The War of 1812 almost saw the demise of the nation still known as the United States of America. Miscalculating America's military capabilities, members of Congress initiated the war with the British Empire with an aim to conquering Canada and Florida, if not the entire continent of North America. Towards the end of the war the New England states nearly revolted (see Hartford Convention). After the war was over the U.S. won a single battle, near New Orleans, and that is what we are trained to remember.
General Andrew Jackson, a man noted for his cruelty towards slaves and animals, was credited with winning the Battle of New Orleans. With other friends in high places he compensated for failing to grab Canada by grabbing vast expanses of Native American Indian lands, essentially all of what are now the states of Alabama and Mississippi. Jackson created the Democratic Party, dedicated to the principles of genocide, slavery, and hoodwinking the the common voter, and then got himself elected President of the United States in 1828 and again in 1832.
Back in the state of Georgia the Cherokee Nation had built up a civilization and used the federal court system to defend their property from appropriation by the white racists who ran the state. President John Adams had defended the Cherokee, but Jackson would not. He signed a law "exchanging" Indian national lands east of the Mississippi River for lands to its west. The actual death march of the Cherokee, along the Trail of Tears, took place in 1838, after Jackson was dead and the Choctaw (1831-1833), Seminole (1834), and Creek (1836) had been "removed." About 4000 Cherokee died during their death march, which was accompanied by U.S. Army troops.
Today this is not a "hidden" part of U.S. history. The federal government even established a Trail of Tears National Historic Trail. But it is ignored in the moral calculus of most Americans' thinking.
Compare the Bataan Death March. It too may fade from the memories of most Americans, but from World War II until today its memory is kept alive by our institutions. They need it; it is a lynchpin of the psychology of the American empire (which is mainly an empire of commerce, backed by the U.S. military and administered by puppet leaders of other nations).
In 1898 the U.S. government decided it wanted some of the remaining territory of the Spanish Empire, including the Philippines. The people of the Philippines had almost finished throwing out the Spanish, but the Spanish sold the Philippines to the U.S. anyway after losing the Spanish-American War. The U.S. proceeded to slaughter any Filipino who objected. The sugar plantations were profitable, and Manila provided easy access to China, but brown people were not wanted as American citizens, so they were eventually forced into a "commonwealth." Which is an American word for colony.
When Asian people finally got tired of being bullied by white people and revolted in 1941... Scratch that. Unacceptable to Americans. Try this: General Douglas MacArthur, commanding the U.S. forces in the Philippines, was given the go ahead by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) to attack the Japanese in Formosa (now Taiwan) a couple of weeks before the Battle of Pearl Harbor. But the General was planning to run for President, and did not want to precipitate war with Japan without authorization by Congress (because most Republican voters, until a few days later, were Isolationists).
Anyway, a huge fleet of reinforcements had already left San Diego, heading for Manila, and MacArthur thought the Japanese could be defeated in a few weeks. MacArthur at that time was best known for slaughtering unarmed U.S. veterans who had been protesting in Washington D.C. during the Great Depression, explicitly disobeying the orders of President Hoover.
The great military strategist put his air force on a runway, with the planes as close together as possible. When he heard about Pearl Harbor, he left them that way. The next day Japanese planes came in and destroyed them all, on the ground. MacArthur awoke from his stupor and realized maybe the Japanese were not such bad fighters after all.
They were not, not even the second-rate tier, old men fighters given to General Homma to capture the Philippines. American resistance (the larger part of MacArthur's army consisted of poorly equipped Filipinos. The U.S. was afraid if they were well-equipped they might try for independence) quickly collapsed. The U.S. forces retreated to the Bataan Peninsula, while MacArthur and his staff his out in the safety of the island fortress Corregidor.
MacArthur had no way to supply his troops. He told his superiors who told FDR. The President lied (well, that is what Presidents do best, and FDR was a master of lies) and said reinforcements were on the way. They were not. The troops in Bataan were low on ammunition, and reduced to 3/4 rations, then 1/2 rations, then whatever they could scrounge. The commanders in Bataan begged MacArthur to evacuate the troops or allow them to surrender. FDR said no; he wanted Japanese troops tied down, and to use the tragedy to whip up the American people against the Japanese.
Under orders from FDR, General MacArthur turned tail and ran for Australia (in a submarine) on March 12, 1942. The Japanese army, reinforced, started their final attack on April 3rd. U.S. resistance largely collapsed by the 5th. General King surrendered his troops on April 9.
About 60,000 Filipino troops and 15,000 American troops surrendered. Many were wounded or sick, almost all were starved to near death.
General Homma was prepared for the U.S. surrender. He had established a POW camp at Capas, which ironically had been a U.S. military base. The POWs would gather in Balanga, then march to San Fernando, about 80 miles, and would go the rest of the way by rail.
It was not a good plan, but it was not a bad plan either. Some of the Japanese troops who had just been fighting the Americans purposefully mistreated them, which is a war crime. It is the most common war crime, and a different sort of crime than commanders ordering mass executions of POWs. It is the kind of crime U.S. soldiers committed against American Indians, and against each other all too often in the Civil War. Not respecting POW conventions is to be condemned, no matter which soldiers are committing the crimes.
But consider the state of the POWs at the time of capture. Normal, healthy troops should have had no trouble walking the 80 miles to San Fernando.
In the chaos of war it is hard to say exactly how many troops died after surrendering. Many tried to escape; some succeeded, some were shot while trying to escape (not a war crime).
The high estimate for American (excluding Filipino) deaths is 650; it is unlikely less than 100 died. That may be appalling, but these were sick and starving men who had been betrayed by their own commanders. It is a testament to both the soldiers themselves and the Japanese military that over 14,000 white U.S. troops survived the march. In detailed interviews with the marchers, many reported acts of kindness by their Japanese guards. The Filipinos fared worse, probably because they were discriminated against within the U.S. forces prior to surrender (given inferior equipment and rations). Thousands of Filipinos died during the march, but again over 50,000 lived.
In short, the Bataan March was not a death march for most involved. There was Japanese brutality, but it was mostly ordinary bad soldiering brutality, not an organized slaughter.
The combination surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and propaganda about the Bataan Death March became an excuse for wide range of U.S. atrocities, many of them ordered by FDR himself. The U.S. engaged in unrestricted submarine warfare, which the U.S. had claimed was illegal when the Germans did it during World War I. The U.S. bombed Japanese cities; before the war FDR had condemned nations that bombed cities because, in fact, targeting civilians is a war crime. U.S. soldiers often killed Japanese soldiers that surrendered, particularly in the campaign in which MacArthur recaptured the Philippines. It also led to American citizens of Japanese descent being placed in concentration camps in the U.S. for the duration of the war.
Finally, there was the demand for unconditional surrender (which was unprecedented, and prolonged the war both in Germany and in Asia) and the Atomic Bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These are usually rationalized as "saving the lives of American soldiers." But the basic idea of war crimes is that civilians are not to be killed for military advantage. The U.S. could have saved the lives of American soldiers by negotiating a peace with Japan.
