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Abolition
Abolition was the movement to end slavery. Many of these movements had their roots in a spiritual awakening that swept
the nation after 1790. -
Missouri Compromise 1820-1821
Under these agreements, Maine was admitted as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. The rest of the Louisiana Territory was split into two parts. The dividing line was set at 36°30´ north latitude. South of the line, slavery was legal. North of the line -- except in Missouri—slavery was banned. (during Jackson's Presidency) -
Santa Fe Trail
One of the busiest routes was the Santa Fe Trail, which stretched 780 miles from Independence, Missouri, to Santa Fe in the Mexican province of New Mexico. Each spring from 1821 through the 1860s, American traders loaded their covered wagons with goods and set off toward Santa Fe. -
San Felipe de Austin
San Fellipe de Austin was main settlement of the colony where “no drunkard, no gambler, no profane swearer, and no idler” would be allowed. It was established in 1821 by Stephen F. Austin with land granted to his father, Moses Austin, by Spain. -
The Liberator
A newspaper written by radical white abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to deliver an uncompromising demand: immediate emancipation. -
Mexico Abolishes Slavery
Mexico abolished slavery in 1829, but it became a problem because many settlers in Mexican Texas were Southern slave owners. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
One of the most prominent rebellions was led by Virginia slave Nat Turner. In August 1831, Turner and more than 50 followers attacked four plantations and killed about 60 whites. Whites eventually captured and executed many members of the group, including Turner. -
Stephen F. Austin goes to jail
Austin had traveled to Mexico City late in 1833 to present petitions to Mexican president Antonio López de Santa Anna for greater self government for Texas. While Austin was on his way home, Santa Anna had Austin imprisoned for inciting revolution. -
Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail stretched from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon. It was blazed in 1836 by two Methodist missionaries named Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. Many pioneers migrated west on the Oregon Trail. Some bought “prairie schooners,” wooden-wheeled wagons covered with sailcloth and pulled by oxen. Most walked, however, pushing handcarts loaded with a few precious possessions, food, and other supplies. The trip took months, even if all went well. -
Texas Revolution
The 1836 rebellion in which Texas gained its independence from Mexico. -
Manifest Destiny
The phrase “manifest destiny” expressed the belief that the United States was ordained to expand to the Pacific Ocean and into Mexican and Native American territory. Many Americans also believed that this destiny was manifest, or obvious and inevitable. -
Texas Enters U.S.
On December 29, 1845, Texas entered the Union. Events moved quickly toward war. -
Mexican-American War
The Mexican-American War (1846-1848) marked the first U.S. armed conflict chiefly fought on foreign soil. It pitted a politically divided and militarily unprepared Mexico against the expansionist-minded administration of U.S. President James K. Polk, who believed the United States had a “manifest destiny” to spread across the continent 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. -
The North Star
In 1847, Frederick Douglass began an antislavery newspaper to speak for various anti-slavery organizations. He named it The North Star, after the star that guided runaway slaves to freedom -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
On February 2, 1848, the United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico agreed to the Rio Grande as the border between Texas and Mexico and ceded the New Mexico and California territories to the United States. The United States agreed to pay $15 million for the Mexican cession, which included present day California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, most of Arizona, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. -
Harriet Tubman
One of the most famous conductors of the Underground Railroad was Harriet Tubman, born a slave in Maryland. In 1849, after her owner died, she heard rumors that she was about to be sold. Fearing this possibility, Tubman ran away to Philadelphia. Shortly after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, Tubman resolved to become a conductor on the Underground Railroad. In all, she made 19 trips back to the South and is said to have helped 300 slaves—including her own parents—flee to freedom. -
Underground Railroad
Free African Americans and white abolitionists developed a secret network of people who would, at great risk to themselves, hide fugitive slaves. The system of escape routes they used became known as the Underground Railroad. “Conductors” on the routes hid fugitives in secret tunnels and false cupboards, provided them with food and clothing, and escorted or directed them to the next “station.” One of the most famous conductors was Harriet Tubman, born a slave in Maryland in 1820 or 1821. -
Compromise of 1850
Written by Henry Clay, the compromise tried to include both the North and the South. To please the North, the compromise provided that California be admitted to the Union as a free state. To please the South, the compromise proposed a new and more effective fugitive slave law. To placate both sides, a provision allowed popular sovereignty, the right to vote for or against slavery, for residents of the New Mexico and Utah territories. -
Fugitive Slave Act
Under the law, alleged fugitive slaves were not entitled to a trial by jury. In addition, anyone convicted of helping a fugitive was liable for a fine of $1,000 and imprisonment for up to six months. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe published her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which stressed that slavery was not just a political contest, but also a great moral struggle. As a young girl, Stowe had watched boats filled with people on their way to be sold at slave markets. Uncle Tom’s Cabin expressed her lifetime hatred of slavery. The book stirred Northern abolitionists to increase their protests against the Fugitive Slave Act, while Southerners criticized the book as an attack on the South. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Kansas and Nebraska territory lay north of the Missouri Compromise line of 36°30’ and therefore was legally closed to slavery. Douglas introduced a bill in Congress on January 23, 1854, that would divide the area into two territories: Nebraska in the north and Kansas in the south. If passed, the bill would repeal the Missouri Compromise and establish popular sovereignty for both territories. -
Dred Scott vs. Stanford
Dred Scott was a slave whose owner took him from
the slave state of Missouri to free territory in Illinois and Wisconsin and back to Missouri. Scott appealed to the Supreme Court for his freedom on the grounds that living in a free state had made him a free man. On March 6, 1857, the Supreme Court ruled against Dred Scott, saying Scott lacked any legal standing to sue in federal court because he was not a citizen. Dred Scott was therefore viewed as property that was protected by the government. -
