War of 1812: Reasons and Outcomes for Native Communities

As Oakes et al. note, one of the repercussions of the constant opposition between the white American settlers and the indigenous population was the cooperation of British and Indian forces in the War of 1812. The British officials’ stand in that dispute angered Americans, although the main causes of the war are considered to be limitations on trade, imposed on the U.S. settlers by the British, and the events of 1805, when “Britain began seizing ships traveling between enemy posts, taking more than 200 American ships in that year alone.”

The victory of Americans in the War of 1812 “ushered in a half-century of fundamental economic change and growth.” The newly attained freedom allowed for technological improvement, business growth, development of transportation (road- and bridge-building), and substantial refurbishment of the justice system. The International slave trade was brought to an end, whereas agriculture became a “commercial enterprise”, and the money that farmers obtained from the sale of their product was usually reinvested into the making of new fields and growing crops for international trade. Indian people, on the other hand, were left “homeless and with few choices for survival” and had to become peasant workers for American settlers:

“Indian people were put to work tanning, blacksmithing and caring for the mission herds. They made candles, bricks, tiles shoes, saddles, and soap”.

The complete lack of independence, as shown in the next decades, diminished most of the Indians’ culture, while at the same time granting freedom of territorial expansion for the white American population.