I know very few Americans think of the Trail of Tears and the Bataan Death March as related in any way. But they are more than just two sad instances of historic inhumanity. They are a test of how well people are trained to make excuses for the behavior of national governments. They are also a test of racist sentiments.
Note too that the Bataan March involved soldiers, who were moved a short distance to POW camps. The Trail of Tears involved forced removal of civilians, including children who were forced to march over 1000 miles to their new concentration camp. Soldiers are professional killers. The agreement among the world's nations to treat each other's professional killers nicely if captured is a bit difficult for some of the soldiers themselves to comprehend.
The Philippines was granted official (but not real) independence by the U.S. in 1946. They had declared independence, encouraged by the Japanese, on October 14, 1943. Most Filipinos cooperated with the Japanese. Later, after MacArthur reconquered the islands, a legend grew that large numbers of Filipinos guerillas fought the Japanese during the war. In fact very few did. Jose Laurel, President of the Philippines, cooperated closely with the Japanese during the war, as did most upper-class Filipinos. Laurel also ran for President of the Philippines in 1949, but lost to Elpidio Quirino.
Showing posts with label War of 1812. Show all posts
Showing posts with label War of 1812. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Neutral Nations: 1812, 1942, and 2012
Barack Obama made a big election speech last night, one of the great post-1984 speeches of American history. He proclaimed himself a triumphant war leader, and yet someone who negotiated peace with victory in Afghanistan, in time for his presumed re-election later this year. The timing of the speech was suspect: while given on the anniversary of the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, it allowed the corporate security state news outlets to avoid coverage of the increasingly revolutionary Occupy movement's activities the same day.
Pakistan would like to be neutral nation, at peace with all nations, at war with none. But the current U.S. global paradigm does not allow for that. How much the attitude of the United States of America has changed towards the concept of international neutrality can be traced through our history and corresponds closely with our shifting from being one of the world's newest, weakest nations in 1776 to being the imperialist thugs of our current era.
In American history books the War of 1812 is cast as mainly about America's thwarted desire to be a neutral nation, with the right to trade (and profit) with all nations during a time of global warfare. Ignore, for the purposes of this essay the true cause of the war, the desire of the U.S. to conquer Canada, Florida, and Indian nations. The Napoleonic Wars between Britain and France ran from 1803 to 1815, and the United States did not want to take sides.
Naturally, both the British Empire and its allies and France and its allies wanted to win the war. American entrepreneurs wanted to profit by selling whatever they could to both sides. The British wanted the U.S. to trade exclusively with them, and the French exerted similar efforts. In the U.S. political factions favored one side or the other: the Federalists preferred the British, the Republicans the French, but neither could prevail over the common wisdom to profit from neutrality.
The difference between the rival empires was that after the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 the British really did rule the waves. Beginning in 1806 they stopped U.S. ships bound for French-controlled territories. They also began "impressing" U.S. seamen, capturing them and forcing them to work in the British Navy. If you are willing to listen to the British side, you might note that captured U.S. citizens had allegedly signed contracts with the British Navy, and had bugged out of them, and were not really U.S. citizens, except in cases of mistaken identity.
The right of neutral nations not to be caught up in more powerful nation's wars proved difficult for the United States to maintain. After trying a self-imposed embargo (refusing to export U.S. goods to any nation), probably the stupidest policy in U.S. history, and endless negotiation, the United States declared war on Britain in June, 1812. It was a controversial declaration of war, passing the House with a vote of 79 to 49, and the Senate 19 to 13.
Without being explicit about it, the U.S. was fighting side by side with the French dictator Napoleon Bonaparte. The U.S. failed to conquer Canada, and France lost the global war, so pretty clearly the U.S. lost the war. However, we did steal huge amounts of Indian Nation lands in the process, so the land speculation faction had a happy day.
Having fought alleged slights to it's neutrality, you might think the U.S. would honor the neutrality of other nations. That was true so long as it was some other nation that was having its neutrality trampled on, like Belgium during World War I. When neutral nations got in the way of U.S. war aims, however, a different story line emerged.
Cordell Hull, who was Secretary of State under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, documents this in excruciating details in his Memoirs. At the beginning of World War II the U.S. establishment planned to repeat its triumphant accomplishments of World War I: make a lot of money being a neutral nation, then join the war towards the end, on the victorious side, grab while the grabbing is good, and mask mercenary aims behind high-sounding peace and democracy rhetoric. Before the British, German, Japanese, and Russian empires could totally destroy each other, however, the Japanese made U.S. involvement in the war official on December 7, 1941.
The United States immediately ordered its Latin America puppet nations to enter the war on its side, and many did. A number of other nations were determined to be neutral, however. Cordell Hull recounts how starting in 1943 he pressured Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Argentina, Ireland and Turkey to either officially enter the war on the side of the United Nations (originally, and still really, a fighting organization of U.S./British puppets) or at least cut off crucial war materials to the enemy Axis nations.
Of course, Americans think: but was not Hitler really evil? Is it not okay to bash neutral nations when they are refusing to fight evil?
What, exactly, you might want to ask, made Hitler so evil that the rules could be broken by the U.S.? He was a racist. Oops, so were Franklin Roosevelt, Cordell Hull, their Democratic Party, and the British Empire. He conquered non-German territories, not allowing each nation of Europe to determine its own destiny. The U.S., in contrast, liberated the American Indians and bossed around Hawaii, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico through entirely peaceful means, and the British Empire was not built on the blood and bones of millions of citizens of defeated nations. Why were the Irish neutral? Are you kidding? Because as much as they would have liked to smash the British Empire, or at least kick the Brits out of Northern Ireland, actually declaring war against Britain would have just ended up with another round of genocide at British hands in Ireland.
Sure, Hitler was a bad guy. But you will notice the U.S. did not send troops to fight Hitler (or any other Catholic Four leader: Mussolini, Franco, Petain and Hitler) when war first broke out in 1939. Even after the U.S. declared war Roosevelt kept building up the U.S. economy by selling to the both our allies and, in many cases documented (and rationalized away) by Hull, to the Axis powers too! Churchill and Stalin begged the U.S. to actually send troops to fight. Twenty million Russians died defeating Hitler. Only then, when Hitler was clearly defeated in 1944, did the U.S. invade France and mop up the seniors and teenage conscripts who manned Germany's army on the eastern front.
The U.S. global empire does not like neutral nations today any more than King George or Napoleon did in their day.
Pakistan, in particular, is bashed for trying to remain neutral and at peace with its neighbors. Pakistan has plenty of problems of its own without the U.S. butting in with its political manipulations, its drones, its attacks on the army of Pakistan, and its threats. The U.S. puppet government of Afghanistan is not some shining light of the region. It is corrupt to the core. Those who doubt that billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars will be able to prop up this regime in the long run have history on their side.
