title: Philosophy

text: Prominent 21st century philosophers include: Judith Butler, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Martha Nussbaum, Onora O'Neill, and Nancy Fraser.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Catherine of Aragon (also spelt as Katherine, ; 16 December 1485 – 7 January 1536) was Queen of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 11 June 1509 until their annulment on 23 May 1533. She was previously Princess of Wales as the wife of Henry's elder brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: The daughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, Catherine was three years old when she was betrothed to Prince Arthur, heir apparent to the English throne. They married in 1501, but Arthur died five months later. Catherine spent years in limbo, and during this time, she held the position of ambassador of the Aragonese crown to England in 1507, the first known female ambassador in European history. She married Arthur's younger brother, the recently ascended Henry VIII, in 1509. For six months in 1513, she served as regent of England while Henry VIII was in France. During that time the English crushed and defeated a Scottish invasion at the Battle of Flodden, an event in which Catherine played an important part with an emotional speech about English courage and patriotism.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: By 1525, Henry VIII was infatuated with Anne Boleyn and dissatisfied that his marriage to Catherine had produced no surviving sons, leaving their daughter Mary as heir presumptive at a time when there was no established precedent for a woman on the throne. He sought to have their marriage annulled, setting in motion a chain of events that led to England's schism with the Catholic Church. When Pope Clement VII refused to annul the marriage, Henry defied him by assuming supremacy over religious matters. In 1533 their marriage was consequently declared invalid and Henry married Anne on the judgement of clergy in England, without reference to the pope. Catherine refused to accept Henry as supreme head of the Church in England and considered herself the king's rightful wife and queen, attracting much popular sympathy. Despite this, Henry acknowledged her only as dowager princess of Wales. After being banished from court by Henry, Catherine lived out the remainder of her life at Kimbolton Castle, dying there in January 1536 of cancer. The English people held Catherine in high esteem, and her death set off tremendous mourning. Her daughter Mary would become the first undisputed English queen regnant in 1553.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Catherine commissioned "The Education of a Christian Woman" by Juan Luis Vives, who dedicated the book, controversial at the time, to the Queen in 1523. Such was Catherine's impression on people that even her adversary Thomas Cromwell said of her, "If not for her sex, she could have defied all the heroes of History." She successfully appealed for the lives of the rebels involved in the Evil May Day, for the sake of their families, and also won widespread admiration by starting an extensive programme for the relief of the poor. Catherine was a patron of Renaissance humanism, and a friend of the great scholars Erasmus of Rotterdam and Thomas More.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Catherine was born at the Archbishop's Palace of Alcalá de Henares near Madrid, in the early hours of 16 December 1485. She was the youngest surviving child of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. Catherine was quite short in stature with long red hair, wide blue eyes, a round face, and a fair complexion. She was descended, on her maternal side, from the House of Lancaster, an English royal house; her great-grandmother Catherine of Lancaster, after whom she was named, and her great-great-grandmother Philippa of Lancaster were both daughters of John of Gaunt and granddaughters of Edward III of England. Consequently, she was third cousin of her father-in-law, Henry VII of England, and fourth cousin of her mother-in-law Elizabeth of York.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Catherine was educated by a tutor, Alessandro Geraldini, who was a clerk in Holy Orders. She studied arithmetic, canon and civil law, classical literature, genealogy and heraldry, history, philosophy, religion, and theology. She had a strong religious upbringing and developed her Roman Catholic faith that would play a major role in later life. She learned to speak, read and write in Castilian Spanish and Latin, and spoke French and Greek. Erasmus later said that Catherine "loved good literature which she had studied with success since childhood". She had been given lessons in domestic skills, such as cooking, embroidery, lace-making, needlepoint, sewing, spinning, and weaving and was also taught music, dancing, drawing, as well as being carefully educated in good manners and court etiquette.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: At an early age, Catherine was considered a suitable wife for Arthur, Prince of Wales, heir apparent to the English throne, due to the English ancestry she inherited from her mother. Theoretically, by means of her mother, Catherine had a stronger legitimate claim to the English throne than King Henry VII himself through the first two wives of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster: Blanche of Lancaster and Constance of Castile. In contrast, Henry VII was the descendant of Gaunt's third marriage to Katherine Swynford, whose children were born out of wedlock and only legitimised after the death of Constance and the marriage of John to Katherine. The children of John and Katherine, while legitimised, were barred from inheriting the English throne, a stricture that was ignored in later generations. Because of Henry's descent through illegitimate children barred from succession to the English throne, the Tudor monarchy was not accepted by all European kingdoms. At the time, the House of Trastámara was the most prestigious in Europe, due to the rule of the Catholic Monarchs, so the alliance of Catherine and Arthur validated the House of Tudor in the eyes of European royalty and strengthened the Tudor claim to the English throne via Catherine of Aragon's ancestry. It would have given a male heir an indisputable claim to the throne. The two were married by proxy on 19 May 1499 and corresponded in Latin until Arthur turned fifteen, when it was decided that they were old enough to begin their conjugal life.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Catherine was accompanied to England by the ambassadors Diego Fernández de Córdoba y Mendoza, 3rd Count of Cabra, Alonso de Fonseca, archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, and Antonio de Rojas Manrique, bishop of Mallorca.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: She brought a group of her African attendants with her, including one identified as the trumpeter John Blanke. They are the first Africans recorded to have arrived in London at the time, and were considered luxury servants. They caused a great impression about the princess and the power of her family. Her Spanish retinue was supervised by her duenna, Elvira Manuel.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: At first it was thought Catherine's ship would arrive at Gravesend. A number of English gentlewomen were appointed to be ready to welcome her on arrival in October 1501. They were to escort Catherine in a flotilla of barges on the Thames to the Tower of London.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Then-15-year-old Catherine departed from A Coruña on 17 August 1501 and met Arthur on 4 November at Dogmersfield in Hampshire. Little is known about their first impressions of each other, but Arthur did write to his parents-in-law that he would be "a true and loving husband" and told his parents that he was immensely happy to "behold the face of his lovely bride". The couple had corresponded in Latin, but found that they could not understand each other's spoken conversation, because they had learned different Latin pronunciations. Ten days later, on 14 November 1501, they were married at Old St. Paul's Cathedral. A dowry of 200,000 ducats had been agreed, and half was paid shortly after the marriage.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Once married, Arthur was sent to Ludlow Castle on the borders of Wales to preside over the Council of Wales and the Marches, as was his duty as Prince of Wales, and his bride accompanied him. A few months later, they both became ill, possibly with the sweating sickness, which was sweeping the area. Arthur died on 2 April 1502; 16-year-old Catherine recovered to find herself a widow.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: At this point, Henry VII faced the challenge of avoiding the obligation to return her 200,000-ducat dowry, half of which he had not yet received, to her father, as required by her marriage contract should she return home. Following the death of Queen Elizabeth in February 1503, King Henry VII initially considered marrying Catherine himself, but the opposition of her father and potential questions over the legitimacy of the couple's issue ended the idea. To settle the matter, it was agreed that Catherine would marry Henry VII's second son, Henry, Duke of York, who was five years younger than she was. The death of Catherine's mother, however, meant that her "value" in the marriage market decreased. Castile was a much larger kingdom than Aragon, and it was inherited by Catherine's elder sister, Joanna. Ostensibly, the marriage was delayed until Henry was old enough, but Ferdinand II procrastinated so much over payment of the remainder of Catherine's dowry that it became doubtful that the marriage would take place. She lived as a virtual prisoner at Durham House in London. Some of the letters she wrote to her father complaining of her treatment have survived. In one of these letters she tells him that "I choose what I believe, and say nothing. For I am not as simple as I may seem." She had little money and struggled to cope, as she had to support her ladies-in-waiting as well as herself. In 1507 she served as the Spanish ambassador to England, the first female ambassador in European history. While Henry VII and his counsellors expected her to be easily manipulated, Catherine went on to prove them wrong.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Marriage to Arthur's brother depended on the Pope granting a dispensation because canon law forbade a man to marry his brother's widow (Lev. 18:16). Catherine testified that her marriage to Arthur was never consummated as, also according to canon law, a marriage was dissoluble unless consummated.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Catherine's second wedding took place on 11 June 1509, seven years after Prince Arthur's death. She married Henry VIII, who had only just acceded to the throne, in a private ceremony in the church of the Observant Friars outside Greenwich Palace. She was 23 years of age.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: On Saturday 23 June 1509, the traditional eve-of-coronation procession to Westminster was greeted by a large and enthusiastic crowd. As was the custom, the couple spent the night before their coronation at the Tower of London. On Midsummer's Day, Sunday, 1509, Henry VIII and Catherine were anointed and crowned together by the Archbishop of Canterbury at a lavish ceremony at Westminster Abbey. The coronation was followed by a banquet in Westminster Hall. Many new Knights of the Bath were created in honour of the coronation.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: In that month that followed, many social occasions presented the new Queen to the English public. She made a fine impression and was well received by the people of England.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: On 11 June 1513, Henry appointed Catherine Regent in England with the titles "Governor of the Realm and Captain General," while he went to France on a military campaign.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: When Louis d'Orléans, Duke of Longueville, was captured at Thérouanne, Henry sent him to stay in Catherine's household. She wrote to Wolsey that she and her council would prefer the Duke to stay in the Tower of London as the Scots were "so busy as they now be" and she added her prayers for "God to sende us as good lukke against the Scotts, as the King hath ther." The war with Scotland occupied her subjects, and she was "horrible busy with making standards, banners, and badges" at Richmond Palace. The Scots invaded and on 3 September 1513, she ordered Thomas Lovell to raise an army in the midland counties.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Catherine rode north in full armour to address the troops, despite being heavily pregnant at the time. Her fine speech was reported to the historian Peter Martyr d'Anghiera in Valladolid within a fortnight. Although an Italian newsletter said she was north of London when news of the victory at Battle of Flodden Field reached her, she was near Buckingham. From Woburn Abbey she sent a letter to Henry along with a piece of the bloodied coat of King James IV of Scotland, who died in the battle, for Henry to use as a banner at the siege of Tournai.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Catherine's religious dedication increased as she became older, as did her interest in academics. She continued to broaden her knowledge and provide training for her daughter, Mary. Education among women became fashionable, partly because of Catherine's influence, and she donated large sums of money to several colleges. Henry, however, still considered a male heir essential. The Tudor dynasty was new, and its legitimacy might still be tested. A long civil war (1135–1154) had been fought the last time a woman (Empress Matilda) had inherited the throne. The disasters of civil war were still fresh in living memory from the Wars of the Roses.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: In 1520, Catherine's nephew, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, paid a state visit to England, and she urged Henry to enter an alliance with Charles rather than with France. Immediately after his departure, she accompanied Henry to France on the celebrated visit to Francis I, the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Within two years, war was declared against France and the Emperor was once again welcome in England, where plans were afoot to betroth him to Catherine's daughter Mary.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: In 1525, Henry VIII became enamoured of Anne Boleyn, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine; Anne was between ten and seventeen years younger than Henry, being born between 1501 and 1507. Henry began pursuing her; Catherine was no longer able to bear children by this time. Henry began to believe that his marriage was cursed and sought confirmation from the Bible, which he interpreted to say that if a man marries his brother's wife, the couple will be childless. Even if her marriage to Arthur had not been consummated (and Catherine would insist to her dying day that she had come to Henry's bed a virgin), Henry's interpretation of that biblical passage meant that their marriage had been wrong in the eyes of God. Whether the pope at the time of Henry and Catherine's marriage had the right to overrule Henry's claimed scriptural impediment would become a hot topic in Henry's campaign to wrest an annulment from the present Pope. It is possible that the idea of annulment had been suggested to Henry much earlier than this, and is highly probable that it was motivated by his desire for a son. Before Henry's father ascended the throne, England was beset by civil warfare over rival claims to the English crown, and Henry may have wanted to avoid a similar uncertainty over the succession.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: It soon became the one absorbing object of Henry's desires to secure an annulment. Catherine was defiant when it was suggested that she quietly retire to a nunnery, saying: "God never called me to a nunnery. I am the King's true and legitimate wife." He set his hopes upon an appeal to the Holy See, acting independently of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, whom he told nothing of his plans. William Knight, the King's secretary, was sent to Pope Clement VII to sue for an annulment, on the grounds that the dispensing bull of Pope Julius II was obtained by false pretenses.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: As the pope was, at that time, the prisoner of Catherine's nephew Emperor Charles V following the Sack of Rome in May 1527, Knight had difficulty in obtaining access to him. In the end, Henry's envoy had to return without accomplishing much. Henry now had no choice but to put this great matter into the hands of Wolsey, who did all he could to secure a decision in Henry's favour.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Wolsey went so far as to convene an ecclesiastical court in England with a representative of the pope presiding, and Henry and Catherine herself in attendance. The pope had no intention of allowing a decision to be reached in England, and his legate was recalled. (How far the pope was influenced by Charles V is difficult to say, but it is clear Henry saw that the pope was unlikely to annul his marriage to the emperor's aunt.) The Pope forbade Henry to marry again before a decision was given in Rome. Wolsey had failed and was dismissed from public office in 1529. Wolsey then began a secret plot to have Anne Boleyn forced into exile and began communicating with the pope to that end. When this was discovered, Henry ordered Wolsey's arrest and, had he not been terminally ill and died in 1530, he might have been executed for treason.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: A year later, Catherine was banished from court, and her old rooms were given to Anne Boleyn. Catherine wrote in a letter to Charles V in 1531:


