[HN Gopher] New England Almost Seceded over the War of 1812 (2012)
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New England Almost Seceded over the War of 1812 (2012)
Author : rfreytag
Score : 39 points
Date : 2021-03-10 12:43 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wbur.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wbur.org)
| jhallenworld wrote:
| A minor point: the Nimrod restaurant is no more.
|
| https://www.capenews.net/falmouth/news/falmouth-planners-app...
| simonsarris wrote:
| > They started to harass American merchant vessels, Britain in
| particular, to the point of literally kidnapping sailors off U.S.
| ships and drafting them into the Royal Navy. In euphemistic Brit-
| speak that was called "impressment."
|
| > "Probably in the neighborhood of 6,000 Americans were impressed
| by the British leading up to the war of 1812," estimates James
| Ellis, author of "A Ruinous, Unhappy War: New England and the War
| of 1812." "This was a real sore point."
|
| Just to give some context impressment had been going on for a
| long time before that, and by the battle of Trafalgar (1805) over
| half(!!!) of the navy's 120K men were people pressed into
| service.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Euphemistic? Not only is it just a direct description of the
| process, it was, as you would expect, a word to curse by for
| anyone at risk of being subject to it.
|
| Look at these lyrics from a 19th-century ballad (about, in
| fact, the battle of Trafalgar):
|
| _There was thirteen on the press-gang, they did my love
| surround_
|
| _and four of that accursed gang went bleeding to the ground_
|
| _My love was overpowered, though he fought most manfully_
|
| _They dragged him through the dark, wet streets toward the_
| Victory
|
| http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/search/roud/2278
| billfruit wrote:
| Americans used to do the same for Merchant Marine, it was
| euphemistically called 'Shanghai-ing'.
| gerikson wrote:
| Sailors pressed off US ships were not US citizens, but British
| citizens "who had known the sea" (fishermen, merchant seamen,
| whalers etc.) who understandably preferred working for better
| pay for US skippers than risking life and limb in the Royal
| Navy.
| adolph wrote:
| That is an interesting claim. Was there a US citizenship at
| the time, or were people from one state or another?
| wwtrv wrote:
| The British didn't recognize naturalized US citizens at the
| time, if you were born in Britain and later emigrated to
| the US they still considered you a British subject. The US
| government obviously had a different view but there wasn't
| much it could do short of declaring war.
| Zenst wrote:
| Related was how the Navy used to recruit, was case of if they
| could pass you a coin (shilling iirc) you had taken the kings
| money and was duly obliged to serve.
|
| What would happen is they would drop coins into unsuspecting
| drinks in the local taverns and the drinker would suddenly find
| himself drinking and then touching the coin onto his lips on
| the last drink (something like that). So to avoid this the
| trend was to have drinking tankards with a glass bottom, so the
| drinker could check he was not being press-ganged into the
| navy.
|
| ok did quick google and wiki does more service to this than my
| memory:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King%27s_shilling
| slobotron wrote:
| From Wikipedia you linked:
|
| > There are recurring tales of sailors being pressed after a
| shilling was slipped into their drink, leading to glass-
| bottomed tankards. However, this is likely to be a myth, for
| the Navy could press by force, rendering deception
| unnecessary.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Remember too that the navy only really pressed seamen. They
| were not kidnapping landmen onto ships. They were after skilled
| people. A person who had completed a voyage or two was a
| valuable asset, as opposed to a farmer who would be far more of
| a liability onboard a navy ship.
|
| And for all the horrors described about life in the royal navy,
| it was often far better than life in the country. You got food.
| You were a member of a crew with rights and privileges. A
| laborer in farm country, or in a mine, was much worse off.
| elmomle wrote:
| Beware any statement that suggests something like "this form
| of forced labor wasn't so bad". If it was decent work then
| people would do it without being kidnapped. Involuntary
| enslavement, whether permanent or temporary, is a terrible
| thing.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| And beware of saying that military service is horrible
| simply because men are drafted into it during time of war.
| Some of us have chosen that life.
| lucasmullens wrote:
| Having a draft _is_ terrible, and I 'm grateful I never
| lived through one. It's just the lesser of two evils in
| some cases.
| brianxp wrote:
| They used to force people into draft here in Colombia.
|
| From my personal point of view the Colombian army is
| terrible, if one of their own combatants get shot in
| combat, they kill him and dress him in a uniform that
| resembles the one wore by guerrilla.
|
| A week ago they bombed 8 kids and dressed them as
| guerrilla fighters [1] and it is suspected about two
| million people were killed in the last 20 years by the
| Colombian army.
