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Missouri Compromise
Congress passed this under the leadership of Henry Clay. Under this, Maine was admitted as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. The rest of the Louisiana Territory was split into two, set by the 36°30 north latitude. -
Abolition
Abolition was the movement to abolish slavery and it became the most important of a series of reform movements in America. By the 1820s, abolition was becoming a topic of interest. The American Colonization Society had been founded to encourage black emigration, but some wanted African Americans to remain in the states as free citizens. -
Harriet Tubman
Born in 1820 or 1821, Tubman was a famous conductor of the Underground Railroad. She became a conductor because of fear that she would be sold after her owner died in 1849. It is believed she helped about 300 slaves reach freedom. -
San Felipe de Austin
Stephen Austin, a leader of the American settlers, had gotten a land grant from his father who died before he could carry out his plans. It was established in 1821 by Stephen F. Austin. Creating it was possible because Austin got permission from Spain and Mexico to start the colony and he gave land grants to the people who settled there. It was inexpensive land and a total of 297 grants were given. -
Santa Fe Trail
From 1821 to 1860, the Santa Fe Trail was used by settlers and traders moving west. This was an old Native American trail that was 780 miles long. Settlers were wary of possible Native American attacks so they banded into groups to be safe. Near the end of their journey, however, they raced to reach Santa Fe first to settle. -
Mexico Abolishes Slavery
American settlers had brought slaves into Texas, but Mexico had already abolished slavery. This created anger between Mexicans, who did not want slavery to be present in Texas, and Americans who wanted to keep their slaves in Texas. -
The Liberator
William Lloyd Garrison was the author of the newspaper, The Liberator. It was an antislavery newspaper that started in 1831. Garrison had been writing for an antislavery newspaper before he started his own. The message that he was trying to send in his newspaper was immediate emancipation. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
Nat Turner was a Virginia slave who, along with 50 followers, attacked four plantations and killed about 60 whites. He was eventually captured along with members of his group by a group of whites who aimed to stop him. Those that were captured were killed. Turner's rebellion had frightened and angered slaveholders. Others believed that the only way to prevent it was immediate emancipation. -
Stephen F. Austin Goes To Jail
As Stephen F. Austin was going to Mexico City to present petitions to Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna for greater self-government for Texas. While going back home, Santa Anna had imprisoned Austin and charged him with inciting a revolution. -
Oregon Trail
Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon. It was blazed by two Methodist missionaries: Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. They drove their wagon as far as Fort Boise and proved that wagons could travel on the Oregon Trail. -
Texas Revolution
1836 Rebellion in which Texas gained its independence from Mexico -
Manifest Destiny
After the War of 1812, few Americans moved westward until the 1840s. People started to believe that God has wanted them to move west. "Manifest Destiny" was the phrase tat expressed how people thought it was their inevitable destiny. -
Texas Enters The United States
James K. Polk, who was president at the time, had annexed Texas despite divided opinions about whether to accept them into the Union or not. His goal was to increase westward expansion, Texas was annexed in 1845 -
Mexican-American War
Lasted from 1846-1848, marked the first U.S. armed conflict on foreign soil. President James K. Polk fought the unprepared Mexico. He believed the United States had a “manifest destiny” to spread westward to the Pacific Ocean. A border skirmish along the Rio Grande started off the fighting and was followed by a series of U.S. victories. Mexico had lost about one-third of its territory in the end. -
The North Star
Frederick Douglass began his own antislavery newspaper in 1847. It was named The North Star, after the star that guided runaway slaves to freedom. Unlike William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass believed that abolition had to be achieved without violence. -
Treaty Of Guadalupe Hidalgo
After a year of fighting in the Mexican-American War, Mexico finally conceded defeat. This treaty was signed and it stated that the Rio Grande was the new border between Texas and Mexico. It gave New Mexico and California to the United States. -
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was offered by Henry Clay. To please both the north and the south, it provided that California would enter the US as a free state. It also proposed that popular sovereignty would decide whether a state would be entered as a free or a slave state. This was for New Mexico and Utah. -
Fugitive Slave Act
Under this Act, fugitive slaves were not entitled to a trial by jury. Anyone who was convicted of helping a fugitive was fined $1,000 and jailed for 6 months. Northerners were angered by this and created a "vigilance committee" to send endangered African Americans to Canada for safety. -
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was started by Harriet Tubman in 1850. It was a system of escape routes used by slaves to flee to the north so they could be free. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe had written Uncle Tom's Cabin, which stressed that slavery was not only a political contest, but a moral struggle. The book also expressed Stowe's hatred for slavery with her past experiences. -
Dred Scott V. Stanford
Dred Scott’s slave master had brought him from the slave state