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: My tribulations are so great, my life so disturbed by the plans daily invented to further the King's wicked intention, the surprises which the King gives me, with certain persons of his council, are so mortal, and my treatment is what God knows, that it is enough to shorten ten lives, much more mine.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: When Archbishop of Canterbury William Warham died, the Boleyn family's chaplain, Thomas Cranmer, was appointed to the vacant position.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: When Henry decided to annul his marriage to Catherine, John Fisher became her most trusted counsellor and one of her chief supporters. He appeared in the legates' court on her behalf, where he shocked people with the directness of his language, and by declaring that, like John the Baptist, he was ready to die on behalf of the indissolubility of marriage. Henry was so enraged by this that he wrote a long Latin address to the legates in answer to Fisher's speech. Fisher's copy of this still exists, with his manuscript annotations in the margin which show how little he feared Henry's anger. The removal of the cause to Rome ended Fisher's role in the matter, but Henry never forgave him. Other people who supported Catherine's case included Thomas More; Henry's own sister Mary Tudor, Queen of France; María de Salinas; Holy Roman Emperor Charles V; Pope Paul III; and Protestant Reformers Martin Luther and William Tyndale.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Upon returning to Dover from a meeting with King Francis I of France in Calais, Henry married Anne Boleyn in a secret ceremony. Some sources speculate that Anne was already pregnant at the time (and Henry did not want to risk a son being born illegitimate) but others testify that Anne (who had seen her sister Mary Boleyn taken up as the king's mistress and summarily cast aside) refused to sleep with Henry until they were married. Henry defended the lawfulness of their union by pointing out that Catherine had previously been married. If she and Arthur had consummated their marriage, Henry by canon law had the right to remarry. On 23 May 1533, Cranmer, sitting in judgement at a special court convened at Dunstable Priory to rule on the validity of Henry's marriage to Catherine, declared the marriage unlawful, even though Catherine had testified that she and Arthur had never had physical relations. Five days later, on 28 May 1533, Cranmer ruled that Henry and Anne's marriage was valid.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Until the end of her life, Catherine would refer to herself as Henry's only lawful wedded wife and England's only rightful queen, and her servants continued to address her as such. Henry refused her the right to any title but "Dowager Princess of Wales" in recognition of her position as his brother's widow.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Catherine went to live at The More Castle, Hertfordshire, late in 1531. After that, she was successively moved to the Royal Palace of Hatfield, Hertfordshire (May to September, 1532), Elsyng Palace, Enfield (September 1532 to February 1533), Ampthill Castle, Bedfordshire (February to July, 1533) and Buckden Towers, Cambridgeshire (July 1533 to May 1534). She was then finally transferred to Kimbolton Castle, Cambridgeshire where she confined herself to one room, which she left only to attend Mass, dressed only in the hair shirt of the Order of St. Francis, and fasted continuously. While she was permitted to receive occasional visitors, she was forbidden to see her daughter Mary. They were also forbidden to communicate in writing, but sympathisers discreetly conveyed letters between the two. Henry offered both mother and daughter better quarters and permission to see each other if they would acknowledge Anne Boleyn as the new queen; both refused.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: In late December 1535, sensing her death was near, Catherine made her will, and wrote to her nephew, the Emperor Charles V, asking him to protect her daughter. It has been claimed that she then penned one final letter to Henry:


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: The authenticity of the letter itself has been questioned, but not Catherine's attitude in its wording, which has been reported with variations in different sources.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Catherine died at Kimbolton Castle on 1536. The following day, news of her death reached the king. At the time there were rumours that she was poisoned, possibly by Gregory di Casale. According to the chronicler Edward Hall, Anne Boleyn wore yellow for the mourning, which has been interpreted in various ways; Polydore Vergil interpreted this to mean that Anne did not mourn. Chapuys reported that it was King Henry who decked himself in yellow, celebrating the news and making a great show of his and Anne's daughter, Elizabeth, to his courtiers. This was seen as distasteful and vulgar by many. Another theory is that the dressing in yellow was out of respect for Catherine as yellow was said to be the Spanish colour of mourning. Certainly, later in the day it is reported that Henry and Anne both individually and privately wept for her death. On the day of Catherine's funeral, Anne Boleyn miscarried a male child. Rumours then circulated that Catherine had been poisoned by Anne or Henry, or both. The rumours were born after the apparent discovery during her embalming that there was a black growth on her heart that might have been caused by poisoning. Modern medical experts are in agreement that her heart's discolouration was due not to poisoning, but to cancer, something which was not understood at the time.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Catherine was buried in Peterborough Cathedral with the ceremony due to her position as a Dowager Princess of Wales, and not a queen. Henry did not attend the funeral and forbade Mary to attend.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Catherine was a member of the Third Order of Saint Francis and she was punctilious in her religious obligations in the Order, integrating without demur her necessary duties as queen with her personal piety. After the annulment, she was quoted "I would rather be a poor beggar's wife and be sure of heaven, than queen of all the world and stand in doubt thereof by reason of my own consent."


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: The outward celebration of saints and holy relics formed no major part of her personal devotions, which she rather expressed in the Mass, prayer, confession and penance. Privately, however, she was aware of what she identified as the shortcomings of the papacy and church officialdom. Her doubts about church improprieties certainly did not extend so far as to support the allegations of corruption made public by Martin Luther in Wittenberg in 1517, which were soon to have such far-reaching consequences in initiating the Protestant Reformation.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: In 1523 Alfonso de Villa Sancta, a learned friar of the Observant (reform) branch of the Friars Minor and friend of the king's old advisor Erasmus, dedicated to the queen his book "De Liberio Arbitrio adversus Melanchthonem". The book denounced Philip Melanchthon, a supporter of Luther. Acting as her confessor, he was able to nominate her for the title of "Defender of the Faith" for denying Luther's arguments.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: In her youth, Catherine was described as "the most beautiful creature in the world" and that there was "nothing lacking in her that the most beautiful girl should have". Thomas More and Lord Herbert would reflect later in her lifetime that in regard to her appearance "there were few women who could compete with the Queen [Catherine] in her prime."