|
| My family belongs to a long line military and police men,
| so I get to know beforehand the new ways in which they
| are benchmarked. During the 2004 till 2012 administration
| the military and police men were required to have certain
| amount of blood liters per month [2].
|
| 1: https://colombiareports.com/duque-presented-bombed-
| minors-an...
|
| 2:
| https://washingtonmemo.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/colombia-
| the...
| Apocryphon wrote:
| The online alternate history epic _Decades of Darkness_ presumes
| what if they did:
|
| https://www.alternatehistory.com/decadesofdarkness/
|
| https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/DecadesOfD...
| dghf wrote:
| Anti-war sentiment in Boston forms part of the background to
| Patrick O'Brian's _The Fortune of War_ (one of the series of
| novels featuring Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr Stephen Maturin).
| sillyquiet wrote:
| After reading some of the sources he used to form that
| impression, it's _amazing_ how closely the politics of that day
| resemble more modern invective and rhetoric, especially around
| the Iraq war. Substitute 'Bush' for 'Madison' and you would be
| hard pressed to tell the difference.
| vmilner wrote:
| I remember feeling embarrassed when visiting the US in my 30s as
| a Brit and realising I'd never heard of the 1812 war, even though
| I thought I was fairly well-read in US history.
| ghaff wrote:
| The War of 1812 was a pretty minor conflict by British
| standards of the time. And it ended up as something of a
| stalemate.
|
| It's not really talked about much in the US either because it
| was ultimately much less significant than either the
| Revolutionary War or the Civil War--and, to the degree there
| was a winner at all, it wasn't the US.
| truculent wrote:
| A minor conflict, perhaps. But the resulting treaty has
| lasted an exceptionally long time and has had a huge
| influence on the modern geopolitical order.
| ghaff wrote:
| With respect to Canada, yes. (And the fact that the US and
| Britain were able to basically say, let bygones be bygones,
| became hugely important over time.) Although the US
| promptly ignored the parts of the treaty dealing with
| indigenous peoples, not that Britain really cared.
| truculent wrote:
| Yes, exactly. At least, that certainly fits with my
| understanding
| fnord123 wrote:
| > Although the US promptly ignored the parts of the
| treaty dealing with indigenous peoples, not that Britain
| really cared.
|
| And the part where the US agreed to help end slavery. And
| then ignored it.
| bawolff wrote:
| It does get talked about in canada a fair bit (not
| excessively or anything, but definitely mentioned in history
| class)
| InitialLastName wrote:
| The only reason it gets any common play at all in the US is
| that a popular poem got written about it.
| dhosek wrote:
| It did give us the Star Spangled Banner.
| ficklepickle wrote:
| It's OK, Americans don't realize they lost that one to Canada.
| We torched the white house!
|
| 1-0 for the good guys! Ca-na-da! Ca-na-da!
|
| I'll show myself out.
| klyrs wrote:
| The nations that lost the war of 1812 were neither US nor
| Canada. Go ahead, celebrate your victory over the first
| nations.
| bawolff wrote:
| There's a band called the arrogant worms that has a song
| that's basically this.
| offtop5 wrote:
| Don't feel bad, Americans are notorious for forgetting our
| history as fast as possible.
|
| Aside from jingoistic comic book like tales, we as a people
| rarely talk about the past.
| dfee wrote:
| And yet here you are, attempting to make a point on an
| article which is neither jingoistic nor forgetful.
|
| I'm not sure where you hang out, but for me, with a six year
| old child, I'm enjoying going through it all again.
|
| In fact, having grown up in Tulsa, and seeing the race riots
| come to light last year, or living in the Bay Area and hiking
| out at Sir Francis Drake's landing spot a week ago, or our
| family's attempt to visit Maine for their 200 year
| anniversary last year...
|
| Yeah, I don't think "we" are notorious for this. And having
| studied in London, getting the chance to explore 10 other
| European countries, one of which I later worked out of, I
| don't think they're much different.
|
| If you'd like to spend more time exposing yourself to our
| rich history, I'd actually suggest downloading the PBS app,
| visiting museums, or exploring the country side - where there
| are the Missions along El Camino Real in CA. Ghost towns in
| the middle of the country from old industries, and people who
| call themselves "coon-asses" (Cajuns in Louisiana) who from
| my experience have deep loyalty to their past.
| offtop5 wrote:
| https://thehill.com/opinion/education/411700-when-it-
| comes-t...
|
| You happen to be exceptionally educated. I know the history
| I was taught in high school was effectively anti communist
| propaganda.
| [deleted]
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| The only significant thing i know about it was that the White
| House got burned down.
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| As a Canadian it's one of the pieces of history that is
| embedded in my mind. I grew up in a town that was burned down
| by American troops in the war, and pretty mercilessly at that.
|
| There's even a Wikipedia article about it... which is rare
| because not much has happened down there except for one of my
| heroes Rick Danko.
|
| (at the time of the raid, my family's respective sides were
| still to be in Ayrshire and Ulster for another hundred-and-
| fifty years or so--no historical connection to the event, or
| even the war excepting they probably had as much disdain for
| the British as Americans might have. Go figure.)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_on_Port_Dover
| ocschwar wrote:
| The war was such an embarrassment most Americans don't know
| much about it either. For a real laugh read about the Siege of
| Detroit.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| The Battle of New Orleans was the big highlight.
|
| (doesn't matter if it happened after the war "ended". minor
| technicality.)
| dhosek wrote:
| It got a song. Its author was a history teacher who,
| despite gaining some fame for writing it, chose to stick
| with the classroom.
| arethuza wrote:
| To be fair the UK was involved in rather a lot of wars in the
| 19th century:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...
| Zenst wrote:
| Yeah, much that you miss out in history - I wasn't aware of
| this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_expedition_to_Tibet
|
| "The British expedition to Tibet, also known as the British
| invasion of Tibet"
| klelatti wrote:
| Unaware of the history, a few years ago I visited the fort
| in the Tibetan town of Gyantse only to discover
| unexpectedly that part was prominently labelled "Anti
| British Museum" and featured a number of depictions of this
| invasion.
|
| Quoting Palin [1]
|
| - In 1903, however, on a trumped-up pretext, an army, under
| Colonel Francis Younghusband, crossed over from India,
| fought a bloody battle not far from Gyantse in which some
| 3000 Tibetans died, before storming the fort from which
| we're looking out and going on, unopposed, as far as Lhasa.
| The British left four years later, leaving behind in
| Gyantse a post office and a public school. All that remains
| now is the Anti-British Museum, housed in the dzong.
|
| In the circumstances seems reasonable that British visitors
| (like me) should be made to feel more than a bit
| uncomfortable about this episode.
|
| [1] https://www.palinstravels.co.uk/book-3805
| [deleted]
| arethuza wrote:
| The list of countries that the UK _hasn 't_ invaded at some
| point is surprisingly short:
|
| https://www.humanosphere.org/basics/2013/08/map-of-the-
| day-w...
| Zenst wrote:
| Yeah, though the UK has been playing Pokermon Go a lot
| longer than other countries, still - one persons invasion
| map is another persons exploration map.
|
| But certainly the whole grey area of exploration and
| invasion have been ironed out in today's times and not a
| grey area any more.
|
| What I find interesting is how many wars did the UK have
| with France in some form or another - crazy times and
| historically the UK been at war with Russia in some form
| on it's side more times than with the French on the same
| side. That's kinda crazy, but perspectives of the time
| and perspectives today are different and much nuance to
| history that sadly does get lost or overlooked.
| ghaff wrote:
| Walk around central London, which I expect has more
| statues per capita than just about anyplace on Earth, and
| there are a remarkable number erected to commemorate some
| English general or admiral defeating the French in some
| battle or other.
| Zenst wrote:
| Yes we sure do like our Statues, also a penchant for
| people on horses as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L
| ist_of_equestrian_statues_in_...
| arethuza wrote:
| "wars did the UK have with France in some form or
| another"
|
| I suspect most of those were English wars with France,
| some parts of what is now the UK tended to side with
| France in these conflicts:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Alliance
|
| This tradition lives on in the "Anyone but England" rule
| at sporting events... ;-)
| Zenst wrote:
| > This tradition lives on in the "Anyone but England"
| rule at sporting events... ;-)
|
| Yes, even in my youth as a child in the 70's/80's in
| football, nobody wanted to be England, so I get that. The
| panini football stickers and what was popular player/team
| wise showed this out nicely.
| simonh wrote:
| Which brings us to Al Murrays discourse on the topic which is
| actually impressively well researched, if he does stretch
| things a bit for comic effect.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x2ovlPr2IE
| nickik wrote:
| It is a war that nobody except some Mid-Westerns wanted.
| Britain had already sent a group of diplomats to make offers to
| resolve the tension. The US declared the war before they got
| there.
|
| The Brits fought the war with the units they didn't need for
| the much more important war with Napoleon.
