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Constitution adopted
Slaves counted as 3/5th of a person for means of representation -
Trail of Tears
18,000 Cherokee Indians were forced to leave their homes and relocate west of Mississippi -
Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo
cedes Arizona, Texas, California, New Mexico, Colorado and parts of Utah and Nevada to the United States for $15 million. Article IX guarantees people of Mexican origin "the enjoyment of all the rights of the citizens of the United States according to the principles of the constitution."
1856: -
Dred Scott
Scott, a slave who had lived in a free territory, sues for his freedom on the grounds his residence on free soil liberates him. The Supreme Court rules against him, saying African American people are regarded as "so far inferior...that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." The court also declares that slaves were not citizens and had no rights to sue, and that slave owners could take their slaves anywhere on the territory and retain title to them. -
Civil war
The civil war begins -
Emancipation Proclamation
Lincoln signs the emancipation proclamation -
Freedmans Bureau
The civil war ends and Lincoln is assassinated and the freedman's bureau is established to help former slaves. The 13th amendment is ratified -
14th Amendment
Making African Americans full citizens of the united states and prohibiting states from denying them equal protection or due process of the law -
15th Amendment and Jim Crow
guaranteeing the right to vote will not be denied or abridged on account of race. At the same time, however, the first "Jim Crow" or segregation law is passed in Tennessee mandating the separation of African Americans from whites on trains, in depots and wharves. In short order, the rest of the South falls into step. By the end of the century, African Americans are banned from white hotels, barber shops, restaurants, theaters and other public accommodations. -
The Civil Rights Act
guaranteeing African Americans equal rights in transportation, restaurant/inns, theaters and on juries. The law is struck down in 1883 with the Court majority arguing the Constitution allows Congress to act only on discrimination by government and not that by private citizens -
Rutherford B Hayes
He was elected and reconstruction is brought to an end and most federal troops are withdrawn from the South while those remaining do nothing to protect the rights of African Americans. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
Over the veto of President Chester Arthur, Congress passes the Chinese Exclusion Act restricting the immigration of all Chinese laborers for 10 years and requiring Chinese to carry identification cards. In 1892, the act is extended for another 10 years. -
Scott Act
Congress passes the Scott Act prohibiting resident Chinese laborers who leave the United States from returning unless they have family in the country. -
Battle of Wounded Knee
U.S. troops killed 200 Dakota Indian man and women and children in the last conflict of the "Indian Wars" -
Plessy v. Ferguson
The Supreme Court, in Plessy v. Ferguson, rules that state laws requiring separation of the races are within the bounds of the Constitution as long as equal accommodations are made for African Americans, thus establishing the "separate but equal" doctrine that justifies legal segregation in the South. Justice John Harlan, in lone dissent, says Constitution is "colorblind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens." -
NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was established by W.E.B. Dubois, Jane Addams, John Dewey, and others -
The Jones Act
The Jones Act grants full citizenship to Puerto Ricans and gives them the right to travel freely to the continental United States. However, because Puerto Rico is not a state, like citizens in the District of Columbia, Puerto Ricans are represented in Congress by a delegate with only limited powers and are unrepresented in the Senate -
Ozawa vs. United States
the Supreme Court denies Japanese residents the right to naturalization because they are "ineligible for citizenship," as are foreign-born Chinese. In Congress, the Cable Act declares that "any woman citizen who marries an alien ineligible to citizenship, shall cease to be a citizen." -
Indian Citizenship act of 1924
After 10,000 Native American soldiers in World War I, Congress passes the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, granting American citizenship to Native Americans. Several Indian nations, including the Hopi and the Iroquois, decline citizenship in favor of retaining sovereign nationhood. -
Relocation Camps
U.S. government places in barbed wire encircled "relocation camps" some 110,000 Japanese Americans. Guards are ordered to shoot anyone seeking to leave.