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: The controversial book "The Education of a Christian Woman" by Juan Luis Vives, which claimed women have the right to an education, was dedicated to and commissioned by her. Such was Catherine's impression on people, that even her enemy, Thomas Cromwell, said of her "If not for her sex, she could have defied all the heroes of History." She successfully appealed for the lives of the rebels involved in the Evil May Day for the sake of their families. Furthermore, Catherine won widespread admiration by starting an extensive programme for the relief of the poor. She was also a patron of Renaissance humanism, and a friend of the great scholars Erasmus of Rotterdam and Saint Thomas More. Some saw her as a martyr.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: In the reign of her daughter Mary I of England, her marriage to Henry VIII was declared "good and valid". Her daughter Queen Mary also had several portraits commissioned of Catherine, and it would not by any means be the last time she was painted. After her death, numerous portraits were painted of her, particularly of her speech at the Legatine Trial, a moment accurately rendered in Shakespeare's play about Henry VIII.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Her tomb in Peterborough Cathedral can be seen and there is hardly ever a time when it is not decorated with flowers or pomegranates, her heraldic symbol. It bears the title "Katharine Queen of England".


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: In the 20th century, George V's wife, Mary of Teck, had her grave upgraded and there are now banners there denoting Catherine as a Queen of England. Every year at Peterborough Cathedral there is a service in her memory. There are processions, prayers and various events in the Cathedral including processions to Catherine's grave in which candles, pomegranates, flowers and other offerings are placed on her grave. On the service commemorating the 470th anniversary of her death, the Spanish Ambassador to the United Kingdom attended. During the 2010 service a rendition of Catherine of Aragon's speech before the Legatine court was read by Jane Lapotaire. There is a statue of her in her birthplace of Alcalá de Henares, as a young woman holding a book and a rose.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Catherine has remained a popular biographical subject to the present day. The American historian Garrett Mattingly was the author of a popular biography "Katherine of Aragon" in 1942. In 1966, Catherine and her many supporters at court were the subjects of "Catherine of Aragon and her Friends", a biography by John E. Paul. In 1967, Mary M. Luke wrote the first book of her Tudor trilogy, "Catherine the Queen" which portrayed her and the tumultuous era of English history through which she lived.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Her baptismal name was "Catalina", but "Katherine" was soon the accepted form in England after her marriage to Arthur. Catherine herself signed her name "Katherine", "Katherina", "Katharine" and sometimes "Katharina". In a letter to her, Arthur, her husband, addressed her as "Princess Katerine". Her daughter Queen Mary I called her "Quene Kateryn", in her will. Rarely were names, particularly first names, written in an exact manner during the sixteenth century and it is evident from Catherine's own letters that she endorsed different variations.


title: Catherine of Aragon

text: Loveknots built into his various palaces by her husband, Henry VIII, display the initials "H & K", as do other items belonging to Henry and Catherine, including gold goblets, a gold salt cellar, basins of gold, and candlesticks. Her tomb in Peterborough Cathedral is marked "Katharine Queen of England".


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: Sarah Michelle Prinze ( ; born April 14, 1977) is an American actress. After being spotted at the age of four in New York City, she made her screen acting debut in the television film "An Invasion of Privacy" (1983). A leading role on the teen drama series "Swans Crossing" (1992) was followed by her role as Kendall Hart on the ABC daytime soap opera "All My Children" (1993–1995), for which she won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: Gellar received international recognition for her portrayal of Buffy Summers on the WB/UPN television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1997–2003), which earned her five Teen Choice Awards, a Saturn Award, and a Golden Globe Award nomination. In film, her most commercially successful performances include "I Know What You Did Last Summer" (1997), "Scream 2" (1997), "Cruel Intentions" (1999), "Scooby-Doo" (2002) and "" (2004), "The Grudge" (2004) and "TMNT" (2007). She has also appeared in various independent films such as "Southland Tales" (2006), "The Air I Breathe" (2007), and "Veronika Decides to Die" (2009).


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: Since 2009, Gellar has occasionally ventured back into television, headlining the CW drama thriller series "Ringer" (2011–2012) and the CBS comedy "The Crazy Ones" (2013–2014), and providing her voice for the Netflix animated series "" (since 2021). In 2015, Gellar, along with Galit Laibow and Greg Fleishman, founded Foodstirs, an e-commerce startup selling baking kits, and in 2017, she released her own cookbook, "Stirring Up Fun with Food".


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: Gellar was born on Long Island, New York. She is the only child of Rosellen (née Greenfield), a nursery school teacher, and Arthur Gellar, a garment worker. Both of her parents are Jewish, though Gellar's family also had a Christmas tree during her childhood. In 1984, when she was seven, her parents divorced and she was raised by her mother on Manhattan's Upper East Side. While growing up with her mother, she lost contact with her father, from whom she remained estranged until his death in 2001; she once described him as "non-existent", and in the early 2000s, she stated: "My father, you can just say, is not in the picture. I'm not being deliberately evasive about him, it's just that there's so little to say." Besides being a working child at the time, Gellar was a competitive figure skater, once finishing in third place at a New York State regional competition, as well as having a black belt in taekwondo.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: Gellar was given a partial scholarship to study at the Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School, as her mother was not able to pay full tuition, for which she was constantly bullied. She said in an interview with "The Independent": "I was different and that's the one thing you can't be at school, because you're ostracised. I didn't have the money these kids had". Gellar was not present in class for most of the time at the school as she had to work in several acting projects simultaneously, recalling that she "had more absences in the first month than you're supposed to have for an entire year. I was telling them that I had back problems and had to go to the doctor the whole time". Gellar then briefly attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, but dropped out due to acting obligations; the teachers threatened to fail her because of her constant absence from classes as she was busy going to auditions, despite earning good grades. Gellar graduated from the Professional Children's School in 1994 as a "straight A" student with a 4.0 grade average. As Gellar spent significant time working on "All My Children" while "trying to graduate", the majority of her senior year was completed through guided study.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: At the age of four, she was spotted by an agent in a restaurant in Upper Manhattan. Two weeks later, she auditioned for a part in the television film "An Invasion of Privacy". At the audition, Gellar read both her own lines and those of Harper, impressing the directors enough to cast her in the role. The film aired on CBS in January 1983. She subsequently appeared in a controversial television commercial for Burger King, in which her character criticized McDonald's and claimed to eat only at Burger King. The ad led to a lawsuit by McDonald's, naming Gellar and banning her from eating at the food chain; she recalled in a 2004 interview: "I wasn't allowed to eat there. It was tough because, when you're a little kid, McDonald's is where all your friends have their birthday parties, so I missed out on a lot of apple pies." While growing up, Gellar also worked as a model for Wilhelmina and acted in numerous television commercials.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: During the 1980s, Gellar played minor roles in the films "Over the Brooklyn Bridge" (1984), "Funny Farm" (1988) and "High Stakes" (1989), and also guest starred in various television series, such as "" and "Crossbow". At the age of nine, she appeared in the off-Broadway production "The Widow Claire". She appeared in the Kids Klassics Sing Along videos "Camp Melody" and "USS Songboat" in 1986 and served briefly as a co-host of the teen girl talk show "Girl Talk", which aired in 1989.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: In 1991, she was cast as a young Jacqueline Bouvier in "A Woman Named Jackie". The miniseries won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited Series. Gellar next took on the leading role in the 1992 syndicated teen serial "Swans Crossing", which chronicled the lives of a group of wealthy teenagers. The series ran for one season and earned Gellar two Young Artist Award nominations, for Best Young Actress in a New Television Series and for Best Young Actress in an Off-Primetime Series. She made her debut in the soap opera "All My Children" in 1993, playing Kendall Hart, the long-lost teenage daughter of character Erica Kane (Susan Lucci). As she got the role, Gellar was complimented as having the acting talent and the "forceful personality" needed to go up against Lucci's experience; Kendall was supposed to be like a younger version of Erica. Her stint on the show was successful as "longtime fans of the soap saw her as the second coming of Erica". Writers showcased her more after her initial reception and she became a household name to the soap opera medium. In 1995, at the age of eighteen, she won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series for the role. The same year, Gellar left the show to pursue other acting opportunities.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: Gellar moved to Los Angeles following her departure from "All My Children", and in 1996, she read the script for Joss Whedon's television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", which follows Buffy Summers, a teenager burdened with the responsibility of fighting occult foes and supernatural occurrences. She screen tested several times originally for the role of Cordelia Chase, but after approaching Whedon and producers about playing Buffy Summers, she auditioned again and was eventually cast in the title role. The show premiered in March 1997, to widespread critical and popular acclaim, and Gellar's Buffy, created to subvert the stereotypical female horror movie victim, was described by Entertainment Weekly as one of the 100 greatest female characters in U.S. television. "Buffy" ran for seven seasons and 144 episodes, and during its broadcast, earned Gellar five Teen Choice Awards, the Saturn Award for Best Genre Television Actress and a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress – Television Series Drama. She sang during the series' musical episode "Once More, with Feeling", which spawned an original cast album, released in 2002.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: During the early airing of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", Gellar made her first major film appearances in two successful slasher films. In "I Know What You Did Last Summer", she took on the role of an ill-fated aspiring beauty actress Helen Shivers. Budgeted at US$17million, the movie made US$125million globally. "Washington Post" found the cast to be "solid", in what "San Francisco Chronicle" described as a "competent but uninspired" film. For her part, Gellar earned a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Supporting Actress – Horror and a MTV Movie Award nomination for Best Breakthrough Performance. In "Scream 2" (also 1997), Gellar played a likewise ill-fated vain character, this time that of a Sorority sister. She filmed her scenes in between shots of "Buffy" and had only recently finished work on "I Know What You Did Last Summer". Despite the hectic scheduling, she agreed to perform in "Scream 2" without having read the script, on the basis of the success of the first film. "Scream 2" grossed over US$172million worldwide.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: In 1998, Gellar hosted for the first time "Saturday Night Live", and provided the voice of the Gwendy Doll in "Small Soldiers", a moderate commercial success. Gellar also had her first appearance on the 'Most Beautiful' list by "People" magazine, which cemented her "It girl" status at the time. In 1999, she had a cameo appearance in the sleeper hit "She's All That", and took on the lead role of a struggling restaurant owner in the critically panned romantic comedy "Simply Irresistible". Gellar once called it a "bad choice", but Roger Ebert, on the other hand, found her to be "lovely" in what he described as an "old-fashioned" comedy. In "Cruel Intentions" (1999), a modern-day retelling of "Les Liaisons dangereuses", Gellar played Kathryn Merteuil, a brunette cocaine addict with an appetite for manipulating people. The US$10million film was a hit at the box office, grossing US$75million worldwide. Roger Ebert felt that she is "effective as a bright girl who knows exactly how to use her act as a tramp", and in an interview with "Chicago Tribune", director Roger Kumble, describing her work in the movie, said: "She unquestionably is the most professional actor I ever worked with". Gellar and co-star Selma Blair obtained the "Best Kiss" award at the 2000 MTV Movie Awards. Around that time, she guest starred in three episodes of "Angel" and appeared as Debbie in the HBO series "Sex and the City" episode "Escape from New York".