President Obama plays the smiling predator game well. He's about as complex as Tony Soprano. He says the new agreement with Afghanistan will "build an equal partnership between two sovereign states." Within that equal partnership the U.S. has assigned our Afghan puppets the job of "patrolling its cities and mountains" to kill anyone who is not a U.S. puppet. "Others will ask why we don't leave immediately... our gains could be lost ... I refuse to let that happen." [Full Barack Obama Afghanistan Speech]
What gains? A higher national debt? The deeper entrenchment of the corporate security state in the U.S.A.? Gains for who? 99% of American citizens have lost a lot in this past decade, Mr. President. We lost it mostly to banks and speculators, not to the Taliban. If only you had declared war on investment banks, Mr. President, I might not be neutral. But of course they financed your 2008 election campaign, so you have directed us to look elsewhere for enemies.
Pakistan would like to be neutral nation, at peace with all nations, at war with none. But the current U.S. global paradigm does not allow for that. How much the attitude of the United States of America has changed towards the concept of international neutrality can be traced through our history and corresponds closely with our shifting from being one of the world's newest, weakest nations in 1776 to being the imperialist thugs of our current era.
In American history books the War of 1812 is cast as mainly about America's thwarted desire to be a neutral nation, with the right to trade (and profit) with all nations during a time of global warfare. Ignore, for the purposes of this essay the true cause of the war, the desire of the U.S. to conquer Canada, Florida, and Indian nations. The Napoleonic Wars between Britain and France ran from 1803 to 1815, and the United States did not want to take sides.
Naturally, both the British Empire and its allies and France and its allies wanted to win the war. American entrepreneurs wanted to profit by selling whatever they could to both sides. The British wanted the U.S. to trade exclusively with them, and the French exerted similar efforts. In the U.S. political factions favored one side or the other: the Federalists preferred the British, the Republicans the French, but neither could prevail over the common wisdom to profit from neutrality.
The difference between the rival empires was that after the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 the British really did rule the waves. Beginning in 1806 they stopped U.S. ships bound for French-controlled territories. They also began "impressing" U.S. seamen, capturing them and forcing them to work in the British Navy. If you are willing to listen to the British side, you might note that captured U.S. citizens had allegedly signed contracts with the British Navy, and had bugged out of them, and were not really U.S. citizens, except in cases of mistaken identity.
The right of neutral nations not to be caught up in more powerful nation's wars proved difficult for the United States to maintain. After trying a self-imposed embargo (refusing to export U.S. goods to any nation), probably the stupidest policy in U.S. history, and endless negotiation, the United States declared war on Britain in June, 1812. It was a controversial declaration of war, passing the House with a vote of 79 to 49, and the Senate 19 to 13.
Without being explicit about it, the U.S. was fighting side by side with the French dictator Napoleon Bonaparte. The U.S. failed to conquer Canada, and France lost the global war, so pretty clearly the U.S. lost the war. However, we did steal huge amounts of Indian Nation lands in the process, so the land speculation faction had a happy day.
Having fought alleged slights to it's neutrality, you might think the U.S. would honor the neutrality of other nations. That was true so long as it was some other nation that was having its neutrality trampled on, like Belgium during World War I. When neutral nations got in the way of U.S. war aims, however, a different story line emerged.
Cordell Hull, who was Secretary of State under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, documents this in excruciating details in his Memoirs. At the beginning of World War II the U.S. establishment planned to repeat its triumphant accomplishments of World War I: make a lot of money being a neutral nation, then join the war towards the end, on the victorious side, grab while the grabbing is good, and mask mercenary aims behind high-sounding peace and democracy rhetoric. Before the British, German, Japanese, and Russian empires could totally destroy each other, however, the Japanese made U.S. involvement in the war official on December 7, 1941.
The United States immediately ordered its Latin America puppet nations to enter the war on its side, and many did. A number of other nations were determined to be neutral, however. Cordell Hull recounts how starting in 1943 he pressured Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Argentina, Ireland and Turkey to either officially enter the war on the side of the United Nations (originally, and still really, a fighting organization of U.S./British puppets) or at least cut off crucial war materials to the enemy Axis nations.
Of course, Americans think: but was not Hitler really evil? Is it not okay to bash neutral nations when they are refusing to fight evil?
What, exactly, you might want to ask, made Hitler so evil that the rules could be broken by the U.S.? He was a racist. Oops, so were Franklin Roosevelt, Cordell Hull, their Democratic Party, and the British Empire. He conquered non-German territories, not allowing each nation of Europe to determine its own destiny. The U.S., in contrast, liberated the American Indians and bossed around Hawaii, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico through entirely peaceful means, and the British Empire was not built on the blood and bones of millions of citizens of defeated nations. Why were the Irish neutral? Are you kidding? Because as much as they would have liked to smash the British Empire, or at least kick the Brits out of Northern Ireland, actually declaring war against Britain would have just ended up with another round of genocide at British hands in Ireland.
Sure, Hitler was a bad guy. But you will notice the U.S. did not send troops to fight Hitler (or any other Catholic Four leader: Mussolini, Franco, Petain and Hitler) when war first broke out in 1939. Even after the U.S. declared war Roosevelt kept building up the U.S. economy by selling to the both our allies and, in many cases documented (and rationalized away) by Hull, to the Axis powers too! Churchill and Stalin begged the U.S. to actually send troops to fight. Twenty million Russians died defeating Hitler. Only then, when Hitler was clearly defeated in 1944, did the U.S. invade France and mop up the seniors and teenage conscripts who manned Germany's army on the eastern front.
The U.S. global empire does not like neutral nations today any more than King George or Napoleon did in their day.
Pakistan, in particular, is bashed for trying to remain neutral and at peace with its neighbors. Pakistan has plenty of problems of its own without the U.S. butting in with its political manipulations, its drones, its attacks on the army of Pakistan, and its threats. The U.S. puppet government of Afghanistan is not some shining light of the region. It is corrupt to the core. Those who doubt that billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars will be able to prop up this regime in the long run have history on their side.
President Obama plays the smiling predator game well. He's about as complex as Tony Soprano. He says the new agreement with Afghanistan will "build an equal partnership between two sovereign states." Within that equal partnership the U.S. has assigned our Afghan puppets the job of "patrolling its cities and mountains" to kill anyone who is not a U.S. puppet. "Others will ask why we don't leave immediately... our gains could be lost ... I refuse to let that happen." [Full Barack Obama Afghanistan Speech]
What gains? A higher national debt? The deeper entrenchment of the corporate security state in the U.S.A.? Gains for who? 99% of American citizens have lost a lot in this past decade, Mr. President. We lost it mostly to banks and speculators, not to the Taliban. If only you had declared war on investment banks, Mr. President, I might not be neutral. But of course they financed your 2008 election campaign, so you have directed us to look elsewhere for enemies.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Halloween Horrors from American History
When people think of horrors rising from the grave at Halloween, if they think about American history the best they can come up with is usually Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. That just shows how well-built our mental defenses are against true horror.
