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John Brown
John Brown was an American abolitionist. Brown advocated the use of armed insurrection to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United States. He first gained national attention when he led small groups of volunteers during the Bleeding Kansas crisis of 1856. -
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. She came from the Beecher family, a famous religious family, and is best known for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, which depicts the harsh conditions for enslaved African Americans. -
Angelina Grimke
Angelina Emily Grimké Weld was an American abolitionist, political activist, women's rights advocate, and supporter of the women's suffrage movement. She and her sister Sarah Moore Grimké are the only white Southern women who became abolitionists. -
William Lloyd Garrison
William Lloyd Garrison, who signed and printed his name Wm. Lloyd Garrison, was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, suffragist, and social reformer. -
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th president of the United States. Lincoln led the nation through its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis in the American Civil War. -
Stephen Douglass
Stephen Arnold Douglas was an American politician and lawyer from Illinois. He was the Democratic Party nominee for president in the 1860 election, but he was defeated by Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln. -
Missouri Compromise
the agreement made to keep the balance of slave and free states equal. Missouri was added as a slave state and Maine added as a free state in 1821 -
Mexican American War
war between Mexico and the U.S. when the U.S. annexed Texas and Mexico challenged the Border. Battles were fought in Texas, and Mexico was invaded from the Atlantic Ocean by General Winfield Scott. Scott attacked Mexico City and Chapultepec. The war ended with the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. -
Compromise of 1850
stated that some states could have slaves and other states could not -
Dred Scott Case
The Dred Scott case, also known as Dred Scott v. Sanford, was a decade-long fight for freedom by a black slave named Dred Scott. The case persisted through several courts and ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court, whose decision incensed abolitionists, gave momentum to the anti-slavery movement and served as a stepping stone to the Civil War. -
Raid on Harper's Ferry
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and destroy the institution of slavery. -
Fredrick Douglas
Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, gaining note for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings.