Holt House Table Of Contents

History Of Slavery, 1619 To 1789

History Of Slavery, 1789 To 1829

Chronology On The History Of Slavery And Racism

The Chronology is broken up into three parts; 1619– 1789, 1790 to 1829 and 1830- to the end.

Compiled by Eddie Becker

Chronology On The History Of Slavery And Racism 1830 – The End

Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act forcibly removes five Indian nations from the lower South to less desirable land in the West, thus opening roughly 25 million acres to cotton cultivation. (Timeline from the PBS series Africans In America)

1830:
Andrew Jackson Census: 6 male and 8 female slaves, 5 "free Colored Persons" out of a household of 25. (Census Washington DC First Ward, page 67)

Census Graph Citation: From the United States Historical Census Data Browser.

. "In 1830, there were 6,152 free Negroes in the District of Columbia compared with 6,152 slaves; in 1840, 8,361 compared with 4,694 slaves; and in 1860, 11,131 compared with only 3,185. Thus is 30 years, the free colored population was nearly doubled, while the slave population was halved. It would be inaccurate to infer from this that there was any wholesale manumission or that the District was haven for free Negroes. The free Negroes were of several classes: Those whose antecedents had never been slaves, such as descendents of indentured servants; those born of free parent, or of free mothers; those manumitted; those who had bought their own freedom, or whose kinsmen had bought it for them; and those who were successful runaways. These free Negroes were an ever present 'Bad example' to the slaves of the District and of the surrounding slave States, and the more they prospered, the 'worse example' they became. Especially stringent regulations affecting free Negroes were added by the District Common Council to the slave codes. Every free Negro was required; (1) to give the mayor 'satisfactory evidence of freedom', plus $50 for himself, and $50 for each member of his family; (2) to post a bond of $1,000 and to secure five white guarantors of good behavior. It was necessary to show manumission papers in order to remain free; even so, gangs bent on kidnapping could and frequently did seize and destroy them. No Negro, slave or free, could testify against whites. The jails were crowded with captured free Negroes and suspected runaways; there were 290 of these in the city jail at one time. Many were sold for prison fees, ostensibly for a fixed period, but really for life. Meetings for any other than fraternal and religious purposes were forbidden. After Nat Turner's insurrection in Virginia in 1831, colored preachers were banned." (Washington, City and Capital, Federal Writers' Project, Works Progress Administration, American Guide Series. Washington, 1937, USGPO. P71-2)

Foreign travelers accounts from the 1830 and 1840 described the Robey and Williams slave pens which stood along the Mall in the shadow of the Capitol; the two were often juxtaposed in artworks, and the presence of slave pens in the center of the nation's capital captured the attention of abolitionists. (Ironically, today the Museum of African Art sits less than a block away from the former location of the Robey and Williams slave pens.) (The Mall, On-line Reference from the University of Virginia American Studies Department, Site developed by Mary Halnon )

"The District of Columbia, too small for slave rearing itself, served as depot for the purchase of interstate traders, who combed Maryland and northern Virginia for slaves. Since the slave jails, colloquially known as 'Georgia pens", and described by an ex-slave as worse than hog holes, were inadequate for the great demand, the public jails were made use of, accommodations for the criminals having to wait upon the more pressing and lucrative traffic in slaves. There were pens in what is now Potomac Park: and one in the Decatur House, fronting on what is now Lafayette Square. More notorious were McCandless' Tavern in Georgetown; in Washington, Robey's Tavern at Seventh and Maryland Avenue, and Williams' 'Yellow House' at Eighth and B street SW. In Alexandria, the pretentious establishment of Armfield and Franklin, who by 1834 were sending more than a thousand slaves a year to the Southwest, was succeeded and surpassed by the shambles of much-feared Kephart." (Washington, City and Capital, Federal Writers' Project, Works Progress Administration, American Guide Series. Washington, 1937, USGPO. p69)

