Two hundred years ago this Christmas Eve representatives of the United States and Great Britain negotiated an end to the War of 1812 in the Flemish city of Ghent. The Treaty of Ghent restored relations between the two nations to Status Quo Antebellum. Hostilities still existed until the treaty was ratified by the governments of both nations which for Great Britain was December 30th, 1814 and the United States not until February 18th, 1815. During the interceding time, General Andrew Jackson defeated Maj. General Edward Pakenham at the Battle of New Orleans in what is remembered as one of the most lopsided victories in annals of military exploits.
Many who know little about the US war with Britain of 1812 readily dismiss that two and half year conflict as a draw with no losers. Not many are aware that like Vietnam a century and a half later, the 1812 war was not popular in either the US or Britain and cost more than either nation could afford in terms of taxation. After two years of conflict the general public in both nations had their belly full of it and calls for peace grew louder and louder. Sadly, the real losers in that war were the Native Americans. The Treaty of Ghent paved the way for the Indian Removal Act of 1830 which ultimately dispossessed the natives indigenous to the southeast region of their ancestral homelands. It would be fair to say that the Treaty of Ghent was one of the first steps in the process of establishing the new Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River and ultimately the founding of what is today the great state of Oklahoma.