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1820 BCE
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman, born a slave in Maryland in 1820 or 1821. In 1849, after Tubman’s owner died, she heard rumors that she was about to be sold. Fearing this possibility, Tubman decided to make a break for freedom and succeeded in reaching Philadelphia. Shortly after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, Tubman resolved 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—including her own parents—flee to freedom. -
Abolition
Forten’s unwavering belief that he was an American not only led him to oppose colonization—the effort to resettle free blacks in Africa—but also pushed him fervently to oppose slavery. Forten was joined in his opposition to slavery by a growing number of Americans in the 19th century. Abolition, the movement to abolish slavery, became the most important of a series of reform movements in America. -
Missouri Compromise
During the presidency of James Monroe and behind the leadership of Henry Clay, Congress passed a series of agreements in 1820–1821 known as the Missouri Compromise. Under these agreements, Maine was admitted as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. The rest of the Louisiana Territory was split into two parts. The dividing line was set at 36°30´ north latitude. South of the line, slavery was legal. North of the line—except in Missouri—slavery was banned. -
Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail stretched from Independence,
Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon. It was blazed in 1836 by
two Methodist missionaries named Marcus and Narcissa
Whitman. By driving their wagon as far as Fort Boise (near
present-day Boise, Idaho), they proved that wagons could
travel on the Oregon Trail. -
Santa Fe Trail
The settlers and traders who made the trek west used a series of old Native American trails as well as new routes. One of the busiest routes was the Santa Fe Trail, which stretched 780 miles from Independence, Missouri, to Santa Fe in the Mexican province of New Mexico. -
San Felipe de Austin
Among the more prominent leaders of the American Settlers was Stephen F. Austin.Austin’s father, Moses Austin, had received a land grant from Spain to establish a colony between the Brazos and Colorado rivers, but his son had to carry out the project once Moses Austin had passed. The main settlement of the Texan colony was named San Felipe de Austin, in Stephen’s honor. By 1825, Austin had issued 297 land grants to the group that later became known as Texas’s Old Three Hundred. -
The Liberator
The most radical white abolitionist was a young editor named William Lloyd Garrison. Active in religious reform movements in Massachusetts, Garrison became the editor of an antislavery paper in 1828. Three years later he established his own paper, The Liberator, to deliver an uncompromising demand: immediate emancipation. -
Mexico abolishes slavery
Despite peaceful cooperation between Anglos and
Tejanos, differences over cultural issues intensified between Anglos and the Mexican government. The overwhelmingly Protestant Anglo settlers spoke English instead of Spanish. Furthermore, many of the settlers were Southerners, who had brought slaves with them to Texas. Mexico, which had abolished slavery in 1829, insisted in vain that the Texans free their slaves. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
Some slaves rebelled against their condition of
bondage. One of the most prominent rebellions was led by Virginia slave Nat Turner. Turner and more than 50 followers attacked four
plantations and killed about 60 whites. Whites eventually captured and executed many members of the group, including Turner. -
Stephen F. Austin goes to jail
Once they had hammered out a new constitution, the colonial leaders directed Austin to travel to Mexico City to present it to the government along with a list of other demands. Austin conceded to the will of the people, but President Santa Ana refused to grant Texas separate status from Coahuila and threw Austin in prison on suspicion of inciting insurrection. -
The North Star
Hoping that abolition could be achieved without violence, Frederick Douglass broke with William Lloyd Garrison (writer of "The Liberator"), who believed that abolition justified whatever means were necessary to achieve it. He (who escaped bondage himself) started an anti-slavery newspaper called The North Star. -
Texas Revolution
The rebellion in which Texas gained its
independence from Mexico. -
Manifest Destiny
The phrase “manifest destiny” expressed the belief that the United States was ordained to expand to the Pacific Ocean and into Mexican and Native American territory. Many Americans also
believed that this destiny was manifest, or obvious and inevitable. -
Texas enters the United States
In March 1845, angered by U.S.-Texas negotiation on annexation, the Mexican government recalled its ambassador from Washington. Texas entered the Union, and events moved quickly toward war. -
Mexican-American War
Mexico had lost about one-third of its territory, including nearly all of present-day California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. Because of this, Mexico wanted to try to regain the land they had lost. The Mexican-American War (1846-1848) marked the first U.S. armed conflict chiefly fought on foreign soil. It pitted a politically divided and militarily unprepared Mexico against the expansionist-minded administration of U.S. President James K. Polk. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
United States and Mexico signed the 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. -
Fugitive Slave Act
Under the law, alleged fugitive slaves were not entitled to a trial by jury. In addition, anyone convicted of helping a fugitive was liable for a fine of $1,000 and imprisonment for up to six months. Infuriated by the Fugitive Slave Act, some Northerners resisted it by organizing “vigilance committees” to send endangered African Americans to
safety in Canada. Others resorted to violence to rescue fugitive slaves. Still others worked to help slaves escape from slavery. -
Underground Railroad
As time went on, free African Americans and white abolitionists developed a secret network of people who would, at great risk to themselves, hide fugitive slaves. The system of escape routes they used became known as the Underground Railroad. Once fugitives reached the North, many chose to remain there. Others journeyed to
Canada to be completely out of reach of their “owners.”
