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Period: to
Conflicts Leading up to Civil War
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Nat Turner's rebellion
A slaved named Nat Turner lead an uprising across Virginia. Along with about 70 coverts, they killed appoximately 60 whites. Fifty-five slaves, including Turner, were tried and executed for their role in the insurrection. Nearly two hundred more were lynched by frenzied mobs. Virginia lawmakers reacted to the crisis by rolling back what few civil rights slaves and free black people possessed at the time. Education was prohibited and the right to assemble was severely limited. -
Anti-Rebellion Law
A Georgia law prescribes the death penalty for publication of material with the intention of provoking a slave rebellion. -
Texas Revolution
The Republic of Texas declares and wins its independence from Mexico in the Texas Revolution. -
Mob Kills Abolitionist
In Alton, Illinois, a mob kills abolitionist and anti-Catholic editor Elijah P. Lovejoy, whose newspaper angered Southerners and Irish Catholics -
Slaves Revolt La Amistad
Slaves revolt on the Spanish ship La Amistad and attempt to return it to Africa, but the ship ends up in the U.S. After a highly publicized Supreme Court case argued by John Quincy Adams, the slaves are freed in March 1841, and most return to Africa.[ -
Mexican American War
The administration of President James K. Polk had deployed the Army to disputed Texas territory and Mexican forces attacked it. Antislavery critics charged the war as a pretext for gaining more slave territory. The U.S. Army quickly captured New Mexico. -
Fight for Cuba
Polk offered Spain 100 million dollars for the purchase of Cuba. In reaction, Narciso Lopez attempted to cause an uprising in Cuba in favor of American annexation of the island, which allows slavery. Lopez was defeated and flees to the United States. -
Bleeding Kansas
Bleeding Kansas was a mini civil war between pro- and anti-slavery forces that occurred in Kansas from 1856 to 1865. Following the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, thousands of Northerners and Southerners came to the newly created Kansas Territory. Northerners intended to prevent slavery at all costs. -
John Browns raid
Abolitionist John Brown supported violent action against the South to end slavery and played a major role in starting the Civil War. In October 1859, he and 19 supporters, armed with “Beecher’s Bibles,” led a raid on the federal armory and arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in an effort to capture and confiscate the arms located there, distribute them among local slaves and begin armed insurrection. There were casualties on both sides. -
Battle of Fort Sumter
The Battle of Fort Sumter was the first battle of the American Civil War. The intense Confederate artillery bombardment of Major Robert Anderson's small Union garrison in the unfinished fort in the harbor at Charleston, South Carolina, had been preceded by months of siege-like conditions.
