The War of 1812 did not only involve Britain and the U.S., but the Native Americans as well. Before the war started the British made deals with the Indians which provided the British protection from possible invasion of Canada and provided the Indians with a chance to protect their lands from the greedy, land-hungry Americans. However, the unlikely British-Native alliance of 1812 is seldomly ever mentioned, and few know about that amount of dependency each side had on one another. With this said, the Native Americans wanted an alliance with the British in order to keep control over their tribal lands while the British wished to protect Canada and employ the Indians against the Americans during the war. How could an unlikely alliance be so successful? …show more content…
began to expand their land to the west many tribes saw their land being threatened. Some of the tribes were the Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, Cherokee, and Chickasaw (PBS). In response to the growing threat the Native Americans decided that an alliance with the English was their best bet to prevent American expansion into their lands. They chose to side with the British because the Americans were dangerous to them. The Natives already knew that Americans were land-hungry, and they saw the opportunity of a strong ally, one that might conceivably hold back the raging tide of settlement that was encroaching in their lands (Wilton).
However, “the alliance with the English destroyed any slim chance the natives might have had to retain any lands in the east,” according to historian David Kent (Wilton). When the war concluded, with Americans successfully defeating the alliance of the Native Americans and British, this lead to tragic consequences. The War of 1812, he says, was one of the main reasons why Andrew Jackson passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830, banishing all tribes beyond the Mississippi …show more content…
The Americans fear of the natives played to Britain’s advantage. This fear can be traced back to the French and Indian War and Revolutionary War in the late 1700s, and also originates from instances when American pioneers encroached on native lands and the natives would react violently. War paint and war cries also contributed to the fear factor because the Americans knew about the destructive and sometimes uncontrollable tendencies of the natives while on the field of battle. The fear of natives was sometimes so strong that the Americans surrendered without a shot being fired. One Detroit resident wrote that “a war with England has no terrors compared with those arising from their savage allies.” (History Thesis)
The Native Americans fighting style also helped to intimidate the Americans. The natives were trained in the ways of war at a young age, and although they may not have been trained with muskets, their guerilla tactics created an advantage for the British-Native side. The Americans, inexperienced in this style of fighting, struggled greatly; this resulted in victories for the British. (History