Perhaps tonight some unlucky people will see the ghost of John Woods. His older brother had been conscripted into the Tennessee militia in the war of 1812. For reasons unknown John, who was just 17, took his brother's place in Andrew Jackson's army in February, 1814. They had been fighting Indians, and none too victoriously. "He made the mistake of arguing with the Officer of the Day outside of the General's tent. Jackson stepped outside and ordered: "Shoot him." Two days later, on March 14th, at 10 A.M. John Woods was shot dead by his fellow soldiers at Jackson's command. The General now believed he was ready to fight the Red Sticks again, with less insubordination from his underlings." [from Andrew Jackson Fights the Red Sticks]
John Woods was hardly the only victim of Andrew Jackson, a slaver who went on to create the Democratic Party and use it to make himself President, but let's make this a variety horror show. There were, of course, the natives. If every murdered American Indian showed up on Halloween, it would be a sight. Practically every major figure in American history up to the Civil War was an Indian killer of some magnitude. George Washington killed Indians, as did Thomas Jefferson, as did hordes of forgotten European colonizers. The rapid accumulation of wealth and establishment of a ruling class in the United States was largely accomplished by the murder of Indians and theft of their lands.
Ghosts of dead slaves, too, could put together quite a Halloween ball. Many died horrible deaths while in chains in Africa or on the ships that brought them across the Atlantic. In America the life expectancy, and living conditions, of slaves working at cotton or tobacco culture was nothing to sing songs to Jesus for the blessings of Christianity about. Again, the same names pop out of our history books, slavers George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson not being particularly noted for their cruelty, but rather as the political frontmen for the owners of larger lots of expendable human workforce. Of course, even after the Civil War, the Democratic Party made sure that life for African Americans was halloween everyday in the former slave states.
White people, don't despair. Not all of our ancestors were Indian killers and racists. In fact, most white people who arrived in the colonies before the American Revolution came over as indentured servants, and their ghosts, in their millions, could tell some tales. While indentured slavery was for a period of time, usually 7 years, and many survived and went free, most were worked and starved to death by the end of their term, that being more profitable than turning free a healthy, well fed human being.
I cannot neglect to mention the foreign wars. There are too many ghosts and spooks to mention them all here, even in lumps, so a few must represent all. The Philippines War, an addendum to the Spanish American War, was carried on with the same principles of an Indian extermination campaign. No one knows how many Filipino freedom fighters and civilians died under the cheery tutelage of Theodore Roosevelt and crew, but rough estimates range from a low of about one-half million to a high of two million. The U.S. war to occupy Korea and the Vietnam War are worth an all-saints mention.
If you are looking for glow-in the dark zombies, perhaps you would enjoy the resurrection of the only large bodies of people killed by atomic weapons, the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The average American, who deserves to be haunted into an early grave, simply repeats the charming meme, "it saved lives of American soldiers." That the rules of war have always said it is not okay to kill civilians to save your own soldiers seems lost on people. That Science, which should be a beacon of light, was bent to this unholy purpose, makes it all the more criminal. President Harry Truman, the leader of the Democratic Party, made the decision to drop the bomb. The Democratic Party is the only party in history that has dropped atomic weapons on human beings. Had America lost World War II, or had a fair and impartial system of international justice been created, the Democratic Party would have been permanently banned, just like the National Socialist German Workers Party was.
For me, the horror is walking out into a world where a bunch of Democratic Party zombies grope about in continual denial of the reality of what their party has done, and what they have embraced by joining it. How many more people will die violent deaths at Democrats' hands before its reign of terror fades into history?
Perhaps tonight some unlucky people will see the ghost of John Woods. His older brother had been conscripted into the Tennessee militia in the war of 1812. For reasons unknown John, who was just 17, took his brother's place in Andrew Jackson's army in February, 1814. They had been fighting Indians, and none too victoriously. "He made the mistake of arguing with the Officer of the Day outside of the General's tent. Jackson stepped outside and ordered: "Shoot him." Two days later, on March 14th, at 10 A.M. John Woods was shot dead by his fellow soldiers at Jackson's command. The General now believed he was ready to fight the Red Sticks again, with less insubordination from his underlings." [from Andrew Jackson Fights the Red Sticks]
John Woods was hardly the only victim of Andrew Jackson, a slaver who went on to create the Democratic Party and use it to make himself President, but let's make this a variety horror show. There were, of course, the natives. If every murdered American Indian showed up on Halloween, it would be a sight. Practically every major figure in American history up to the Civil War was an Indian killer of some magnitude. George Washington killed Indians, as did Thomas Jefferson, as did hordes of forgotten European colonizers. The rapid accumulation of wealth and establishment of a ruling class in the United States was largely accomplished by the murder of Indians and theft of their lands.
Ghosts of dead slaves, too, could put together quite a Halloween ball. Many died horrible deaths while in chains in Africa or on the ships that brought them across the Atlantic. In America the life expectancy, and living conditions, of slaves working at cotton or tobacco culture was nothing to sing songs to Jesus for the blessings of Christianity about. Again, the same names pop out of our history books, slavers George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson not being particularly noted for their cruelty, but rather as the political frontmen for the owners of larger lots of expendable human workforce. Of course, even after the Civil War, the Democratic Party made sure that life for African Americans was halloween everyday in the former slave states.
White people, don't despair. Not all of our ancestors were Indian killers and racists. In fact, most white people who arrived in the colonies before the American Revolution came over as indentured servants, and their ghosts, in their millions, could tell some tales. While indentured slavery was for a period of time, usually 7 years, and many survived and went free, most were worked and starved to death by the end of their term, that being more profitable than turning free a healthy, well fed human being.
I cannot neglect to mention the foreign wars. There are too many ghosts and spooks to mention them all here, even in lumps, so a few must represent all. The Philippines War, an addendum to the Spanish American War, was carried on with the same principles of an Indian extermination campaign. No one knows how many Filipino freedom fighters and civilians died under the cheery tutelage of Theodore Roosevelt and crew, but rough estimates range from a low of about one-half million to a high of two million. The U.S. war to occupy Korea and the Vietnam War are worth an all-saints mention.
If you are looking for glow-in the dark zombies, perhaps you would enjoy the resurrection of the only large bodies of people killed by atomic weapons, the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The average American, who deserves to be haunted into an early grave, simply repeats the charming meme, "it saved lives of American soldiers." That the rules of war have always said it is not okay to kill civilians to save your own soldiers seems lost on people. That Science, which should be a beacon of light, was bent to this unholy purpose, makes it all the more criminal. President Harry Truman, the leader of the Democratic Party, made the decision to drop the bomb. The Democratic Party is the only party in history that has dropped atomic weapons on human beings. Had America lost World War II, or had a fair and impartial system of international justice been created, the Democratic Party would have been permanently banned, just like the National Socialist German Workers Party was.
For me, the horror is walking out into a world where a bunch of Democratic Party zombies grope about in continual denial of the reality of what their party has done, and what they have embraced by joining it. How many more people will die violent deaths at Democrats' hands before its reign of terror fades into history?
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Extradition, Canada, and War
Maybe the U.S. won't go to war with Pakistan, maybe we will be too busy in our war with Canada.
The pretext for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was that the government of the country, controlled by the Taliban, refused to extradite Osama Bin Laden when the U.S. government demanded that after the successful al-Qaeda attack on September 11, 2001. I don't believe refusing to extradite a criminal is grounds for war, but the United Nations failed to protect Afghanistan from U.S. aggression, or even to condemn the U.S. Thus the de facto standard for international relations seems to have become that refusing to extradite is an act of war.
