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The 3/5ths Compromise
The Three-Fifths Compromise was reached among state delegates during the 1787 Constitutional Convention. It determined that three out of every five slaves were counted when determining a state's total population for legislative representation and taxation. -
Battle of Tippecanoe
The Battle of Tippecanoe was fought on November 7, 1811 between the American forces under the command of William Henry Harrison, and Native American warriors under the leadership of Tenskwatawa, commonly referred to as “The Prophet.” Deemed an American victory, the battle had far lasting implications with Native American policy and the approaching conflict known as the War of 1812. -
Slave Trade Ends in the United States
The practice of slavery continued to be legal in much of the U.S. until 1865, of course, and enslaved people continued to be bought and sold within the Southern states, but in January 1808 the legal flow of new Africans into this country stopped forever. -
Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, authorizing the president to grant lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders. A few tribes went peacefully, but many resisted the relocation policy. -
Trail of Tears
In the 1830s, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which forcibly removed thousands of American Indians from their homelands in the southeastern United States. They were relocated to an area of land then known as Indian Territory, now the state of Oklahoma. This tragic event is referred to as the Trail of Tears. -
The Fugitive Slave Act
Passed on September 18, 1850 by Congress, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was part of the Compromise of 1850. The act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state. The act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying escaped slaves. -
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 proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
13th Amendment
The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "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." -
14th Amendment
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Section 2. -
15th Amendment
The Fifteenth Amendment (Amendment XV) to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government and each state from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." -
Battle of Little Bighorn
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, and commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes and the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. It took place on June 25–26, 1876, along the Little Bighorn River in the Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana Territory. -
Plessy vs. Ferguson
The U.S. Supreme Court changes history on May 18, 1896! The Court's “separate but equal” decision in Plessy v. Ferguson on that date upheld state-imposed Jim Crow laws. It became the legal basis for racial segregation in the United States for the next fifty years.