1830
Virginia Census shows the holdings of the Armfield and Franklin slave pen. Their inventory of consisted of predominantly of children and teenagers who would be taken from Virginia and surrounding States and sold to work the Cotton Plantations.
Sex and Age for 1830 census for the slave Pen of Armfield and Franklin.
1 male under 10
50 males 10-24
20 males 24—36
4 females under 10
50 females 10-24
20 females 24-36
(1830 DC Census Alexandria page 270)

Franklin and Armfield business dealings depended largely on the agents representing the enterprise, who were scattered throughout slave-holding areas of Maryland and Virginia. In Richmond there was R.C. Ballard & Co.; in Warrenton, Virginia, J.M. Saunders & Co.; in Baltimore, Rockville and Fredericktown, Maryland, George Kephart; in Frederick, Maryland, James Franklin Purvis, nephew of Isaac Franklin; and in Easton, Maryland, Thomas M. Jones (Sweig 1980;8). There eventually were three ships traveling between New Orleans and Alexandria for Franklin and Armfield—the Tribune, the Uncas, and the Isaac Franklin. (The Alexandria Slave Pen: The Archaeology of Urban Captivity, by Janice G. Artemel, Elizabeth A. Crowell and Jeff Parker, October 1987. Engineering-Science, Inc. Washington, DC)

For graphs showing the Age and Sex Selectivity in Slave Export from Virginia see The graph was used "to make a rough estimation of the impact commercial traders made in each subregion. While planters moving entire plantations tended to carry most slaves with them, from infants to older men and women, traders sought out the most marketable--men and women of prime work and child-bearing age.

In a best-case scenario for slave families and communities, we assume that planters did not act selectively in moving west--that is, they simply gathered everyone in the caravan. Since they would have drawn from every age and sex group in same proportions, the percentage of older slaves exported provides an indicator of planters' slave migrations. If planters took every migrating slave in the oldest group, and traders took none, then planters in the tidewater and piedmont tended to draw away between 3 and 6 percent of each age-sex cohort in the 1820s. Traders, then, would have been responsible for the remainder--the majority of slaves in their teens and twenties. (Geographies of Family and Market: Virginia's Domestic Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century, Phillip D. Troutman Research Fellow Carter G. Woodson Institute for Afro-American and African Studies Ph.D. Candidate Corcoran Department of History University of Virginia, trout@virginia.edu http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/slavetrade/agesex.html see also http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/slavetrade/)

1830
John Gadsby was said to live in the Decatur house. The Census for Washington City shows John Gadsby with 38 slaves (1830 Census page 123)

Solomon Nothup, a freed man was kidnapped in Washington DC, held in a slave pen and sold into slavery. "It occurred to me then that I must be in an underground apartment, and the damp, moldy odors of the place confirmed the supposition. The noise above continued for at least an hour, when, at last, I heard footsteps approaching from without. A key rattled in the lock - a strong door swung back upon its hinges, admitting a flood of light, and two men entered and stood before me. One of them was a large, powerful man, forty years of age, perhaps, with dark, chestnut-colored hair, slightly interspersed with gray. His face was full, his complexion flush, his features grossly coarse, expressive of nothing but cruelty and cunning. He was about five feet ten inches high, of full habit, and, without prejudice, I must be allowed to say, was a man whose whole appearance was sinister and repugnant. His name was James H. Burch, as I learned afterwards - a well-known slave-dealer in Washington; and then, or lately connected in business, as a partner, with Theophilus Freeman, of New-Orleans. The person who accompanied him was a simple lackey, named Ebenezer Radburn, who acted merely in the capacity of turnkey. Both of these men still live in Washington, or did, at the time of my return through that city from slavery in January last. The light admitted through the open door enabled me to observe the room in which I was confined. It was about twelve feet square - the walls of solid masonry. The floor was of heavy plank. There was one small window, crossed with great iron bars, with an outside shutter, securely fastened. An iron-bound door led into an adjoining cell, or vault, wholly destitute of windows, or any means of admitting light. The furniture of the room in which I was, consisted of the wooden bench on which I sat, an old-fashioned, dirty box stove, and besides these, in either cell, there was neither bed, nor blanket, nor any other thing whatever. The door, through which Burch and Radburn entered, led through a small passage, up a flight of steps into a yard, surrounded by a brick wall ten or twelve feet high, immediately in rear of a building of the same width as itself. The yard extended rearward from the house about thirty feet. In one part of the wall there was a strongly ironed door, opening into a narrow, covered passage, leading along one side of the house into the street. The doom of the colored man, upon whom the door leading out of that narrow passage closed, was sealed. The top of the wall supported one end of a roof, which ascended inwards, forming a kind of open shed. Underneath the roof there was a crazy loft all round, where slaves, if so disposed, might sleep at night, or in inclement weather seek shelter from the storm. It was like a farmer's barnyard in most respects, save it was so constructed that the outside world could never see the human cattle that were herded there. The building to which the yard was attached, was two stories high, fronting on one of the public streets of Washington. Its outside presented only the appearance of a quiet private residence. A stranger looking at it, would never have dreamed of its execrable uses. Strange as it may seem, within plain sight of this same house, looking down from its commanding height upon it, was the Capitol. The voices of patriotic representatives boasting of freedom and equality, and the rattling of the poor slave's chains, almost commingled. A slave pen within the very shadow of the Capitol! Such is a correct description as it was in 1841, of Williams' slave pen in Washington, in one of the cellars of which I found myself so unaccountably confined." (Twelve Years a Slave. Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853.: First published in 1853. Electronic Edition. )

