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the Pequot Massacre (or the “Mystic Massacre”) was the first defeat of the Pequot people by the English in the Pequot War, a three-year war instigated by the Puritans to seize the tribe's traditional land. -
Scalping is the act of cutting or tearing a part of the human scalp, with hair attached, from the head. -
The Three-Fifths Compromise was reached among state delegates during the 1787 Constitutional Convention. It determined that three out of every five slaves were counted when determining a state's total population for legislative representation and taxation. -
An act of Congress passed in 1800 made it illegal for Americans to engage in the slave trade between nations, and gave U.S. authorities the right to seize slave ships which were caught transporting slaves and confiscate their cargo. Then the "Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves" took effect in 1808. -
The defeat at Tippecanoe prompted Tecumseh to ally his remaining forces with Great Britain during the War of 1812, where they would play an integral role in the British military success in the Great Lakes region in the coming years. -
An Act to authorize the people of the Missouri territory to form a constitution and state government, and for the admission of such state into the Union on an equal footing with the original states, and to prohibit slavery in certain territories. -
In the 1830s the United States government forcibly removed the southeastern Native Americans from their homelands and relocated them to lands in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). This tragic event is referred to as the Trail of Tears. -
The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, authorizing the president to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders. A few tribes went peacefully, but many resisted the relocation policy.
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The revolt began on Sunday night, August 21, 1831, at Joseph Travis's farm. During the night, the rebels caught the occupants of the farm completely by surprise -
Part of the so-called congressional “Compromise of 1850,” this second federal Fugitive Slave Act aggressively extended the provisions of the original 1793 Act. -
the United States Supreme Court upheld slavery in United States territories, denied the legality of black citizenship in America, and declared the Missouri Compromise to be unconstitutional. -
The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War -
The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "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, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. -
Passed by the Senate on June 8, 1866, and ratified two years later, on July 9, 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to all persons "born or naturalized in the United States," including formerly enslaved people, and provided all citizens with “equal protection under the laws, -
Passed by Congress on February 26, 1869, and ratified on February 3, 1870, the 15th Amendment granted African American men the right to vote. -
The battle was a momentary victory for the Lakota and Cheyenne. The death of Custer and his troops became a rallying point for the United States to increase their efforts to force native peoples onto reservation lands. -
A gun was discharged and soldiers opened fire. When the shooting stopped, hundreds of Lakota men, women, and children were dead. The massacre site became a place of remembrance for Native Americans, and decades later Wounded Knee would be a rallying cry in struggles for Native American rights. -
The ruling in this Supreme Court case upheld a Louisiana state law that allowed for "equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races." During the era of Reconstruction, Black Americans' political rights were affirmed by three constitutional amendments and numerous laws passed by Congress