Events
1808
James Madison is elected president
1809
Tecumseh unites Native Americans in Mississippi basin
Congress repeals Embargo Act Congress passes Non-Intercourse Act
1810
Congress passes Macon’s Bill No. 2
1811
William Henry Harrison defeats pan-Indian alliance
at Battle of Tippecanoe
1812
Madison is reelected
War of 1812 begins
1814
New Englanders meet at Hartford Convention
Treaty of Ghent ends war
1815
Andrew Jackson defeats British forces at Battle of
New Orleans
Key People
-
James Madison
Fourth
U.S. president; promoted southern and western agriculture and led the
United States in the War of 1812
-
Tecumseh
Head
of Native American Northwest Confederacy; his forces were defeated
at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811
-
William Henry Harrison
Former Indiana governor and army general; defeated
the Northwest Confederacy at Tippecanoe
-
Andrew Jackson
Tennessee
military hero of the Battle of New Orleans and Creek War
The Election of 1808
The depression stemming from Jefferson’s Embargo Act weakened the
Democratic-Republicans in the election of 1808.
Although James Madison was still able to defeat Federalist
candidate Charles Pinckney easily for the presidency, the Democratic-Republicans
lost seats in Congress. As Jefferson’s chosen successor, Madison
continued to carry out his fellow Virginian’s policies throughout
both of his presidential terms.
The Non-Intercourse Act
Congress’s first order of business in 1809 was
to repeal the hated and ineffective Embargo Act, which had prevented
U.S. ships from sailing to foreign ports. Congress replaced this
act with the Non-Intercourse Act, which banned trade
only with Britain and France until both agreed to respect American
sovereignty and shipping rights.
Macon’s Bill No. 2
The following year, Congress, in a further attempt to
revive the faltering U.S. economy, passed Macon’s Bill No. 2,
which restored U.S. trade relations with Britain and France but
promised to reinstate the Non-Intercourse Act if either nation violated
U.S. shipping rights.
Tecumseh and the Northwest Confederacy
Madison’s term was fraught with troubled Native American
relations, as white settlers began to pour into the Louisiana
Purchase and steal native lands, ignoring the Indian Intercourse
Acts of the 1790s. When
Congress seemed unwilling to do anything about the situation, two
Shawnee brothers, Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa (also
commonly called the Prophet), tried to unite all of the tribes in
the Mississippi Valley region against the settlers. Preaching a
return to traditional ways of life, Tecumseh and The Prophet were
highly successful and created the Northwest Confederacy that
included the Shawnee, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Creek tribes,
among others.
The Battle of Tippecanoe
Congress, fearing a Native American uprising, ordered
the governor of the Indiana Territory, William Henry Harrison,
to disband the Northwest Confederacy. Indeed, Harrison soundly defeated
the Confederacy at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811.
The War Hawks
By the 1810s,
many of the older and more experienced representatives and senators
in Congress had been replaced by young and passionate new faces.
It was these hotheaded “War Hawks,” primarily from
southern and western states, who had ordered Harrison to take military
action against the Northwest Confederacy. As frontiersmen-politicians,
the War Hawks were strongly expansionist, and the Confederacy offered
the perfect excuse to drive Native Americans even further west.