Given that, expect war between the U.S. and Canada soon. According to the Associated Press, on Friday the Canadian Court of Appeal confirmed a lower court decision to not extradite Abdullah Khadr to the United States. Mr. Khadr was wanted on the same charges as Osama Bin Laden, terrorism, specifically supplying al-Qaeda with weapons used to fight U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Of course, the U.S. will not actually go to war with Canada over the issue. Nations refuse to extradite people to other nations all the time. It usually is no big deal. The United States itself harbors many people convicted of crimes in other countries. Some times we extradite them, some times we don't. For instance, if some one had been found guilty in Iraq of murder, but the murder had been an act of resistance to the Saddam Hussein regime, the U.S. would certainly have refused to extradite.
If if refusal to extradite a government's allies is not a pretext for war (my position, and seemingly one in accord with international law), then there was no legitimate pretext for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. George Bush and crew, and Barack Obama and crew, are simply war criminals.
If it is okay to fly a few troops into Pakistan to capture a criminal wanted in the United States, why was that tactic not used in Afghanistan in the first place? The CIA could have located Osama while the U.S. engaged in endless negotiations with the Taliban. Then would could have grabbed or killed Osama. We would have violated international law, and the Taliban would have been mad, but we would not be in an endless ground war in a nation not worth conquering.
We went to war against Afghanistan because we are ruled by a cabal of people who profiteer from war. George W. Bush was a failure as a manager of an oil company, but by attacking Afghanistan while most Americans were too emotional about the September 11 attacks to think clearly, he made himself popular. The price paid by the American people was the destruction of America from within by greed running out of control. We did not pay the price until the economic collapse of 2008.
The last time we fought a war with Canada, in the War of 1812, Canada was part of the British Empire, and we lost the war. We lost it rather badly, truth be told (see Life of Jackson: Battle of New Orleans). We launched the War of 1812 with the idea of grabbing Canada and Florida to add to the United States.
So the real question is, does the U.S. ruling class want Canada at this point of our history. If they do, the Abdullah Khadr decision can be used as a pretext for war. Otherwise, it will simply be forgotten.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Gaza, Blockades, Embargoes, Pirates and Privateers
Some people are in an uproar because Israel used what anyone else would call excessive force to capture a Turkish aid ship headed for Gaza in Palestine. Some people are just beginning to notice that most post-Holocaust Israelis adopted the core Nazi values of racism and killing anyone who gets in your way (which were core American values until the 1960s, truth be told). Palestinians just happened to be in the way of Jews who wanted to resurrect the ancient kingdom of Judea.
My analysis is that the Israeli high command probably gave advance orders to their gunmen raiding the charity fleet to use lethal force because they wanted to disrupt the impending settlement talks with the Palestinians. They think President Barack Obama will be weakened by the November elections in the United States. They think they can get another postponement, or a better deal after November. They are willing to take the short-term hit for the perceived long-term gain.
If indeed some of the passengers on the Mavi Marmara tried to stop the Israeli gunmen from boarding their ship, it was within their rights of self-defense. Pacifists would say it was wrong, and with their weird non-violence logic (see Non-violence and its Violent Consequences) would have blamed the victims on the ship, not the gunmen. If the point was to show the brutality of the State of Israel and bring attention to its illegal blockade of Gaza, however, those who defended themselves, and made the ultimate sacrifice, did the right thing.
Turn it around to see the justice. A bunch of German liberals decide to take supplies to a concentration camp or ghetto to feed Jews during World War II. Nazi gunmen stop them, first with beatings, then with bullets. Who would justify such Nazi actions, except the Nazis themselves?
Many wars have started with embargoes or blockades at sea. Embargoes are not in themselves acts of war, although they certainly can provoke wars. Blockades are acts of war. If a war has not already begun, a blockade is a good start. Remember the American War of 1812? The British blockade of Europe (they were at war with France and its allies) was one of the main factors.
The American Revolutionary War is thought of as a time of sacrifice, and for most of both the terrorists (I mean patriotic ancestors) and those Americans who remained loyal to Great Britain it was. But some Americans made out like bandits: privateers. They were authorized by Congress to seize British ships, and captured a lot of profits in the process. If the loyalists had won the war, in retrospect we would call them pirates.
Self-defense is a right, but it is a tricky right that runs up against the self-defense and private property rights of others. Surely Jews in Europe had a right to defend themselves against Adolf Hitler and his gunmen in the 1930s and 1940s. Surely the Palestinians had a right to defend themselves against the mainly German, Jewish invaders in the 1940s. So where should the Jews in European camps have gone? In retrospect, back to Germany. Anti-semitism was discredited and the Nazi Party was banned. They would have been safe there, but they did not feel they would be safe there, which is understandable.
As I said, choosing to not sell to a nation through an embargo is not an act of war, whereas a blockade usually is an act of war. But there are gray areas. After World War II started in Europe the United States, the Netherlands, and the British Empire joined in an embargo against Japan. The Japanese felt this was an act of war, since it meant they could get no petroleum, which they needed to defend their own empire. Attempts at negotiations failed largely because President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted a war to cement American dominance in East Asia, while Great Britain wanted a war because that would also involve America in the fight against Germany. Sure, if the embargo had caused the Japanese to surrender without a fight, America would not need to declare war. In 1812 Britain had the embargo, but America declared war. When you are a global economic superpower, I think it is fair to say that an embargo is a de facto declaration of war.
I believe the United States bears much responsibility for the situation in Gaza. We demanded free elections as a condition for statehood for Palestine. Then, Hamas won the elections. The United States then reneged on its promises. Americans may have missed that hypocritical song and dance routine, but Palestinians and Moslems in general did not.
I see no ethical distinctions between Hamas and Likud. In American politics the practical distinction is in the number of Jewish voters in swing states like Florida and New York, and the ability for American Zionists to contribute to election campaigns.
My analysis is that the Israeli high command probably gave advance orders to their gunmen raiding the charity fleet to use lethal force because they wanted to disrupt the impending settlement talks with the Palestinians. They think President Barack Obama will be weakened by the November elections in the United States. They think they can get another postponement, or a better deal after November. They are willing to take the short-term hit for the perceived long-term gain.
If indeed some of the passengers on the Mavi Marmara tried to stop the Israeli gunmen from boarding their ship, it was within their rights of self-defense. Pacifists would say it was wrong, and with their weird non-violence logic (see Non-violence and its Violent Consequences) would have blamed the victims on the ship, not the gunmen. If the point was to show the brutality of the State of Israel and bring attention to its illegal blockade of Gaza, however, those who defended themselves, and made the ultimate sacrifice, did the right thing.
Turn it around to see the justice. A bunch of German liberals decide to take supplies to a concentration camp or ghetto to feed Jews during World War II. Nazi gunmen stop them, first with beatings, then with bullets. Who would justify such Nazi actions, except the Nazis themselves?
