Treaty of Ghent

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An agreement negotiated in Ghent, Belgium, and signed on December 24, 1814, by Great Britain and the United States to end the War of 1812. Peace was established on the status quo ante bellum. It included the concession to the United States of all British territory in the American Northwest, which enabled American expansion.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Ghent, treaty of, 1815. Peace talks to end the War of 1812 between Britain and the USA began at Ghent (modern Belgium) in August 1814. A treaty was signed on 24 December. It resolved none of the proclaimed causes of the war. Because of slow communications, a major battle was fought after the conclusion of the treaty, at New Orleans in January 1815.

The Treaty of Ghent, ratified by the United States on 17 February 1815, marked the official end of the War of 1812 between the United States and Britain. The war was precipitated by a number of issues that were raised during the American Revolution but left unresolved at that conflict's end. Many of them, such as the precise boundary between British Canada and the United States, the failure of the British to remove all its troops from U. S. soil, and the status of Britain's former

Native American allies, lingered and contributed to renewed hostilities between the Americans and the British in 1812. However, on 26 June 1812, shortly after the hostilities commenced, the American government made preliminary overtures for peace. On 21 September, the Russian chancellor offered to serve as a mediator between the two warring parties. The United States presented a peace proposal through the Russians, but the British government in March 1813 quickly rejected it. However, within a few months of that failure, the British, at that point deeply committed to fighting Napoleon's army on the European continent, offered through their foreign secretary, Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, to enter into direct negotiations with the United States. This offer was accepted on 15 January 1814, and negotiations began in earnest between the two parties in Ghent, Belgium.

Issues regarding the impressment of American seamen, the status of the British-allied Indian groups, and the U. S. northern boundary with British Canada proved difficult to resolve. In the midst of these negotiations, on 27 September 1814, news reached London that the British had captured and burned Washington, D. C. Buoyed by this news, the British proposed that each party should retain its existing holdings. However, that British demand was totally abandoned when news of an American victory on Lake Champlain near British Canada reached London on 24 October. A temporary deadlock ensued.

But larger forces were at work for peace. The continental situation grew increasingly complex and dangerous as the British waged their battle against Napoleon's army. Additionally, fighting a war in two separate hemispheres strained British finances, while the Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, warned that unless the British could secure the Great Lakes, a decisive victory over the Americans was implausible. Under the weight of these considerations, the British agreed to restore the status quo that had existed between the parties prior to these recent hostilities.

Additional concessions from the United States and Great Britain were also forthcoming. The United States abandoned not only its demands regarding impressment but also demands for indemnification for commercial losses incurred as a result of the war between France and Britain. For its part, Britain agreed to respect American rights in the Newfoundland fisheries and to abandon its demand for a permanent boundary between the United States and the Indian nations. However, the Americans did agree to an immediate cessation of hostilities against these nations after war's end and the restoration of all the possessions and privileges they had enjoyed prior to the war. Both parties also agreed to employ their best efforts to abolish the slave trade. The remaining major issue, the U. S. –British Canadian boundary, remained unresolved, and the parties agreed to turn the issue over to a boundary commission that resolved the dispute in 1822.

Bibliography

Adams, Henry. History of the United States. 4 vols. New York: Boni, 1930.

Johnson, Paul. A History of the American People. New York: Harper Collins, 1998.

—Faren R. Siminoff

Signing of the Treaty of Ghent.

Plaquette at the building in the Veldstraat, Ghent where the treaty was negotiated

The Treaty of Ghent (8 Stat. 218), signed on December 24, 1814, in Ghent, Netherlands (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 begun.

Contents 1 The agreement 2 The aftermath 3 See also 4 References 5 Sources 6 External links

The agreement

The treaty released all prisoners and restored all war lands and boats, that is, returned to America approximately 10,000,000 acres (40,000 km²) of territory near Lakes Superior and Michigan, in Maine, and on the Pacific coast.^[1] The treaty made no major changes to the pre-war situation, but did make a few promises. Britain promised to return captured black slaves, but instead a few years later paid the United States £350,000 for them.^[2] The British proposal to create an Indian buffer zone in Ohio and Michigan collapsed after the Indian coalition fell apart. The United States ignored the guarantees it made in article IX regarding American treatment of the Indians.^[3]

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.

The United States and Britain have not fought each other since.

See also

• List of treaties
• Timeline of United States diplomatic history
• Results of the War of 1812

References

1. ^ W.G. Dean et al. (1998). Concise Historical Atlas of Canada. 
2. ^ Lindsay, Arnett G. "Diplomatic Relations Between the United States and Great Britain Bearing on the Return of Negro Slaves, 1783-1828." Journal of Negro History. 5:4 (October 1920); Knight, Charles. The Crown History of England. Oxford, England: Oxford University, 1870.
3. ^ http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/ghent.asp

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.

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Treaty of Ghent

• Full text of the Treaty of Ghent online.
• Text of treaty from the Avalon Project
• Treaty of Ghent and related resources at the Library of Congress
• Library of Congress Guide to the War of 1812

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