One of the most famous conductors was Harriet Tubman,
born a slave in Maryland in 1820 or 1821. -
Compromise of 1850
As the 31st Congress opened the question of statehood for California topped the agenda. Of equal concern was the border dispute in which the slave state of Texas claimed the eastern half of the New Mexico Territory, where the issue of slavery had not yet been settled. As passions mounted, threats of Southern secession, the formal withdrawal of a state from the Union, became more frequent. Once again, Henry Clay worked to shape a compromise that both the North and the South could accept. -
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. As a young girl, Stowe had watched boats filled with people on their way to be sold at slave markets. Uncle Tom’s Cabin expressed her lifetime hatred of slavery. The book stirred Northern abolitionists to increase their protests against the Fugitive Slave Act, while Southerners criticized the book as an attack on the South. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Douglas introduced a bill in Congress that would divide the area into two territories: Nebraska in the north and Kansas in the south. If passed, the bill would repeal the Missouri Compromise and establish popular sovereignty for both territories.After months of struggle,
the Kansas-Nebraska Act became law in 1854. -
Dred Scott V. Sandford
Dred Scott’s slave master had brought him from Missouri to live for a time in free territory and in Illinois. Eventually they returned to Missouri. Scott believed that because he had lived in free territory, he should be free. In 1854 he sued in federal court for his freedom. The court ruled against him, and he appealed to the Supreme Court and ruled that African Americans were not and couldn't be citizens. Thus, Dred Scott had no right even to file a lawsuit and remained enslaved. -
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas Debates
One of Illinois’s greatest political contests
got underway.The two men’s positions were simple and consistent.
Neither wanted slavery in the territories, but they disagreed on how to keep it out. Douglas believed deeply in popular sovereignty. Lincoln, on the other hand, believed that slavery
was immoral. Another,more contoversial debate occurred later. Douglas won the Senate seat, but his response had
widened the split in the Democratic Party -
John Brown's raid/Harpers Ferry
While politicians debated the slavery issue, the abolitionist John Brown was studying the slave uprisings that had occurred in ancient Rome and, more recently, on the French island of Haiti. Brown secretly obtained financial backing from several prominent Northern abolitionists. On the night of October 16, 1859, he led a band of 21 men, black and white, into Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). His aim was to seize the federal arsenal there and start a general slave uprising. -
Abraham Lincoln becomes president
The Democratic Party finally split over slavery. Northern Democrats rallied behind Douglas and his doctrine of popular sovereignty. Southern Democrats, who supported the Dred Scott decision, lined up behind Vice-President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. Lincoln emerged as the winner with less than half the popular
vote and with no electoral votes from the South. -
Formation of the Confederacy
During Lincoln's presidency, delegates from the secessionist states met in Montgomery, Alabama, where they formed the Confederate
States of America, or Confederacy. They also drew up a constitution that closely resembled that of the United States, but with a few notable differences. The most important difference was that it “protected and recognized” slavery in new territories. The Confederates then unanimously elected former senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as president. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
Months earlier, as soon as the Confederacy was formed, Confederate soldiers in each secessionist state began seizing federal installations—especially forts, the most important was Fort Sumter, on an island in Charleston harbor.
