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Period: Jan 1, 1500 to
Triangular Trade Route
The early days of the American economy were filled with trade routes stretching across the Atlantic in seemingly all directions. As with trade between European countries, the goods coming into and out of America tended to be part of a pattern. The money paid for one set of goods would be used to pay for another set of goods, and so on. Also at this time, goods were traded for each other, in a barter system. -
Three-Fifths Compromise
The Three-Fifths Compromise was an agreement that occurred during the 1787 Philadelphia Convention. -
Missouri Compromise
Missouri Compromise, 1820–21, measures passed by the U.S. Congress to end the first of a series of crises concerning the extension of slavery. Read more: Missouri Compromise — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0833427.html#ixzz1dBGYbPkx -
Manifest Destiny
In 1845 John L. O'Sullivan, editor of the Democratic Review, referred in his magazine to America's "Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions." -
Henry "Box" Brown
Henry Box Brown was an abolitionist lecturer and performer. Born a slave in Louisa County, he worked in a Richmond tobacco factory and lived in a rented house. -
California Gold Rush
The discovery of gold nuggets in the Sacramento Valley in early 1848 sparked the Gold Rush, arguably one of the most significant events to shape American history during the first half of the 19th century. -
Fugituve Slave Act
Following the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), a series of bills, including the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, was developed that was intended to settle many of the difficulties presented by slavery and the surrounding controversial issues. -
Compromise of 1850
Henry Clay, U.S. senator from Kentucky, was determined to find a solution. In 1820 he had resolved a fiery debate over the spread of slavery with his Missouri Compromise. Now, thirty years later, the matter surfaced again within the walls of the Capitol. But this time the stakes were higher -- nothing less than keeping the Union together. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe's book "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was published. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
On May 30, 1854 the territories of Kansas and Nebraska wanted to become states. -
Dred Scott vs. Sandford
By the mid-1850s, sectional conflict over the extension of slavery into the Western territories threatened to tear the nation apart. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 destroyed the tenuous balance struck 34 years before between “free States” and“slave States” in the Missouri Compromise. Read more: Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
http://www.infoplease.com/us/supreme-court/cases/ar09.html#ixzz1dGFPgjWg -
Violence in Congress / "The Cane"
Violence in Kansas spilled over into the Congress itself. On May 22 1856, the day after the sack of Lawrence and two days before Brown's Pottawatomie Massacre, a sudden flash of savagery on the Senate floor electrified the whole country. Read more: http://www.writework.com/essay/violence-senate-1856 -
Pottawatomie Massacre
Pottawatomie Massacre, murder of five men from a proslavery settlement on Pottawatomie Creek, Franklin county, Kan., U.S., by an antislavery party led by the abolitionist John Brown and composed largely of men of his family. -
John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry
On October 16, 1859, he led 21 men on a raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. -
Presidential Election
William Seward was the front runner when the Republicans met in Chicago in May of 1860, but Lincoln quickly pulled ahead and won the nomination on the third ballot. -
South Carolina Secedes (Leaves Union)
On December 20, 1860, the state of South Carolina voted to remove itself from the United States of America.
