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Oregon Trail 1811-1840
The Oregon Trail was a roughly 2,000-mile route from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon.
The trail was arduous and snaked through Missouri and present-day Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho and finally into Oregon.
Merchant Nathan Wyeth led the first missionary group west in 1834 where they built an outpost in present-day Idaho. -
Manifest Destiny 1812-1860
Manifest Destiny was the idea that Americans were destined, by God, to govern the North American continent.
President James K. Polk started the Manifest Destiny
For U.S., the effect for Manifest Destiny was pretty positive, it helps the U.S. became more wealthy and got much larger than before.
But for the natives and for Mexico, Manifest Destiny means losing their land. -
Missouri Compromise 1820-1821
The Missouri Compromise was passed in 1820, and signed by President James Monroe. It helps preserve the balance of power in Congress between slave and free states.
The Missouri Compromise admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state.
The Missouri Compromise was repealed by Kansas Nebraska Act in 1854. -
Harriet Tubman
The Underground Railroad had many notable participants, including John Fair field in Ohio, the son of a slave holding family, who made many daring rescues, and Harriet Tubman, who made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom. After Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery, she returned to slave-holding states many times to help other slaves escape. She led them safely to the northern free states and to Canada. -
Santa Fe Trail 1821-1880
The Santa Fe Trail was America's first commercial highway.
Traders build this trail to connecte Missouri and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The purpose of the Santa Fe trail was for traders to get mexico territory. -
San Felipe de Austin
San Felipe de Austin, the town served as the capital of Stephen F. Austin's first colony and the founding site of the Texas Rangers.
San Felipe de Austin was founded in 1824 by Stephen F. Austin as the unofficial capital of his colony -
Mexico abolishes slavery
In 1829 Mexico abolished slavery, but it granted an exception until 1830 to Texas. That year Mexico made the importation of slaves illegal. Mexico abolished slavery in 1829 when Texas was still part of the country, in part prompting white, slave-holding immigrants to fight for independence in the Texas Revolution. Once they formed the Republic of Texas in 1836, they made slavery legal again, and it continued to be legal when Texas joined the U.S. as a state in 1845 -
Underground Railroad
Harriet Tubman started the Underground Railroad, and Levi Coffin, a Quaker who assisted more than 3,000 slaves, and Harriet Tubman, who made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom, it was used by enslaved African-Americans to escape into free states and Canada.Sometimes passengers stopped when they reached a free state such as Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Ohio. -
The Liberator
The Liberator was a weekly newspaper published by William Lloyd Garrison in Boston, Massachusetts. ... Garrison was a journalistic crusader who advocated the immediate emancipation of all slaves and gained a national reputation for being one of the most radical of American abolitionists.
William had been involved in the fight to end slavery for years prior to its publication.In 1831, Garrison published the first edition of The Liberator. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
Nat Turner's Rebellion (also known as the Southampton Insurrection) was a slave rebellion that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831, led by Nat Turner. Rebel slaves killed from 55 to 65 people, at least 51 being white. -
Stephen F. Austin goes to jail
1834 opened with the arrest of Stephen F. Austin for treason as a result of an inflammatory letter he had written in October 1833 while in Mexico City petitioning the federal government on behalf of the Texan colonists. -
Texas Revolution
Texas Revolution, also called War of Texas Independence, War fought from October 1835 to April 1836 between Mexico and Texas colonists that resulted in Texas's independence from Mexico and the founding of the Republic of Texas.
Slavery was against Mexican law, but Americans brought slaves to Texas. Many American settlers and Tejanos wanted to break away from Mexico. They did not like laws made by Santa Anna, Mexico's president. The Tejanos and Texans decided to fight for independence. -
Texas enters the United States
In 1844, Congress finally agreed to annex the territory of Texas. On December 29, 1845, Texas entered the United States as a slave state, broadening the irrepressible differences in the United States over the issue of slavery and setting off the Mexican-American War.
Texas became the 28th state in U.S. -
Mexican American War
The main cause of the war was the westward expansion of the United States. The 19th century Americans believed it was their right to expand westward they believed they could conquer the people already living on the land and take it for the U.S.. Mexico claimed the Nueces River as its northeastern border, while the U.S. claimed the Rio Grande River, and the day that both troops met at the Rio Grande and the Mexican army opened fire, on April 25, 1846, the Mexican American War began. -
The North Star
The North Star was a nineteenth-century anti-slavery newspaper published from the Talman Building in Rochester, New York by abolitionist Frederick Douglass. He established the abolitionist paper The North Star on December 3, 1847, in Rochester, NY, and developed it into the most influential black antislavery paper published during the antebellum era. It was used to not only denounce slavery, but to fight for the emancipation of women and other oppressed groups. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848, ended the Mexican-American War in favor of the United States. Mexico also gave up all claims to Texas and recognized the Rio Grande as America's southern boundary. -
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850 that defused a political confrontation between slave and free states on the status of territories acquired in the Mexican–American War. -
Fugitive Slave Act
The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was part of the Compromise of 1850. This law required the United States government to actively assist slave owners in recapturing their fugitive slaves. Under the United States Constitution, slave owners had the right to reclaim slaves who ran away to free states. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852. Uncle Tom's Cabin begins with the daring escape of the young slave woman, Eliza, and the sale of the kindly, middle-aged slave, Tom, to settle the debts of his master, a struggling Kentucky farmer. When Tom encourages and helps two of Legree's slaves, Cassy and Emmeline, to escape, that's the last straw. -
Kansas Nebraska Act
In January 1854, Senator Stephen Douglas introduced a bill that divided the land west of Missouri into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska.
