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Harriet Tubman is born in Maryland
Tubman escaped to Philadelphia and risked her life in the next decade by making numerous trips back to Maryland to lead relatives and other slaves to freedom. She rescued about 75 men, women, and children from slavery. -
Missouri controversy ends
In 1819, Missouri requested to join the Union as a slave state, and it’s slave population exceeded 10,000. James Tallmadge, a Republican congressman from New York, moved that the introduction of more slaves be prohibited and children of those already in Missouri be freed at age 25. This proposal sparked two years of controversy. -
Liberia founded to serve as a homeland for American Colonization Society
The American Colonization Society promoted the gradual abolition of slavery and the settlement of black Americans in Africa. It established Liberia on the coast of West Africa. Several thousand black Americans emigrated to Liberia with the aid of the Colonization Society. Free blacks organized in opposition to the Colonization Society. -
Monroe Doctrine
President James Monroe’s declaration that the American continents would be closed to European colonization and that the US would not interfere in European affairs. The Monroe Doctrine is sometimes called America’s diplomatic Declaration of Independence and for many decades it remained a cornerstone of American foreign policy. -
American System Program promoted by Henry Clay in his presidential campaign
Program of internal improvements and protective tariffs promoted by Henry Clay in his presidential campaign of 1824. Clay’s proposals formed the core of Whig ideology in the 1830s and 1840s. The plan rested on three pillars: a new national bank, a tariff on imported manufactured goods to protect American industry, and federal financing of improved roads and canals. -
Owenite community established at New Harmony, Indiana
Robert Owen, a British factory owner, promoted communitarianism, which was a social reform movement of the nineteenth century driven by the belief that establishing small communities will create a less competitive and less individualistic society. He purchased the Harmony community in Indiana and established New Harmony, where he hoped to create a “new moral world”. This is an example of a “utopian community”, an ideal community that housed people interested in achieving salvation. -
American Temperance Society founded
The American Temperance Society sought to redeem not only habitual drunkards but the occasional drinker as well. The Society claimed by the 1830s to have persuaded hundreds of thousands of Americans to renounce liquor. The American Temperance Society was formed during the temperance movement. The temperance movement was a widespread reform movement led by militant Christians focused on reducing the use of alcoholic beverages. -
Freedom’s Journal is established
The first U.S. black newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, was able to be published due to the reduction in the cost of printing. The growth of the reading public opened the door for the rise of a new generation of women writers. This was yet another way women entered the public sphere and shared their voices. “Feminism” was a term that entered the lexicon in the early twentieth century to describe the movement for full equality for women in political, social, and personal life. -
Tariff of abominations passed by Parliament
A tariff that taxed imported goods at a very high rate. This tariff incited strong opposition from the South due to the favoritism shown towards northern industry. -
David Walker’s An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World
David Walker was a free black who was born in North Carolina and operated a used-clothing store in Boston. The Appeal was a passionate indictment of slavery and racial prejudice and warned whites that the nation faced divine punishment if it did not mend its sinful ways. Walker invoked the Bible and the Declaration of Independence. -
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints founded
Joseph Smith founded the religious sect as a product of the intense revivalism of the “burned over district” of New York. These revivals popularized the outlook known as perfectionism, which saw both individuals and society as capable of indefinite improvement. Smith was a farmer in upstate New York who experienced religious visions as a youth. He claimed to have been led by an angel to a set of golden plates covered with strange writing; he translated and published them as The Book of Mormon. -
William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator debuts
The Liberator was a weekly journal published by William Lloyd Garrison in Boston. Garrison called for the immediate abolition of slavery, and his message echoed throughout antislavery circles. Garrison was the abolition movement’s most notable propagandist. Another piece of antislavery literature was Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel was one of the most effective antislavery novels and sold more than one million copies by 1854. -
Maria Stewart becomes first American woman to lecture to mixed male and female audiences
Maria Stewart, a black Bostonian, became the first American woman to lecture to mixed male and female audiences. She received intense criticism. Stewart left Boston in 1833 and rarely lectured again. Women like Maria Stewart giving public speeches eventually led to the Seneca Falls Convention, which marked the beginning of the struggle for woman suffrage. Woman suffrage was the movement to give women the right to vote through a constitutional amendment. -
American Anti-Slavery Society founded
This organization sought an immediate end to slavery and the establishment of equality for black Americans. Around 100,000 northerners joined local groups devoted to abolition. Most abolitionists were ordinary citizens along with a few prominent businessmen. Moral suasion was an abolitionist strategy that sought to end slavery by persuading both slave owners and complicit northerners that the institution was evil. Their language was deliberately provocative in order to seize public attention. -
Female Moral Reform Society organized
Middle class women in New York City organized the Female Moral Reform Society, which sought to redeem prostitutes from lives of sin and to protect the morality of single women. They published lists of men who frequented prostitutes or abused women. This was one example of how women began to carve out a space in the public sphere. Dorothea Dix was another example of the public woman because she advocated for more humane treatment of the insane, which led to reforms in twenty states. -
Boston crowd led William Lloyd Garrison through the streets with a rope around his neck
Mobs disrupted abolitionist meetings in northern cities because of the fear that the movement threatened to tear apart the Union, interfere with profits from slave labor, and overturn white supremacy. These mobs were led by “gentlemen of property and standing”, who were merchants with close commercial ties to the South. William Lloyd Garrison barely escaped with his life after being led through the streets of Boston with a rope around his neck. -
Congress adopts the “gag rule”
The House of Representatives adopted the gag rule as response to the abolitionists flooding Washington with petitions calling for emancipation in the nation’s capital. The gag rule prohibited the consideration of abolitionist petitions. Opposition led by former president John Quincy Adam’s succeeded in having the gag rule repealed in 1844 -
Elijah Lovejoy killed
Elijah P. Lovejoy, an antislavery editor, became the first martyr of the abolitionist movement when he was killed by a mob in Alton, Illinois, while defending his press. Lovejoy began his editing career in the slave state of Missouri but was forced to move to Illinois. Mobs destroyed Lovejoy’s press four times while killing him in the fifth attack. -
First legal treatise on the rights of free black Americans
The first legal treatise on the rights of free black Americans came from a white abolitionist, William Yates. Abolitionists campaigned for northern free blacks’ right to vote, access to education, and equal treatment by transportation companies and public accommodations such as hotels and theaters. -
Slavery As It Is, an abolitionist pamphlet, published
Published by Theodore Weld, a young minister, Slavery As It Is was a compilation of accounts of the maltreatment of slaves. Weld took all his examples from the southern press so they could not be dismissed. Weld helped create the mass constituency of abolition. -
Liberty Party nominates James G. Barney for president
Abolitionism split into two wings in 1840 due to a dispute over the proper role of women in anti slavery work. Some abolitionists feared that Garrison’s radicalism on issues like women’s rights, as well as his refusal to support the idea of abolitionists running for office, impeded the movement’s growth. The secedes formed the Liberty Party in order to make abolitionism a political movement. They nominated James G. Borneo as their candidate for president in 1840. -
Summary
The most significant event during this time period was the Missouri Controversy. This is because it was the first time the issue of westward expansion of slavery was raised. It revealed a wide division in the US that would ultimately lead to a civil war. It also resulted in the Missouri Compromise, which determined the legality of slavery in the newly added states. The Missouri Compromise briefly settled the question of the expansion of slavery. However, the Civil War occurred 20 years later.