This is a piece of history that you may have been a a bit hazy on when you were taught about it in school. You might well have asked, "What the heck were they fighting about, anyway? Here we present the events that led up to the Battle of New Orleans, which, due to slow communications, was accidentally fought on January 8, 1815, two weeks after the War of 1812 had officially ended on December 24, 1814 by the signing of a peace treaty in Belgium.



1700s and early 1800s...

Cannabis hemp is, as it has been for thousands of years, the biggest business and most important industry on the planet. Its fiber moves virtually all the world's shipping. The entire world's economy uses and depends upon thousands of different products from the marijuana plant.

1740 on...



1740 to 1807...



1793 to 1799 on...

The British nobility is hostile toward the new French government primarily because the British are afraid that the 17889-93 French Revolution of commoners could spread, and/or result in a French invasion of England and the loss of its Empire and, of course, its nobility's heads.

1803 to 1814...


1798 to 1812...

The fledgling United States is officially "neutral" in the war between France and Britain. The United States even begins to solve its own foreign problems by sending its navy and marines (1801-1805) to the Mediterranean to stop Tripoli pirates and ransomers from collecting tribute from American Yankee traders operating in the area. "Millions for Defense - not a penny for Tribute" was America's rallying cry, and the incident came to be memorialized in the second line of the Marine Corps' hymn: "...to the shores of Tripoli."




1803 on...

The Louisiana Purchase gives rise to some Americans' - mostly Westerners' - dreams of "Manifest Destiny." That is, the United States should extend to the utmost borders of North America: from the top of Canada to the bottom of Mexico and from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

1803 to 1807...





Napoleon's strategy - and his most important goal with the treaty - is to stop Russian hemp from reaching England, thereby destroying Britain's navy by forcing it to cannibalize sails, ropes, and rigging from other ships; and Napoleon believes that eventually, with no Russian hemp for its huge navy, Britain will be forced to end its blockade of France and the Continent.

1807 to 1809...




1807 to 1814...


Hence, any ship that trades with Napoleon's "Continental System" of allies is the enemy and is subject to blockade.


Britain "impresses" some American sailors into service in the British navy. However, England claims that they only "impress" those sailors who are British subjects - and whose American shipping companies refused to pay for the sailors' return fares.

1807 to 1810...

Secretly, however, Britain offers the captured American traders a "deal" (actually a blackmail proposition) when they "overhaul" - board and confiscate - an American ship and bring it into an English port.


At the same time, the Americans will be allowed to keep and trade their own goods (rum, sugar, spices, cotton, coffee, tobacco) to the Czar for hemp - a double profit for the Americans.

1808 to 1810...

Our shrewd Yankee traders, faced with the choice of either running British blockades - and risking having their ships, cargo and crews confiscated - or acting as secret (illegal) licensees for Britain, with safety and profits guaranteed, mostly choose the latter.

John Quincy Adams (later to become President), who was American Consul at St. Petersburg in 1809, noted:



1808 to 1810...

Napoleon insists that Czar Alexander stops all trade with the independent United States traders as they are being coerced into being illegal traders for Great Britain's hemp.


1808 to 1810...

The Czar says "Nyet!" despite his treaty with France, and turns a "blind eye" to the illegal American traders, probably because he needs the popular, profitable trade goods the Americans are bringing him and his nobles - as well as the hard gold he is getting from the Americans' (illegal) purchases of hemp for Great Britain.


Napoleon's allies invade the Duchy of Warsaw.



1810 to 1812...


1811 to 1812...








At this time, 1812, American ships could pick up hemp from Russia and return with it three times faster and cheaper than shippers could get hemp from Kentucky to the East Coast over land (at least until the Erie Canal was completed in 1825; shortening travel time dramatically by as much as 90%).



Napoleon is soon defeated in Russia by the harsh winter, the Russian scorched-earth policy, 2,000 miles of snowy and muddy supply lines - and by Napoleon not stopping for the winter and regrouping before marching on Moscow, as was the original battle plan.

Of the 450,000 to 600,000 men Napoleon starts with, only 180,000 ever make it back.

1812 to 1814...

Britain, after initial success in war with the United States (including the burning of Washington in retaliation for the earlier American burning of Toronto, then the colonial Canadian capitol), finds its finances and military stretched thin - with blockades, war in Spain with France, and a tough new America on the seas.

Britain agrees to peace, and signs a treaty with the United States in December 1814. The actual terms of the treaty give little to either side.



1813 to 1814...




January 1815...


20th Century...


Author's Note

I wish to apologize to history buffs for all the nuances I have left out from this outline of the 1812 Wars (for example, the involvement of the Rothschilds, the Illuminati, stock market manipulation, etc.), but I did not want to write "War and Peace." It's been done.


My intention is that our children are taught a true, comprehensive history in our schools, not watered-down nonsense that hides the real facts and makes the War of 1812 seem totally unintelligible and without rhyme or reason. But it's no wonder. Our American school teachers themselves often haven't the foggiest understanding of why this war was really fought. If they do know - or have recently learned - they are generally much too intimidated to teach it.

[ chapter 10 ] [ multimedia version of chapter 11 ] [ chapter 12 ]


text from “The Emperor Wears No Clothes” © Jack Herer
CD-ROM and web presentation © 0=2

Donate now!

ElectricEmperor is a visitor supported educational web site

$100 donation   $25 donation   $10 donation

own the cool CD-ROM      own the best-selling book
