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Missouri Compromise 1820-1821
Congress passed a series of agreements in 1820-1821 known as the Missouri Compromise. Under these agreements, Maine was admitted as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. -
Santa Fe Trail
One of the busiest routes was the Santa Fe Trail, which stretched 780 miles from Independence, Missouri, to Santa Fe in the Mexican province of New Mexico. Each spring from 1821 through the 1860s, American traders loaded their covered wagons with goods and set off toward Santa Fe. -
Harriet Tubman
One of the most famous conductors was Harriet Tubman, born a slave in Maryland in 1820 or 1821. In 1849, after Tubman’s owner died, she heard rumors that she was about to be sold. Fearing this possibility, Tubman decided to make a break for freedom and succeeded in reaching Philadelphia. -
San Felipe de Austin
Stephen obtained permission, from Spain and then from Mexico after it had won its independence, to carry out on his father's project. In 1821, he established a colony where "no drunkard, no gambler, no profane swearer, and no idler" would be allowed. -
Mexico abolishes slavery
Many of the settlers were Southerners, who had brought slaves with them to Texas. Mexico, which had abolished slavery in 1829, insisted in vain that the Texans free their slaves. -
The Liberator
The most radical white abolitionist was a young editor named William Lloyd Garrison. Active in religious reform movements in Massachusetts, Garrison became the editor of an antislavery paper in 1828. Three years later, he established his own paper, The Liberator, to deliver an uncompromising demand: immediate emancipation. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
Some slaves rebelled against their condition of bondage. One of the most prominent rebellions was led by Virginia slave Nat Turner. In August 1831, Turner and more than 50 followers attacked four plantations and killed about 60 whites. Whites eventually captured and executed many members of the group, including Turner. -
Stephen F. Austin goes to jail
Austin had traveled to Mexico City late in 1833 to present petitions to Mexican president Antonio López de Santa Anna for greater self-government for Texas. While Austin was on his way home, Santa Anna had Austin imprisoned for inciting revolution. -
Texas Revolution
The 1836 rebellion in which Texas gained its independence from Mexico. -
Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail stretched from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon. It was blazed in 1836 by two Methodist missionaries named Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. By driving their wagon as far as Fort Boise, they proved that wagons could travel on the Oregon Trail. -
Manifest Destiny
Many Americans began to believe that their movement westward was predestined by God. The phrase "manifest destiny" expressed the belief that the United States was ordained to expand to the Pacific Ocean and into Mexican and Native American territory. Many Americans also believed that this destiny was manifest, or obvious and inevitable. -
Texas enters the United States
In March 1845, angered by U.S.-Texas negotiation on annexation, the Mexican government recalled its ambassador from Washington. On December 29, 1845, Texas entered the Union. Events moved quickly toward war. -
Mexican-American War
The United States declined to incorporate it into the union, largely because northern political interests were against the addition of a new slave state. -
The North Star
Douglass broke with Garrison, who believed that abolition justified whatever means were necessary to achieve it. In 1847, Douglass began his own antislavery newspaper. He named it "The North Star", after the star that guided runaway slaves to freedom. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Mexico agreed to the Rio Grande as the border between Texas and Mexico and ceded the New Mexico and California territories to the United States. The United States agreed to pay $15 million for the Mexican cession, which included presentday Calif., Nev., N.M., Utah, most of Ariz., and parts of Colo. and Wyo. -
Compromise of 1850
Clay presented to the Senate a series of resolutions later called the Compromise of 1850. In September, the Compromise of 1850 became law. The Compromise of 1850 had provided for popular sovereignty in N.M. and Utah. -
Fugitive Slave Act
The harsh terms of the Fugitive Slave Act surprised many people. Under the law, alleged fugitive slaves were not entitled to a trial by jury. In addition, anyone convicted of helping a fugitive was liable for a fine of $1,000 and imprisonment for up to six months. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe published her novel "Uncle Tom’s Cabin", which stressed that slavery was not just a political contest, but also a great moral struggle. Stowe had watched boats filled with people on their way to be sold at slave markets. Uncle Tom’s Cabin expressed her lifetime hatred of slavery. -
Underground Railroad
As time went on, free African Americans and white abolitionists developed a secret network of people who would, at great risk to themselves, hide fugitive slaves. The system of escape routes they used became known as the Underground Railroad. “Conductors” on the routes hid fugitives in secret tunnels and false cupboards, provided them with food and clothing, and escorted or directed them to the next “station”. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Douglas introduced a bill in Congress on January 23, 1854, that would divide the area into two territories: Nebraska in the north and Kansas in the south. Some Northern congressmen
saw the bill as part of a plot to turn the territories into slave states. Southerners strongly defended the proposed legislation. After months of struggle, the Kansas-Nebraska Act became law in 1854. -
Dred Scott v. Sandford
A major Supreme Court decision was brought about by Dred Scott, a slave whose owner took him from the slave state of Missouri to free territory in Illinois and Wisconsin and back to Missouri. Scott believed that because he had lived in free territory, he should be free. The court ruled against him, and he appealed to the Supreme Court. -
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas
