AP U.S. History 4.4: America on the World Stage

In the early 1800s Britain, at war in Europe, blockaded neutral countries such as the United States and took American sailors from their ships, forcing them into the British navy. Taking sailors this way was called impressment. On June 18, 1812, Congress declared "That war be and the same is hereby declared to exist" with Great Britain. The war went badly in places: in August 1814 British troops burned the Capitol and the President's house. The Treaty of Ghent, signed December 24, 1814, ended the war, and each side returned the territory it had taken. The National Archives' judgment: "America, in turn, gained influence as a foreign power."

Trade at sea came next. Algiers, one of the Barbary states of North Africa, had demanded payments called tribute and had captured American ships and sailors. In 1815, with an American squadron off its coast, Algiers signed a treaty promising that "no tribute either as biennial presents, or under any other form or name whatever, shall ever be required by the Dey and Regency of Algiers from the United States of America on any pretext whatever," and gave American commerce the terms of the most favored nations.

Sources: Treaty of Ghent (National Archives); Declaration of war (Avalon Project); Treaty with Algiers (Avalon Project).

After the war the United States used diplomacy, backed at times by force, to claim land across North America.

In the Convention of 1818 with Britain, signed at London on October 20, the northern border was set along the 49th parallel from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains, which the treaty calls the Stony Mountains. The country "Westward of the Stony Mountains," later called Oregon, would "be free and open, for the term of ten Years from the date of the Signature of the present Convention, to the Vessels, Citizens, and Subjects of the Two Powers," with neither side giving up its claim. An 1815 agreement regulating commerce between the two countries was renewed for ten years.

In 1818 Andrew Jackson led troops into Spanish Florida. On February 22, 1819, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams signed a treaty with Spain: "His Catholic Majesty cedes to the United States, in full property and sovereignty, all the territories which belong to him, situated to the eastward of the Mississippi, known by the name of East and West Florida." (His Catholic Majesty is Spain's king.) The United States promised satisfaction for injuries from "the late operations of the American Army in Florida." The treaty also drew a boundary that climbed to latitude 42 north and ran along it "to the South Sea," the Pacific.

Sources: Convention of 1818 (Avalon Project); Treaty with Spain, 1819 (Avalon Project); The Two-Party System (National Archives).

Monroe's annual message of December 2, 1823 answered two different problems.

The first was the northwest coast of the continent. Russia had proposed talks with the United States, and with Britain, over each nation's rights there. "In the discussions to which this interest has given rise," Monroe asserted that "the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers."

The second was Spain. Several of its American colonies had declared independence, and the United States had recognized them. The allied powers, a group of European powers whose governments, Monroe said, differed from America's, had "interposed by force in the internal concerns of Spain." Monroe warned that "The political system of the allied powers is essentially different in this respect from that of America," and that any attempt "to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere" was "dangerous to our peace and safety." He also promised: "With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere." And: "In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy to do so." (Comport with means fit.)

These passages, later called the Monroe Doctrine, were a statement of policy, not a treaty.

Source: Monroe Doctrine (Avalon Project).

Control of the continent was also pursued at home, against American Indian nations. The Indian Removal Act of May 28, 1830 authorized the president to negotiate removal treaties with the tribes living east of the Mississippi River. In his annual message of December 6, 1830, Andrew Jackson told Congress that removal would "incalculably strengthen the southwestern frontier and render the adjacent States strong enough to repel future invasions without remote aid." He presented removal as strengthening the frontier against future invasions and as opening land to white settlement.

The Treaty of New Echota, ratified in 1836, called for the removal of the Cherokees. Many Cherokees opposed it, and when they refused to leave, Major General Winfield Scott was ordered to remove them, with 3,000 troops. During the fall and winter of 1838 to 1839 the Cherokees were forcibly moved to the Indian Territory, and about 4,000 of 16,000 died on the way. Removal opened some 25 million acres of eastern land to white settlement.

Source: Jackson's message on Indian removal (National Archives).