Editing War of 1812 (section)

== Long-term consequences ==
{{main|Results of the War of 1812}}
The border between the United States and Canada remained essentially unchanged by the war, with neither side making meaningful territorial gains.{{efn|Spain, a British ally, lost control of the [[Mobile, Alabama]] area to the Americans as a consequence of the [[Patriot War (Florida)]] which took place concurrently with the War of 1812.}} Despite the Treaty of Ghent not addressing the original points of contention and establishing the ''[[status quo ante bellum]]'', relations between the United States and Britain changed drastically. The issue of impressment also became irrelevant as the Royal Navy no longer needed sailors after the war.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}}

The long-term results of the war were generally satisfactory for both the United States and Great Britain. Except for occasional border disputes and some tensions during and after the American Civil War, relations between the United States and Britain remained peaceful for the rest of the 19th century. In the 20th century, spurred by multiple world conflicts, the two countries became [[Special Relationship|close allies]]. The memory of the conflict played a major role in helping to consolidate a Canadian national identity after 1867, the year of [[Canadian confederation]].{{sfn|Bickham|2012|pp=262–280}}

The [[Rush–Bagot Treaty]] between the United States and Britain was enacted in 1817. It demilitarized the [[Great Lakes]] and [[Lake Champlain]], where many British naval arrangements and forts still remained. The treaty laid the basis for a demilitarized boundary. It remains in effect to this day.<ref>Christopher Mark Radojewski, "The Rush–Bagot Agreement: Canada–US Relations in Transition." ''American Review of Canadian Studies'' 47.3 (2017): 280–299.</ref>

=== Bermuda ===
[[File:Floating dock Bermuda at HM Dockyard Bermuda.jpeg|thumb|The [[Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda]]]]
Bermuda had been largely left to the defences of its own militia and privateers before American independence, but the Royal Navy had begun buying up land and operating from there beginning in 1795, after a number of years spent surveying the reefs to find [[Thomas Hurd|Hurd's]] channel (which enabled large frigates and ships of the line to pass through the surrounding reefs to [[George Murray (Royal Navy officer, born 1759)|Murray's]] Anchorage and the enclosed harbours). As construction work progressed through the first half of the 19th century, Bermuda became an [[Imperial fortress]] and the permanent naval headquarters the [[Western hemisphere]], housing the [[Admiralty House, Bermuda|Admiralty]] and serving as a base and dockyard. Defence infrastructure remained the central leg of Bermuda's economy until after World War II.{{sfn|Stranack|1990|p={{page needed|date=January 2021}}}}{{sfn|Naval Historical Foundation 2012}}{{sfn|Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda}}

=== The Canadas ===
After the war, pro-British leaders in Upper Canada demonstrated a strong hostility to American influences, including republicanism, which shaped its policies.{{sfn|Akenson|1999|p=137}} Immigration from the United States was discouraged and favour was shown to the [[Anglican Church]] as opposed to the more Americanized [[Methodist Church]].{{sfn|Landon|1941|p=123}}

The Battle of York showed the vulnerability of Upper and Lower Canada ([[The Canadas]]). In the decades following the war, several projects were undertaken to improve the defence of the colonies against the United States. They included work on [[La Citadelle]] at [[Quebec City]], [[Fort Henry National Historic Site|Fort Henry]] at Kingston, and rebuilding [[Fort York]] at York. Additionally, work began on the [[Halifax Citadel]] to defend the port against foreign navies.{{sfn|Hayes|2008|p=117}} Akin to the American view that it was a "Second War of Independence" for the United States, the war was also somewhat of a war of independence for Canada.{{sfn|O'Grady|2008|p=892}} Before the war Canada was a mix of French Canadians, native-born British subjects, loyalists and Americans who migrated there. Historian [[Donald R. Hickey]] maintains that the war that threatened Canada greatly helped to cement these disparate groups into a unified nation.{{sfn|Hickey|1989|p=304}}

=== Indigenous nations ===
[[File:NW Native Tribes, 1792.png|thumb|Map showing the general distribution of Indian tribes in the [[Northwest Territory]] in the early 1790s]]
The Indigenous tribes allied to the British lost their cause. The Americans rejected the British proposal to create an "[[Indian barrier state]]" in the American West at the Ghent peace conference and it never resurfaced.{{sfn|Hatter|2016|p=213}} [[Donald Fixico]] argues that "[a]fter the War of 1812, the U.S. negotiated over two hundred Indian treaties that involved the ceding of Indian lands and 99 of these agreements resulted in the creation of reservations west of the Mississippi River".{{sfn|Fixico}}

The Indigenous nations lost most of their [[fur]]-trapping territory.{{sfn|Berthier-Foglar|Otto|2020|p=26}} Indigenous nations were displaced in Alabama, [[Georgia (US state)|Georgia]], [[New York (state)|New York]] and [[Oklahoma]], losing most of what is now Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin within the Northwest Territory as well as in New York and the [[Southern United States|South]]. They came to be seen as an undesirable burden by British policymakers, who now looked to the United States for markets and raw materials.{{sfn|Calloway|1986|pp=1–20}} Everyone, including British fur traders were prohibited from entering in the United States for purposes of trade.{{sfn|Berthier-Foglar|Otto|2020|p=26}}

British Indian agents however continued to meet regularly with their former allies among the tribes of the Old Northwest, but refused to supply them with arms or help them resist American attempts to displace them. The American government rapidly built a network of forts throughout the Old Northwest, thus establishing firm military control. It also sponsored American fur traders, who outcompeted the British fur traders.{{sfn|Calloway|1986|pp=1–20}} Meanwhile, Euro-American settlers rapidly migrated into the Old Northwest, into the lands occupied by the tribes who were previously allied with the British.<ref>[[#edmunds1978|Edmunds, 1978]], p. 162</ref> The War of 1812 marked a turning point in the history of the Old Northwest because it established United States authority over the British and Indians of that border region.<ref>Francis Paul Prucha, ''American Indian Treaties: The History of a Political Anomaly'', University of California Press, 1994, 129–145, 183–201</ref>

After the decisive defeat of the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814, some Creek warriors escaped to join the Seminole in Florida.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}} The remaining Creek chiefs signed away about half their lands, comprising 23,000,000 acres, covering much of southern Georgia and two-thirds of modern Alabama. The Creek were separated from any future help from the Spanish in Florida and from the [[Choctaw]] and [[Chickasaw]] to the west.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.mcn-nsn.gov/culturehistory/|title=Culture/History |website=Muscogee (Creek) Nation |access-date=19 March 2021|archive-date=18 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210318201200/https://www.mcn-nsn.gov/culturehistory/|url-status=dead}}</ref>

=== United Kingdom ===
[[File:TheHartfordConventionOrLeapNoLeap.jpg|thumb|A political caricature of delegates from the [[Hartford Convention]] deciding whether to leap into the hands of the British, December 1814. The convention led to widespread fears that the New England states might attempt to secede from the United States.]]
The war is seldom remembered in the United Kingdom. The war in Europe against the French Empire under [[Napoleon]] ensured that the British did not consider the War of 1812 against the United States as more than a sideshow.{{sfn|Hickey|1989|p=304}} Britain's blockade of French trade had worked and the Royal Navy was the world's dominant nautical power (and remained so for another century). While the land campaigns had contributed to saving Canada, the Royal Navy had shut down American commerce, bottled up the United States Navy in port and widely suppressed privateering. British businesses, some affected by rising insurance costs, were demanding peace so that trade could resume with the United States.{{sfnm|1a1=Heidler|1a2=Heidler|1y=2002|1p=7|2a1=Latimer|2y=2009|2p=88}} The peace was generally welcomed by the British, although there was disquiet about the rapid growth of the United States. The two nations quickly resumed trade after the end of the war and a growing friendship.{{sfn|Stearns|2008|p=547}}