In Fairfax County Virginia, a major source of income for residents came from selling or hiring out their excess slaves. Slave markets were run by Joseph Bruin at the West End and by Alexander Grigsby at Centreville. There were frequent slave auctions at the front door of the Fairfax courthouse. Bruin regularly advertised in the Gazette that he offered "cash for Negroes," and that he was "at all times in the market" for "likely young Negroes for the South" pay liberal prices for all Negroes from 10-30 years of age." (Gazettette, 20 March 1944) (Fairfax County, Virginia a History. Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Fairfax, Virginia, 1978 p 262)

Price, Birch, & Company Slave Pen
Duke St., Alexandria, Virginia
(William Pywell, 1863; LOC) Before the war a child would sell for about $50.00, a man at $1,000-$1,800 and a woman from $500 to $1,500.00

Franklin and Armfield Office
1315 Duke Street
Built in 1812 as a residence for General Andrew Young, this was the office building of the former interstate slave trading complex which stood on the site from 1828 to 1861. By 1835 Franklin and Armfield controlled nearly half the coastal slave trade from Virginia and Maryland to New Orleans. In 1846 the property was sold to a Franklin and Armfield agent, George Kephart, whose business became "the chief slave-dealing firm in [Virginia] and perhaps anywhere along the border between the Free and Slave States." After 1858, the slave pen was known as Price, Birch, and Co., and their sign can be seen in a Civil War era photograph. The business was appalling to many, especially to active abolitionists in Alexandria, where the large Quaker population contributed to a general distaste for slavery. Several abolitionists' accounts survive which describe the slave pen and the conditions encountered therein. Behind the house was a yard containing several structures, surrounded by a high, whitewashed brick wall. Male slaves were located in a yard to the west, while women and children were kept in a yard to the east, separated by a passage and a strong grated door of iron. The complex served as a Civil War prison from 1861 to 1865, and housed the Alexandria Hospital from 1878 to 1885. It was later apartments, and was renovated as offices in 1984. (Office of Historic Alexandria, Alexandria Sites Listed on the National Register of Historic Places )

1830
There were more than 2 million African-American slaves in the U.S. The 1865 Emancipation Proclamation (1863) and Union victory (1865) freed almost 4 million slaves. (The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, 1995 by Columbia University Press from MS Bookshelf.)

