The War of 1812

[Raellus]

I heard an interesting piece on NPR in mid-June about how the War of 1812 is viewed in Canada vs. how it is viewed in the U.S. There's two sides to every story and the truth is often somewhere in between.

According to the piece, in which both American and Canadian history teachers were interviewed, in American public school U.S. history classes, most teachers can't/don't spend more than a couple of days on the War of 1812. In Canada, teachers often spend two weeks or more teaching about the war. In the U.S., the war is considered to have resulted in more or less a draw. In Canada, it is considered a British/Canadian victory. Apparently, in Canada, the war is considered a consequence of early American imperialism. In the U.S., Britain is considered responsible for starting the war by its impressment of American sailors, and by selling guns to frontier tribes hostile to American expansion. In the U.S., the war is considered a minor speedbump in the path to becoming a American continental power- we faced off against a global superpower and fought them to a strategic draw. In Canada, it is considered a fight for survival. The U.S. tried to take Canadian territory by force and were beaten back. So, in Canadian eyes, the war ended in a strategic victory. The piece didn't speak to how the War of 1812 is viewed/taught in British schools.

I can't speak for Canadian schools/teachers, but as an American high school history teacher, I can vouch for the report's accuracy regarding how the War of 1812 is viewed/taught here in the states. I would hazard to guess that the majority of adult Americans remember little to nothing about the War of 1812.

I'd love one of our British posters to explain how the War of 1812 is viewed/taught in British schools and/or seen by the British public at large.

[simonmark6]

The what?

It was only in the mid-nineties when the statement on the back of the BYB was explained to me:

How could we forget that in 1812 the two greatest democracies in the world made war on each other.

I'd always assumed that it referred to Russia and France but couldn't work it out because Russia obviously wasn't a democracy in 1812.

The war is barely a footnote and certainly not covered in the curriculum. From my experience of teaching secondary history, British schools cover:
The Romans
The Black Death
The Tudors
The English Civil War and Restoration
Industrial Revolution and Civil Rights movement
The Victorians
World War One
World War Two

When you get up to 15-16 and choose GCSEs the options include:
Medicine through History
Nazi Germany
The American West
World War Two
Post War UK

As an aside, when I was teaching the American West, I had one of the best answers ever.

The question was: Sum up Custer's position at the Little Big Horn
The answer was: Custer left his gatling guns at camp to move faster. He split a small group of men into three and sent them to places they couldn't support each other. Then he charged a couple of hundred men into thousands of Souix, some of who had repeating rifles when his men had single shot guns and crappy ammunition that jammed. Once he realised the situation he dismounted and waited for help instead of running away. Basically, Custer was fucked.

A concise if fairly inaccurate assessment.

[Cdnwolf]

http://www.royal-scots.com/id5.html


Every year I go and watch this event.

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As to what they teach in high school....


Canadian history classes in high school teach a little bit of everything. We usually start with the Viking explorers from 980AD, move on to the French explorers looking for the northwest passage, the arrival of the British, conflicts between the aboriginal tribes and the French and English settlers, the war with the Americans, and so on and so on.

In Ontario, for example, high-school students do not learn about the 50 years following Confederation, skipping everything it seems from John A. Macdonald to the settlement of the West.

Recent history grads may be forgiven for not knowing the significance of the 1st Baron of Dorchester, or that his 1774 Quebec Act was once known as Canada’s Magna Carta. They don’t teach much pre-Confederation history in school. “In high school, you had to take one history course and all learned about was World War One, World War Two—maybe touched on the Depression

The really important things happened after John A. MacDonald, that World War One was Canada’s war of independence, that we didn’t really become a country until we had our own flag and that our rights and freedoms began in 1982 with the Charter.

[simonmark6]

Ah, starting history at 980AD! When I was at Uni studying English the Medievalists thought that nothing worthwhile was achieved after 1400. Some grudgingly went up to 1600 to include Shakespeare but most thought he was a worthless parvenu.

[Raellus]

It's a bit humbling to see that the time period that British students study for British history is majority of the span of what we in the U.S. teach as "world history". The U.S.A. is still a comparitively young nation.

[simonmark6]

That's not what my Lakota friends say...

Still, history was much easier to teach when you could take the kids to the playground and show them a Sarsen stone that is believed to mark the route the stones took to get to Stonehenge from the quarry in Wales.

In Wales, history hangs heavy on us and darkness holds the thrum of arrows and the cry of death from ambush. As R.S. Thomas said, we are a people gnawing on the carcass of an old song. Where I taught history, my own school when I was a kid, the population was very static and I could hook the kids in to their history, histories that I could trace back to the 1700s for some of them.

