Even though the text directly refers to them, no Native Americans were present when the Treaty of Ghent was negotiated. Arguing about the creation of a Native territory in between the United States and Canada, the Americans and the British were pretty much debating what to do with someone else's stuff.

The end of the War of 1812 ended up being a turning point in Native American history. Throughout the war, native tribes had mostly fought on the side of the British, with the goal of defending their homelands from American expansion. Although the treaty called for an end to wars with Native Americans, Britain's military withdrawal from the American frontier effectively opened the door for conquest. Eastern Native tribes would be driven west onto reservations or decimated.

The two sides treated the tribes more as chess pieces on the map than as a sovereign people. Britain didn't want the U.S. marching into Canada, but they weren't about to die on a hill for their native allies.

During the Ghent negotiations, British ambassador Henry Goulburn even remarked to a friend, ¨Till I came here I had no idea of the fixed determination which there is in the heart of every American to extirpate the Indians and appropriate their territory" (source).

Henry, you got that right.