Lincoln decided to rather than taking any rash action, merely send in “food for hungry men.” At 4:30 A.M. on April 12, Confederate batteries began thundering away to the cheers of Charleston’s citizens. The deadly struggle between North and South was under way. -
Battle of Bull Run
The battle was a seesaw affair. In the morning the Union army
gained the upper hand, but the Confederates held firm, inspired by General Thomas J. Jackson. In the afternoon Confederate
reinforcements helped win the first Southern victory. Fortunately for the Union, the Confederates were too exhausted to follow up their victory with an attack on Washington. Still, Confederate morale soared. Many Confederate soldiers, confident that the war was over, left the army and went home. -
Battle of Antietam
Now it was Lee’s turn to move against Washington.
McClellan ordered his men to pursue Lee, and the two
sides fought on September 17 near a creek called the
Antietam. The clash proved to be the bloodiest
single-day battle in American history, with casualties
totaling more than 26,000. The next day, instead of pursuing
the battered Confederate army into Virginia and possibly
ending the war, McClellan did nothing. As a result,
Lincoln removed him from command. -
Emancipation Proclamation
As the war progressed, however, Lincoln did find a way to use his constitutional war powers to end slavery. So, Lincoln decided
that, just as he could order the Union army to take Confederate supplies, he could also authorize the army to emancipate slaves. Emancipation was not just a moral issue; it became a weapon of war.
Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The following portion captured national attention. -
Battle at Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg began when Confederate soldiers led by A. P. Hill encountered several brigades of Union cavalry under the command of John Buford. The three-day battle produced staggering losses: 23,000 Union men and 28,000 Confederates were killed or wounded. Total casualties were more than 30 percent. Despite the devastation, Northerners were enthusiastic about breaking “the
charm of Robert Lee’s invincibility.” -
Gettysburg Address
In November 1863, a ceremony was held to dedicate a cemetery in Gettysburg. There, President Lincoln spoke for a little more than two minutes. According to some contemporary historians, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address “remade America.” Before Lincoln’s speech, people said, “The United States are . . .” Afterward, they said, “The United States is . . .” In other words, the speech helped the country to realize that it was not just a collection of individual states; it was one unified nation. -
Conscription
A draft that forced men to serve in the army.
In the North, conscription led to draft riots, the most violent of which took place in New York City. Sweeping changes occurred in the wartime economies of both sides as well as in the roles played by African Americans and women. -
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 Vicksburg
While Meade’s Army of the Potomac was destroying Confederate hopes in Gettysburg, Union general Ulysses S. Grant fought to take Vicksburg, one of the two remaining Confederate strongholds on
the Mississippi River. city fell on July 4. Five days later Port Hudson, Louisiana, the last Confederate holdout on the Mississippi, also fell. The Union had achieved another of its major military objectives, and the Confederacy was cut in two. -
Sherman's March
Sherman began his march southeast through Georgia to the sea, creating a wide path of destruction. His army burned almost every house in its path and destroyed livestock and railroads. Sherman was determined to make Southerners “so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to
it.” By mid-November he had burned most of Atlanta. After reaching the ocean, Sherman’s forces—followed by 25,000 former slaves—turned north to help Grant “wipe out Lee.” -
Surrender at Appomattox Court House
In a Virginia town called Appomattox Court House, Lee and Grant met at a private home to arrange a Confederate surrender. At Lincoln’s request, the terms were generous. Grant paroled Lee’s soldiers and sent them home with their possessions and three days’ worth of rations. Officers were permitted to keep their side arms. Within a month all remaining Confederate resistance collapsed. After four long years, the Civil War was over. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln at Ford's Theatre to avenge the South because Lincoln helped officially abolish slavery. -
Thirteenth Amendment
A constitutional amendment abolishing slavery.