We had the grandchildren of men who fought in Korea, the great-grandchildren of men that fell in Flanders and one girl was related to Dic Penderryn, a man executed for rioting to demand suffrage for all adult males in the Merthyr riots.

Once you've hooked the kids with their stories, it's easy to delve deeper. Like one kid said, "It's not HIS story is it, Sir, it's our story."

Damn, I miss teaching history.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by simonmark6

That's not what my Lakota friends say...

Ouch! Nice burn.

Something else you said struck me. I did a little project last year during the second semester where the students had to track back through their family tree to find an immigrant new to America (and do a brief report on said family member). They really got into it because it was about them and their family, and their classmates' families.

This year, maybe I should start them off with this project to draw them in more quickly and emphasize that the story of America is part of their own story.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by simonmark6

How could we forget that in 1812 the two greatest democracies in the world made war on each other.

"Greatest democracies"? I acknowledge they are 2 great nations but in the modern era which nation was the first to give all adult male and female citizens the vote? The USA? No. Great Britain? No again.

It was New Zealand. The same place you go to find someone capable of being the first to climb to the top of the world's highest mountain .

Thanks for creating this thread, Rcaff 777. My knowledge of the War of 1812 is woefully inadequate and reading this thread has made me want to learn more about it.

[Panther Al]

Originally Posted by Targan

"Greatest democracies"? I acknowledge they are 2 great nations but in the modern era which nation was the first to give all adult male and female citizens the vote? The USA? No. Great Britain? No again.

It was New Zealand. The same place you go to find someone capable of being the first to climb to the top of the world's highest mountain .

Thanks for creating this thread, Rcaff 777. My knowledge of the War of 1812 is woefully inadequate and reading this thread has made me want to learn more about it.

And not to mention creating Pavlova, the worlds finest desert creation.

[LAW0306]

I find myself in an interesting place as I have a canadian company 2nd Bn PPCLI, A Coy, a Aussie Company 1st Bn RAR, A Coy and a New Zealand Platoon In my SPMAGTF for the last month and a half. I went to my first Canada day and had a good time. The big thing I see is that we as nations study and celebrate the good things we have done and our victorys. The Canadian company commander and me have had good talks about Lundys lane and it has been a great learning experiance for all. I have grown to like these men and only wish them the best. We have only a week left and all of our final attacks are coming up. It should be a good time. I came out of the field on the big island last night and now go to the field here tomorrow to finish. Quite funny to see AAV's land with Aussies getting out and Canadians assault from LCAC's and CH-53's.

[simonmark6]

The greatest democracies bit was a quote from the BYB, I had problems thinking of any real democracies in 1812: I suppose they were thinking about it from a C20th point of view.

Rae: Absolutely, I think anything that makes History real for the pupils is worthwhile and makes the lessons much better. If you're lucky, some of the reports will give you pegs to hang your teaching off. When I went to the school to teach history (I was a substitute), only 16 people a year chose history to study for GCSE (the qualifications students opt for between 15 and 16), the summer I finished 98 people opted for it.

[Adm.Lee]

This week, I'm reading an issue of Naval History magazine, which is the 1812 anniversary issue. As you might guess, the US Navy is quite proud of its record in the War of 1812. As far as I know, the US Army is less so, with a few exceptions (Scott and Jackson, primarily).

Nearly everything I've read speaks of the tensions rising over sailors' rights, hardly anyone talks about imperialism vs. Canada. The exceptions have been works talking about the Federalist-Republican conflicts, pointing out that Jefferson's party spoke eagerly of easily routing the British and increasing the size of the country again. When that didn't happen, it seems the bellicosity got swept under the rug. Since the war (really, the defeat of Napoleon) ended the maritime harassment, that's what gets addressed in the histories written afterwards.

Here in Ohio, there is required state history in 4th and 7th grades. We spend a little more time on the fighting between settlers and natives before the War of 1812. By that time, the tribes had been driven out, and the War seems an aftermath. The big exception, of course, is the Battle of Lake Erie; there's a tall victory column on the nearest island. US history tends to zip through it on the way to the Civil War. Everything after WW1 tends to get squeezed in before final exams, IMO.

So, the Canadians wish to celebrate their victories, the US Navy wants to celebrate its victories; go for it, I say.

Simon and Raellus; those are great ideas to get the kids to work their own families into history, I know it's helped my interest. (Now, if only I could get my sons to pay attention....) On one of my family lines, I've found a Pennsylvania family that sent 4 sons to the war, one of them named his sons for war heros: O.H. Perry, Andrew Jackson, W.H. Harrison, etc.