- Summarize the following: American Civil War (Trent Affair as well as St. Albans). Manifest Destiny, Fenian Raids, Britain´s feelings about the BNA colonies.
American Civil War:
Between 1861 and 1865 several southern American states formed the Confederate States of America. The government saw that as an attempted rebellion. For control of political and economical decision making the southern states fought a brutal war against the northern states. The northern states won that war, but the consequences of that war reached far more than just the states inside America. the South, who provided Cotton for the British textile industry, blocked ships from leaving to cut the British off the Cotton supplies. The British build so called blockade runners, which were small, fast ships that could snuggle through the blockade and get the Cotton from the Southern States.
The trent affair: The United States stopped a British mail ship with two national agents on board and took the agents as prisoners, even though they were in neutral water. Resulting from that the British sent 14000 troops to British North America, what took the a long time because there was no railway and threatened to attack. In the end they never actually did attack.
St. Albans Raid: Confederate soldiers attacked the town St. Albans in Vermont and used Montreal as their base. Because they did not wanna get put into prison they escaped back across the border to the United States.
Manifest Destiny: American Believe that one day they should rule all of North America.
Fenian Raids: A group of Irish people formed a group called „the Fenians“, whose target it was to free the Irish from British control. Their strategy was to capture British North American colonies and trade them back for Irish freedom. They tried attacks in East and West Canada, but they only killed a few Canadians and then were forced back across the border. Those attacks got the British North American Colonies to believe they needed a common defense against possible future raids.