The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States declared war on Britain on 18 June 1812. Although peace terms were agreed upon in the December 1814 Treaty of Ghent, the war did not officially end until the peace treaty was ratified by the United States Congress on 17 February 1815.
Admiral Sir Alexander Inglis Cochrane was a senior Royal Navy commander during the Napoleonic Wars and achieved the rank of admiral of the blue.
Prospect Bluff Historic Sites is located in Franklin County, Florida, on the Apalachicola River, 6 miles (9.7 km) SW of Sumatra, Florida. The site contains the ruins of two forts.
The Battle of Baltimore took place between British and American forces in the War of 1812. American forces repulsed sea and land invasions off the busy port city of Baltimore, Maryland, and killed the commander of the invading British forces.
The Battle of Bladensburg, also known as the Bladensburg Races, took place during the Chesapeake Campaign, part of the War of 1812, on 24 August 1814, at Bladensburg, Maryland, 8.6 miles (13.8 km) northeast of Washington, D.C.
The Burning of Washington, also known as the Capture of Washington, was a successful British amphibious attack conducted by Rear-Admiral George Cockburn during Admiral Sir John Warren's Chesapeake campaign. It was the only time since the American Revolutionary War that a foreign power had captured and occupied a United States capital. Following the defeat of American forces at the Battle of Bladensburg on August 24, 1814, a British army led by Major-General Robert Ross marched on Washington, D.C. That evening, British soldiers and sailors set fire to multiple public buildings, including the Presidential Mansion, United States Capitol, and Washington Navy Yard.
The Battle of Pensacola took place during the Creek War, part of the War of 1812, in which American forces fought against forces from Great Britain and Spanish Florida who were aided by the Creek Indians and African-American slaves allied with the British. General Andrew Jackson led his infantry against British and Spanish forces controlling the city of Pensacola in Spanish Florida. Allied forces abandoned the city, and the remaining Spanish forces surrendered to Jackson.
Spanish Florida was the first major European land-claim and attempted settlement-area in northern America during the European Age of Discovery. La Florida formed part of the Captaincy General of Cuba, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and the Spanish Empire during Spanish colonization of the Americas. While its boundaries were never clearly or formally defined, the territory was initially much larger than the present-day state of Florida, extending over much of what is now the southeastern United States, including all of present-day Florida plus portions of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and the Florida Parishes of Louisiana. Spain based its claim to this vast area on several wide-ranging expeditions mounted during the 16th century. A number of missions, settlements, and small forts existed in the 16th and to a lesser extent in the 17th century; they were eventually abandoned due to pressure from the expanding English and French colonial settlements, the collapse of the native populations, and the general difficulty in becoming agriculturally or economically self-sufficient. By the 18th century, Spain's control over La Florida did not extend much beyond a handful of forts near St. Augustine, St. Marks, and Pensacola, all within the boundaries of present-day Florida.
The Arbuthnot and Ambrister incident occurred in April 1818 during the First Seminole War when American General Andrew Jackson invaded Spanish Florida and his troops captured two British citizens, Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Ambrister, separately. They were charged with aiding the Seminole, the Red Stick Creek Indians and Maroons against the United States.
HMS Asia was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 2 December 1811 at Frindsbury.
Black refugees were black people who escaped slavery in the United States during the War of 1812 and settled in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Trinidad. The term is used in Canada for those who settled in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. They were the most numerous of the African Americans who sought freedom during the War of 1812. The Black refugees were the third group of African Americans, after the Black Loyalists, to flee American enslavement in wartime and settle in Canada. They make up the most significant single immigration source for today's African Nova Scotian communities. During the antebellum period, however, an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 Black refugees reached freedom in Canada, often traveling alone or in small family groups.
Loire was a 38-gun frigate of the French Navy. She was captured following the Battle of Tory Island by a Royal Navy frigate squadron and subsequently taken into British service as HMS Loire.
