-
Aboard the English privateer ship White Lion, 20 to 30 slaves from Africa arrived at Point Comfort, which is now Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia, in late August of 1619. These Africans were exchanged for provisions in Virginia. A second ship (Treasurer) with more slaved Africans landed in Virginia a few days later. -
When New Hampshire became the ninth of 13 states to ratify the Constitution on June 21, 1788, it established the recognized basis for American federalism. But the road to ratification was a long and difficult one. -
The market revolution, which took place roughly between 1800 and 1840, was a series of gradual changes that started the process whereby the majority of Americans began to live in cities and work in factories rather than in the countryside as small yeoman farmers or skilled artisans. -
In 1794, Whitney secured a patent for his cotton gin (others claim that enslaved laborers and Greene were the true inventors of the cotton gin; his concept was based on older gins and also on ideas from other individuals) -
The United States paid $15 million for this agreement with France, which was signed on April 30, 1803, to acquire 828,000 square miles of territory west of the Mississippi River. The United States increased its area and moved westward at around 4 cents per acre. -
This law simultaneously accepted Maine as a non-slave state and Missouri as a slave state in order to maintain the country's balance between slave and free states. Slavery was likewise prohibited across the entirety of the Louisiana Territory above the 36° 30' latitude line. -
Earlier movements to abolish slavery had not been as organized, militant, or quick as the abolitionist movement. It made its formal debut about 1830. According to historians, the Second Great Awakening was a religious movement that provided the inspiration for abolitionists to fight against slavery. -
Turner and his supporters started at his master's house at 2:00 a.m. on August 21, 1831, and massacred the entire family. Before white authorities put an end to the uprising, they marched across Southampton County in Virginia, killing at least 55 people. Turner eluded capture for over two months before being apprehended. -
The conflict between the federal government and the state of South Carolina in 1832 and 1833 over the latter's effort to declare the federal Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 null and illegal inside the state. -
The first American armed battle to be fought mostly abroad was the Mexican-American War (1846–1848). It put President James K. Polk's expansionist government against a politically fractured and militarily unprepared Mexico. -
Just two months after the start of the war with Mexico, Democratic Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania submitted the Wilmot Proviso, which outlawed slavery throughout any area that may be gained from Mexico. It was a contentious political topic.