|
| That American don't remember their capital being taken and
| their most important government building burnt down by another
| nation is kind of funny however. And that's why nobody remember
| it, no movies about it.
|
| Then the US spent the next 50 years fortifying their East coast
| to prevent it happening again those forts are where the Civil
| war eventually started.
| geuis wrote:
| > That American don't remember their capital being taken and
| their most important government building burnt down by
| another nation is kind of funny however. And that's why
| nobody remember it, no movies about it.
|
| Going to beg to differ. We learned about this in elementary
| and then in more detail in middle and high school. Don't know
| why so many commenters seem to think the 1812 war isn't
| taught in US schools.
|
| Conversely what I find odd is that the American revolution
| doesn't seem to be taught in British schools at any length.
| I've talked to multiple British friends who have almost know
| knowledge of it and say it's not taught. I get that the UK
| has a long history, but losing your biggest set of colonies
| in a revolution that go on to become the most powerful
| country in the world seems like a big deal. Something worth
| spending at least a little time on in public education.
| bawolff wrote:
| > but losing your biggest set of colonies in a revolution
|
| I mean, its not the biggest, and they weren't anywhere near
| the most powerful country at the time (which is what
| matters geopolitically)
|
| America is pretty obsesssed with the american revolution.
| Other countries aren't going to be. Why would they?
| ghc wrote:
| Pretty much every child in the US learns about the war of
| 1812 and the burning of the white house. Many 8th grade
| history textbooks even perpetuate the myth that it's painted
| white to cover the damage from the burning. But it's no
| surprise that 14 year olds might not remember what they are
| taught in Early American History into adulthood.
| disgrunt wrote:
| It's not even the same building. The exterior walls
| survived the fire, but the first White House was torn down
| and rebuilt. Apparently the British took everything they
| could, all that survived was a painting of Washington and a
| jewelry box. [0]
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House#Early_use,_t
| he_181...
| nickik wrote:
| Its pretty well known that people don't remember the waste
| majority from school if you don't actively test them.
| ghaff wrote:
| I think you're overstating the degree to which the War of
| 1812 is remembered by most people. I'm relatively familiar
| with American history and I could tell you it involved the
| burning of the White House, the writing of the national
| anthem, a border dispute with Canada, and something about
| impressing American sailors. But that's about it.
| ghc wrote:
| I certainly wasn't claiming most people remember the war
| of 1812 -- I was just stating that it's not as if the
| events are glossed over or not taught in school. It is
| well covered in early American history curriculum; it
| just gets taught during the peak of puberty, which is
| pretty unfortunate.
|
| In my experience, most people remember a few fragments
| like you do, and particularly famous events from the war
| (old ironsides, burning of the white house, carrying out
| the portrait of Washington to save it) might not even be
| associated with that war in people's minds. Most people
| seem to erroneously associate many of those events with
| the revolutionary war, similar to how they often
| associate the Constitution with the revolutionary war
| even though it came later.
| cafard wrote:
| I imagine that Haitians and Nicaraguans remember the US
| interventions there a lot better than we do in the US. Nations
| have only so much attention to allocate.
| jariel wrote:
| It was 1812-1814, a series of skirmishes, and from the UK
| perspective it was all just a side-show to Napoleon. The 'end'
| of the 'War of 1812' was not in the US it was at Waterloo.
| davidw wrote:
| I highly recommend the book "Six Frigates" by Ian Toll that talks
| about this time period. It's a highly readable and interesting
| story of the US' at the time tiny navy, that actually did very
| well for itself in the war of 1812 against the dominant naval
| power of the day. His other books are well-written and
| informative as well.
| gbourne wrote:
| Great recommendation - just picked up the audio version.
| throwanem wrote:
| I appreciate the recommendation!
|
| I'd add another recommendation, too, for anyone interested in
| that period of naval history - specifically, when it becomes
| reasonable to do so again, I'd recommend visiting both
| _Constitution_ in Boston, and _Constellation_ here in
| Baltimore. _Constitution_ is the last surviving of the "six
| original frigates" referenced in Toll's title, and the oldest
| ship in the world still in commission; one of _Constitution_ 's
| sisters was the original _Constellation_ , and her second-
| generation namesake here in Baltimore represents the final
| evolution of the design to which _Constitution_ and her sisters
| were built.
|
| Naval warfare in the Age of Sail is a minor interest of mine,
| enough so that I've read a good deal about it and even written
| a little. But nothing else I've found has given me the same
| sense of what those ships really were than walking their decks
| and being in their spaces has done.
