved and resolved one major original issue for the Americans. Most Indigenous nations had allied with the British but had been defeated, allowing the United States to continue its expansion westward. On the other hand Britain maintained their maritime rights with no mention of impressment in the treaty, a key victory for them.[28]
James Carr argues that Britain negotiated the Treaty of Ghent with the goal of ending the war but knew that a major British expedition had been ordered to seize New Orleans. Carr says that Britain had no intention of repudiating the treaty and continuing the war if it had won the battle.[29]
News of the treaty finally reached the United States soon after it had won a major victory in the Battle of New Orleans, and the treaty won immediate wide approval from all sides.[30] The British learned of the treaty when HMS Brazen arrived off Fort Bowyer on February 13, carrying news that the Treaty of Ghent had been signed on the previous Christmas Eve.[31]
The US Senate unanimously approved the treaty on February 16, 1815, and President Madison exchanged ratification papers with a British diplomat in Washington on February 17. The treaty was proclaimed on February 18.
Memorials
The Peace Arch, dedicated in September 1921, stands 20.5 metres (67 ft) tall at the Douglas–Blaine border crossing between the province of British Columbia and the state of Washington. The monument represents a perpetually open gate across the Canada–U.S. boundary.[32] In 1922, the Fountain of Time was dedicated in Washington Park, Chicago, commemorating 110 years of peace between the United States and Britain.[33] The Peace Bridge between Buffalo, New York, and Fort Erie, Ontario, opened in 1927 to commemorate more than a century of peace between the United States and Canada.[34]
Perry's Victory and International Peace Memorial (1936) commemorates the Battle of Lake Erie that took place near Ohio's South Bass Island, in which Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry led a fleet to victory in one of the most significant naval battles to occur in the War of 1812. Located on an isthmus on the island, the memorial also celebrates the lasting peace between Britain, Canada, and the United States that followed the war.
See also
- Anthony St. John Baker
- List of treaties
- Results of the War of 1812
- Timeline of United States diplomatic history
Explanatory notes
- Mobile area) from the Spanish Empire, but that was not mentioned in the treaty.
- ^ The correspondence from the Earl of Liverpool to Viscount Castlereagh dated December 23, 1814, is summarized as Anxiety to Terminate American War.[6]
References
- ^ Smith 1999, p. 3–20.
- ^ "The Senate Approves for Ratification the Treaty of Ghent". United States Senate.
- ^ Wood 1940, p. 503.
- ^ Latimer 2007, p. 389–391.
- ^ Gash 1984, p. 111–119.
- ^ British Foreign Policy Documents, p. 495.
- ^ Remini 1993, p. 103–122.
- ^ Bemis 1949, p. 196–220.
- ^ Adams 1921, p. 11.
- ^ Remini 1993, p. 117.
- ^ Taylor 2014, p. 258.
- ^ Hatter, Lawrence B. A. (2017). Citizens of Convenience: The Imperial Origins of American Nationhood on the U.S.-Canadian Border. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. p. ???.
- ^ Tucker 2011, p. 1097.
- ^ Gates 1940, p. 365.
- ^ Daughan 2011, p. 365.
- ^ Latimer 2007, pp. 331, 359, 365.
- ^ Perkins 1964, p. 108–109.
- ^ Mills 1921, p. 22.
- ^ Bickham 2012, p. 258–259.
- ^ Johnson, Allen (1921). "Part 3". Jefferson and His Colleagues, A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty. p. ??? – via fulltextarchive.com.
- ^ Adams 1890, pp. 115–119.
- ^ Engelman, Fred L. (December 1960). "The peace of Christmas Eve". American Heritage. Vol. 12, no. 1. Retrieved December 24, 2007.
- ISBN 9780802042033.
- ^ a b "Treaty of Ghent; 1814 [transcription]". avalon.law.yale.edu (transcribed full text of treaty). British-American Diplomacy: Avalon Project: Lillian Goldman Law Library: Yale Law School: Yale University.
- ^ Lindsay 1920, p. 391–419.
- ^ Berton 1981, p. 418.
- ^ Mowat 1925, pp. 69–70, 244, 321, 333, 349.
- ^ Hickey (2012), p. 297.
- ^ Carr (1979), p. 457.
- ^ Updyke 1914, p. 94–104.
- ^ Tucker (2012), p. 250.
- ^ "History of a Peace Park". peacearchpark.org. United States Canada Peace Anniversary Association. Archived from the original on 2014-03-02.
- ISBN 9781605010533. Retrieved May 5, 2013.
- ^ Eisenstadt & Moss 2005, p. 240.
Primary sources
- "Letters relating to the Negotiations at Ghent, 1812–1814". JSTOR 1836119.
- Second Duke of Wellington, ed. (1862). "The Earl of Liverpool to Viscount Castlereagh". Supplementary despatches, correspondence and memoranda of the Duke of Wellington, K. G. Vol. 9. London: John Murray. OCLC 60466520.
