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Treaty of Ghent
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The Treaty of Ghent , signed on December 24, 1814, in Ghent, currently 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.
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The Treaty of Ghent , signed on December 24, 1814, in Ghent, currently 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.
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 for 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 United States had been 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.
The agreement
The treaty released all prisoners and restored all war lands and boats, that is, returned to America approximately of territory near Lakes Superior and Michigan, in Maine, and on the Pacific coast. 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 Ihindian coalition fell apart. The United States ignored the guarantees it made in article IX regarding American treatment of the Indians.
The aftermath
Fighting immediately stopped when news of the treaty finally reached the United States, after the American victory in the Battle of New Orleans and the British victory in the Battle of Fort Bowyer, but before the British assault on Mobile, Alabama.
The U.S. Senate unanimously approved the treaty 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
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 .
- 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 (.
- Engelman, Fred L. The Peace of Christmas Eve (1962), popular account; .
- 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.
External links
- Full text of the Treaty of Ghent .
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