Leading+to+War

toc =Questions = The questions that led our research were questions that asked if the Embargo Act helped repel the British attacking ships, if the Embargo Act ruined the economy why did we not revoke it sooner, and what were the effects of the Embargo Act. We asked these questions because they would help us learn about the past, present, and future of the Embargo Act, and we could learn all the positive and negative effects it had on America. We ignored the simple questions with yes and no answers, so we could have evidence and ways to back up our answers.

=Gathering and Evaluating Evidence = == To begin our research I started by searching things with keys words like "Embargo, Jefferson, or 1807," and going to government pages, museums' pages, and leading into pages about Jefferson's life and the Embargo Act. Here I learned that it all started in 1807 when Jefferson signed an official decree ordering all of Britain's vessels out of American waters because British sailors were taking American sailors claiming them as British deserters. Jefferson could do nothing and became frustrated with no real military option for America. In December 1807, Jefferson singed the Embargo Act forbidding American ships to trade or ship goods with any other nations. It was said to have been believed that the lack of American trading with Britain and France would hurt their ability to keep their war supplies that was well needed. Though the Embargo Act was indeed supposed to make Britain's economy be harmed, it made American exports decrease from $108 million to $22 million between 1807 and 1808. By 1809, almost nobody in America wanted to keep the Embargo Act in action; therefore, it was revoked and substituted with the Non-Intercourse Act. This allowed trade with all nations except for Britain and France. The biggest struggle with gathering and evaluating our evidence was finding the deeper down details; all that ever came up were the surface or medium details about this place and time. Jefferson's presidency was a dark time, and some of his decisions weren't the best. He wanted to show England who was boss, yet his actions seemed to be reversed. To gather our information I took a look at the background information of Jefferson’s presidency, the Embargo Act, and the Non-Intercourse Act. I gathered most of my information off of [], [], my textbook, and the Embargo Act itself. To get my information I sourced out what the actual article says, compared to what my book or the official document said to see who the author's audience could be or what their intentions were. My contextualizing skills showed me these created pages might be for official researches, but are made up by reliable sources such as museums or international study groups. I carefully read and picked out the most important factors of the readings and considered what they were trying to say carefully. When the documents closely matched up and gave me the same information about the embargo and the times after, I knew I was on the right track. With this large amount of information we dropped simple questions like why were the British attacking American ships or what happened after the Embargo Act. We had easily found the answers to questions such as these, so we knew they weren't good questions to lead our research into deeper thought process.

=Interpretation = At such vulnerable time for the United States President Jefferson had no real military to take to war to save American sailors and ships from impressment by British attackers; as soon as Britain had noticed Jefferson did not have a stable military, Jefferson thought it was best put the Embargo Act, a law of avoiding trade with any foreign nation, into action as a way to keep all of our sailors and ships out of harm's way with no way of impressment. After all we learned that the the Embargo Act had hurt Britain, but America was hurt much worse and was left with a shrinking economy. By 1809 the citizens of America had no longer wanted to keep the Embargo Act and so it was repealed, yet they replaced it with the Non-Intercourse Act allowing limited trade for the United States and prohibiting trade with Britain and France. With all nations except for Britain and France removed from the Embargo, America was in a better place. After all America __ did __  go to war with Britain, but it was not until 1812 with James Madison as president. By 1815 the was was officially over, American people say the Americans won the war in what was called a "second war of independence" and regained their honor for America; truth is no one really __WON__ the war. Honestly this conclusion was a little surprising and wasn't really what I was expecting to discover, but I did believe America would somehow fix themselves and become whole again. Though I became confused during the process, all of the questions are answered and I finally understand what happened with the Embargo Act and how the times of 1807-1815 were for America.

Presentation Link: https://docs.google.com/a/qms.quincyschools.org/presentation/d/17A2TDqFk0TvrbYcNEZYlxqrXE4DqdkR8iM6xO_xa29w/edit#slide=id.p