Keywords Wars

For many years the British blockade cut off the Spanish-American colonies from their colonial master and made them dependent upon English trade for European goods, certainly contributing to their successful struggle for independence in the early 19th century. And faced with the mounting financial pressures of incessant warfare, in 1803 Napoleon sold to the US the Louisiana Territory, the whole western drainage basin of the Mississippi River, thus precluding a French West in that part of North America. For Canada, the greatest impact of the wars was a stimulus to the export economy. Fundamental was the British navy's need for a secure source of timber, the American Revolution having left the supply from the former Atlantic colonies uncertain and the French wars having closed the Baltic. The result was an enormous development of the Canadian forest industry, especially in New Brunswick, accompanied by some growth of the trade in grain.

The Napoleonic Wars, during which both sides infringed the rights of neutrals, also produced a secondary struggle called the WAR OF 1812 between the US and Britain. Various issues, aggravated by British impressment of American seamen, led the young US to attempt expeditions against Canada, seen by Americans as campaigns of liberation but by Canadians as invasions; this struggle was ended in 1815 without significant results, though it was followed in 1817 by the RUSH-BAGOT AGREEMENT demilitarizing the Great Lakes - the basis of future agreements peacefully regulating the entire Canadian-American border.

In sum, the revival of French political and military power produced no notable reawakening of francophone assertiveness overseas, though one might note the foundation in Lower Canada of the first French-language newspaper, Le Canadien, in 1806. The Napoleonic Wars seem not to have challenged seriously the British domination of the Atlantic established in 1763.

Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769 on the island of Corsica. Through his military exploits and his ruthless efficiency, Napoleon rose from obscurity to become Napoleon I, Emperor of the French.

Author G.A. ROTHROCK