Many wars have started with embargoes or blockades at sea. Embargoes are not in themselves acts of war, although they certainly can provoke wars. Blockades are acts of war. If a war has not already begun, a blockade is a good start. Remember the American War of 1812? The British blockade of Europe (they were at war with France and its allies) was one of the main factors.
The American Revolutionary War is thought of as a time of sacrifice, and for most of both the terrorists (I mean patriotic ancestors) and those Americans who remained loyal to Great Britain it was. But some Americans made out like bandits: privateers. They were authorized by Congress to seize British ships, and captured a lot of profits in the process. If the loyalists had won the war, in retrospect we would call them pirates.
Self-defense is a right, but it is a tricky right that runs up against the self-defense and private property rights of others. Surely Jews in Europe had a right to defend themselves against Adolf Hitler and his gunmen in the 1930s and 1940s. Surely the Palestinians had a right to defend themselves against the mainly German, Jewish invaders in the 1940s. So where should the Jews in European camps have gone? In retrospect, back to Germany. Anti-semitism was discredited and the Nazi Party was banned. They would have been safe there, but they did not feel they would be safe there, which is understandable.
As I said, choosing to not sell to a nation through an embargo is not an act of war, whereas a blockade usually is an act of war. But there are gray areas. After World War II started in Europe the United States, the Netherlands, and the British Empire joined in an embargo against Japan. The Japanese felt this was an act of war, since it meant they could get no petroleum, which they needed to defend their own empire. Attempts at negotiations failed largely because President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted a war to cement American dominance in East Asia, while Great Britain wanted a war because that would also involve America in the fight against Germany. Sure, if the embargo had caused the Japanese to surrender without a fight, America would not need to declare war. In 1812 Britain had the embargo, but America declared war. When you are a global economic superpower, I think it is fair to say that an embargo is a de facto declaration of war.
I believe the United States bears much responsibility for the situation in Gaza. We demanded free elections as a condition for statehood for Palestine. Then, Hamas won the elections. The United States then reneged on its promises. Americans may have missed that hypocritical song and dance routine, but Palestinians and Moslems in general did not.
I see no ethical distinctions between Hamas and Likud. In American politics the practical distinction is in the number of Jewish voters in swing states like Florida and New York, and the ability for American Zionists to contribute to election campaigns.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
James Madison, Slavery, and the Constitution
James Madison was born in the British colony of Virginia on March 16, 1751. Today we tend to think of 1751 as a primitive time in U.S. history, when leather-clad pioneers were constantly at war with Native American Indians. In fact coastal Virginia had been settled for over a century and was about as civilized as much of rural England.
His father, also James Madison, owned a tobacco plantation. That is a polite way of saying that he made his living by overseeing slaves of African extraction. He was a reasonably important guy. During the American Revolution he was a colonel in the Virginia militia. He had a total of twelve children, with James being the eldest.
In 1769 the younger James Madison enrolled at Princeton University (then still called the College of New Jersey). After returning to Virginia he practiced law, then started working his way up the policital machine. He was too young to be among the Virginia slave-owners and lawyers who decided to engineer a rebellion against Britain rather than risk that their slaves would be freed by litigation, using the Somersett ruling of 1772 as a precedent. In 1776 he was elected to the Virginia legislature. Madison, with Thomas Jefferson and others, shook up the world by successfully separating Church from State in Virginia [See Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom].
But James Madison was the beneficiary of a political and economic system based on slavery for African Americans and the denial of the right to vote to most European Americans (who at that time were largely descendents of white slaves, aka indentured servants). He and his friends were not happy that the under classes were demanding the vote and other human rights. He was worried that the system of using government to tax the poor for the benefit of the rich might be turned on its head as poorer groups of men gained the vote, as was happening after the American Revolution in Pennsylvania and other states.
Studying the era between the end of the Revolutionary War and the creation of the Federal Government under the Constitution is considered so risky that even today our modern vocabulary is designed to erase the tape on that period. There were several Congresses under the articles of Confederation. The last approved that a committee would meet at the Annapolis Convention to draft amendments to the Articles to promote commerce between the states. Madison and other conservative slave owners and businessmen at Annapolis, not having a quorum present, decided to call a meeting in Philadelphia and broaden the agenda for amendments.
At Philadelphia some of the nations' richest and most powerful men decided to write a Constitution to their own liking. While it shaped a Republican form of government with Democratic elements [See also America: Republic or Democracy?], it was mainly designed to create a strong central government to protect the institution of slavery and the concentration of private property and political power in the hands of a few men. The Senate would not be chosen by the voters (that changed with the Seventeenth Amendment) and the Supreme Court would be the ultimate bastion agains the rabble.
Madison flip-flopped on the strong central government point, favoring it when it helped his friends and opposing it when it helped their rivals.
In the end, things did not all work out the way James Madison planned. Slavery was abolished after the Civil War, but only by giving almost all power to the national government at the expense of the states and people. Later the people were given the right to directly elect their Senator.
Madison's career marched from election to the House of Representatives right on up to President in 1809. His "War of 1812" is always blamed on the British in the U.S., but they gave the United States no real cause for war. Instead, Madison and others wanted to add Canada to the union. They thought that since Britain was busy fighting France, grabbing Canada would be a piece of cake.
Possibly more important, slavery was an issue in the War of 1812, a fact not mentioned in most U.S. history books. After Somersett and the resulting American Revolution, the British courts had backed off the idea of outlawing slavery. But the anti-slavery movement in England kept pushing. In 1806 the Foreign Slave Trade Act "banned British subjects, shipyards, outfitters and insureres from participating in the slave trade... A well-concealed secret was that many, possibly the majority, of supposedly neutral "American" slave ships were in fact owned by Britons, manned by British crews, and outfitted in Liverpool." [Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains page 302-303]. Then in 1807 the British slave trade was abolished in its entirety.
The harrassing of American shipping by the British, and impressing of former British seamen, is usually stated as the cause of the War of 1812. But that harassment was mainly about stopping the slave trade.
The War of 1812 was a war of aggression by the United States. Its underlying purpose was to continue committing crimes against humanity, which slavery is. James Madison, by my standards, is a War Criminal and Crimes Against Humanity criminal.
Yet I appreciate his working to separate Church and State, and his work on the Bill of Rights. Probably if he had not been raised with slaves and surrounded himself with other slavers, he would have realised how criminal that practice was.
And so each of us might think: how was I raised, and how might that prevent me from seeing what is good and just?
His father, also James Madison, owned a tobacco plantation. That is a polite way of saying that he made his living by overseeing slaves of African extraction. He was a reasonably important guy. During the American Revolution he was a colonel in the Virginia militia. He had a total of twelve children, with James being the eldest.
In 1769 the younger James Madison enrolled at Princeton University (then still called the College of New Jersey). After returning to Virginia he practiced law, then started working his way up the policital machine. He was too young to be among the Virginia slave-owners and lawyers who decided to engineer a rebellion against Britain rather than risk that their slaves would be freed by litigation, using the Somersett ruling of 1772 as a precedent. In 1776 he was elected to the Virginia legislature. Madison, with Thomas Jefferson and others, shook up the world by successfully separating Church from State in Virginia [See Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom].