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: Gellar played the daughter of a mobster in James Toback's independent drama "Harvard Man", which premiered at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. While the film found a limited release in theaters, Gellar's performance in it, along with "Cruel Intentions", helped her shed her good girl image. Gellar portrayed Daphne Blake in the live action–comedy "Scooby-Doo", directed by Raja Gosnell. "Scooby-Doo" made over US$275million and became Gellar's most widely seen film to date. She won the Teen Choice Award in the category of Choice Movie Actress – Comedy for her part in the picture. Alongside Jack Black, she hosted the 2002 MTV Movie Awards, which attracted 7.1million viewers on its June 6 broadcast, achieving the show's highest rating ever at the time.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: During her growing film career, Gellar continued work on the television series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", but she left the show after the seventh season. When asked why, she explained, "This isn't about leaving for a career in movies, or in theater – it's more of a personal decision. I need a rest." In her feature in "Esquire" magazine, Gellar expressed her pride for her work on "Buffy", "I truly believe that it is one of the greatest shows of all time and it will go down in history as that. And I don't feel that that is a cocky statement. We changed the way that people looked at television."


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: After the end of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", Gellar provided her voice for the character Gina Vendetti in "The Simpsons" episode "The Wandering Juvie", which aired in March 2004. Her next film was "" (2004), reprising the role of Daphne. While "IGN" felt that Gellar exhibited "marked [improvement] over [her] work in [2002's "Scooby-Doo"]", the film was a commercial success, grossing US$181.4million around the globe. In the horror remake "The Grudge" (also 2004), Gellar portrayed Karen Davis, an exchange student living and working in Tokyo who becomes exposed to a mysterious supernatural curse. Critic Rob Blackwelder wrote that she "played her part well, and her fear and disorientation are terrifically enhanced by the decision to keep the [original] setting in this remake". The film was a major box office hit, grossing more than US$110million in the US, and US$187million worldwide. She received a MTV Movie Award nomination for Best Frightened Performance as well as a nomination for the Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Actress – Thriller for her role. Since 2005, she has voiced several characters in 13 episodes of the animated television series "Robot Chicken", as of 2018.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: Gellar starred in Richard Kelly's "Southland Tales" (2006) as an adult film star working on creating a reality television show. Gellar had met with Kelly and was drawn to the original ideas for the movie, accepting the role before she even read the script. The film found a limited audience in theaters, but J. Hoberman for "Village Voice" remarked that the director "contrives two memorable comic performances", one of them Gellar's. In 2006, Gellar also briefly reprised her role of Karen in the critically panned sequel "The Grudge 2", and starred in the psychological thriller "The Return", as a businesswoman haunted by memories of her childhood and the mysterious death of a young woman. The film was a critical and commercial failure, grossing only US$11million. "The New York Times" called it a "career stagnation".


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: In 2007, Gellar voiced Ella in the poorly received animated film "Happily N'Ever After", and also April O'Neil in "TMNT", which made US$95million. She starred in the romantic comedy "Suburban Girl" and the drama "The Air I Breathe", both of which were screened at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. In "Suburban Girl", she took the role of a New York City editor and the love interest of a much older influential man. The film was released for DVD in January 2008. In the likewise little-seen film "The Air I Breathe", Gellar portrayed an up-and-coming pop singer. "The New York Times" called it a "gangster movie with delusions of grandeur", while "DVD Talk" noted that "her character here has the deepest emotional arc, and she hits all the right notes."


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: In 2009, Gellar starred in the psychological thriller "Possession" as a lawyer whose life is thrown into chaos after a car accident sends her husband and brother-in-law into comas. Due to financial problems at Yari Film Group, the film went to DVD in March 2010. In the film adaptation "Veronika Decides to Die", Gellar starred as a young depressed woman who rediscovers the joy in life when she finds out that she only has days to live following a suicide attempt. Like "Possession", the film failed to find a proper release in North American theaters, and was released for VOD in 2015. Frank Scheck of "The Hollywood Reporter" found the actress to be "reasonably compelling" in what he called a "ponderous and silly misfire".


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: Gellar took a two-year hiatus from acting following the birth of her daughter in 2009, and in 2011, she signed to star and work as executive producer for a new drama titled "Ringer", in which she played the dual role of twin sisters, one of whom is on the run and manages to hide by assuming the wealthy life of the other. Gellar has stated that part of her decision to return to a television series was because it allowed her to both work and raise her child. The series received positive reviews from critics; "E! Online" found her to be "awesome" and "fantastic", while "TV Line" felt she "does a fine job" as both characters. "Ringer" went on to have a large fan base, but it was canceled after the first season. For her portrayal, she received several award nominations, including one for the Teen Choice Award for Choice Television Actress – Drama.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: In September 2011, Gellar returned as a guest star on the ABC soap opera "All My Children" before the show's ending but not as Kendall Hart; she portrayed a patient at Pine Valley Hospital who tells Maria Santos that she is "Erica Kane's daughter", and states that she saw vampires before they became trendy—a reference to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". She voiced a character in the "American Dad!" episode "Virtual In-Stanity", and again for the December 6, 2012, episode ("Adventures in Hayleysitting"). On September 30, 2012, she reprised her role of Gina Vendetti in the premiere episode of "The Simpsons"' season 24.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: A fan of Robin Williams for years, once Gellar learned that he was making the single-camera television series "The Crazy Ones", she contacted her friend Sarah de Sa Rego, the wife of Williams' best friend, Bobcat Goldthwait, in order to lobby for a co-starring role. She obtained the part of an advertising director who runs an agency with her father. "Digital Spy" felt that Williams "shares a warm, genuine chemistry with his on-screen offspring Gellar," as part of a mixed critical response. The series was canceled after one season but earned Gellar the People's Choice Award for Favorite Actress in a New Television Series.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: In March 2015, Gellar guest-starred as Cinderella in Whitney Avalon's official YouTube channel video short "Princess Rap Battle", and joined the cast of "Star Wars Rebels" for season two, playing a recurring character known as the Seventh Sister. In early 2016, Gellar filmed for NBC a pilot presentation for a potential television series based on the cult-classic film, "Cruel Intentions", reprising her role of Kathryn Merteuil. The pilot was ultimately not picked up to series.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: On January 10, 2019, it was announced Gellar would appear in the limited series "Sometimes I Lie", based on the best-selling book of the same name. The series would be produced by Gellar and others in association with Warner Bros. Television.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: On May 16, 2019, Gellar appeared in the series finale of "The Big Bang Theory". On August 22, 2019, Gellar was attached to produce and appear in a pilot for Fox titled "Other People's Houses".


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: In February 2020, Gellar joined the main voice cast of Kevin Smith's "" animated series for Netflix in the role of Teela. On March 31, 2021, it was announced that Gellar had been cast in comedy pilot "Hot Pink" from Amazon Studios. She also had a cameo role in Smith's film "Clerks III" (2022). At the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con, it was announced that Gellar had joined the cast of the upcoming Paramount+ series, "Wolf Pack".


