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Abolition
The movement to abolish slavery. -
Missouri Compromise
Congress passed a series of agreements Maine was admitted as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. The Louisiana Territory was split into a free side and a slave side. -
San Felipe de Austin
Stephen F. Austin established a colony in 1821 where "no drunkard, no gambler, no profane swearer, and no idler" would be allowed. The main settlement was called San Felipe de Austin in Stephen's honor. -
Santa Fe Trail
A busy Native American trail that settlers and traders took from Independence, Missouri to Sante Fe, 780 miles away. -
Mexico abolishes slavery
Mexico abolished slavery in 1829, which was an issue because Southerners brought their slaves with them to Texas, and the Mexicans insisted they free their slaves. -
The Liberator
William Lloyd Garrison's newspaper the Liberator delivered an uncompromising demand: immediate emancipation. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
The Virginia slave Nat Turner and more than 50 followers attacked 4 plantations and killed about 60 whites. -
Stephen F. Austin goes to jail
Austin had gone to Mexico in late 1833 to petition for self-independence in Texas, and on his way home, Mexican president
Antonio López de Santa Anna had him imprisoned for inciting revolution. -
Oregon Trail
Another trail traders took from Independence, Missouri to Oregon City, Oregon blazed in 1836 by Methodist missionaries. -
Texas Revolution
The 1836 revolution in which Texas gained its independence from Mexico. -
Manifest Destiny
A phrase that expressed the belief that the US was ordained to expand to the Pacific Ocean and into Mexican and Native American territory. They believed that this destiny was manifest, or inevitable. -
Texas enters the United States
Texans wanted the US to annex their territory, and Southerns wanted it in order to extend slave territory, so James K. Polk, winner of the 1844 presidential campaign firmly favored the annexation of Texas. -
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Mexican-American War
A divided and unprepared Mexico fights the expansionist US over border issues. At the end, the US has nearly all off present day California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. -
The North Star
Black antislavery speaker Frederick Douglass began his antislavery newspaper in 1847 named after the star that guided runaway slaves to freedom. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
After about a year of victories over them, Mexico concedes defeat. The Treaty of Guadalupe, signed by the US and Mexico makes the Rio Grande the border between Texas and Mexico and gives up the New Mexico and California territories to the US. -
Harriet Tubman
One of the most famous "conductors" of the Underground Railroad, a group of people who fed fugitive slaves and directed them to the next station to escape to. In 1849, Harriet heard rumors she was to be sold, and made a successful escape to Philadelphia. After the Fugitive Slave Act, she resolved to become a conductor for the Railroad and helped 300 slaves escape. -
Underground Railroad
A system of escape routes for a secret network where people would escape when hiding fugitive slaves. -
Compromise of 1850
Admitted California as a free state, made fugitive slave laws more effective. Also introduced popular sovereignty, the right to vote for or against slavery, in New Mexico and Utah territories. -
Fugitive Slave Act
This Act caused by the Compromise of 1850 said that 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. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe published this novel that stressed
that slavery was not just a political contest, but also a great moral struggle. The novel reflected her lifetime hatred of slavery. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
A bill that would divide a territory into Nebraska in the north and Kansas in the south and give both popular sovereignty. -
Dred Scott v. Sanford
Dred Scott was a slave whose owner took him from the slave state of Missouri to a free territory in Illinois and Wisconsin and back to Missouri. Dred sued because he said that living in that free area had made him a free man. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled against Scott. -
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas Debates
They were debating each other for the US Senate. Douglas believed in popular sovereignty and Lincoln believed slavery was immoral. Douglas won the Senate seat, but Lincoln was then considered more popular for the presidency. -
John Brown's raid/Harpers Ferry
Abolitionist John Brown led men here to seize a federal arsenal and begin a slave uprising. However, troops put down the rebellion and antislavery supporters received a backlash. -
Abraham Lincoln becomes president
Lincoln was successful because he appeared moderate, pledging to halt the further spread of slavery but not interfere with people's current slaves, and when the Democratic Party split apart, he emerged the victorious Republican. -
Formation of the Confederacy
In February 1861, delegates from the secessionist states met in Montgomery, Alabama, where they formed the Confederate States of America or Confederacy, which was very similar to the normal US except it recognized and protected slavery in new territories. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
Fort Sumter was a Southern fort on an island in Charleston harbor. At 4:30 A.M. on April 12, Confederate batteries began thundering away to the cheers of Charleston’s citizens. This kicked off the Civil War. -
Battle of Bull Run
Three months after Fort Sumter fell, a battle broke out in the small creek of Bull Run, and the Confederates emerged winners. -
Battle at Antietam
September 17, 1862, the bloodiest single-day battle in American history took place near a creek called Antietam. The result of the battle is inconclusive because McClellan did not further pursue the Confederate army and thus was removed from command by Lincoln. -
Emancipation Proclamation
On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued this, however, it did not free any slaves immediately because it only applied to areas behind Confederate lines. It gave the war a purpose because it was now a war to free the slaves and compromise was no longer possible. -
Conscription
A draft that forced men to serve in the army. -
Battle at Gettysburg
Began on July 1 when Confederate soldiers encountered Union cavalry around the sleepy town of Gettysburg. A three-day battle ensued where the Union won. -
Battle at Vicksburg
Union general Ulysses S. Grant fought all winter of 1862 to take Vicksburg from the Confederates and finally succeeded in the spring, and the city fell on July 4, 1863. -
Income Tax
The North's economy grew during the war, so the first income tax was taken by Congress in order to pay for the war. Income tax takes a specified percentage of an individual's income. -
Gettysburg Address
Lincoln's speech about how we should be one unified nation. -
Sherman's March
William Tecumseh Sherman began this march in the spring of 1864 creating a path of fire and destruction so that Southerners would become so sick of war that they wouldn't appeal to it again. By November he had burned down most of Atlanta and turned around to wipe out Lee. -
Surrender at Appomattox Court House
Took place in a Virginia town called Appomattox Court House, Lee and Grant met at a private home to arrange the Confederate's surrender. The result was that Confederate soldiers were sent home and after four years, the Civil War was over. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
John Wilkes Booth shot him at a theater during a British comedy, Our American Cousin. Booth was an actor and a Southern sympathizer so his motive was to assassinate the president who defeated the South. -
Thirteenth Amendment
Ratified at the end of 1865, it says “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.”