But James Madison was the beneficiary of a political and economic system based on slavery for African Americans and the denial of the right to vote to most European Americans (who at that time were largely descendents of white slaves, aka indentured servants). He and his friends were not happy that the under classes were demanding the vote and other human rights. He was worried that the system of using government to tax the poor for the benefit of the rich might be turned on its head as poorer groups of men gained the vote, as was happening after the American Revolution in Pennsylvania and other states.
Studying the era between the end of the Revolutionary War and the creation of the Federal Government under the Constitution is considered so risky that even today our modern vocabulary is designed to erase the tape on that period. There were several Congresses under the articles of Confederation. The last approved that a committee would meet at the Annapolis Convention to draft amendments to the Articles to promote commerce between the states. Madison and other conservative slave owners and businessmen at Annapolis, not having a quorum present, decided to call a meeting in Philadelphia and broaden the agenda for amendments.
At Philadelphia some of the nations' richest and most powerful men decided to write a Constitution to their own liking. While it shaped a Republican form of government with Democratic elements [See also America: Republic or Democracy?], it was mainly designed to create a strong central government to protect the institution of slavery and the concentration of private property and political power in the hands of a few men. The Senate would not be chosen by the voters (that changed with the Seventeenth Amendment) and the Supreme Court would be the ultimate bastion agains the rabble.
Madison flip-flopped on the strong central government point, favoring it when it helped his friends and opposing it when it helped their rivals.
In the end, things did not all work out the way James Madison planned. Slavery was abolished after the Civil War, but only by giving almost all power to the national government at the expense of the states and people. Later the people were given the right to directly elect their Senator.
Madison's career marched from election to the House of Representatives right on up to President in 1809. His "War of 1812" is always blamed on the British in the U.S., but they gave the United States no real cause for war. Instead, Madison and others wanted to add Canada to the union. They thought that since Britain was busy fighting France, grabbing Canada would be a piece of cake.
Possibly more important, slavery was an issue in the War of 1812, a fact not mentioned in most U.S. history books. After Somersett and the resulting American Revolution, the British courts had backed off the idea of outlawing slavery. But the anti-slavery movement in England kept pushing. In 1806 the Foreign Slave Trade Act "banned British subjects, shipyards, outfitters and insureres from participating in the slave trade... A well-concealed secret was that many, possibly the majority, of supposedly neutral "American" slave ships were in fact owned by Britons, manned by British crews, and outfitted in Liverpool." [Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains page 302-303]. Then in 1807 the British slave trade was abolished in its entirety.
The harrassing of American shipping by the British, and impressing of former British seamen, is usually stated as the cause of the War of 1812. But that harassment was mainly about stopping the slave trade.
The War of 1812 was a war of aggression by the United States. Its underlying purpose was to continue committing crimes against humanity, which slavery is. James Madison, by my standards, is a War Criminal and Crimes Against Humanity criminal.
Yet I appreciate his working to separate Church and State, and his work on the Bill of Rights. Probably if he had not been raised with slaves and surrounded himself with other slavers, he would have realised how criminal that practice was.
And so each of us might think: how was I raised, and how might that prevent me from seeing what is good and just?
Friday, August 31, 2007
The War of 1812, Andrew Jackson and Slavery
The one thing most people can remember about the War of 1812 is that the U.S. won the war as demonstrated by the Battle of New Orleans. In that battle British troops marched in tight ranks towards some well-barricaded American troops and 2000 or so were mowed down by rifle fire. Hurray for the good old U.S.A. The troops were led by the gallant General Andrew Jackson, the Hero of New Orleans, who later went on to become the first Democratic Party President of the United States of America.
Any longer gloss of the war tends to mention a few more discouraging facts. The peace treaty had already been signed before the Battle of New Orleans, but the news before radio and telegraph traveled slowly. British troops burned Washington D.C. In fact, the only major battle clearly won by U.S. troops was the final one in New Orleans.
What caused the war? Why, those evil Brits. They could not stand the fact that we had wupped them in the American Revolution. They were harassing our merchant shipping and impressing our sailors. It was a war of defense against British aggression. That, at least, is the red-blooded American view.
Before I get to what was really important about the War of 1812, consider the standard British point of view. Feel free to recall that the peace-loving British government conquered a larger empire than any other nation, before or since. The red-blooded British point of view is that they were locked in a war with the evil Napoleon Bonaparte. America was welcome to trade with Britain; we just were not welcome to trade with France. In fact on June 16, 1812 Lord Castlereagh announced that Britain would no longer seize U.S. merchant ships heading to France. As to the impressed U.S. sailors, they had been enrolled in the British Navy and had no right to desert it in time of war, or under their service contracts. Britain did not start the war. The U.S. Congress declared war on June 18, 1812 because it wanted to add Canada to the United States. It was a naked war of U.S. aggression. The British army, what little could be spared from fighting Napoleon's legions, acquitted itself quite well, repelling the U.S. invasion of Canada. Napoleon abdicated the French throne in April 1814. Having failed to take Canada, and having lost France as an ally, the U.S. was eager for peace, resulting in the Treaty of Ghent on December 23, 1814.
Some other facts need to be filled in in order to understand what was really going on in the U.S. when war was declared. Which is why these facts are almost never filled in.
The United States of America had been founded on the principles of slavery and racial inequality after the Somerset Decision of 1772 had threatened to impoverish men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. True, the ending of slavery within the British Empire had then been delayed by economically powerful men who owned stakes in Caribbean sugar plantations. But the gradual abolition of slavery had been made law in Canada in 1793, and the anti-slavery movement in England was quite strong by 1812. Racial inequality also took the form of near total disregard for native American Indian rights, in particular their rights to their ancestral land.
Britain had drawn a line to protect Indian tribes, the Line of 1763. George Washington and other speculators claimed to own what were actually Indian lands that were beyond this line. In the settlement of the Revolutionary War the new U.S. government was given sovereignty over the Northwest Territory, but in fact needed to engage in wars of aggression (now recognized as war crimes) to control the land and allow speculators to sell it to white settlers. Canada did not recognize U.S. seizures of Indian lands. Led by Tecumseh, in 1811 the Indians began fighting to defend their lands and take back the lands already stolen from them in Ohio. Of course to America's ruling class Indians defending their land was savagery, whereas killing Indians to take their land was just good sensible economics. The war of 1812 was a draw for the British, but Tecumseh was killed and the Indian tribes of the midwest defeated.
Even in it most evil days, America has had people who showed a high degree of ethics. In 1812 there was already a substantial minority of Americans who wanted to abolish slavery and treat native American Indians fairly. There were two major political parties at the time, neither of which exists today: the Republicans and the Federalists. Yet the original grounds for division between those parties were wilting away. Both parties were dominated by rich white males. But slave owners were more likely to be Republicans and the rich merchant and manufacturers were more likely to be Federalists.