of Missouri to live for a time in free territory and in the free state of Illinois. Eventually they returned to Missouri. Scott believed that because he had lived in free territory, he should be free. In 1854 he sued in federal court for his freedom. The court ruled against him, and he appealed to the Supreme Court. The final ruling was that he couldn't sue because he was never going to be a citizen. -
Lincoln and Douglas Debates
Douglas and Lincoln were running against each other for the role as Senate. Both did not want slavery but had different views on how to deal with it. Douglas wanted popular sovereignty to decide whether to make a state free or slave. Lincoln believed it was immoral and wanted Congress to abolish slavery with an amendment. In the end, Douglas won the election. -
John Brown's Raid/ Harpers Ferry
John Brown- after researching on the issue of slavery- had decided to raid Harpers Ferry to seize federal arsenal and start a slave uprising. Troops stopped Brown before any of this could happen and his execution was public for anyone to attend. Both the north and the south had expressed their views- the north was talking bad about the south and the south was accusing whites they believed to support antislavery views. -
Abraham Lincoln Becomes President
Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln as their representative for the 1860 presidential election. Lincoln wanted to put a halt to slavery which made the south see him as an enemy. He didn't even show up on the ballots for most of the southern states. Regardless, he still won the election. -
Formation Of The Confederacy
Lincoln's success in becoming president had made the south feel like they lost their voice in the Union so they decided to form the Confederacy. With South Carolina starting, the southern states seceded from the Union and formed their own constitution that protected slavery. Jefferson Davis of Missouri was made their president. The Confederacy was made up of Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and South Carolina. -
Attack On Fort Sumter
April 12, 1861 was the day that only four southern forts were in control of the north. Lincoln decided not to send any troops the Fort Sumter, the most important of the four, but only to send food for the people there. The south seized Sumter and Lincoln asked for volunteers for the war. The south saw this as a threat from the north and felt provoked because of this. -
Battle Of Bull Run
Three months after the fall of Fort Sumter, the first battle of the Civil War was near Bull Run, a little creek. Both the north and the south kept gaining the upper hand from each other. Confederate leader "Stonewall" Jackson gave the south encouragement to keep fighting. When their reinforcements came, they won their first battle in the Civil War. -
Battle Of Antietam
In the spring of 1862, George McClellan led an army against Robert Lee. McClellan attacked Lee's troops after learning that he was separated from "Stonewall" Jackson's troops at that moment. The battle of Antietam was the bloodiest battle with the most casualties. After McClellan's victory, he refused to fight anymore and Lincoln was forced to remove him as General in the war. -
Emancipation Proclamation
Lincoln did not use his presidential powers to end slavery during the war. Instead, he took enemy resources from the south along with their slaves and issued the Emancipation Proclamation which became a weapon of war, along with being a moral issue. It also made it clear that compromise was no longer possible. -
Battle At Vicksburg
General Ulysses Grant was fighting to take Vicksburg, one of the other Confederate strongholds. Grant weakened the Confederate forces and in 18 days obtained the capital, Jackson. Grant had forced the people of Vicksburg to surrender after his third try of trying to defeat them. Grant won on July 4, 1863. -
Battle At Gettysburg
The Battle At Gettysburg was the most decisive battles of the Civil War. After three days of fighting, the Confederate's leader, General Lee, was forced to retreat after believing they had beaten the Union troops led by General Meade. The casualties of the war had resulted in 23,000 Union deaths/wounded and 28,000 Confederate deaths/wounded. -
Consription
As the war progressed, both sides were forced to issue conscription, which was a draft that forced men to fight in the war. -
Income Tax
Congress decided to help pay for the war by starting income tax, which took a certain percentage of a person's wages to help with war debts. -
Gettysburg Address
The Gettysburg Address was a speech made by Lincoln stating that we should never forget about the Battle At Gettysburg and that the United Sates should not see themselves as a collection of states but rather as a country made up of states aiming for the same thing. -
Sherman's March
In the spring of 1864, Sherman began his march southeast through Georgia to the sea, creating a wide path of destruction. His army burned almost every house in its path and destroyed livestock and railroads. Sherman was determined to make Southerners sick of the war. By mid-November he had burned half of Atlanta. Sherman's forces had then started moving north to wipe out General Lee. -
Surrender At Appomattox Court House
The north obtained Richmond, the Confederate capital. The south had abandoned the city the day before, setting it on fire to stop the north from taking it. On April 9, in a town called Appomattox Court House, Lee and Grant met to arrange a Confederate surrender. Lincoln requested that Grant paroled Lee’s soldiers and sent them home with their possessions and three days’ worth of rations. Officers were allowed to keep their weapons. This marked the end of the Civil War. -
Thirteenth Amendment (pic needed)
Ratified in 1865, stated that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
When Lincoln and his wife went to see a British comedy at Ford's Theater, he was assassinated by a 26 year old actor, John Wilkes Booth. Booth was captured 11 days later and shot dead. Booth assassinated Lincoln because he was a southern sympathizer.