|
| Granted, even that isn't "real", in that visiting a museum
| can't possibly give a true sense of what it's like to serve or
| even go to sea aboard one of these ships in her time of
| greatness. But, short of signing aboard as a mate with one of
| the museums whose ships do still sail, I think visiting these
| ships is about as close as anyone can expect to come - and,
| either way, it's very much worth doing in its own right, for
| anyone who shares the interest.
| chasil wrote:
| Interesting that what has not been mentioned in this thread
| today is the Hartford Convention.
|
| The constitutional amendments proposed there involved (from
| the wiki):
|
| - Prohibiting any trade embargo lasting over 60 days;
|
| - Requiring a two-thirds Congressional majority for
| declaration of offensive war, admission of a new state, or
| interdiction of foreign commerce;
|
| - Removing the three-fifths representation advantage of the
| South;
|
| - Limiting future presidents to one term;
|
| - Requiring each president to be from a different state than
| his predecessor. (This provision was aimed directly at the
| dominance of Virginia in the presidency since 1800).
|
| It would be an interesting country had this come to pass.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartford_Convention
| throwanem wrote:
| Just one country? That seems a bold assumption.
| davidw wrote:
| I can confirm. Got to see the Constitution _after_ reading
| that book and it made it all the more fascinating.
| 5555624 wrote:
| >But, short of signing aboard as a mate with one of the
| museums whose ships do still sail, I think visiting these
| ships is about as close as anyone can expect to come - and,
| either way, it's very much worth doing in its own right, for
| anyone who shares the interest.
|
| Even then, on a museum ship, you're probably not going to be
| woken up, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the
| Atlantic, to furl sails due to a storm. (Summer 1981, on the
| USCGC Eagle.)
| throwanem wrote:
| Fair, I suppose I should've included Coast Guard OCS as an
| option for getting a sense of what Age of Sail sailing
| might have been like! I feel like that's a relatively
| extreme way of going about getting such experience, but if
| nothing else it'd show a creditable degree of dedication to
| the study.
| jaegerpicker wrote:
| I'd also recommend Old Fort Niagra and the US Niagra on Lake
| Erie/Ontario. Also read about Oliver Hazard Perry and the
| Battle of Lake Erie. I believe it's still the largest
| recorded fresh water naval battle in history and quite a
| great story. Also if you are visiting the Constitution in
| Boston I'd highly recommend the Boston Tea Party Museum and
| Ships. It's a slightly earlier period obviously but it was a
| fantastic experience IMO and walking the working ships there
| was great.
|
| Like you the Age of sail and especially the Napoleonic Wars
| and the War of 1812 are interests of mine. My interest
| started after reading the Aubrey/Maturin series which I can't
| possibly recommend highly enough. I agree with you walking
| the decks or walls of the forts is irreplaceable if you are
| in to the history.
| Shivetya wrote:
| not to take away from the book or the people who served in the
| Navy at the time but one of the largest strategic benefits the
| United States has/had are oceans on both sides separating it
| from hostile powers.
|
| this advantage of course dropped away in the age of missiles
| and jets but it still has many benefits to this day.
| Dirlewanger wrote:
| That, and the Monroe Doctrine, which was basically a massive
| bluff saying "don't fuck with us over here", really helped
| the early US. I'd argue that for much of the antebellum
| period, if a European foe was dedicated enough, they could
| have seriously fucked with the early US enough to alter the
| course of history.
| HDMI_Cable wrote:
| I'm not sure the pacific mattered all that much during the
| war of 1812. Even with jets and missiles, the two oceans
| still prevent anyone from landing troops on American shores.
| throwanem wrote:
| Not that you're exactly wrong, but I would argue that
| advantage meant _more_ , not less, as time went on. In both
| World Wars it granted the US mainland the insuperable
| strategic advantage of being effectively impossible to attack
| in any meaningful way - not so much, though, in the days when
| the Royal Navy still bestrode the world.
| davidw wrote:
| Trade was pretty important to the US, and the British
| instituted a naval blockade:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812#Blockade
| gerikson wrote:
| For an entertaining fictional account (from the British side) I
| can recommend Patrick O'Brian's _The Fortune of War_ (and the
| subsequent _The Surgeon 's Mate_, although only the first part
| deals with the war of 1812).
| jaegerpicker wrote:
| I'd recommend the whole series as it's really excellent!
| gerikson wrote:
| Of course, I've re-read it at least 5 times ;)
|
| 20+ books does seem like a big commitment but once you're
| hooked you just want more...
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(page generated 2021-03-10 23:01 UTC)