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: Gellar has appeared on the covers and photo sessions of numerous magazines during her career. In February 1998, she appeared in "Seventeen", and in subsequent years the list has grown to include "Nylon", "Marie Claire", "Vogue", "Glamour", "Esquire", "Allure", "Cosmopolitan", "FHM", "Rolling Stone" and "Elle" among others. In 1999, Gellar signed on to be the face of Maybelline – becoming the company's first celebrity spokeswoman since Lynda Carter in the late 1970s. She was honored with a Woman of The Year Award by "Glamour" magazine in October 2002, and in the same year, her wax figure by Madame Tussauds, was unveiled as part of the "Trail of Vampires" exhibition.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: With her work in "Buffy" and mainstream films such as "Cruel Intentions", Gellar became a household name and a sex symbol across the globe, status she cemented with being a feature several times in the annual "Maxim" "Hot 100" list between 2002 and 2008. Wearing a black lace bra, she was on the cover of the December 2007 issue of "Maxim" and was named the 2009 Woman of the Year by the magazine. She was voted number 1 in "FHM"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s edition of "100 Sexiest Women" of 1999, and was featured in its 2005 list. She had also been in the magazine's German, Dutch, South African, Danish and Romanian editions of the 100 Sexiest Women list every year from 1998 onwards. "Topsocialite.com" listed her as the 8th Sexiest woman of the 1990s.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: She was featured in Google's Top 10 Women Searches of 2002 and 2003, coming in at No. 8, and was included in UK Channel 4's 100 Greatest Sex Symbols in 2007, ranking at No. 16. Other appearances and listings include: "Entertainment Weekly" ranked her in its Top 100 TV Icons in 2007, and placed her No. 3 in its Top 12 Entertainers of the Year in 1998, and "Glamour" ranked her in its 50 Best Dressed Women in the World 2004 and 2005 at Nos. 17 and 24, respectively. BuddyTV ranked her No. 27 on TV's 100 Sexiest Women of 2011 list, as well.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: She has appeared in "Got Milk?" ads as well as in the Stone Temple Pilots music video "Sour Girl" and Marcy Playground's "Comin' Up From Behind". Gellar was featured on the cover of "Gotham" and their main story in the March 2008 issue, in which she spoke about how her style has evolved since she passed 30. Gellar said: "It sounds clichéd, but when women turn 30, they find themselves. You become more comfortable in your own skin. Last night on "Letterman", I wore this skintight Herve Leger dress. Two years ago, three years ago? I would never have worn it."


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: Gellar is an active advocate for various charities, including breast cancer research, Project Angel Food, Habitat for Humanity and CARE. Of her charitable pursuits, she says, "I started because my mother taught me a long time ago that even when you have nothing, there's ways to give back. And what you get in return for that is tenfold. But it was always hard because I couldn't do a lot. I couldn't do much more than just donate money when I was on ["Buffy"] because there wasn't time. And now that I have the time, it's amazing."


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: In 1999, she went to the Dominican Republic to help Habitat for Humanity's project of building homes for the residents; Gellar recalled in an interview she had worked with the cause a lot, explaining: "You actually get to physically do something, where you get to go and build these houses. I like working with things where you can directly affect someone in particular". With Project Angel Food, she delivered healthy meals to people infected with AIDS, and through the Make-A-Wish Foundation, she granted sick children's wishes of meeting her while working on "Buffy". In 2007, Gellar was featured in Vaseline's "Skin Is Amazing" campaign. She agreed to auction nude-posed photos of herself on eBay to raise money for the Coalition of Skin Diseases, an organization which supports clinical research, fosters physician and patient education.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: In May 2011, Gellar joined "The Nestlé Share the Joy of Reading Program", which promotes reading to young children to encourage them to read during the summer break. The following year, she was presented with the Tom Mankiewicz Leadership Award during the Beastly Ball at the Los Angeles Zoo. The honor recognizes members of the entertainment community who have excelled in establishing meaningful and lasting programs that contribute to the welfare of the world's natural and civic environment. In 2014 and 2015, Gellar hosted two fundraisers for Mattel Children's Hospital UCLA.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: In October 2015, Gellar, along with entrepreneurs Galit Laibow and Greg Fleishman, co-founded Foodstirs, a startup food crafting brand selling via e-commerce and retail easy-to-make organic baking mixes and kits for families. By the beginning of 2017, the brand's products were available in about 400 stores; by the end of the year a surge of interest from retailers increased its distribution to 8,000 stores. In 2018, Foodstirs entered into a deal with Starbucks to carry its mug cake mixes across 8,000 of its stores.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: Gellar released a cook book titled "Stirring up Fun with Food" on April 18, 2017. The book was co-authored by Gia Russo, and features numerous food crafting ideas.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: Gellar met her future husband, Freddie Prinze Jr., while they were filming the 1997 teen horror film "I Know What You Did Last Summer", but the two did not begin dating until 2000. They were engaged in April 2001 and married in Mexico on September 1, 2002, in a ceremony officiated by Adam Shankman, a director and choreographer with whom Gellar had worked on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: Prinze and Gellar have worked together several times; they played each other's respective love interests as Fred and Daphne in the 2002 film "Scooby-Doo" and its sequel, "", and both provided their voices for the animated feature film "Happily N'Ever After" (2007) and the animated science fiction series "Star Wars Rebels". In 2007, in honor of their fifth year of marriage, Gellar legally changed her name to Sarah Michelle Prinze.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: Together, Gellar and Prinze have two children, a daughter born in 2009 and a son born in 2012. The family lives in Los Angeles.


title: Sarah Michelle Gellar

text: On February 10, 2021, Gellar expressed support for her "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" co-star Charisma Carpenter after Carpenter made allegations of abuse against series creator Joss Whedon. She also stated, "While I am proud to have my name associated with Buffy Summers, I don't want to be forever associated with the name Joss Whedon."


title: War of 1812

text: The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It began when the United States declared war on 18 June 1812 and, although peace terms were agreed upon in the December 1814 Treaty of Ghent, did not officially end until the peace treaty was ratified by Congress on 17 February 1815.


title: War of 1812

text: Tensions originated in long-standing differences over territorial expansion in North America and British support for Native American tribes who opposed US colonial settlement in the Northwest Territory. These escalated in 1807 after the Royal Navy began enforcing tighter restrictions on American trade with France and press-ganged men they claimed as British subjects, even those with American citizenship certificates. Opinion in the US was split on how to respond, and although majorities in both the House and Senate voted for war, they divided along strict party lines, with the Democratic-Republican Party in favour and the Federalist Party against. News of British concessions made in an attempt to avoid war did not reach the US until late July, by which time the conflict was already underway.


title: War of 1812

text: At sea, the far larger Royal Navy imposed an effective blockade on U.S. maritime trade, while between 1812 to 1814 British regulars and colonial militia defeated a series of American attacks on Upper Canada. This was balanced by the US winning control of the Northwest Territory with victories at Lake Erie and the Thames in 1813. The abdication of Napoleon in early 1814 allowed the British to send additional troops to North America and the Royal Navy to reinforce their blockade, crippling the American economy. In August 1814, negotiations began in Ghent, with both sides wanting peace; the British economy had been severely impacted by the trade embargo, while the Federalists convened the Hartford Convention in December to formalise their opposition to the war.


title: War of 1812

text: In August 1814, British troops burned Washington, before American victories at Baltimore and Plattsburgh in September ended fighting in the north. Fighting continued in the Southeastern United States, where in late 1813 a civil war had broken out between a Creek faction supported by Spanish and British traders and those backed by the US. Supported by US militia under General Andrew Jackson, the American backed Creeks won a series of victories, culminating in the capture of Pensacola in November 1814. In early 1815, Jackson defeated a British attack on New Orleans, catapulting him to national celebrity and later victory in the 1828 United States presidential election. News of this success arrived in Washington at the same time as that of the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, which essentially restored the position to that prevailing before the war. While Britain insisted this included lands belonging to their Native American allies prior to 1811, Congress did not recognize them as independent nations and neither side sought to enforce this requirement.


title: War of 1812

text: Since the conclusion of the War of 1812, historians have long debated the relative weight of the multiple reasons underlying its origins.


title: War of 1812

text: During the nineteenth century, historians generally concluded that war was declared largely over national honour, neutral maritime rights and the British seizure of neutral ships and their cargoes on the high seas. This theme was the basis of President James Madison's war message to Congress on June 1, 1812. At the turn of the 20th century, much of the contemporary scholarship re-evaluated this explanation and began to focus more on non-maritime factors as significant contributing causes as well. However, historian Warren H. Goodman warns that too much focus on these ideas can be equally misleading.


title: War of 1812

text: Historian Richard Maass argues that the expansionist theme is a myth that goes against the "relative consensus among experts that the primary American objective was the repeal of British maritime restrictions". He says that scholars agree that the United States went to war "because six years of economic sanctions had failed to bring Britain to the negotiating table, and threatening the Royal Navy's Canadian supply base was their last hope". Maass agrees that expansionism might have tempted Americans on a theoretical level, but he finds that "leaders feared the domestic political consequences of doing so", particularly because such expansion "focused on sparsely populated western lands rather than the more populous eastern settlements". To what extent that American leaders considered the question of pursuing territory in Canada, those questions "arose as a result of the war rather than as a driving cause." However, Maass accepts that many historians continue to believe that expansionism was a cause.


title: War of 1812

text: Reginald Horsman sees expansionism as a secondary cause after maritime issues, noting that many historians have mistakenly rejected expansionism as a cause for the war. He notes that it was considered key to maintaining sectional balance between free and slave states thrown off by American settlement of the Louisiana Territory and widely supported by dozens of War Hawk congressmen such as Henry Clay, Felix Grundy, John Adams Harper and Richard Mentor Johnson, who voted for war with expansion as a key aim. However, Horsman states that in his view "the desire for Canada did not cause the War of 1812" and that "The United States did not declare war because it wanted to obtain Canada, but the acquisition of Canada was viewed as a major collateral benefit of the conflict".


title: War of 1812

text: However, other historians believe that a desire to permanently annex Canada was a direct cause of the war. Carl Benn notes that the War Hawks' desire to annex the Canadas was similar to the enthusiasm for the annexation of Spanish Florida by inhabitants of the American South as both expected war to facilitate expansion into long-desired lands and end support for hostile tribes (Tecumseh's Confederacy in the North and the Creek in the South).


title: War of 1812

text: Alan Taylor says that many Democratic-Republican congressmen such as John Adams Harper, Richard Mentor Johnson and Peter Buell Porter "longed to oust the British from the continent and to annex Canada". A few Southerners opposed this, fearing an imbalance of free and slave states if Canada was annexed. Anti-Catholicism also caused many to oppose annexing the mainly Catholic Lower Canada, believing its French-speaking inhabitants unfit "for republican citizenship". Even major figures such as Henry Clay and James Monroe expected to keep at least Upper Canada in an easy conquest. Notable American generals such as William Hull issued proclamations to Canadians during the war promising republican liberation through incorporation into the United States. General Alexander Smyth similarly declared to his troops when they invaded Canada that "you will enter a country that is to become one of the United States. You will arrive among a people who are to become your fellow-citizens". However, a lack of clarity about American intentions undercut these appeals.