Fort Bowyer was a short-lived earthen and stockade fortification that the United States Army erected in 1813 on Mobile Point, near the mouth of Mobile Bay in what is now Baldwin County, Alabama, but then was part of the Mississippi Territory. The British twice attacked the fort during the War of 1812.
The Battle of Fort Point Peter was a successful attack in early 1815 by a British force on a smaller American force on the Georgia side of the St. Marys River near St. Marys, Georgia. The river was then part of the international border between the United States and British-allied Spanish Florida; it now forms part of the boundary between Georgia and Florida. Occupying coastal Camden County allowed the British to blockade American transportation on the Intracoastal Waterway. The attack on Forts St. Tammany and Peter occurred in January 1815, after the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, which would end the War of 1812, but before the treaty's ratification. The attack occurred at the same time as the siege of Fort St. Philip in Louisiana and was part of the British occupation of St. Marys and Cumberland Island.
Sir Edward Nicolls was an Anglo-Irish officer of the Royal Marines. Known as "Fighting Nicolls", he had a distinguished military career. According to his obituary in The Times, he was "in no fewer than 107 actions, in various parts of the world", and had "his left leg broken and his right leg severely injured, was shot through the body and right arm, had received a severe sabre cut in the head, was bayoneted in the chest, and had lost the sight of an eye."
Three battalions were raised from among the Royal Marines during the Napoleonic Wars, seeing combat in Portugal, Northern Spain, the Netherlands and North America.
Major General John Robyns, was a senior officer of the Royal Marines who served during the French Revolutionary Wars and earned historically noteworthy military distinctions on the North America and West Indies Station during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. As a battalion commander of Royal Marines, Captain John Robyns faced enemy forces which included his counterparts of the United States Marines at Bladensburg, Washington, Baltimore, and New Orleans. In his later years Robyns served one term as Mayor of Penzance (1840–41) in his native Cornwall.
Mateo González Manrique was a soldier who served as governor of West Florida between 1813 and 1815. During this time, the colony lacked military resources at a time when American expansionism had seen Spanish territory annexed, and the crushing of their Indian buffer state neighbors. Manrique's attempt to counterbalance American aggression, by inviting the British to garrison Pensacola, would have disastrous consequences. Whilst unable to prevent the early British incursions into Florida, his stance of neutrality was undermined by the partisan behavior of the belligerent British commander Edward Nicolls. Seduced by an implied omnipotence and superiority in numbers of the British, it was, with the benefit of hindsight, a poor choice. He thereby earned the enmity of Andrew Jackson, who invaded the city in 1814, although he returned it to Manrique after the British fled.
The Merikins or Merikens were formerly enslaved Africans who gained freedom, enlisted in the Corps of Colonial Marines, and fought for the British against the United States in the War of 1812. After their service in Bermuda, they established a community in the south of Trinidad between 1815–1816. The region was largely populated by French-speaking Catholics but soon transitioned to an English-speaking, Baptist community after their arrival. It is believed that the term "Merikins" is derived from the local patois, but as many Americans have long been in the habit of dropping the initial "A" it is also likely that the new settlers brought that pronunciation with them from the United States. Some of the Company villages and land grants established back then still exist in Trinidad today.
Nicolls' Outpost was the smaller and more northern of two forts built by British Lt. Col. Edward Nicolls during the War of 1812. (The Americans referred to it as Fort Apalachicola. Built at the end of 1814, together with the larger "British post" or storage depot down the Apalachicola, it was "the northernmost post built by the British during their Gulf Coast Campaign". It was just below the Spanish Florida–Georgia border, where the Flint and Chattahoochee Rivers meet to form the Apalachicola, in River Landing Park in modern Chattahoochee, Florida. Even though what was built was smaller than the much larger British post down the Apalachicola, it was intended to be the base, presumably enlarged, for an English invasion of the United States, and British post was to have been its supply depot. The 1815 end of the War of 1812 aborted this project.
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