America on the world stage
Relations with Native Americans
While many Americans might not initially consider relations with Native Americans as a form of foreign policy, it’s worth considering the approaches that the American government has frequently employed when interacting with Native American civilizations - treaty-making and war. Until the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924, Native Americans were consistently classified as citizens of foreign nations; indeed, even after the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868 and its specification of birthright citizenship in the United States, Native Americans were not granted birthright citizenship for another 56 years.
As we read in previous chapters, armed conflict and war between the English colonists, and later Americans, and Native Americans were all too common - viz. the Pequot War, King Philip’s War, also known as Metacom’s War, the French and Indian War, Pontiac’s Rebellion, campaigns in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes region. Unfortunately, throughout the first half of the 19th century, war against Native Americans would not only continue but also expand to more parts of the country. Just before and during the War of 1812, later presidents Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison led devastating military campaigns against the Red Stick faction of the Muscogee, or Creek, in Alabama people and the Shawnee people in the then Indiana Territory, respectively; the victories at Horseshoe Bend and New Orleans, both of which stemmed from significant Native American alliances against the Red Stick Creeks and later the British, for Jackson and at Tippecanoe for Harrison fueled their national reputations and later presidential victories.
During Jackson’s presidency (1829-1837), the forced removal of indigenous societies in the southeastern United States, specifically the “Five Civilized Tribes” of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole nations, served as the most high profile wars against Native Americans, but these were not the only armed campaigns against indigenous peoples during this time. A young Abraham Lincoln served in the Blackhawk War and the United States government fought several wars against the Seminoles in the Florida territory during the first half of the 19th century.
As noted earlier in this lesson, the United States government also relied upon diplomacy, specifically treaties, in its relations with Native American nations. These treaties, most of which were subsequently violated, or broken, by the United States government and military, provided a legalistic veneer for the forced removal and exile of indigenous peoples and subsequent expropriation of their ancestral lands. Treaties such as Moultrie Creek (1823), Payne’s Landing (1832), and New Echota (1835) required Native American nations to cede desired land in return for promised protection from future attacks but required Native Americans to live on reservations in Indian Territory, the eastern part of what is now Oklahoma, west of the Mississippi River and initially a seemingly isolated border region between the majority of the Louisiana Territory and Mexico. The independence of Texas from Mexico in 1836 and the subsequent ambiguity of Texas’s status until annexation in 1845 will be discussed below.
Barbary pirates
The first war that the United States fought overseas was against the Barbary pirates, a group of naval mercenaries operating out of North African states on the Mediterranean Sea that demanded tribute, payment, for safe passage of shipping vessels. During the successive presidencies of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the United States dispatched naval ships to retrieve American hostages and the seized ships and their cargoes. Ultimately, the United States and the Dey of Algiers negotiated an end to the conflict as well as the tribute exacted by the Barbary pirates.
War of 1812
Confrontations and conflict with the French and British were recurring challenges for the young American republic, particularly during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. After repeated requests to the British to cease impressment, President James Madison, then running for reelection, requested a declaration of war from Congress in the summer of 1812. Although the British navy renounced impressment during the summer of 1812, the United States and Great Britain fought each other, primarily in southern Canada and the eastern United States, for two and a half years. Militarily, the war did not produce a clear victory for either side, although both the Canadian and American capitals, York, now Toronto, and Washington DC, were captured and burned during the war. For many Americans today, the lasting impressions of the war often involve exaggerated depictions of First Lady Dolly Madison hurrying down the White House, then known as the Executive Mansion and later painted a bright white to hide the burn marks from British occupation of Washington DC, steps with staff members carrying a portrait of George Washington and Francis Scott Key witnessing the Battle of Baltimore and writing the Star-spangled banner, later made the US national anthem. But the War of 1812 also further weakened Native American societies, including the Shawnee and the Muscogee/Creek, as they were once again confronted with the challenge of fighting for or against the United States, potentially with British assistance; after the War of 1812, prospects for British assistance against the United States essentially ended.
Monroe Doctrine
After American independence was achieved, the vast majority of the western hemisphere, primarily composed of French and Spanish colonies, obtained independence during the first quarter of the 19th century. While American diplomatic relations with these newly independent countries varied, particularly in the instance of Haiti, the first independent country in the western hemisphere governed by formerly enslaved persons, the United States did not want these European colonial powers attempting reconquering these newly independent states and reestablishing their empires in the western hemisphere. In President Monroe’s 1823 annual message to Congress, today often called the “state of the union” address, Monroe and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams articulated an official position of noninterference by European powers in western hemisphere events, outside of British dominion over Canada and the remaining Spanish and Dutch possessions in the Caribbean, as well as American noninterference in European affairs. While the United States government chose not to issue this Monroe Doctrine as a joint statement with the British government, as had been initially proposed by the British, enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine initially required tacit British naval support.
President James Monroe, Annual Message to Congress, December 1823
War with Mexico
While you will learn more about the Mexican-American War in Chapter 6, it is important to note here that the United States expanded its territorial domains and legal jurisdiction dramatically as a result of its first war against an enemy other than Great Britain or Native American nations. As a result of American victory in the Mexican-American War, the United States added California and much of the contemporary desert southwest, including Arizona and New Mexico, and the intermountain west, including Colorado, Nevada and Utah; border issues about Texas and the American-Mexican border on the Rio Grande River were mostly resolved by the end of this war, other than a relatively narrow strip of land acquired by the United States from Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase of 1853.