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas Debates
Neither wanted slavery in the territories, but they disagreed on how to keep it out. Douglas believed deeply in popular sovereignty. Lincoln, on the other hand, believed that slavery was immoral. However, he did not expect individuals to give up slavery unless Congress abolished slavery with an amendment. Douglas won the Senate seat. -
John Brown's Raid / Harpers Ferry
John Brown studied the slave uprisings of the French island of Haiti and wanted to begin similar ones in the U.S.. Brown secretly obtained financial backing from several prominent Northern abolitionists. On October 16, 1859, he led 21 men, black and white, into Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) to seize the federal arsenal there and start a general slave uprising. Troops put down the rebellion. Later, authorities tried Brown and put him to death. -
Abraham Lincoln becomes President
Lincoln was elected president in 1860. He pledged to halt the further spread of slavery, but also tried to reassure Southerners that a Republican administration would not “interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves.” Lincoln emerged as the winner with less than half the popular vote and with no electoral votes from the South. He did not even appear on the ballot in most of the slave states because of Southern hostility toward him. -
Formation of the Confederacy
In 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union, followed by Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. In February 1861, delegates from the secessionist states met in Montgomery, Alabama, where they formed the Confederate States of America, or Confederacy. They also drew up a constitution that closely resembled that of the United States, but with a few notable differences. The Confederates then unanimously elected former senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as president. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
In 1861, the Confederacy started seizing the Union's forts. After Lincoln was elected president, Fort Sumter was still in the Union's hands, but Lincoln wouldnt reinforce it. Ultimately, the Confederacy took it, and when Lincoln called for people to protect the Union, more states seceded. -
Income Tax
As the Northern economy grew, Congress decided to help pay for the war by collecting the nation’s first income tax, a tax that takes a specified percentage of an individual’s income. -
Battle of Bull Run
Three months after Fort Sumter fell, the Battle of Bull run marked the first bloodshed on the battlefield of the Civil War. In the morning the Union army gained the upper hand, but the Confederates held firm, inspired by General Thomas J. Jackson. “There stands Jackson like a stone wall!” another general shouted, coining the nickname Stonewall Jackson. In the afternoon Confederate reinforcements helped win the first Southern victory. -
Battle of Antietam
In 1862, McClellan ordered his men to pursue Lee, and the two sides fought on September 17 near a creek called the Antietam. The clash proved to be the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with casualties totaling more than 26,000. The Union won. The next day, instead of pursuing the battered Confederate army into Virginia and possibly ending the war, McClellan did nothing. As a result, Lincoln removed him from command. -
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg began on July 1 when Confederate soldiers led by A. P. Hill encountered several brigades of Union cavalry under the command of John Buford. Buford ordered his men to take defensive positions on the hills and ridges surrounding the town. When Hill’s troops marched toward the town, Buford’s men were waiting. By the end of the first day of fighting, 90,000 Union troops under the command of General Meade had taken the field against 75,000 Confederates, led by General Lee. -
Emancipation Proclamation
On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation did not free any slaves immediately because it applied only to areas behind Confederate lines, outside Union control. Nevertheless, for many, the proclamation gave the war a moral purpose by turning the struggle into a fight to free the slaves. It also ensured that compromise was no longer possible. -
Conscription
As the fighting intensified, heavy casualties and widespread desertions led each side to impose conscription, a draft that forced men to serve in the army. In the North, conscription led to draft riots, the most violent of which took place in New York City. -
Gettysburg Address
In November 1863, a ceremony was held to dedicate a cemetery in Gettysburg. There, President Lincoln spoke for a little more than two minutes. According to some contemporary historians, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address “remade America.” Before Lincoln’s speech, people said, “The United States are . . .” Afterward, they said, “The United States is . . .” In other words, the speech helped the country to realize that it was not just a collection of individual states; it was one unified nation. -
Battle at Vicksburg
Union general Ulysses S. Grant fought to take Vicksburg, which was particularly important because it rested on bluffs above the Mississippi from which guns could control all water traffic. Grant began by weakening the Confederate defenses that protected Vicksburg, destroying rail lines and distracting Confederate forces from the coming Union threat. In 18 days, Union forces had sacked the capital of the state, winning the battle. -
Sherman's March
In 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 “so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it.” By mid-November he had burned most of Atlanta. After reaching the ocean, Sherman’s forces—followed by 25,000 former slaves—turned north to help Grant “wipe out Lee.” -
Surrender at Appomattox Court House
On April 9, 1865, in a Virginia town called Appomattox Court House, Lee and Grant met at a private home to arrange a Confederate surrender. At Lincoln’s request, the terms were generous. Grant paroled Lee’s soldiers and sent them home with their possessions and three days’ worth of rations. Officers were permitted to keep their side arms. Within a month all remaining Confederate resistance collapsed. After four long years, the Civil War was over. -
Thirteenth Amendment
The Thirteenth Amendment was ratified at the end of 1865, stating, “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
On April 14, 1865, five days after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, Lincoln and his wife went to Ford’s Theatre in Washington to see a British comedy, Our American Cousin. During its third act, John Wilkes Booth, a 26-year-old actor and Southern sympathizer, crept up behind Lincoln and shot the president in the back of his head. Lincoln, who never regained consciousness, died on April 15. It was the first time a president of the United States had been assassinated.
