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Fugitive Slave Act
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 6 months. -
Missouri Compromise
Behind the leadership of Henry Clay, Congress passed a series of agreements. In 1820–1821 the Missouri Compromise was passed. Maine was admitted as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. The rest of the Louisiana Territory was split into two parts. The dividing line was set at 36°30´
north latitude. South of the line, slavery was legal. North of th line it was illegal. The president during this time was James Monore. -
Santa Fe Trail
The Santa Fe Trail stretched 780 miles from Independence, Missouri, to Santa Fe in New Mexico. -
The Liberator
William Lloyd Garrison. Active in religious reform movements
established his own paper, The Liberator, to deliver an uncompromising demand: immediate emancipation. -
Mexico abolishes slavery
Settlers spoke English instead of Spanish. Many of the settlers were Southerners, who had brought slaves with them to Texas. Mexico had abolished slavery in 1829, insisted in vain that the Texans free their slaves. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
In August 1831, Turner and more than 50 followers attacked four
plantations and killed almost 60 whites. -
San Felipe de Austin
San Felipe de Austin was he main settlement of the colony (named in Stephen F. Austin's honor) By 1825, Austin had issued 297 land grants to the group that later
became known as Texas’s Old Three Hundred. Each family received either 177 very inexpensive acres of farmland, or 4,428 acres for stock grazing, as well as a 10-year
exemption from paying taxes. -
Stephen F. Austin goes to jail
1833 to present petitions to Mexican president
Antonio López de Santa Anna for greater self-government for Texas. Santa Anna had Austin imprisoned for inciting
revolution. -
Texas Revolution
The Texas Revolution began when colonists in the Mexican province of Texas rebelled against the increasingly centralist Mexican government. -
Oregon Trail
The trail stretched from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon. -
Texas enters the US
The Texans set Santa Anna free (aftert he commited crimes) only after he signed the Treaty of Velasco, which granted independence to Texas. In September 1836, Sam Houston was elected president of the new Republic of Texas. -
Mexican-American War
Th war was an armed conflict between the United States and the Centralist Republic of Mexico. It followed in the wake of the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas, which Mexico considered part of its territory, despite the 1836 Texas Revolution. -
Abraham Lincoln amd Stephen Douglas Debates
Neither Lincoln or Douglas wanted slavery (and they were debating in congress) in the territories, but they disagreed on how to keep it out. Douglas believed deeply inpopular sovereignty. Lincoln, on the other hand, believed that slavery was immoral. However, he did not expect individuals to give up slavery unless Congress abolished slavery with an amendment. Douglas won, but many people belived that Lincoln would make a good president. -
The North Star
Fredrick Douglass began his own antislavery newspaper. He named it The North Star, after the star that guided runaway slaves to freedom. -
Manifest Destiny
A phrase that expressed the belief that the United States was ordained to expand to the Pacific Ocean and into Mexican and Native American territory. -
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. -
Abolation
the movement to abolish slavery, became the most important of a series of reform movements in America. -
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman was born as a slave in Maryland, when her owner died she escaped for freedom. Shortly after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, Tubman resolved to become a conductor on the Underground Railroad. In all, she made 19 trips back to the South and is said to have helped 300 slaves. -
Compromise of 1850
Clay’s compromise contained provisions to appease Northerners as well as Southerners. To please the North, the compromise provided that California be admitted to the Union as a free state. To please the South, the compromise proposed a new and more effective fugitive slave law. To placate both sides, a provision allowed popular sovereignty, the right to vote for or against slavery, for residents of the New Mexico and Utah territories. -
Underground Railroad
Started by Harriet Tubman, free African Americans and white abolitionists developed a secret network of escape routes they knon as the Underground Railroad. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe published a novel named Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The book stressed that slavery was not just a political contest, but also a great moral struggle. Uncle Tom’s Cabin expressed how much Stowe hated slavery. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas and Nebraska territory lay north of the Missouri Compromise line and therefore was legally closed to slavery. Douglas introduced a bill that would divide the area into two territories: Nebraska in the north and Kansas in the south. -
Dread Scott vs. Sandford
Dred Scott was a slave who sued for his freedom because he was living in a free state, but he was stil a slave. He decieded to sue, but because he was not a citizen he was unable to win the lawsuit. -
John Brown's Raid/Harpers Ferry
Politicans were debating slavery, and on the night of October 16, 1859, John Brown 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, it was unsucessful, and the death of Brown started chaos all over the nation. -
Abraham Lincoln becomes President
In 1860 the Republicans nominated Abe Lincoln as their presidental canidate. He appealed to both the North and his South with his moderate views and was going to be a good asset to the nation. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
Lincoln decided to neither abandon Fort Sumter nor reinforce it. On April 12, Confederate bateries began thundering away to the cheers of Charleston’s citizens. The deadly struggle between North and South was under way. The American Civil War was the result. -
Battle of Bull Run
In 1862 the first bloodshed on the battlefield occurred about three months after Fort Sumter fell, near the little creek of Bull Run. It resulted in a confederate win. -
Income Tax
A tax that takes a specified percentage of an individual’s income. -
Formation of the Confederacy
The Confederacy was established in February of 1861. First was South Carolina, and then Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas followed. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was elected as president. -
Battle of Antietam
McClellan ordered his men to pursue Lee, and the two sides fought on September 17 near a creek called the Antietam (the battle was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history. over 26,000 deaths. The next day, instead of pursuing the battered Confederate army into Virginia and possibly ending the war, McClellan did nothing. As a result, Lincoln removed him from command. -
Emancipation of 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. But for many, the proclamation gave the war a moral purpose by turning the struggle into a fight to free the slaves. -
Conscription
A draft that forced men to serve in the army. Inforced by propoganda. -
Battle of Gettysburg
first day of fighting, 90,000 Union troops under the command of General George Meade had taken the field against 75,000 Confederates, led by General Lee. The battle was the largest battle of the American Civil War. The result was a Union Victory. -
Gettysburg Address
The speech remade America. The country was forced realize that it was not just a collection of individual states; it was one unified nation. -
Battle of Vicksburg
Ulysses S. Grant's armies converged on Vicksburg, investing the city and entrapping a Confederate army under Lt. Gen. John Pemberton. On July 4, Vicksburg surrendered after prolonged siege operations (result) -
Sherman's March
In the spring of 1864, 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. Sherman was determined to make Southerners stop fighting. -
Surrender at Appomattox Court House
Lee and Grant met at a private home to arrange a Confederate surrender. At Lincoln’s request, the terms were generous. Grant paroled Lee’s soldiers and sent them home with their possessions and three days’ worth of rations. -
Thirtneeth Amendment
The 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 con- victed, shall exist within the United States.”
