Chapter Four: Naval War of 1812 Illustrated - War on the Lakes

-------------------PART THREE: WAR ON THE LAKES ----------

British North America (what we know as Canada today) was sparsely populated in the opening years of the Nineteenth Century. The population was about one tenth the size found in the United States but, like much of America, was found in small settlements some of which were fortified. Amherstburg was typical; it was located on the Detroit River at the western end of Lake Erie. Across the River, on the American side in the Michigan part of the Northwest Territory, was another fortified outpost, Detroit. Access to rivers and lakes was key for there were few roads and most trade and supplies moved over water. The British had strategic alliances with their local Native American tribes that dated back to the French and Indian War of 1756 -- 1763 whereas the Americans, constantly pressing west into Native American lands, had much more contentious relationships. The tribes were not isolated entities but were often allied or federated with other tribes on either side of the border. Moreover, some outstanding and visionary Native American leaders influenced tribes throughout the western frontier, from the Gulf of Mexico to what is now northern Ontario. One such was Tecumseh. He was closely allied with the British who supplied him and his allies with arms and ammunition. Americans in the frontier "west" - the Northwest Territory - and frontier "south"- the Mississippi Territory -- often felt the consequence of this arrangement and they seized upon the maritime conflict of the coastal states with the British as a way to address their own needs.
American thinking about British North America prior to the opening of war could be found in four schools of thought: 1. Merely threatening to invade Canada, a place very difficult for the British to defend, would bring the British to their senses about their abuses of American maritime rights; 2. If the threat did not work, invading and holding the thinly populated Upper Canada (present day Ontario) would provide a stronger bargaining chip at the negotiating table; 3. The British threat to America's northern border and its troubling relationship with Native American tribes could be eliminated entirely if the British were driven out and Canada, or at least Upper Canada, became part of the United States; and, 4. There was the even more naïve notion that the Canadians would welcome American "liberation from the tyranny of the British Crown" -- naïve especially because many American Loyalists had fled to Upper Canada during and after the Revolutionary War.

[ForeverBleedinGreen]

I live 15 miles northeast of Erie, Pennsylvania, in a town of the same name, North East (formerly Gibsonville during the War of 1812), and was born in Erie just yards from Presque Isle Bay and Dobbin's Landing, so I know how it's pronounced and the narrorator butchers it by pronouncing it "press-ka-isle" several times, which sounds horrible to me. Maybe they said it like that back then, but it sounds ridiculous today. Today we pronounce it "pressk-isle" with only 2 syllables, not 3. "Presska Isle" sounds strange, especially to someone whose lived there all of his 60 plus years in a town where timberand iron were requisitioned to use in the American fleet built by Daniel Dobbins et al., and oversaw by soon-to- be Admiral Oliver Hazard Perry in Presque Isle Bay where the brig Niagara has her home port - something I'm very proud of - and an awesome warship I've both been on if only as a child - and have casted a good line near her keel. Although I've never had the privilege of sailing on her, I'm very familiar with her lines. She is a very proud vessel indeed. (In fact, my oldest son is named Daniel, after me, but his son is named Oliver after the Admiral.)
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