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Mum Bett Case
Mum Bett, (Elizabeth Freeman), fought for her freedom in court suing her owner and saying it was going against that Massachusetts constitution. This is very significant because she won her case. -
3/5 Compromise
The compromise decided that in each states population an enslaved person would count as ⅗ of a person to balance the power the South had as it had many enslaved people so they had more representation in the House of Representatives than the North which made them uneasy. To settle the dispute, the compromise was created. -
Northwest Ordinance
Established the territories that were considered South and North, slave states and free states, and the criteria for applying for statehood. It also promised rights to its settlers. -
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Second Great Awakening
Religious revivals were very common during this time period as people were starting to get back into religion. The revivals were very overdone and dramatic as people who attended fainted and cried, this thinking was from transcendental people who believed. that in order to get closer to God you would need to be in nature. -
Creation of the Cotton Gin
Eli Whitney created the cotton gin which made farming cotton much easier so it caused an increase in the demand for slavery. Cotton farming was mainly in the South because the conditions were easier to farm on. -
Louisiana Purchase
America bought a big chunk of land from France, it was controversial because Thomas Jefferson dismissed the constitution when buying it even though he was part of the party that strictly followed the constitution. This added much more land to America. -
Missouri Compromise
The compromise was a federal law that wanted to solve disputes of slavery in the new western territories. It created a divide between the areas setting boundaries for what is a slavery state and free state. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
A slave named Nat Turner led a revolt and he killed 60 white people because he thought that God had ordered him to lead his people out of slavery so he and a band of slaves killed plantation/slave owners. Nat Turner and his followers were caught and most were killed and this led to high tensions between white people and enslaved. -
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Mexican-American War
The Mexican-American War happened over a dispute with Texas’s annexation to America as well as whose land was whose. America won the war and they got California and that whole area. -
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California Gold Rush
Gold was found in California so people from all over were going there in hopes to strike it rich and make money. This led to an increase in immigration and mistreatment of people of other races. -
Compromise of 1850
The compromise was five laws passed to help ease the tensions between the North and South over slavery and territory issues. The laws were California being passed as a free state, popular sovereignty for the new territories to vote if they wanted to be free states or slave states, Texas boundaries set, stricter Fugitive Slave Act, and abolishing slave trade in Washington, D.C. -
Frederick Douglass gives July 4th Speech
Fredrick Douglass gave a speech about how the Fourth of July meant nothing because not everyone in America was free. He was speaking about how slavery should be abolished and how it is America's greatest shame. -
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"Bleeding Kansas"
As the Kansas-Nebraska Act was established, Southerners came into Kansas and voted for slavery even though they did not live there. They also used violence to make the Kansas residents vote for slavery, eventually Kansas became a slave state but the whole ordeal was very violent. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
An act that was controversial which said that Kansas and Nebraska could vote to be a free state or slave state, (popular sovereignty). -
Attack on Charles Sumner
Charles Sumner was beaten by Brooks in the Senate whilst he was speaking about abolition and calling out pro-slavery senators. -
Dred Scott v Sanford
The Supreme Court ruled that people who were enslaved were not citizens and therefore could not sue in federal court and they were also seen as property. The court also decided that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional which has not been done in a long time. -
Raid on Harpers Ferry
John Brown tried to create a slave revolt with his followers by taking the federal armory supplies, but they were shut down by the militia. -
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Southern Secession
Many southern states were furious about the election of Abraham Lincoln as president so they threatened to secede from the U.S. Union (and they did). It started with South Carolina and led to eleven states seceding. -
Election of 1860
Abraham Lincoln was elected president and at the time he stood for stopping the spread of slavery. This election was controversial because Abraham Lincoln did not even show up as a candidate in some Southern states but he still became president. -
Shots fired at Ft. Sumter
This was the official start of the fighting in the American Civil War. Union troops (Northern troops) stationed at Fort. Sumter in South Carolina was attacked by the South Carolina militia. Union lost and surrendered the fort to the Confederate militia. -
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American Industrial Revolution
A time in which America was building factories and industrializing in the North, immigrants came over to work in these factories in the North and it helped their economy. The Industrial Revolution was a huge step for progress in America because they learned to sustain themselves and not really on imported goods.