title: War of 1812

text: David and Jeanne Heidler argue that "most historians agree that the War of 1812 was not caused by expansionism but instead reflected a real concern of American patriots to defend United States' neutral rights from the overbearing tyranny of the British Navy. That is not to say that expansionist aims would not potentially result from the war". However, they also argue otherwise, saying that "acquiring Canada would satisfy America's expansionist desires", also describing it as a key goal of western expansionists who, they argue, believed that "eliminating the British presence in Canada would best accomplish" their goal of halting British support for tribal raids. They argue that the "enduring debate" is over the relative importance of expansionism as a factor, and whether "expansionism played a greater role in causing the War of 1812 than American concern about protecting neutral maritime rights".


title: War of 1812

text: In the 1960s, the work of Norman K. Risjord, Reginald Horsman, Bradford Perkins and Roger Brown established a new eastern maritime consensus. While these authors approached the origins of the war from many perspectives, they all conceded that British maritime policy was the principal cause of the war.


title: War of 1812

text: As historian Norman K. Risjord notes, a powerful motivation for the Americans was their threatened sense of independence and the desire to uphold national honour in the face of what they considered British aggression and insults such as the "Chesapeake"–"Leopard" affair. H. W. Brands writes: "The other war hawks spoke of the struggle with Britain as a second war of independence; [Andrew] Jackson, who still bore scars from the first war of independence, held that view with special conviction. The approaching conflict was about violations of American rights, but it was also about vindication of American identity". Some Americans at the time and some historians since have called it a "Second War of Independence" for the United States.


title: War of 1812

text: The young republic had been involved in several struggles to uphold what it regarded as its rights, and honour, as an independent nation. The First Barbary War had resulted in an apparent victory but with the continued payment of ransoms. The Quasi-War against the French had involved single ship naval clashes over trade rights similar to the ones about to occur with Britain. Upholding national honour and being able to protect American rights was part of the background to the US political and diplomatic attitudes towards Britain in the early 1800s.


title: War of 1812

text: At the same time, the British public were offended by what they considered insults, such as the "Little Belt" affair. This gave them a particular interest in capturing the American flagship "President", an act that they successfully realized in 1815. They were also keen to maintain what they saw as their rights to stop and search neutral vessels as part of their war with France, and further ensure that their own commercial interests were protected.


title: War of 1812

text: Britain was the largest trading partner of the United States, receiving 80 percent of American cotton and 50 percent of all other American exports. The British public and press resented the growing mercantile and commercial competition.


title: War of 1812

text: Historian Reginald Horsman states that "a large section of influential British opinion [...] thought that the United States presented a threat to British maritime supremacy".


title: War of 1812

text: During the Seven Years' War, Britain introduced rules governing trade with their enemies. The Rule of 1756, which the US had temporarily agreed to when signing the Jay Treaty, stated that a neutral nation could not conduct trade with an enemy, if that trade was closed to them before hostilities had commenced. Since the beginning of Britain's war with France in 1793, the US merchant marine had been making a fortune continuing trading with both nations, America's share of trans-Atlantic trade growing from 250 thousand tons in 1790 to 981 thousand tons in 1810, in the process. Of particular concern to the British was the transport of goods from the French West Indies to France, something the US would have been unable to do, due to French rules, during times of peace. The United States' view was that the treaty they had signed violated its right to trade with others, and in order to circumvent the Rule of 1756, American ships would stop at a neutral port to unload and reload their cargo before continuing to France. These actions were challenged in the "Essex" case of 1805.


title: War of 1812

text: In 1806, with parts of the Jay Treaty due to expire, a new agreement was sought. The Monroe–Pinkney Treaty offered the US preferential trading rights, and would have settled most its issues with Britain but did not moderate the Rule of 1756 and only offered to exercise "extreme caution" and "immediate and prompt redress" with regard to impressment of Americans. Jefferson, who had specifically asked for these two points to be extirpated, refused to put the treaty before the senate.


title: War of 1812

text: Later, in 1806, Napoleon's Berlin Decree declared a blockade of the British Isles, forbade neutral vessels harbour in British ports and declared all British made goods carried on neutral ships lawful prizes of war. The British responded in 1807 with Orders in Council which similarly forbade any shipping to France. By 1807, when Napoleon introduced his Milan Decree, declaring all ships touching at British ports to be legitimate prizes of war, it had become almost impossible for the US to remain neutral. Between 1804 and 1807, 731 American ships were seized by Britain or France for violation of one of the blockades, roughly two thirds by Britain. Since the Jay Treaty, France had also adopted an aggressive attitude to American neutrality.


title: War of 1812

text: Whereas Britain, through a process known as pre-emption, compensated American ship owners for their losses, France did not. French frigates burned American grain ships heading for Britain and treated American sailors as prisoners of war. US–French relations had soured so much, that by 1812, Madison was also considering war with France.


title: War of 1812

text: As a result of these increasing trade volumes during the Napoleonic Wars the United States Merchant Marine became the world's largest neutral shipping fleet. Between 1802 and 1810, it nearly doubled, which meant that there were insufficient experienced sailors in the United States to man it. To overcome this shortfall, British seamen were recruited, who were attracted by the better pay and conditions. It was estimated that 30% (23,000) of the 70,000 men employed on American ships were British. During the Napoleonic Wars, the British Royal Navy expanded to 600 ships, requiring 140,000 sailors. The Royal Navy could man its ships with volunteers in peacetime, but in wartime, competing with merchant shipping and privateers for the pool of experienced sailors, it turned to impressment from ashore and at sea. Since 1795 the Quota System had been in use to feed men to the navy but it was not alone sufficient. Though most saw it as necessary, the practice of impressment was detested by most Britons. It was illegal under British law to impress foreign sailors; but it was the accepted practice of the era for nations to retrieve seamen of their own nationality from foreign navies during times of war. However, in the nineteen years Britain was at war with France prior to the war of 1812 some ten thousand American citizens were impressed into the British navy.


title: War of 1812

text: The American ambassador in London, James Monroe, under President Thomas Jefferson, protested to the British Foreign Office that more than fifteen thousand Americans had been impressed into the Royal Navy since March 1803. When asked for a list however, the Madison administration was only able to produce one based on hearsay, with 6,257 names, many of which were duplicated, and included those that had legitimately volunteered to serve. By 1804 the incidents of impressment of Americans had sharply increased. Underlying the dispute was the issue that Britain and the United States viewed nationality differently. The United States believed that British seamen, including naval deserters, had a right to become American citizens. In reality few actually went through the formal process. Regardless Britain did not recognize a right for a British subject to relinquish his citizenship and become a citizen of another country. The Royal Navy therefore considered any American citizen subject to impressment if he was born British. American reluctance to issue formal naturalization papers and the widespread use of unofficial or forged identity or protection papers among sailors made it difficult for the Royal Navy to tell native born-Americans from naturalized-Americans and even non-Americans, and led it to impress some American sailors who had never been British. Though Britain was willing to release from service anyone who could establish their American citizenship, the process often took years while the men in question remained impressed in the British Navy. However, from 1793 to 1812 up to 15,000 Americans had been impressed while many appeals for release were simply ignored or dismissed for other reasons. There were also cases when the United States Navy also impressed British sailors. Once impressed, any seaman, regardless of citizenship, could accept a recruitment bounty and was then no longer considered impressed but a "volunteer", further complicating matters.


title: War of 1812

text: American anger with Britain grew when Royal Navy frigates were stationed just outside American harbours in view of American shores to search ships for goods bound to France and impress men within the United States territorial waters. Well-publicized events outraged the American public such as the "Leander" affair and the "Chesapeake"–"Leopard" affair.


title: War of 1812

text: The British public were outraged in their turn by the "Little Belt" affair in which the larger USS "President" in search of HMS "Guerriere" instead clashed with a small British sloop, resulting in the deaths of 11 British sailors. While both sides claimed that the other fired first, the British public particularly blamed the United States for attacking a smaller vessel, with calls in some newspapers for revenge. "President" had sighted and chased HMS "Little Belt" trying to determine her identity throughout the afternoon. The first shot took place after an exchange of hails had still failed to identify either ship to the other in the growing dusk. After 45 minutes of battle, taking place in darkness, "Little Belt" had received much damage, with several holes to her hull near the water-line and her rigging "cut to pieces". "President"s Captain Rodgers claimed "Little Belt" had fired first; but he did not ascertain her size or country of origin until dawn. After sending over a boat, Rodgers expressed regret and apologized for the 'unfortunate affair'. "Little Belt"s Captain Bingham claimed the opposite: "President" had fired first and had been manoeuvering in such a way as to make him think she was planning an attack. Historian Jonathon Hooks echoes the view of Alfred T. Mahan and several other historians, that it is impossible to determine who fired the first shot. Both sides held inquiries which upheld their captain's actions and version of events. Meanwhile, the American public regarded the incident as just retribution for the Chesapeake–Leopard affair and were encouraged by their victory over the Royal Navy, while the British regarded it as unprovoked aggression.


title: War of 1812

text: Whether the annexation of Canada was a primary American war objective has been debated by historians. Some argue it was an outcome of the failure to change British policy through economic coercion or negotiation, leaving invasion as the only way for the US to place pressure on Britain. This view was summarised by Secretary of State James Monroe, who said "[i]t might be necessary to invade Canada, not as an object of the war but as a means to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion". Occupation would also disrupt supplies to colonies in the British West Indies and Royal Navy, and prevent the British arming their allies among the Indian nations of the Northwest Territory.