Secondary sources
- Adams, Henry (1921) [1890]. History of the United States of America during the Administration of James Madison. Vol. 9. p. 11. OCLC 1046588974. Retrieved April 20, 2024.
- OCLC 424693.; Pulitzer Prize.
- ISBN 978-0-77-101244-0.
- Bickham, Troy (2012). The Weight of Vengeance: The United States, the British Empire, and the War of 1812. ISBN 978-0-19-539178-7.
- OCLC 752759076.
- Carr, James A. (July 1979). "The Battle of New Orleans and the Treaty of Ghent". Diplomatic History. 3 (3): 273–282. .
- Daughan, George C. (2011). 1812: The Navy's War. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-02046-1.
- Eisenstadt, Peter R.; Moss, Laura-Eve, eds. (2005). The Encyclopedia of New York State. ISBN 978-0-81-560808-0.
- ISBN 978-0-67-453910-5.
- Gates, CM (March 1940). "The West in American Diplomacy, 1812–1815". Mississippi Valley Historical Review. 26 (4): 499–510. JSTOR 1896318.
- Hickey, Donald R. (2012) [1988]. "Ch. 11: The Treaty of Ghent" (PDF). The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (Bicentennial ed.). Urbana: Project MUSE.
- Latimer, Jon (2007). 1812: War with America. Cambridge: Belknap Press. ISBN 978-0-674-02584-4.
- Lindsay, AG (1920). "Diplomatic relations between the United States and Great Britain bearing on the return of negro slaves, 1783–1828". S2CID 149894983.
- Mills, D (1921). "The Duke of Wellington and the peace negotiations at Ghent in 1814". Canadian Historical Review. 2 (1): 19–32 (quote at p. 22). S2CID 161278429.
- Mowat, R. B. (1925). The diplomatic relations of Great Britain and the United States. London: Edward Arnold & Co. pp. 69–70, 244, 321, 333, 349.
- OCLC 615454220.
- ISBN 978-0-393-31088-7.
- Smith, Gene A. (1999). "Our Flag Was Display'd within Their Works": The Treaty of Ghent and the Conquest of Mobile". Alabama Review. 52 (1): 3–20.
- Taylor, Alan (16 April 2014). "The War of 1812 and the Struggle for a Continent". In Shankman, Andrew (ed.). The World of the Revolutionary American Republic: Land, Labor, and the Conflict for a Continent. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-31-781497-9.
- Tucker, Spencer, ed. (2012). The Encyclopedia of the War of 1812: A Political, Social, and Military History. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-85-109956-6.
- Updyke, Frank A. (1914). "The Treaty of Ghent: A Centenary Estimate". The American Political Science Review. 8 (1): 94–104. JSTOR 4617010.
- Wood, Bryce (1940). "Reuben Beasley to Monroe, May 9, 1814". Peaceful Change and the Colonial Problem. Studies in History, Economics and Public Law. Vol. 464. New York: OCLC 3103125.
Further reading
- Adams, Henry. History of the United States of America during the Administration of James Madison (1890) Chapter I The meeting at Ghent & Chapter II The Treaty of Ghent
- Engelman, Fred L. The Peace of Christmas Eve (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962), popular narrative
- Mahan, A.T. (October 1905). "The negotiations at Ghent in 1814". JSTOR 1832365.
- Hatter, Lawrence B. A. Citizens of Convenience: The Imperial Origins of American Nationhood on the U.S.-Canadian Border. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2017.
- Perkins, Bradford. Castlereagh and Adams: England and the United States, 1812·1823 (1964) excerpt; online review
- Remini, Robert V. Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (1991) pp. 94–122.
- a version of this chapter appears (in English) in Remini, R. V. "The Treaty of Ghent. The American perspective." Handelingen der Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde te Gent 44.1 (1990). online
- Updyke, Frank A. The diplomacy of the War of 1812 (1915) online free
- OCLC 489666642.
External links
- "Transcription of the Treaty of Ghent; 1814". Avalon Project - British-American Diplomacy. Retrieved 22 December 2021 – via Yale Law School.
- "Treaty of Ghent". guides.loc.gov (digital reference guide). Web Guides: Primary Documents in American History. Library of Congress. 17 October 2020
- Kenneth Drexler, ed. (25 June 2014). "A Guide to the War of 1812". www.loc.gov (digital reference guide). Web Guides. Library of Congress
- "War of 1812 Timeline of Major Events". pbs.org. PBS. 2011. Archived from the original on 2020-11-05. Retrieved 2017-09-17
- Chowder, Ken (10 October 2011). "The Treaty of Ghent" (television program). PBS, WNED-TV, and Florentine Films/Hott Productions.
- "Association Treaty of Ghent". www.treatyofghent.org. Archived from the original on 2013-07-20. Retrieved 2011-11-07 (a registered nonprofit organization)