The War of 1812 started because the British were disrupting American trade with European countries that weren’t Great Britain. The British had started capturing American ships and forcing the sailors found on those ships into British servitude. Of course, the British were purposely sabotaging America's trade and violating American sovereignty. What’s funny is most of the sailors that were captured were in fact, British; this was because citizenship was such a muddle and papers were often forged. Captured sailors would identify themselves by their tattoos of American patriotism like a bald eagle or an American flag. Great Britain had the right to allow them to disrupt American shipping to European countries and supposable force captured sailors