Free Trade and Sailors' Rights in the War of 1812

Examines the slogan 'free trade and sailors rights', tracing its sources to eighteenth-century thought and Americans' experience with impressment into the British navy.

Paul A. Gilje (Author)

9781107025080, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 18 March 2013

438 pages, 24 b/w illus.
24.1 x 15.8 x 2.7 cm, 0.74 kg

'[Gilje] poignantly shows that, to Americans in the postrevolutionary period, free trade and sailors' rights symbolized the success of the American Revolution and that they therefore interpreted their violation by Great Britain as an attack on their democratic aspirations.' Jasper M. Trautsch, Amerikastudien/American Studies

On 2 July 1812, Captain David Porter raised a banner on the USS Essex proclaiming 'a free trade and sailors rights', thus creating a political slogan that explained the War of 1812. Free trade demanded the protection of American commerce, while sailors' rights insisted that the British end the impressment of seamen from American ships. Repeated for decades in Congress and in taverns, the slogan reminds us today that the second war with Great Britain was not a mistake. It was a contest for the ideals of the American Revolution bringing together both the high culture of the Enlightenment to establish a new political economy and the low culture of the common folk to assert the equality of humankind. Understanding the War of 1812 and the motto that came to explain it – free trade and sailors' rights – allows us to better comprehend the origins of the American nation.

Part I. Free Trade: 1. The Enlightenment and defining free trade
2. The revolutionary experience
3. The new diplomacy
4. Legacy
Part II. Sailors' Rights: 5. Anglo-American traditions
6. The rise of Jack Tar
7. Impressment
8. Citizenship
9. The Hermione and the rights of man
Part III. Origins: 10. Empire of liberty
11. Indians in the way
12. Contested commerce
13. The ordeal of Jack Tar
14. Honor
Part IV. War: 15. The odyssey of the Essex
16. The language of combat
17. Politics of war
18. Pursuit of peace
19. Dartmoor
Part V. Memory: 20. Winning the peace
21. Remembering impressment
22. The persistent dream
23. Politics
24. Popular culture
25. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Military history [HBW], History of the Americas [HBJK], History [HB]