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Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was a network used by enslaved African-Americans to obtain their freedom. This railroad was neither underground or an actual railroad for trains; it was a network consisting of both whites and freed blacks working together to aid runaway slaves from slaveholding states travel to free states in the North and the country Canada. It ended when the 13th amendment was approved in 1865, abolishing slavery in the enirety of the US. -
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Nat Turners rebellion
Turner’s group, numbered around 75 black men, murdered around 55 white people in two days before armed resistance from local white people and the arrival of state militia forces overcame them. This led to many of the southern states to strengthen their slave laws/codes to limit the slaves education and movement. -
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Abolitionist Movement
William Lloyd Garrison founded the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philidelphia. Frederick Douglass began speaking to abolitionist groups about the horror of slavery. Harriet Beecher Stowe published the novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” about the terrors of slavery and it became a best seller novel. All these contributors main goal was to persuade the nation to completely abolish slavery across the United States. They ended getting what they hoped for as the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the US. -
Prigg v. Pennsylvania
The United States Supreme Court ruled that the 1793 fugitive slave law is unconstitutional. Enforcement of such a law is declared the Federal Government’s responsibility, not the states. -
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Dred Scott Case
In 1846 Dred and Harriet Scott filed individual lawsuits for their freedom in Missouri. They argued that their time spent living in a free state means that they can no longer be slaves. After being declared free in 1850, the Missouri Supreme Court in 1852 reversed the verdict and the case was reopened. Finally a decision was concluded on March 6, 1857 by the Supreme Court. They decided that they cannot exclude slavery from the US territories and that African Americans could not become citizens. -
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 brought California into the United States as a free state, banned public sales of slaves in the District of Columbia, opened up the rest of the lands took from Mexico to be free or slave states, and committed the US Government to enforce a new fugitive slave law. -
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 required that all slaves that ran away to find refuge were to be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state. It also prohibited anybody from aiding the escaped slaves or obstructing the whites from recovering them. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act, issued by Stephen Douglas, opened possibilities of the new territories becoming slave states because of popular sovereignty. -
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John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry
On the night of October 16, 1859, John Brown and his group overran the federal arsenal. Word of the raid spread rapidly as by October 18,1859, Brown and his group were surrounded and 10 of his men were killed including 2 of his sons. This raid was mainly intended to be the first stage towards establishing an independent stronghold of slaves in the mountains of Maryland and Virginia. -
Emancipation Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, in the third year of the civil war to free the slaves within the opposing confederate states. It was the necessary legislation to give slaves their opportunity to free life in the United States. -
13th Amendment
The 13th Amendment stated 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 top their jurisdiction.” It ended the consideration of slaves being personal property of another. -
14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment granted “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction Thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” This included formerly enslaved people granting them citizenship in the United States.