HISTORY

December 24, 1814
Treaty of Ghent

For months the British had been insisting on uti possidetis, the retention of captured territory. That meant that Britain would keep Ft. Niagara, Northern Maine, offshore islands in the Chesapeake and off the coast of Georgia. For the same number of months the American commissioners had been refusing that demand.

At first it looked hopeless with American defeats along the Niagara and the burning of Washington. Then things turned around. British defeats at Plattsburg, Baltimore and the growing realization that British troops dispatched to America might soon be need again in Europe.

The peace process was flawed. The Americans, far from their government across the Atlantic were on their own while the British commissioners refused to make any decision without first consulting their government in London. Then suddenly, the British commissioners dropped the uti possidetis demand and agreed to the suggestion that all territory would revert back to its original owner.

Let's say you are an American commissioner. You have this offer to end the war. It's better than any offer you have had before . . . even though it says nothing about free trade or the removal of sailors from US ships. But the British had revoked that practice in 1812. Do you refuse to sign until the British put a statement in the document conceding something they had already given you? Do you run the risk that the fortunes of war may shift again, allowing the British to return to an insistence on uti possidetis?

In the end, although Henry Cray almost refused, they decided that it was not worth the risk and signed the document ending the War of 1812.

Did the US lose the War of 1812 because It didn't get the right statements in the Treaty of Ghent? Many individuals have made that claim that we didn't win, we just tired the British out. Looking closely at the negotiations at Ghent it really appears as though the opposite was true . . . it was the British who finally tired out the American commissioners!