title: War of 1812

text: Nevertheless, even though President Madison claimed permanent annexation was not an objective, he recognised once acquired it would be "difficult to relinquish". A large faction in Congress actively advocated this policy, including Richard Mentor Johnson, who stated "I shall never die content until I see England's expulsion from North America and her territories incorporated into the United States". John Adams Harper claimed "the Author of Nature Himself had marked our limits in the south, by the Gulf of Mexico, and on the north, by the regions of eternal frost". Both saw the war as part of a divine plan to unify the US and Canada, Johnson being its leading exponent.


title: War of 1812

text: Others considered annexation a matter of domestic economic and political necessity. Tennessee Congressman Felix Grundy was one of many who saw it as essential to preserve the balance between slave states and free states that might be disrupted by the incorporation of territories in the Southeast acquired in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. Control of the St. Lawrence River, the major outlet for trade between Europe and the Great Lakes region, was a long-standing American ambition, going back to the early years of the Revolutionary War, and supported by powerful economic interests in the North-West. Madison also viewed it as a way to prevent American smugglers using the river as a conduit for undercutting his trade policies.


title: War of 1812

text: All these groups assumed American troops would be greeted as liberators, guaranteeing an easy conquest. Thomas Jefferson believed taking "...Canada this year, as far as...Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give us the experience for the attack on Halifax, the next and final expulsion of England from the American continent". In 1812, Canada had around 525,000 inhabitants, two thirds of whom were French-speakers living in Quebec. Upper Canada, now southern Ontario, had a population of less than 75,000, primarily Loyalist exiles and recent immigrants from the Northeastern United States. The former were implacably hostile to the United Statethe latter largely uninterested in politics and their loyalties unknown; unlike the Texas annexation in 1845, they were too few to provide a critical mass of pro-American support, while many followed their Loyalist neighbours and joined Canadian militia. Absence of local backing prevented American forces from establishing a foothold in the area, and of ten attempts to invade Upper Canada between 1812 and 1814, the vast majority ended in failure.


title: War of 1812

text: The Northwest Territory, a region between the Great Lakes, the Ohio River, Appalachians, and Mississippi, was a long-standing source of conflict in 18th and early 19th-century North America. This arose when settlers from the Thirteen Colonies moved onto lands owned by the indigenous inhabitants, a collection of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking peoples, chiefly the Shawnee, Wyandot, Lenape, Miami, Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Menominee and Odawa. When Pontiac's Rebellion was defeated in 1766, they generally accepted British sovereignty but retained ownership of their lands, while the Proclamation of 1763 prohibited colonial settlement west of the Appalachians, a grievance that contributed to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War.


title: War of 1812

text: The territory was ceded in 1783 to the new American government, who encouraged its citizens to settle in the region and ignored the rights of local inhabitants. In response, the tribes formed the Northwestern Confederacy which from 1786 to 1795 fought against the US in the Northwest Indian War, with military support provided by British forts along the Maumee River. After the 1794 Jay Treaty, the British handed over these strongpoints to the US, most notably Fort Detroit, and abandoned their indigenous allies, who signed the 1795 Treaty of Greenville with the American government. Under the treaty, they ceded most of what is now the state of Ohio but granted title to the rest of their lands in perpetuity, a commitment the US government had already secretly agreed to ignore.


title: War of 1812

text: A key factor in this policy was the acquisition by France of the Louisiana Territory in 1800, which meant the US faced an expansionist power on its northwestern border, rather than a weak Spain. To ensure control of the Upper Mississippi River, President Thomas Jefferson incorporated the region into the Indiana Territory, which originally contained the modern states of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. He appointed William Henry Harrison as governor, ordering him to acquire as much land as possible beyond the Greenville line, using deception if needed. In doing so, Harrison was helped by vague and competing claims, since tribes whose title to the lands was either limited or disputed were happy to sign them away in return for bribes. Although the December 1803 Louisiana Purchase ended the French threat, between 1803 and 1805 he obtained extensive territorial cessions in the treaties of Fort Wayne (1803), St Louis, Vincennes and Grouseland.


title: War of 1812

text: The policies adopted by Harrison meant low-level conflict between local tribes and American settlers quickly escalated post-1803. In 1805, a Shawnee leader named Tenskwatawa launched a nativist religious movement that rejected American culture and values, while his elder brother Tecumseh organized a new confederacy to defend their territory against settler encroachment. They established a community at Prophetstown in 1808, gaining support from young warriors and traditional chiefs including the Wyandot leader Roundhead and Main Poc from the Potawatomi. The Sioux, Sauk, Meskwaki and Ojibwe peoples, who lived along the Upper Mississippi and Western Great Lakes, initially rejected Tenskwatawa's message because of their dependence on the fur trade, but continued settler incursions into their lands meant they too became hostile to the U.S.


title: War of 1812

text: Britain traditionally maintained good relations with the local people by handing out gifts, including arms and ammunition; after 1795, they ended this policy and advised the tribes to live peacefully with the American government. Their position changed following the 1808 Chesapeake-Leopard Affair, when the Northwest came to be seen as a buffer against an American attack on Upper Canada. They re-started the distribution of gifts and offered the tribes a defensive alliance if war broke out with the US, while urging them to refrain from aggressive action in the meantime. The situation worsened after the 1809 Treaty of Fort Wayne; negotiated primarily with the Lenape, it included lands claimed by the Shawnee and Tecumseh insisted it was invalid without the consent of all the tribes.


title: War of 1812

text: Alarmed at the threat posed by Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa, in 1811 Harrison secured permission to attack them. Taking advantage of Tecumseh's absence, he marched on Prophetstown with an army of nearly 1,000 men; in the ensuing Battle of Tippecanoe, the Americans first repulsed an attack by forces under Tenskwatawa, then destroyed Prophetstown. Fighting along the frontier escalated, while Tecumseh reconstituted his confederacy and allied with the British. This action strengthened American hostility against Britain in the run up to the War of 1812, with many blaming them for unrest on the frontier, rather than government policy. in the ensuing conflict, most of the Northwest nations supported the British, including the previously neutral tribes of the Upper Mississippi.


title: War of 1812

text: The United States was in a period of significant political conflict between the Federalist Party (based mainly in the Northeast) and the Democratic-Republican Party (with its greatest power base in the South and West). The Federalists, who sympathized with Britain and their struggle with Napoleonic France, were criticized by the Democratic-Republicans for being too close to Britain, while the Federalists countered that the Democratic-Republicans were allied to France, a country headed by Napoleon, who was seen as a dictator. The Federalist Party favoured a strong central government and closer ties to Britain while the Democratic-Republican Party favoured a smaller central government, preservation of states' rights (including slavery), westward expansion and a stronger break with Britain. By 1812, the Republicans believed that the Federalists in New England were conspiring with the British who were forming alliances with the various Indian tribes while recruiting "late Loyalists" in Canada, to break up the union. Instead, the war served to alienate the Federalists who were ready to trade and even smuggle with the British rather than to fight them. By 1812, the Federalist Party had weakened considerably and the Republicans were in a strong position, with James Madison completing his first term of office and control of Congress.


title: War of 1812

text: Support for the American cause was weak in Federalist areas of the Northeast throughout the war as fewer men volunteered to serve and the banks avoided financing the war. The negativism of the Federalists ruined the party's reputation post-war, as exemplified by the Hartford Convention of 1814–1815, and the party survived only in scattered areas. By 1815, after the victory at the Battle of New Orleans, there was broad support for the war from all parts of the country. This allowed the triumphant Democratic-Republicans to adopt some Federalist policies, such as the national bank, which Madison re-established in 1816.


title: War of 1812

text: During the years 1810–1812, American naval ships were divided into two major squadrons, with the "northern division", based at New York, commanded by Commodore John Rodgers, and the "southern division", based at Norfolk, commanded by Commodore Stephen Decatur.


title: War of 1812

text: Although not much of a threat to Canada in 1812, the United States Navy was a well-trained and professional force comprising over 5,000 sailors and marines. It had 14 ocean-going warships with three of its five "super-frigates" non-operational at the onset of the war. Its principal problem was lack of funding, as many in Congress did not see the need for a strong navy. The biggest ships in the American navy were frigates and there were no ships-of-the-line capable of engaging in a fleet action with the Royal Navy. On the high seas, the Americans pursued a strategy of commerce raiding, capturing or sinking British merchantmen with their frigates and privateers. The Navy was largely concentrated on the Atlantic coast before the war as it had only two gunboats on Lake Champlain, one brig on Lake Ontario and another brig in Lake Erie when the war began.


title: War of 1812

text: The United States Army was initially much larger than the British Army in North America. Many men carried their own long rifles while the British were issued muskets, except for one unit of 500 riflemen. Leadership was inconsistent in the American officer corps as some officers proved themselves to be outstanding, but many others were inept, owing their positions to political favours. Congress was hostile to a standing army and the government called out 450,000 men from the state militias during the war. The state militias were poorly trained, armed, and led. The failed invasion of Lake Champlain led by General Dearborn illustrates this. The British Army soundly defeated the Maryland and Virginia militias at the Battle of Bladensburg in 1814 and President Madison commented "I could never have believed so great a difference existed between regular troops and a militia force, if I had not witnessed the scenes of this day".


title: War of 1812

text: The United States was only a secondary concern to Britain, so long as the war continued with France. In 1813, France had 80 ships-of-the-line and was building another 35. Containing the French fleet was the main British naval concern, leaving only the ships on the North American and Jamaica Stations immediately available. In Upper Canada, the British had the Provincial Marine. While largely unarmed, they were essential for keeping the army supplied since the roads were abysmal in Upper Canada. At the onset of war the Provincial Marine had four small armed vessels on Lake Ontario, three on Lake Erie and one on Lake Champlain. The Provincial Marine greatly outnumbered anything the Americans could bring to bear on the Great Lakes.