Douglas was a well-known two-term senator with an outstanding record and a large campaign chest, while Lincoln was a selfeducated man who had been elected to one term in Congress in 1846. Douglas won the Senate seat, but his response had widened the split in the Democratic Party. -
John Brown's raid/ Harpers Ferry
The abolitionist John Brown was studying the slave uprisings that had occurred in ancient Rome and, more recently, on the French island of Haiti. On the night of October 16, 1859, he led a band of 21 men, black and white, into Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His aim was to seize the federal arsenal there and start a general slave uprising. -
Abraham Lincoln becomes president
As the 1860 presidential election approached, the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln. The Democratic Party finally split over slavery. Northern Democrats rallied behind Douglas and his doctrine of popular sovereignty. -
Formation of the Confederacy
In February 1861, delegates from the secessionist states met in
Montgomery, Alabama, where they formed the Confederate States of America, or Confederacy. The Confederates then unanimously elected former senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as president. -
Income tax
When white male workers went out on strike, employees hired free blacks, immigrants, and women to replace them for lower wages. As the Northern economy grew, Congress decided to help pay for the war by collecting the nation’s first income tax, a tax that takes a specified percentage of an individual’s income. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
By the time of Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, 1861, only four Southern forts remained in Union hands. The most important was Fort Sumter, on an island in Charleston harbor. At 4:30 A.M. on April 12, Confederate batteries began thundering away to the cheers of Charleston’s citizens. The deadly struggle between North and South was under way. News of Fort Sumter’s fall united the North. -
Battle of Bull Run
The first bloodshed on the battlefield occurred about three months after Fort Sumter fell, near the little creek of Bull Run, just 25 miles from Washington, D.C. The battle was a seesaw affair. In the morning, the Union army gained the upper hand, but the Confederates held firm, inspired by General Thomas J. Jackson. Many Confederate soldiers, confident that the war was over, left the army and went home. -
Conscription
The war led to social upheaval and political unrest in both the North and the South. As the fighting intensified, heavy casualties and widespread desertions led each side to impose conscription, a draft that forced men to serve in the army. In the North, conscription led to draft riots, the most violent of which took place in New York. -
Battle at Antietam
McClellan ordered his men to pursue Lee, and the two sides fought on September 17 near a creek called the Antietam. The clash proved to be the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with casualties totaling more than 26,000. As a result,
Lincoln removed him from command. -
Emancipation Proclamation
On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation did not free any slaves immediately because it applied only to areas behind Confederate lines, outside Union control. The proclamation gave the war a moral purpose by turning the struggle into a fight to free the slaves. It also ensured that compromise was no longer possible. -
Battle at Vicksburg
Grant and his troops rushed to Vicksburg, hoping to take the city while the rebels were reeling from their losses. Grant ordered two frontal attacks on Vicksburg, neither of which succeeded. In the last week of May 1863, Grant settled in for a siege. The city fell on July 4. Five days later Port Hudson, Louisiana, the last Confederate holdout on the Mississippi, also fell. The Union had achieved another of its major military objectives, and the Confederacy was cut in two. -
Battle at Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg began on July 1 when Confederate soldiers led by A. P. Hill encountered several brigades of Union cavalry under the command of John Buford, an experienced officer from Illinois. When Hill’s troops marched toward the town from the west, Buford’s men were waiting. 90,000 Union troops under the command of General George Meade had taken the field against 75,000 Confederates, led by General Lee. -
Gettysburg address
In November 1863, a ceremony was held to dedicate a cemetery in Gettysburg. President Lincoln spoke for a little more than two minutes. According to some contemporary historians, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address “remade America.” The speech helped the country to realize that it was not just a collection of individual states; it was one unified nation. -
Sherman's March
Sherman began his march southeast through Georgia to the sea, creating a wide path of destruction. His army burned almost every house in its path and destroyed livestock and railroads. By mid-November he had burned most of Atlanta. After reaching the ocean, Sherman’s forces, followed by 25,000 former slaves, turned north to help Grant “wipe out Lee”. -
Surrender at Appomattox Court House
On April 9, 1865, in a Virginia town called Appomattox Court House, Lee and Grant met at a private home to arrange a Confederate surrender. Grant paroled Lee’s soldiers and sent them home with their possessions and three days’ worth of rations. Officers were permitted to keep their side arms. Within a month all remaining Confederate resistance collapsed. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln and his wife went to Ford’s Theatre in Washington to see a British comedy, Our American Cousin. During its third act, a man crept up behind Lincoln and shot the president in the back of his head. John Wilkes Booth, a 26-year-old actor and Southern sympathizer, then leaped down from the presidential box to the stage and escaped. -
Thirteenth Amendment
The Thirteenth Amendment was ratified at the end of 1865. The U.S. Constitution now stated, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” -
Abolition
Forten’s unwavering belief that he was an American not only led him to opposecolonization, the effort to resettle free blacks in Africa, but also pushed him fervently to oppose slavery. Forten was joined in his opposition to slavery by a growing number of Americans in the 19th century. Abolition, the movement to abolish slavery, became the most important of a series of reform movements in America.
