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Missouri Compromise 1820-1821
(President during this time was James Monroe)
In 1818, settlers in Missouri requested admission to the Union. Northerners and Southerners disagreed if Missouri should be admitted as a free state or a slave state. But the Missouri Compromise in 1820–1821 under the leadership of Henry Clay, admitted Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. North of 36°30´ latitude except Missouri--slavery was banned. South of the line, slavery was legal. -
Santa Fe Trail
This was one of the busiest trails leading to the west. It 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
Stephen F. Austin's father, Moses Austin, had received a land grant from Spain to establish a colony between the Brazos and Colorado rivers but died before could. Stephen obtained permission, from Spain and then from Mexico after it had won its independence, to carry out his father’s project. In 1821 he established a colony where “no drunkard, no gambler, no profane swearer, and no idler” would be allowed. The main settlement of the colony was named San Felipe de Austin, in Stephen’s honor. -
The Liberator
Written by William Lloyd Garrison, The Liberator was published in 1828, and it wanted an uncompromising demand: immediate emancipation. -
Mexico abolishes slavery
Despite peaceful cooperation between Anglos and Tejanos, differences over cultural issues intensified between Anglos and the
Mexican government. The overwhelmingly Protestant Anglo settlers spoke English instead of Spanish. Furthermore, many of the settlers were Southerners, who had brought slaves with them to Texas. Mexico, which had abolished slavery in 1829, insisted in vain that the Texans free their slaves -
Abolition
Abolition, the movement to abolish slavery, became the most important of a series of reform movements in America. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
Some slaves rebelled against their condition of bondage. 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
Stephen F. Austin 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 went from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon. It was made in 1836 by two Methodist missionaries named Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. By driving their wagon as far as Fort Boise (near present-day Boise, Idaho), they proved that wagons could travel on the Oregon Trail. -
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 the United States
The 1844 U.S. presidential campaign focused on westward expansion. The winner, James K. Polk, a slaveholder, firmly favored the annexation of Texas. In March 1845, angered by U.S.-Texas negotiation on annexation, the Mexican government recalled its ambassador from Washington. On December 29, 1845, Texas entered the Union. Events moved quickly toward war. -
The North Star
Frederick Douglass was a past slave who became a critic of slavery In 1847, he began his own antislavery newspaper. He named it The North Star, after the star that guided runaway slaves to freedom. -
Mexican American War
A war fought between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. The United States won the war, encouraged by the feelings of many Americans that the country was accomplishing its manifest destiny of expansion. Another cause of the war was slavery. American citizens in the south wished to gain more "slave states" in order to increase their political power. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Meanwhile, American troops in Mexico, led by U.S. generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, scored one military victory after another. After about a year of fighting, Mexico conceded defeat. 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. -
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was about whether California would become a free or slave state. The compromise said that California would become a free state. There would also be a more efficient, stronger fugitive slave law. Then people could vote whether Utah or New Mexico would be a slave state or not. -
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was made by Harriet Tubman. Its purpose was to help slaves escape from slavery into freedom. -
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman was a conductor of the Underground Railroad.
She was born a slave in Maryland in 1820 or 1821. In 1849, after Tubman’s owner died, she heard rumors that she was about to be sold. Fearing this possibility, Tubman decided to make a break for freedom and succeeded in reaching Philadelphia. She would then make 19 trips back to the South and is said to have helped 300 slaves—including her own parents—flee to freedom. -
Fugitive Slave Act
Under the Fugitive Slave Act, 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
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. It was about the moral issues of slavery. It caused Northerners to support the end of slavery. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Stephen Douglas introduced a bill in Congress on January 23, 1854,
that would divide the Kansas and Nebraska territory into two
territories: Nebraska in the north and Kansas in the south. It would repeal the Missouri Compromise and establish popular sovereignty for both territories. Some Northern congressmen saw the bill as part of a plot to turn the territories into slave states. After months of struggle, the Kansas-Nebraska Act became law in 1854 -
Dread Scott v. Sandford
Dred Scott: an escaped slave that argued living in Illinois, a free state, made him a free man.
But the Supreme Court ruled against Dred Scott. According to the
ruling, Scott lacked any legal standing to sue in federal court because he was not, and never could be, a citizen. Moreover, the Court ruled that being in free territory did not make a slave free. The Fifth Amendment protected property, including slaves. -
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas Debates
Lincoln was a Republican and Douglas was a Democrat. They wanted a senate seat. Neither supported slavery, but they disagreed on how to get rid of it. Douglas believed people should vote, but Lincoln believed that it was up to congress with an amendment to abolish slavery. Douglas won the senate seat, but Lincoln would become a candidate of the 1860 election. -
John Brown's raid / Harper's Ferry
John Brown led a band of 21 men, black and white, into Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) to seize the federal arsenal there and start a general slave uprising. He would be sentenced to death for his actions. -
Abraham Lincoln becomes president
Lincoln won the 1860 election because he was moderate about his views. Although he pledged to halt the further spread of slavery, he also tried to reassure Southerners that a Republican administration would not “interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves.” Still, he was viewed by the South as an enemy. -
Formation of the Confederacy
The Confederacy formed when South Carolina seceded from the Union after Lincoln's presidential victory. Mississippi soon followed as did 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. Jefferson Finis Davis was the president. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
Confederate soldiers in each secessionist state began seizing federal installations—especially forts. By the time of Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, 1861, only four Southern forts
remained in Union hands. The most important was Fort Sumter, on an island in Charleston harbor. Lincoln decided to neither abandon Fort Sumter nor reinforce it. On April 12, Confederate batteries
attacked it, and by April 14, seized it. -
Battle of Bull Run
Ater Fort Sumter fell, there was a battle in Bull Run, just 25 miles from Washington, D.C. In the morning the Union army gained the upper hand, but the Confederates held firm, inspired by General Thomas J. Jackson. In the afternoon Confederate reinforcements helped win the first Southern victory. Confederate morale soared. Many Confederate soldiers, confident that the war was over, left the army and went home. -
Battle at Antietam
McClellan (the Union) ordered his men to pursue Robert E. Lee (Confederate), and the two sides fought on September 17 near a creek called the Antietam. 26,000 and more people died. 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. -
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. -
Emancipation Proclamation
Lincoln ordered the freeing of slaves in all portions of the United States not then under Union control (only within the Confederacy). -
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. -
Battle at Gettysburg
This was the most decisive battle of the war. The Union would end up winning although the casualties were high on both sides. -
Battle at Vicksburg
Union general Ulysses S. Grant fought to take Vicksburg, one of the two remaining Confederate strongholds on the Mississippi River. After food supplies ran low, the Confederate command of Vicksburg asked Grant for terms of surrender. The city fell on July 4. Five days later Port Hudson, Louisiana, the last Confederate holdout on the Mississippi, also fell. The Confederacy was cut in two. -
Gettysburg Address
In November 1863, a ceremony was held to dedicate a cemetery in Gettysburg. Lincoln spoke for 2 minutes. The speech helped the country to realize that it was not just a collection of individual states; it was one unified nation. -
Thirteenth Amendment
The 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States. -
Sherman's March
William Tecumseh Sherman was commander of the military division of the Mississippi. He 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. -
Surrender at Appomattox Courthouse
Union troops conquered Richmond, the Confederate capital. 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. Within a month all remaining Confederate resistance collapsed. After four long years, the Civil War was over. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth crept up behind Lincoln during a British comedy in Ford’s Theatre in Washington and shot the president in the back of his head. Booth did it because he sympathized with the South and slavery.
