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Manifest Destiny
The belief that it was the Unites Sates destiny to stretch from the atlantic coast to the pacific coast. This belief was the fuel behind western settlement, native american removal, and war with Mexico. -
Oregon Trail
A trail that stretched from Missouri to Oregon. Settlers traveled west on this trail in hopes of finding riches and to escape disease in the east. The trail was first traveled by Marcus and Narcissa
Whitman, they proved that wagons could travel the oregon trail. -
Missouri Compromise 1820-1821
Under president Henry Clay, the missouri compromise admitted Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. it also set up the 36 30 line. above the line (except Missouri) slavery was banned, below the line slavery was legal. -
Abolition
Abolition was the movement to abolish slavery. -
Santa Fe Trail
A transprtation route that stretched from Missouri to New Mexico. Traders often traveled back and forth on this route. -
San Felipe de Austin
San Felipe de Austin was a colony set up by Stephen F. Austin after his father passed away before he could fulfill his plans of creating this colony. This was made possible because Mexico gave a land grant to Stephens father to create a colony, but Stephen f. Austin carried this task out. -
Mexico Abolishes Slavery
Southerners occupied a major part in the population of Texas, and they had brought slaves with them. The Mexican government insisted that the southerners free there slaves, but they did not want to. -
The Liberator
The Liberator was a newspaper written by William Lloyd Garrison, and it called for immediate emancipation of all slaves in the south. -
Nat Turners Rebellion
Nat Turner was a slave that led a rebellion of more than 50 slaves, they attacked four plantations and killed 60 whites. They were eventually stopped and many of them were executed. -
Stephen F. Austin goes to jail
Stephen F. Austin was arrested by Mexican government for inciting revolution in 1834. -
Texas Revolution
The 1836 rebellion in which Texas gained its independence from Mexico. This revolution was a result of Santa Anna taking power from local colonies in Texas. -
Texas enters the Unites States
Southerners wanted Texas to enter U.S to expand slavery, but the north feared that it would tip the scale of slave states and give them more power. James K. Polk, the newly elected president favored the annexation of Texas. -
Mexican-American War
Mexican-American war was caused by negotiations to annex Texas into the U.S. After Texas was annexed into U.S. Mexico and U.S. fought between Rio Grande river and Nueces River. -
The North Star
The North Star was an anti-slavery newspaper written by Frederick Douglas. It was named The North Star because that was the star that would lead slaves into the north away from slavery. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Mexico recognized the RIo Grange river as the border between Texas and Mexico. This treaty also gave Texas, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, most of Arizona, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. -
Compromise of 1850
consisted of laws admitting California as a free state, creating Utah and New Mexico territories with the question of slavery in each to be determined by popular sovereignty, settling a Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute in the former’s favor, ending the slave trade in Washington, D.C., and making it easier for southerners to recover fugitive slaves. -
Fugitive Slave Act
It required that all escaped slaves were, upon capture, to be returned to their masters and that officials and citizens of free states had to cooperate in this law. Abolitionists nicknamed it the "Bloodhound Law" for the dogs that were used to track down runaway slaves. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin was a novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, which stressed that slavery was not just a political contest, but also a great moral struggle. -
Underground Railroad
The underground railroad was a system of people who hid and trandported slaves until they reached the north and were freed. Harriet Tubman was one famous "conductor" and led over 300 slaves to freedom. -
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman was a "conductor" of the underground railroad and led over 300 slaves to freedom. -
Kansas-Nebraska act
The Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opening new lands for settlement, and had the effect of repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by allowing white male settlers in those territories to determine through popular sovereignty whether they would allow slavery. -
Dread Scott Vs. Sandford
Dred Scott was a slave who went to illinois and wisconsin, which were free states, and thought since he went to those states it made him a free man. The final verdict of the supreme court said that traveling to free states does not make him a free citizen, and he would still be a slave. -
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas debates
Douglas believed in popular sovereignty and Lincoln simply thought slavery was immoral. Douglas officially won the debate, but lincoln's ideas cirsulated and eventually led to him becoming president. -
John Browns Raid/ Harpers Ferry
John Borwn was an abolitionist who led a band of 21 white and black men into haper's ferry and attempted to take over the federal arsenal and start a slave uprising. The urising never began and the band of men were stopped and executed. -
Abraham Lincoln becomes president
Lincoln won the election because he was against slavery and the north liked him. Also, the democrats were split on the idea of slavery, so they were weakened. -
Formation of the Confederacy
Southern states seceded from the United States and created the confederacy, which protected slavey. -
Attack on fort Sumter
Confederate soldiers bombarded Fort Sumter, and it fell. News that Fort Sumter fell united the north and led to a full on war with the confederacy. -
Battle of Bull Run
Confederates won the battle, but they were too exhausted to follow up with an attack into washington. The confederate victory raised confederate morale. -
Income Tax
A tax that takes a specified percentage of an individual’s income. This was placed on citizens to pay for the war and to rebuild. -
Battle of Antietam
A battle that led to 22,000 casualties, the bloodiest day in american history, This led to the emancipation proclamation. -
Emancipation Proclamation
Gave the union the reason to fight to free the slaves in he south. It also made compromise unreachable. -
Conscription
A conscription is a document that requires all men to participate in the army. -
Battle at Gettysburg
A bloody battle that led the confederate forces to flee back to virginia and stopped the march north. Confederates took over Gettysburg, but the union soldiers positioned themselves and rained down artillery on the oncoming confederate soldiers, devastating them. -
Gettysburg Address
A speech given by Lincoln, that dedicated a cemetery in Gettysburg. This speech also made the U.S. realize that they were not just a collection of individual states, they were a unified nation. -
Battle at VIcksburg
Union forces waged a campaign to take the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, Mississippi, which lay on the east bank of the Mississippi River, halfway between Memphisto the northand New Orleansto the south.The capture of Vicksburg divided the Confederacy and proved the military genius of Union General Ulysses S. Grant. -
Sherman's March
Union General William T. Sherman led some 60,000 soldiers on a 285-mile march from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia. The purpose of this “March to the Sea” was to frighten Georgia’s civilian population into abandoning the Confederate cause. Sherman’s soldiers did not destroy any of the towns in their path, but they stole food and livestock and burned the houses and barns of people who tried to fight back. The Yankees were “not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people,” Sherman explained; a -
Surrender at Appomattox court house
On April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his approximately 28,000 troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant in the front parlor of Wilmer McLean's home in Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War. -
Thirteenth Amendment
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and Confederate sympathizer, fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln at a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War.