It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. -
Dred Scott v. Sandford
Dred Scott was a slave in Missouri. From 1833 to 1843, he resided in Illinois (a free state) , where slavery was forbidden by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. After returning to Missouri, Scott filed suit in Missouri court for his freedom, claiming that his residence in free territory made him a free man. After losing, Scott brought a new suit in federal court. Scott's master maintained that no “negro” or descendant of slaves could be a citizen in the sense of Article III of the Constitution. -
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas Debates
Lincoln-Douglas debates, series of seven debates between the Democratic senator Douglas and Republican challenger Lincoln during the 1858 Illinois senatorial campaign, largely concerning the issue of slavery extension into the territories. Douglas triumphed over Lincoln with Democrats gaining forty-six seats to the Republican's forty-one. However, while Douglas might have won the battle,Lincoln won the true war: the 1860 Presidential Election. Douglas will willing to allow slavery in new states -
John Brown's raid/ Harpers Ferry
Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and destroy the institution of slavery -
Abraham Lincoln becomes president
Abraham Lincoln became the United States' 16th President in 1861, issuing the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy in 1863. Lincoln thought secession illegal, and was willing to use force to defend Federal law and the Union. -
Attack on Fort Sumter
The election of 1860 was a key event leading to the attack on Fort Sumter. When Abraham Lincoln won the election, the southerners were convinced he was going to end slavery. This led to the secession of some of the southern states.The South decided to attack the ships, leading to the start of the Civil War. The battle happened on April 12, 1861. After a 34-hour exchange of artillery fire, Anderson and 86 soldiers surrendered the fort on April 13. -
Income Tax
On this day in 1861, Lincoln imposes the first federal income tax by signing the Revenue Act. Strapped for cash with which to pursue the Civil War, Lincoln and Congress agreed to impose a 3 percent tax on annual incomes over $800. -
Formation of the Confederacy
On February 4, 1861, the states farthest south, where slavery and plantations agriculture were dominant, formed the Confederate States of America with Jefferson Davis as President. They established their capital at Montgomery, Alabama and took over federal forts on their territory. In rapid succession, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas joined the Confederacy. In May, Davis made Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital -
Battle of Bull Run
On July 21, 1861, Union and Confederate armies clashed near Manassas Junction, Virginia, in the first major land battle of the American Civil War. Known as the First Battle of Bull Run (or Manassas), the engagement began when about 35,000 Union troops marched from the federal capital in Washington, D.C.
It ended up a clear victory for the Confederates -
Battle at Antietam
The Battle of Antietam was fought on September 17, 1862 between the Union and the Confederacy during the Civil War. It took place near Sharpsburg, Maryland. The Southern forces were led by General Robert E. Lee and the Northern forces were led by General George B. McClellan.The Union won the Battle of Antietam, although both sides experienced heavy casualties. With 23,000 casualties, this was the bloodiest single day of the Civil War. -
Emancipation Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The Effect: After the Emancipation Proclamation was issued thousands of slaves were freed from ten Confederate states that were in rebellion. The Proclamation also allowed African Americans to join the Union army and help fight the Confederates which increased the Union's numbers by about 200,000. -
Battle at Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg, fought in July 1863, was a Union victory that stopped Confederate General Robert E. Lee's second invasion of the North. More than 50,000 men fell as casualties during the 3-day battle, making it the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War.After a great victory over Union forces at Chancellorsville, General Robert E. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia into Pennsylvania in late June 1863. -
Battle at Vicksbourg
The siege of Vicksburg was the final major military action in the Vicksburg campaign of the American Civil War.When two major assaults against the Confederate fortifications, on May 19 and 22, were repulsed with heavy casualties, Grant decided to besiege the city beginning on May 25.In three weeks, Grant's men marched 180 miles, won five battles and captured some 6,000 prisoners. -
Conscription
During the Civil War, the U.S. Congress passes a conscription act that produces the first wartime draft of U.S. citizens in American history. The act called for registration of all males between the ages of 20 and 45, including aliens with the intention of becoming citizens, by April 1 -
Gettysburg address
President Lincoln delivered the 272 word Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863 on the battlefield near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He had three main purposes: To bring the country (especially the North) together, when it was divided by different views of the war, to reiterate his view of the purpose of the United States and to provide a direction for the future 'soul' of the United States. -
Abolition
Abolitionists believed that slavery was a national sin, and that it was the moral obligation of every American to help eradicate it from the American landscape by gradually freeing the slaves and returning them to Africa.
The 13th amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States, passed the Senate on April 8, 1864, and the House on January 31, 1865. -
Sherman's March
Sherman's March to the Sea was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia from November 15 until December 21, 1864, by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army. The purpose of Sherman's March to the Sea was to frighten Georgia's civilian population into abandoning the Confederate cause. His powers pursued a "scorched earth" strategy, and regular citizen property and disturbing the Confederacy's economy and transportation systems -
Surrender at Appomattox Court House
On April 9, 1865, near the town of Appomattox Court House, Virginia, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. -
Thirteenth Amendment
February 1, 1865 - President Abraham Lincoln signed a Joint Resolution submitting the proposed 13th Amendment to the states. The 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865, 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, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Occurring near the end of the American Civil War, the assassination was part of a larger conspiracy intended by Booth to revive the Confederate cause by eliminating the three most important officials of the United States government. Fido, a yellow mongrel dog the Abraham Lincoln family adopted about 1855, stayed behind when the Lincolns moved to Washington, D.C., in 1861 and was stabbed to death sometime in 1866. He was killed at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C.
