A reason the US and Great Britain ended the War of 1812 was because

Question

a-the US needed to focus on fighting American Indians.
b-neither side was clearly winning.
c-both sides wanted to fight other groups.
d-the British did not want to rule the colonies again

Answer 1

Hi Bri,

 

I will try to help! This kind of question is tricky because there are not simple facts that give you the answer; also a particular historian or textbook or teacher may emphasize one factor more than another. It can happen that neither person is really wrong, or clearly right. It's obvious if one answer was

 

- both sides wanted to fight other groups

- both countries were busy with the polar bear invasion and trip to mars

 

Okay, that example is extreme - but you probably get the point. Depending on the actual answers, it might be easy or hard to tell. Given all that, without knowing the course/book/perspective the question is from, I would say (b). Why? (d) is pretty easy to dismiss - the British ruling the colonies was never part of the war, though many Americans felt the War helped to truly "break away" from the British Empire as their own nation. But whatever Britain's concerns about American power, they didn't want to rule the colonies again.

 

(a) could certainly be true, especially since one of the British demands was that we allow (unmolested) the creation of a free Native American nation in the Western part of the continent. We didn't want to do that because we wanted that territory. I am guessing, however, that blatantly declaring we "need to get back to killing Injuns and taking their land" was not something said publicly as any kind of official reason. (c) is true also, in some sense - the British were just ending one of the most important conflicts in Western history - the Napoleonic wars and still worried about Europe and others. We were going to get into war, with Mexico and the Indians, but I don't think that was a driving cause for ending the War of 1812. So that leaves (b). Which is a bit vague of answer, since it implies that either country would have continued if they had been winning ... come to think of it, that's probably exactly what would have happened, lol. Okay, good answer!

 

Probably you should review the material or what your instructor said in case there is a preference.