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Harriet Tubman escapes to Philadelphia
Harriet Tubman and two of her brothers escaped slavery in Maryland's Eastern Shore. The men turned back but she walked the 90 miles to Philadelphia to her freedom. -
The Fugitive Slave Act
The Fugitive Slave Act or Fugitive Slave Law was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave-holding interests and Northern Free-Soilers. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. In reaction to recently tightened fugitive slave laws. The book had a major influence on the way the American public viewed slavery. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 was an organic act that created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. It was drafted by Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas, passed by the 33rd United States Congress, and signed into law by President Franklin Pierce. -
Dred Scott decision
The supreme court announced a decision about slavery and the territories that shook the nation. Dred Scott was still a slave because he was not a citizen by being a slave and had no right to bring forth a lawsuit. -
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Abraham Lincoln debates Stephen Douglas
The Lincoln–Douglas debates were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate -
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John Brown attacks Harper's Ferry
John Brown's attack was an 1859 effort by abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in Southern states by taking over a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. -
Abraham Lincoln gets elected
Lincoln was elected to the United States Congress as president and served one term, from December 1847 to March 1849. He was an abolitionist and did whatever it took to end all slavery. -
South Carolina secedes from the Union
South Carolina became the first slave state in the south to declare that it had seceded from the United States. -
The Confederacy is formed
On February 4, 1861, the states farthest south, where slavery and plantations agriculture were dominant, formed the Confederate States of America with Jefferson Davis as President.