-
In 1619, 20 or so enslaved Africans landed in Jamestown with their captors and were sold to colonists in exchange for food. While indigenous people had been enslaved in the colony since its founding in 1607, this marked a turning point in the peculiar institution, establishing a chattel system in which enslaved people were treated as property, to be bought and sold, and never freed. When we talk about slavery in the South, this is what we mean: human beings being traded as commodities.
-
Movement of American people into territories west of the original 13 states, initially into the Ohio River Valley, later the Louisiana Territory. As settlers moved west, enslaved people moved with them, and territorial attempts at attaining statehood were frequently accompanied by fierce political fights over the legality of slavery within aspiring states. Compromises and detentes rarely lasted very long, and the issue of slave vs. free states was instrumental in causing the Civil War.
-
Establishes the laws and institutions of the United States, including the legality of slavery and the legal and political subjugation of enslaved people (3/5ths Compromise)
-
Social movement, particularly in Northern states, made up of people who wanted to formally end the institution of slavery in the United States. A combination of philosophical, religious, and economic motivations led many people to support abolition in the years leading up to the Civil War. Illegal in the South and seen by slaveholders as a grave threat to their way of life, abolitionists spread their message through the printed word and direct action, culminating in the 1860 election.
-
Missouri applies for statehood and intends to allow slavery, potentially upsetting the balance of power between free and slave states in Congress. Through negotiations led by Henry Clay, Missouri is admitted, along with Maine, and debate over future admission of free or slave states is (temporarily) resolved with Mason-Dixon Line, which sets a boundary between territory that can be admitted as free or slave states.
-
In the wake of the California Gold Rush of 1849 and American victory in the Mexican-American War, California statehood became a subject of debate in Congress. California had made clear their intention to enter the Union as a free state, which conflicted with the Mason-Dixon Line established in 1820. To satisfy Southern sectional interests, a compromise was reached which established the right of slaveholders to capture escaped slaves, even in Northern states.
-
An extended period of conflict in the Kansas Territory, particularly along its eastern border, over whether it would become a free or slave state. The arrival of thousands, both pro- and anti-slavery, led to an escalation of tensions which, on several occasions, boiled over into armed conflict and murder. John Brown emerges as a militant figure within the anti-slavery camp, who was at the forefront of much of the violence.
-
After years of weakening the initial Missouri Compromise, the Kansas-Nebraska Act officially repealed that law, instead establishing popular sovereignty, allowing states to decide for themselves whether or not they would allow the practice of slavery. While intended to ease sectional tensions in Congress, it largely exacerbated them, precipitating significant violence in the soon-to-be state of Kansas, as well as the caning of Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks in the Senate chamber.
-
Supreme Court decision handed down in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford, in which an enslaved person named Dred Scott argued that his multi-year residence in a free state meant that he ought to be made free. The Court decided that Scott would remain enslaved and that a slave does not stop being a slave just by living in a free state. For many Northerners, this was a heinous decision that impeded their autonomy, and abolitionists used it to build support for their cause.
-
John Brown rides again! Hoping to inspire a slave revolt, he occupies a federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, believing that slaves will rally around his radical action. Very few slaves actually show up, and the US Army to easily retake the arsenal, capturing Brown and sentencing him to death. In a final letter before facing the rope, John Brown condemns the United States for its cruelty and hypocrisy, insisting that only bloodshed will "purge the crimes of this guilty land."
-
America enters 1860 heavily divided: the upstart anti-slavery Republican Party is gaining power, and the long-established Democratic Party is breaking apart over the issue of slavery. Unable to produce a consensus candidate, the Democrats run three separate candidacies based on regional interests, paving the way for the electoral victory of Republican Abraham Lincoln. Considering this defeat a crushing blow, many Southerners refuse to work with Lincoln and begin discussing secession.