Free 1812: The Navy's War by George Daughan Page A

dispossessing the tribes of over three million acres for an equivalent of $5,250. This was but one in a series of unequal treaties that Harrison had concluded with the Indians. Since becoming governor of the newly formed Indiana Territory in 1800, he had carried out President Jefferson’s policy of turning as many Indians as possible into farmers. Jefferson wanted those who resisted to be driven west beyond the Mississippi. His policy left no room for Native Americans to remain on the land and pursue their traditional way of life.
    The American government’s tactics outraged Tecumseh. His movement, which had been strengthening since 1810, grew even stronger when the Treaty of Fort Wayne became fully understood. The contest between Tecumseh, the Prophet, and Harrison eventually led to the Battle of Tippecanoe on November 7, 1811, which was portrayed as a victory for Governor Harrison but led Tecumseh and his growing number of followers to draw ever closer to the British.
    Governor Harrison was a great hero among settlers along the frontier, where people mindlessly placed all the blame for sour relations with the tribes on the British. In the western states and territories frontiersmen were convinced that, deprived of British aid, the Indians could easily be driven beyond the Mississippi, allowing Americans to appropriate their lands. A tidal wave of farmers and speculators awaited their opportunity.
    Annexing Canada also had support in other areas of the country, although to a far lesser degree than in the South and West. Congressman John Adams Harper of Deerfield (Manchester), New Hampshire, for instance, believed that, “The Author of Nature marked our limits in the south by the south of Mexico, and on the north by the regions of eternal frosts.”
    Henry Clay, the new Speaker of the House in the 12th Congress, spoke for the westerners and southerners when he called for troops to drive Britain out of Canada. Clay was only thirty-four years old, and he was a new congressman, but he was nonetheless chosen Speaker. He provided the House of Representatives with more energy and direction than it had had since the days of Madison and Albert Gallatin in the 1790s. “We must take the continent from [the British],” he told the House. “I wish never to see a peace until we do.”
    Clay’s enthusiasm was strengthened by the knowledge that perhaps 60 percent of Upper Canada’s population of 90,000 were recent immigrants from the United States in search of cheap land and no taxes. Britain formed Upper Canada in 1791 by dividing the old province of Quebec into Upper Canada in the west and Lower Canada to the east. Upper Canada ran from Montreal west along the St. Lawrence River, around the northern shores of Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and Lake Superior. The British attracted new immigrants to the sparsely populated province by offering them free land and no taxes. Henry Clay believed that the thousands of former American farmers who had emigrated to Upper Canada probably had no loyalty to the small coterie of upper-class British loyalists who ruled them or to the distant king in London.
    A small group of talented young congressmen between the ages of twenty-nine and thirty-six—dubbed by Madison’s enemy, Congressman John Randolph of Virginia, as “War Hawks”—supported Clay. There were only about twelve War Hawks, but under Clay’s skilled leadership they dominated the House in the 12th Congress, which ran from March 1811 to March 1813, and they had a strong influence on the president.
    Four of the War Hawks were from South Carolina—John C. Calhoun, William Lowndes, David R. Williams, and Langdon Cheves, the chairman of the Naval Committee. Two were from Kentucky, Richard M. Johnson and Joseph Desha, and another was from Tennessee, Felix Grundy. George M. Troup was from Georgia, Peter B. Porter from western New York, and John A. Harper from New Hampshire. Speaker Clay, his wife, Lucretia, and their six children