The last time the USA and Canada fought a war against each other
How the War of 1812 formed our two nations
It’s now become clear that Trump’s talk about making Canada the 51st state are no longer a joking matter. He is deadly serious about this insane proposition and Canada is deadly serious about defending its sovereignty. Canada’s new Prime Minister Mark Carney makes this point clear in his first speech to the country.
And he’s 100% correct.
A brief history of US-Canadian warfare
Canada and the US have not always seen eye to eye but not since the War of 1812 have there been hostilities of this nature. That war began when President James Madison, with the encouragement of the “War Hawks” in Congress, declared war against Britain of which Canada was still a colony known as British North America.
At the time Britain was fighting the Napoleonic Wars against France and were dominating the seas with the tall ships of the British Navy. Britain needed to fill the crews of their chronically undermanned ships so they would kidnap sailors off American merchant ships and around 9000 men were forced into “Press gangs” aboard British naval vessels. Britain also severely impacted the American economy through their Orders-In-Council which limited overseas trade with Europe.
These two major factors led President Madison to target Britain’s colonies in the north since the newly independent United States only possessed 16 warships to fight against Britain’s more than 500. In his mind a conquered Canada could be used as a bargaining chip to force concessions from Britain over these maritime issues. In his mind conquering Canada would be a “mere matter of marching” since the America’s population of 7.7 million vastly outweighed Canada’s 500,000. It was also a widely held belief that American forces would be hailed as liberators in Canada and the war would be over in weeks (now where have we heard that before?).
However waging a war through the wilderness against a determined foe of British soldiers augmented by Indigenous fighters who understood the terrain proved to be no easy task. American forces attempted to invade from several directions and were only able to hold parts of Upper Canada (now Ontario) around Lake Erie for a brief amount of time until 1814 when Napoleon was defeated.
After this event Britain was able to redirect its forces to the land war in North America and Britain was able to occupy Washington DC where they famously burned down the new White House. Other battles were not as successful and they were turned away at Baltimore and New Orleans while American forces managed to win several decisive naval battles with their tiny navy. However Britain was able to use their navy to keep their soldiers in Canada supplied and maintain a blockade of the US coastline which kept US ships in port and a stranglehold on the US economy.
Eventually the war ended in a draw and two sides came to an agreement in 1814 with the Treaty of Ghent and hostilities ended in 1815. America gained the world’s respect as an independent nation that was able to fight a superpower to a stalemate. Britain sought peaceful relations with the United States for the remainder of the 19th Century and the war helped the United States become a stronger nation which continued to expand westwards through a program of conquest and warfare.
And in 1867 the British North America Act was ratified which unified Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and British Columbia into one nation called Canada. Since then the two nations have acted as best friends and allies that had each other’s backs while they became each other’s largest trading partners.
Until today when a demented orange-faced felon was elected to the White House and began to systematically destroy our long time alliances.
A most interesting history lesson Brianna. I don't know what it's going to take for congress to rein this asshole in, but they need to do something. He is mentally unfit to be president.
But, but… it’s an artificial line! It was drawn decades ago! By people who didn’t know what they were doing! It’s beautiful, visually and they drew a line across!