Apparently this last entry offended pro confederate Civil War Web page, they try to argue that Slavery was not that bad. Give up and wind selectively reproducing a good portion of the rest of this chronology. (See Slavery Myths and Facts, Southern Comfort Civil War History http://www.civilwarhistory.com/slavetrade/blackslavery.htm)

1830 United States Census for a John Adams at the same location as John Q. Adams from the 1820 Census located in the 1^st Ward of Washington City show;
1 female slave 10-24; 1 free colored males under 10; 1 free colored male 10-24; 1 free colored male24-36; 1 free colored female 10-24; 2 white males 15-20 ; 1 white male 20-30; 1 white female 20-30; 2 white males 20-30; 1 white male 60-70, 2 white females under 5; 1 white female 20-30; 1 white female 30-40; (1830 DC Census, Second Entry page 58)

1830-1860
Abolitionists, in U.S. history, especially from 1830 to 1860, advocates of the compulsory emancipation of African-American slaves. Abolitionists are to be distinguished from free-soilers, who opposed the extension of slavery. The active campaign had its mainspring in the revival (1820s) in the North of evangelical religion, with its moral urgency to end sinful practices. It reached crusading stage in the 1830s, led by Theodore D. Weld, the brothers Arthur and Lewis Tappan, and William Lloyd Garrison. The American Anti-Slavery Society, established in 1833, flooded the slave states with abolitionist literature and lobbied in Washington, D.C. Writers like J.G. Whittier and orators such as Wendell Phillips lent strength to the cause. Despite unanimity on their goal, abolitionists were divided over the method of achieving it, Garrison advocating moral suasion, others direct political action. Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet B. Stowe, became an effective piece of abolitionist propaganda, and the KANSAS question aroused both North and South. The culminating act of abolitionism was John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. Abolitionist demands for immediate freeing of the slaves after the outbreak of the Civil War resulted in Pres. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. The abolitionist movement was one of high moral purpose and courage; its uncompromising temper hastened the demise of slavery in the U.S. (The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, 1995 by Columbia University Press from MS Bookshelf.)

Theodore Weld's American Slavery As It Is (1839), which cataloged horror stories about slavery drawn entirely from accounts in the Southern press, was an instant best seller and touched a raw moral nerve in the country. Harriet Beecher Stowe, scion of America's most distinguished religious family, used Uncle Tom's Cabin, a sentimental novel with explicit Christian lessons, to rivet the nation's attention to the institutional evils of slavery.

Theodore Weld. reared in a strict Calvinistic manse, was a protege of Charles Finney and studied at Lane Seminary (at which Lyman Beecher was president), where he was part a group that styled itself the "Illuminati". Weld's early reform passions were for education and abolitionism. He became a women's rights advocate after his marriage to Angelina Grimke, a Quaker feminist. (The Welds helped promote reforms like "bloomers" - progressive women's attire in the 19th century). His book American Slavery sold 100,000 copies in its first year and, in becoming an anti-slavery classic, made Weld the nation's leading abolitionist spokesman. His wife, however, pursued a different track, latching onto the millennialism of William Miller, who predicted Christ's imminent return in 1843. The Welds eventually drifted into spiritualism, Swedenborgianism, and Transcendentalism. After struggling with a son's insanity and suicide, and trying his hand at organic vegetable farming and teaching at a Utopian commune, Weld finally became a Unitarian. His life personifies Ephesians 4:14. (31. On Weld, see Robert Abzug, Passionate Liberator: Theodore Dwight Weld and the Dilemma of Reform (N.Y. Oxford, 1980). Weld's heterodox tendencies evidently began early. After asking his preacher-father a series of challenging questions, the senior Weld told the boy: "Shut your mouth, you little infidel!" (cited by Roger Schultz by Contra Mundum, No. 4 Summer 1992 Politics of Righteousness: Christian Political Movements in the Early 19th Century, )

Abolitionists were just as confused about the means they should use. Some endorsed immediate abolition, using violence if necessary. Others were committed to peaceful means and gradual emancipation. Some, such as the American Anti-Slavery Society, were simply committed to ending slavery. Still others, such as the American Colonization Society, driven by fears of post-emancipation racial tensions, wanted liberated slaves resettled in Africa. While some stressed abolition throughout the United States, others focused on preventing the spread of slavery into the territories. (Summer 1992 Politics of Righteousness: Christian Political Movements in the Early 19th Century)

During the 1830s, William Lloyd Garrison's violent condemnations of colonization as a slaveholder's plot to perpetuate slavery created deep hostility between abolitionists and colonizationists. (Library of Congress, African-American Mosaic, Colonization, )