title: War of 1812

text: When the war broke out, the British Army in North America numbered 9,777 men in regular units and fencibles. While the British Army was engaged in the Peninsular War, few reinforcements were available. Although the British were outnumbered, the long-serving regulars and fencibles were better trained and more professional than the hastily expanded United States Army. The militias of Upper Canada and Lower Canada were initially far less effective, but substantial numbers of full-time militia were raised during the war and played pivotal roles in several engagements, including the Battle of the Chateauguay which caused the Americans to abandon the Saint Lawrence River theatre.


title: War of 1812

text: The highly decentralized bands and tribes considered themselves allies of, and not subordinates to, the British or the Americans. Various Indian tribes fighting with United States forces provided them with their "most effective light troops" while the British needed indigenous allies to compensate for their numerical inferiority. The indigenous allies of the British, Tecumseh's confederacy in the west and Iroquois in the east avoided pitched battles and relied on irregular warfare, including raids and ambushes that took advantage of their knowledge of terrain. In addition, they were highly mobile, able to march 30–50 miles a day. Their leaders sought to fight only under favourable conditions and would avoid any battle that promised heavy losses, doing what they thought best for their tribes, much to the annoyance of both American and British generals. The indigenous fighters saw no issue with withdrawing if needed to save casualties. They always sought to surround an enemy, where possible, to avoid being surrounded and make effective use of the terrain. Their main weapons were a mixture of muskets, rifles, bows, tomahawks, knives and swords as well as clubs and other melee weapons, which sometimes had the advantage of being quieter than guns.


title: War of 1812

text: On 1 June 1812, President James Madison sent a message to Congress recounting American grievances against Great Britain, though not specifically calling for a declaration of war. The House of Representatives then deliberated for four days behind closed doors before voting 79 to 49 (61%) in favour of the first declaration of war. The Senate concurred in the declaration by a 19 to 13 (59%) vote in favour. The declaration focused mostly on maritime issues, especially involving British blockades, with two thirds of the indictment devoted to such impositions, initiated by Britain's Orders in Council. The conflict began formally on 18 June 1812, when Madison signed the measure into law. He proclaimed it the next day, while it was not a formal declaration of war. This was the first time that the United States had declared war on another nation and the Congressional vote was the closest vote in American history to formally declare war. None of the 39 Federalists in Congress voted in favour of the war, while other critics referred to it as "Mr. Madison's War". Just days after war had been declared, a small number of Federalists in Baltimore were attacked for printing anti-war views in a newspaper, which eventually led to over a month of deadly rioting in the city.


title: War of 1812

text: Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was assassinated in London on 11 May and Lord Liverpool came to power. He wanted a more practical relationship with the United States. On June 23, he issued a repeal of the Orders in Council, but the United States was unaware of this, as it took three weeks for the news to cross the Atlantic. On 28 June 1812, was dispatched from Halifax to New York under a flag of truce. She anchored off Sandy Hook on July 9 and left three days later carrying a copy of the declaration of war, British ambassador to the United States Augustus Foster and consul Colonel Thomas Henry Barclay. She arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia eight days later. The news of the declaration took even longer to reach London.


title: War of 1812

text: British commander Isaac Brock in Upper Canada received the news much faster. He issued a proclamation alerting citizens to the state of war and urging all military personnel "to be vigilant in the discharge of their duty", so as to prevent communication with the enemy and to arrest anyone suspected of helping the Americans. He also issued orders to the commander of the British post at Fort St. Joseph to initiate offensive operations against American forces in northern Michigan who were not yet aware of their own government's declaration of war. The resulting Siege of Fort Mackinac on 17 July was the first major land engagement of the war and ended in an easy British victory.


title: War of 1812

text: The war had been preceded by years of diplomatic dispute, yet neither side was ready for war when it came. Britain was heavily engaged in the Napoleonic Wars, most of the British Army was deployed in the Peninsular War in Portugal and Spain, and the Royal Navy was blockading most of the coast of Europe. The number of British regular troops present in Canada in July 1812 was officially 6,034, supported by additional Canadian militia. Throughout the war, the British War Secretary was Earl Bathurst, who had few troops to spare for reinforcing North America defences during the first two years of the war. He urged Lieutenant General George Prévost to maintain a defensive strategy. Prévost, who had the trust of the Canadians, followed these instructions and concentrated on defending Lower Canada at the expense of Upper Canada, which was more vulnerable to American attacks and allowed few offensive actions. Unlike campaigns along the east coast, Prevost had to operate with no support from the Royal Navy.


title: War of 1812

text: The United States was also not prepared for war. Madison had assumed that the state militias would easily seize Canada and that negotiations would follow. In 1812, the regular army consisted of fewer than 12,000 men. Congress authorized the expansion of the army to 35,000 men, but the service was voluntary and unpopular; it paid poorly and there were initially few trained and experienced officers. The militia objected to serving outside their home states, they were undisciplined and performed poorly against British forces when called upon to fight in unfamiliar territory. Multiple militia refused orders to cross the border and fight on Canadian soil.


title: War of 1812

text: American prosecution of the war suffered from its unpopularity, especially in New England where anti-war speakers were vocal. Massachusetts Congressmen Ebenezer Seaver and William Widgery were "publicly insulted and hissed" in Boston while a mob seized Plymouth's Chief Justice Charles Turner on 3 August 1812 "and kicked [him] through the town". The United States had great difficulty financing its war. It had disbanded its national bank, and private bankers in the Northeast were opposed to the war, but it obtained financing from London-based Barings Bank to cover overseas bond obligations. New England failed to provide militia units or financial support, which was a serious blow, and New England states made loud threats to secede as evidenced by the Hartford Convention. Britain exploited these divisions, opting to not blockade the ports of New England for much of the war and encouraging smuggling.


title: War of 1812

text: An American army commanded by William Hull invaded Upper Canada on July 12, arriving at Sandwich (Windsor, Ontario) after crossing the Detroit River. His forces were chiefly composed of untrained and ill-disciplined militiamen. Hull issued a proclamation ordering all British subjects to surrender, or "the horrors, and calamities of war will stalk before you". The proclamation said that Hull wanted to free them from the "tyranny" of Great Britain, giving them the liberty, security, and wealth that his own country enjoyed—unless they preferred "war, slavery and destruction". He also threatened to kill any British soldier caught fighting alongside indigenous fighters. Hull's proclamation only helped to stiffen resistance to the American attacks as he lacked artillery and supplies. Hull also had to fight just to maintain his own lines of communication.


title: War of 1812

text: Hull withdrew to the American side of the river on 7 August 1812 after receiving news of a Shawnee ambush on Major Thomas Van Horne's 200 men, who had been sent to support the American supply convoy. Half of Horne's troops had been killed. Hull had also faced a lack of support from his officers and fear among his troops of a possible massacre by unfriendly indigenous forces. A group of 600 troops led by Lieutenant Colonel James Miller remained in Canada, attempting to supply the American position in the Sandwich area, with little success.


title: War of 1812

text: Major General Isaac Brock believed that he should take bold measures to calm the settler population in Canada and to convince the tribes that Britain was strong. He moved to Amherstburg near the western end of Lake Erie with reinforcements and attacked Detroit, using Fort Malden as his stronghold. Hull feared that the British possessed superior numbers; also Fort Detroit lacked adequate gunpowder and cannonballs to withstand a long siege. He agreed to surrender on 16 August, saving his 2,500 soldiers and 700 civilians from "the horrors of an Indian massacre", as he wrote. Hull also ordered the evacuation of Fort Dearborn (Chicago) to Fort Wayne, but Potawatomi warriors ambushed them, escorted them back to the fort where they were massacred on 15 August after they had travelled only . The fort was subsequently burned.


title: War of 1812

text: Brock moved to the eastern end of Lake Erie, where American General Stephen Van Rensselaer was attempting a second invasion. The Americans attempted an attack across the Niagara River on 13 October, but they were defeated at Queenston Heights. However, Brock was killed during the battle and British leadership suffered after his death. American General Henry Dearborn made a final attempt to advance north from Lake Champlain, but his militia refused to go beyond American territory.


title: War of 1812

text: After Hull surrendered Detroit, General William Henry Harrison took command of the American Army of the Northwest. He set out to retake the city, which was now defended by Colonel Henry Procter and Tecumseh. A detachment of Harrison's army was defeated at Frenchtown along the River Raisin on 22 January 1813. Procter left the prisoners with an inadequate guard and his Potawatomie allies killed and scalped 60 captive Americans. The defeat ended Harrison's campaign against Detroit, but "Remember the River Raisin!" became a rallying cry for the Americans.


title: War of 1812

text: In May 1813, Procter and Tecumseh set siege to Fort Meigs in northwestern Ohio. Tecumseh's fighters ambushed American reinforcements who arrived during the siege, but the fort held out. The fighters eventually began to disperse, forcing Procter and Tecumseh to return to Canada. Along the way they attempted to storm Fort Stephenson, a small American post on the Sandusky River near Lake Erie. They were repulsed with serious losses, marking the end of the Ohio campaign.


title: War of 1812

text: Captain Oliver Hazard Perry fought the Battle of Lake Erie on 10 September 1813. His decisive victory at Put-in-Bay ensured American military control of the lake, improved American morale after a series of defeats and compelled the British to fall back from Detroit. This enabled General Harrison to launch another invasion of Upper Canada, which culminated in the American victory at the Battle of the Thames on 5 October 1813, where Tecumseh was killed.