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The Missouri Compromise
Missouri was admitted to the United States as a slave state and Maine was admitted as a free state to balance the number of representatives in Congress. The president during this period was James Monroe -
San Felipe de Austin
A colony named in Stephen F. Austin's honor where no drunkard, no gambler, no profane swearer, and no idler would be allowed. -
Mexico Abolishes Slavery
In 1829 the Guerrero decree conditionally abolished slavery throughout Mexican territories. It was a decision that increased tensions with slaveolders among the Anglo-Americans. After the Texas Revolution ended inv1836, the Constitution of the Republic of Texas Made slavery legal. -
Abolition
The movement to abolish slavery. -
The Liberator
A Newspaper written by William Lloyd Garrison that delivered an uncompromising demand: immediate emancipation. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
A Rebellion led by Virginia slave Nat Turner where Turner and more than 50 followers attacked 4 plantations and killed about 60 white people. Whites eventually captured and executed many members of the group, including Turner. -
Stephen F. Austin goes to jail
Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna had Austin imprisoned for inciting revolution in late 1833 -
Texas Reolution
The 1836 rebellion in which Texas gained its independence from Mexico. -
Manifest Destiny
A phrase exprewssed the belief that the United States was ordained to expand to the Pacific Ocean and into Mexican and Native American territory. -
Texas Enters the United States
On this day in 1845, six months after the Congress of the Republic of Texas voted for annexation by the United States, Texas was admitted into the Union as the 28th state.Senate was worried about the unbalance of free and slave states so the annexation took a long time. -
Mexican-American War
In 1844 James Polk, the newly elected president, made a proposition to the Mexican government to purchase the disputed lands. When that offer was rejected, troops from the United States were moved into the disputed territory of Coahuila. These troops were then attacked by Mexican troops, killing about a dozen American troops. These same Mexican troops later laid seige to an American fort along the Rio Grande. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war. -
The North Star
Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave who spoke about abolition of slavery and began his own antislavery newspaper called 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. -
Harriet Tubman
A runaway slave that decided 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 flee to freedom. -
Compromise of 1850
California would be admitted as a free state. 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
Free African Americans and white abolitionists developed a secret network of people who would, at great risk to themselves, hid fugitive slaves. -
Fugitive Slave Act
Alleged fugitive slaves were not entitled to a trial by jury. 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
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. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Senator Stephen Douglas introduced a bill that would divide the Kansas and Nebraska territory into two territories: Nebraska in the north and Kansas in the south. -
Dread Scott v Sandford
Dread Scott was a slave whose owner took him from Missouri to free territory in Illinois and Wisconsin and back to Missouri. Scott appealed to the Supreme Court for his freedom on the grounds that living in a free state had made him a free man. The Supreme Court eventually ruled against Dread Scott after many years of this case in court. -
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas Debates
The two congressmen were competing for the 1858 Senate seat. Douglas believed in popular sovereignty and Lincoln believed that slavery was immoral. Douglas won the senate seat. -
John Brown's raid / Harper's Ferry
John Brown, a white man who believed that the time was ripe for slave uprisings in the United States, led a band of 21 men, black and white, into Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His goal was to seize the federal arsenal there and start a general slave uprising. No uprising occured thought. Instead, troops put down the rebellion and later authorities tried Brown and put him to death. -
Oregon Trail
A trail that stretched from Independence, Missouri to Oregon City, Oregon. 2 methodist missionaries named Marcus and Narcissa proving that wagons could travel on the Oregon Trail. -
Santa Fe trail
A 780 mile trail stretching from Independence, Missouri to Santa Fe in the Mexican Province of New Mexico. -
Formation of the Confederacy
In February 1861, Southern States: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. The Confederates elected former senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi to become the president of the Confederate States of America. -
Abraham Lincoln becomes President
At the 1860 presidential election, Lincoln emerged as the winner with less than half the popular vote and with no electoral votes from the South. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
The Confederates began seizing federal installations such as forts and the most important one was Fort Sumter and this was where the Civil War began. -
Battle of Bull Run
The first bloodshed on the battlefield happened near the little creek of Bull Run, just 25 miles from Washington, D.C. The Confederates won this battle. -
Battle at Antietam
Union general McClellahn ordered his men to pursue Lee, and the two sides clashed on September 17th near a creek called the Antietam. The casualties in the single-day battle totaled more than 26,000. The next day, instead of pursuing the battered Confederate army into Virginia and possibly ending the war, McClellan did nothing so Lincoln removed him from command. -
Emancipation Proclamation
This document written by President Lincoln 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. It also encouraged many slaves to join the Union army. -
Conscription
As the fighting intensified, heavy casualities and widespread desertions led each side to impose conscription, a draft that forced men to serve in the army. -
Income Tax
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. -
Battle at Gettysburg
The most decisive battle of the war was fought near the sleepy town of Gettysburg. The battle lasted 3-days. 23,000 Union men adn 28,000 Confederates were either killed or wounded. -
Battle at Vicksburg
Vicksburg, one of the two remaining Confederate strongholds on the Mississippi River. The city fell on July 4th -
Gettysburg Address
A ceremony that was held to dedicate a cemetery in Gettysburg. President Lincoln spoke for a little more than two minutes and gave his Gettysburg Address. -
Sherman's March
In hte spring of 1864, Sherman began his march southeast through Georgia to the sea, creating a wide path of destruction. His army destroyed any house, livestock, or railroad in their path. Sherman was determined to make the Southerners "sick of war." -
Surrender at Appomattox Court House
Generals Lee and Grant met at a private home to arrange a Confederate surrender. At Lincoln's request, the terms were generous. The Civil War ended at this Court House. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Five days after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, Libncoln and his wife went to Ford's Theatre in Washington and during its third act, 26-year old John Wilkes Booth crept up behinc President Lincoln and shot the president in the back of his head. -
Thirteenth Amendment
The Thirteenth Amendment stated "Neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States."