The historian Donald Hickey maintains that for Britain, "the best way to defend Canada was to accommodate the United States. This was the principal rationale for Britain's long-term policy of rapprochement with the United States in the nineteenth century and explains why they were so often willing to sacrifice other imperial interests to keep the republic happy".{{sfn|Hickey|2014}}

=== United States ===
[[File:4th-of-July-1819-Philadelphia-John-Lewis-Krimmel.JPG|thumb|[[Independence Day (United States)|Independence Day]] celebrations in 1819. In the United States, the war was followed by the [[Era of Good Feelings]], a period that saw nationalism and a desire for national unity rise throughout the country.|left]]
The nation gained a strong sense of complete independence as people celebrated their "second war of independence".{{sfnm|1a1=Langguth|1y=2006|pp=1, 177|2a1=Cogliano|2y=2008|2p=247}} Nationalism soared after the victory at the Battle of New Orleans. The opposition Federalist Party collapsed due to its opposition to the war and the [[Era of Good Feelings]] ensued.{{sfn|Dangerfield|1952|pp=xi–xiii, 95}}

No longer questioning the need for a strong Navy, the United States built three new 74-gun [[ships of the line]] and two new 44-gun frigates shortly after the end of the war.{{sfn|Toll|2006|pp=456, 467}} In 1816, the United States Congress passed into law an "Act for the gradual increase of the Navy" at a cost of $1,000,000 a year for eight years, authorizing nine ships of the line and 12 [[heavy frigate]]s.{{sfn|Toll|2006|p=457}} The captains and commodores of the Navy became the heroes of their generation in the United States. Several war heroes used their fame to win elections to national office. Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison both benefited from their military successes to win the presidency, while representative Richard Mentor Johnson's role during the war helped him attain the vice presidency.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.senate.gov/about/officers-staff/vice-president/VP_Richard_M_Johnson.htm|title=Richard Mentor Johnson, 9th Vice President (1837–1841)|website=U.S. Senate |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210815145044/https://www.senate.gov/about/officers-staff/vice-president/VP_Richard_M_Johnson.htm |archive-date= Aug 15, 2021 }}</ref>

During the war, New England states became increasingly frustrated over how the war was being conducted and how the conflict affected them. They complained that the United States government was not investing enough militarily and financially in the states' defences and that the states should have more control over their militias. Increased taxes, the British blockade, and the occupation of some of New England by enemy forces also agitated public opinion in the states.{{sfn|Hickey|1989|pp=255ff}} At the Hartford Convention held between December 1814 and January 1815, Federalist delegates deprecated the war effort and sought more autonomy for the New England states. They did not call for secession but word of the angry anti-war resolutions appeared as peace was announced and the victory at New Orleans was known. The upshot was that the Federalists were permanently discredited and quickly disappeared as a major political force.{{sfn|Cogliano|2008|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=pnJJ-GDktHgC&pg=PA234 234]}}

This war enabled thousands of [[slavery in North America|slaves]] to escape to freedom, despite the difficulties.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/wedged-between-slavery-and-freedom.htm|title=Wedged Between Slavery and Freedom: African American Equality Deferred |website=U.S. National Park Service |date=August 14, 2017 |first1=Gene Allen |last1=Smith |url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20230719152949/https://www.nps.gov/articles/wedged-between-slavery-and-freedom.htm |archive-date= Jul 19, 2023 }}</ref> The British helped numerous escaped slaves resettle in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, where [[Black Loyalists]] had also been granted land after the American Revolutionary War.<ref name=":0"/>

Jackson invaded [[Florida]] (then part of [[New Spain]]) in 1818, demonstrating to Spain that it could no longer control that colonial territory with a small force. Spain sold Florida to the United States in 1819 under the [[Adams–Onís Treaty]] following the [[First Seminole War]]. Pratt concludes that "[t]hus indirectly the War of 1812 brought about the acquisition of Florida".{{sfn|Pratt|1955|p=138}}