This ruling, political elite was divided about the war. Most war votes in U.S. history have been unanimous, but in the U.S. House of Representatives the vote was 79 for, 49 against declaring war. The slave state representatives were mostly for the war, but there were some Republicans who were not slave owners who did vote with their political party, for the war.
Andrew Jackson had been a significant, but not prominent, officer in the war, but as the victor in the Battle of New Orleans he came out of the war a national hero. He was a greedy, dishonest man who made his living by speculating in lands stolen from Indians, lawyering, and by running a plantation using Negro slaves. He was elected as the state's first Representative to Congress in 1796. In 1812 Jackson first commanded the Tennessee militia, then was made Major-General of American forces in the South.
Many Indians still lived in parts of the southern United States. Some tribes tried to remain neutral; others fought on the American side. Finding himself desperately short of fighters, Jackson enlisted Cherokee fighters, promising them future protection against more land theft. With them his army defeated the Creeks who were fighting on the British side at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. Jackson's army then marched to New Orleans.
While Canada remained a problem for America's slavers, Florida was more of a problem because it was close to large populations of slaves. While Spain still allowed slavery, the practice in Florida was to free escaped American slaves if they would convert to Catholicism. Jackson led U.S. troops into Florida in 1818 in the First Seminole War. In 1819 the U.S. government purchased Florida from Spain, thus strengthening the cause of the Slave states. Andrew Jackson became the first American governor of Florida in 1821.
The ultimate result of the War of 1812 was the formation of the Democratic Party, a party devoted to the principles of Slavery and Genocide. For more on the history of the Democratic Party see my pamphlet on the subject. As President Andrew Jackson would order the Cherokee Tribe, that he promised to protect in 1814, expelled from their lands.
The key thing to remember about the War of 1812 was not who won the battle of New Orleans. The War of 1812 was about 2 U.S. war aims: taking more territory (Canada and Indian lands) and enlarging the institution of slavery.
Learn more: Internet Biography of Andrew Jackson
Any longer gloss of the war tends to mention a few more discouraging facts. The peace treaty had already been signed before the Battle of New Orleans, but the news before radio and telegraph traveled slowly. British troops burned Washington D.C. In fact, the only major battle clearly won by U.S. troops was the final one in New Orleans.
What caused the war? Why, those evil Brits. They could not stand the fact that we had wupped them in the American Revolution. They were harassing our merchant shipping and impressing our sailors. It was a war of defense against British aggression. That, at least, is the red-blooded American view.
Before I get to what was really important about the War of 1812, consider the standard British point of view. Feel free to recall that the peace-loving British government conquered a larger empire than any other nation, before or since. The red-blooded British point of view is that they were locked in a war with the evil Napoleon Bonaparte. America was welcome to trade with Britain; we just were not welcome to trade with France. In fact on June 16, 1812 Lord Castlereagh announced that Britain would no longer seize U.S. merchant ships heading to France. As to the impressed U.S. sailors, they had been enrolled in the British Navy and had no right to desert it in time of war, or under their service contracts. Britain did not start the war. The U.S. Congress declared war on June 18, 1812 because it wanted to add Canada to the United States. It was a naked war of U.S. aggression. The British army, what little could be spared from fighting Napoleon's legions, acquitted itself quite well, repelling the U.S. invasion of Canada. Napoleon abdicated the French throne in April 1814. Having failed to take Canada, and having lost France as an ally, the U.S. was eager for peace, resulting in the Treaty of Ghent on December 23, 1814.
Some other facts need to be filled in in order to understand what was really going on in the U.S. when war was declared. Which is why these facts are almost never filled in.
The United States of America had been founded on the principles of slavery and racial inequality after the Somerset Decision of 1772 had threatened to impoverish men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. True, the ending of slavery within the British Empire had then been delayed by economically powerful men who owned stakes in Caribbean sugar plantations. But the gradual abolition of slavery had been made law in Canada in 1793, and the anti-slavery movement in England was quite strong by 1812. Racial inequality also took the form of near total disregard for native American Indian rights, in particular their rights to their ancestral land.
Britain had drawn a line to protect Indian tribes, the Line of 1763. George Washington and other speculators claimed to own what were actually Indian lands that were beyond this line. In the settlement of the Revolutionary War the new U.S. government was given sovereignty over the Northwest Territory, but in fact needed to engage in wars of aggression (now recognized as war crimes) to control the land and allow speculators to sell it to white settlers. Canada did not recognize U.S. seizures of Indian lands. Led by Tecumseh, in 1811 the Indians began fighting to defend their lands and take back the lands already stolen from them in Ohio. Of course to America's ruling class Indians defending their land was savagery, whereas killing Indians to take their land was just good sensible economics. The war of 1812 was a draw for the British, but Tecumseh was killed and the Indian tribes of the midwest defeated.
Even in it most evil days, America has had people who showed a high degree of ethics. In 1812 there was already a substantial minority of Americans who wanted to abolish slavery and treat native American Indians fairly. There were two major political parties at the time, neither of which exists today: the Republicans and the Federalists. Yet the original grounds for division between those parties were wilting away. Both parties were dominated by rich white males. But slave owners were more likely to be Republicans and the rich merchant and manufacturers were more likely to be Federalists.
This ruling, political elite was divided about the war. Most war votes in U.S. history have been unanimous, but in the U.S. House of Representatives the vote was 79 for, 49 against declaring war. The slave state representatives were mostly for the war, but there were some Republicans who were not slave owners who did vote with their political party, for the war.
Andrew Jackson had been a significant, but not prominent, officer in the war, but as the victor in the Battle of New Orleans he came out of the war a national hero. He was a greedy, dishonest man who made his living by speculating in lands stolen from Indians, lawyering, and by running a plantation using Negro slaves. He was elected as the state's first Representative to Congress in 1796. In 1812 Jackson first commanded the Tennessee militia, then was made Major-General of American forces in the South.
Many Indians still lived in parts of the southern United States. Some tribes tried to remain neutral; others fought on the American side. Finding himself desperately short of fighters, Jackson enlisted Cherokee fighters, promising them future protection against more land theft. With them his army defeated the Creeks who were fighting on the British side at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. Jackson's army then marched to New Orleans.
While Canada remained a problem for America's slavers, Florida was more of a problem because it was close to large populations of slaves. While Spain still allowed slavery, the practice in Florida was to free escaped American slaves if they would convert to Catholicism. Jackson led U.S. troops into Florida in 1818 in the First Seminole War. In 1819 the U.S. government purchased Florida from Spain, thus strengthening the cause of the Slave states. Andrew Jackson became the first American governor of Florida in 1821.
The ultimate result of the War of 1812 was the formation of the Democratic Party, a party devoted to the principles of Slavery and Genocide. For more on the history of the Democratic Party see my pamphlet on the subject. As President Andrew Jackson would order the Cherokee Tribe, that he promised to protect in 1814, expelled from their lands.
The key thing to remember about the War of 1812 was not who won the battle of New Orleans. The War of 1812 was about 2 U.S. war aims: taking more territory (Canada and Indian lands) and enlarging the institution of slavery.
Learn more: Internet Biography of Andrew Jackson
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