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On May 26, 1637, during the Pequot War, a force of Connecticut colonists and their Narragansett and Mohegan allies attacked a Pequot fort near the Mystic River. The attackers set fire to the fort and shot anyone who tried to escape. -
Enacted in Pennsylvania in 1756, this act legalized the payment of bounties for the scalps of Native Americans. The act was a response to escalating conflicts and was a turning point that turned many Native American tribes against the Pennsylvania legislature. -
An agreement made during the 1787 Constitutional Convention that counted three-fifths of a state's enslaved population for the purposes of determining both a state's representation in the House of Representatives and its federal taxation. -
The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, a federal law passed in 1807, took effect on January 1, 1808. This act made the international slave trade illegal in the United States. -
Fought on November 7, 1811, in present-day Indiana, this battle was between U.S. forces led by William Henry Harrison and a confederation of Native American warriors under the leadership of Tenskwatawa, "The Prophet. -
Passed by Congress in 1820, this legislation admitted Missouri to the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free state, maintaining the balance of power between slave and free states. It also prohibited slavery in new territories north of the 36°30′ parallel. -
Signed into law by President Andrew Jackson in 1830, this act provided for the forced removal of Native American tribes from their homelands in the southeastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi River. -
The forced relocation of Native American tribes, including the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole, from their ancestral lands in the Southeast to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) during the 1830s. The journey was marked by disease, starvation, and death, resulting in the deaths of thousands of people. -
Also known as the Southampton Insurrection, this was a slave rebellion that occurred in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831. Led by Nat Turner, the rebellion was suppressed, and its participants were either executed or sold. -
A series of laws passed by Congress, most notably in 1850, that required all citizens, including those in free states, to assist in the capture and return of enslaved people who had escaped. The act also denied enslaved people the right to a jury trial. -
A landmark U.S. Supreme Court case in 1857, Dred Scott v. Sandford ruled that African Americans were not and could never be citizens and that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories. The decision also declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. -
Issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, this executive order declared that all enslaved people in Confederate states "are, and henceforward shall be free." While it did not immediately end slavery in the border states, it redefined the Civil War as a war for freedom and allowed for the enlistment of African American men into the Union Army. -
Ratified in 1865, this amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime. -
Ratified in 1868, this amendment granted citizenship to all people "born or naturalized in the United States," including formerly enslaved people. It also established equal protection under the law for all citizens. -
Ratified in 1870, this amendment prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen's right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." -
Fought on June 25-26, 1876, in Montana, this battle was a clash between warriors of the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes and the U.S. 7th Cavalry, led by Lt. Col. George A. Custer. The Native American forces defeated Custer and his troops. -
massacre that occurred on December 29, 1890, near Wounded Knee Creek on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. U.S. Army soldiers killed approximately 300 Lakota men, women, and children. -
A landmark U.S. Supreme Court case in 1896 that upheld racial segregation laws under the doctrine of "separate but equal." This ruling legalized segregation and provided a legal basis for the Jim Crow era.