Plantation Mission Movement 1830-1) Methodist chapels were constructed on many plantations ,As many as 1000 slaves lived on some plantations with little contact with the outside or with whites, other than the overseers. Many plantation slaves attended the chapels when a Methodist circuit -riding preacher came by. Baptists also made many converts. (a) Many blacks were permitted to become preachers because Baptists had no educational requirement for the ministry. (b) The role of minister was one of the only leadership roles available to blacks. (c) Besides the fact that the Baptists were a major group in the South, many of the Baptist institutions, such as the Baptismal service by immersion, or communion service (taken at the same time and not row by row), were attractive to blacks, even reminding some of similar practices held among African tribes. Separate Southern black denominations did not emerge until the post-Civil War (Growth of the Nation 1800 – 40 Jefferson's Administrations Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, TX )

In Ward Three the Census recorded 75 people in the infirmary none were slave or "free colored. (1830 DC Census 3^rd Ward page 95)

George W P Custis Listed in Georgetown with 57 Slaves and next to him is Alexander Hunter with 22 (1830 DC Census page 217)

George Washington Parke Custis, Colonel, United States Army, Arlington House Builder, Born at Mount Airy, Maryland, on April 30, 1781, his parents were John Parke and Eleanor (Calvert) Custis. He attended St. John's College and Princeton University. He married Mary Lee Fitzhugh in 1804 and they had one daughter, Mary (later Mrs. Robert E. Lee). He was commissioned Colonel, United States Army, and aide-de-camp to General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney in 1799 and was a volunteer in the defense of Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812. He began as series of "Recollections of Washington" in the U.S. Gazette in 1826, and continued in the National Intelligencer, and published in book form in 1860. His first play, The Indian Prophecy, was performed in the Chestnut Street Theater, Philadelphia, in 1830. He also wrote: The Railroad, 1830; North Point of Baltimore Defended, 1833; Eighth of January, 1834. He was the adopted son of George Washington after the death of his parents. He built Arlington House as a tribute to, and to hold the belongings of, General George Washington. He died on October 19, 1852 and was buried in a private lot on the estate (long before it became a National Cemetery), which is now Section 13 of Arlington National Cemetery. His wife, Mary Fitzhugh Custis, who died on April 23, 1853, is buried with him. (Arlington House Web Page)

1830/05/24
The first division of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad is completed May 24 to link Baltimore with Ellicott Mills, 13 miles away. (The People's Chronology, 1994 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf.)

1830
Smithsonian Report reads, "When (Adams) first takes seat in Congress he presents fifteen petitions signed numerously by citizens of Pennsylvania, praying for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia... That he had always cherished an abhorrence of slavery and a bitter antipathy to slave-holders as a class is sufficiently indicated by many chance remarks scattered through his Dairy and early years. (John T. Morse, jr., Book of John Quincy Adams, Mifflin, 1882) (Commentary in study "John Quincy Adams was against the principle and practice of slavery therefore making it unlikely that he would have tolerated slaves at the Columbia Mills." Cynthia Field: 1998 Smithsonian Study)

John Quincy Adams was presented with fifteen petitions from citizens of Pennsylvania asking for the abolition of slavery and especially slavery in the District, "he did not think its abolition there desirable," and said, "he hoped the subject would not be discussed in the House." He thought that "the citizens of Pennsylvania ought not petition in regard to the matter in the District of Columbia. It would lead to ill-will, heart-burning and mutual hatred." (Tremain, Mary. Slavery in the District of Columbia. The Policy of Congress and the Struggle for Abolition. Nebraska State University, cited in Milburn, Page. The Emancipation of Slaves in the District of Columbia. Records of the Columbia Society, Vol. 16 page98-99)

John Quincy Adams came to the House in 1830 and presented antislavery petition that first year. He acted here only because his Massachusetts constituents asked him to do so. Initially, he thought no more of the abolitionists' work as Congressmen than he had as president. I could only bring the country "to ill-will. To heartburning mutual hatred without accomplishing anything else. (Nye, Fettered Freedom, 48 in Piano p 33) When petitions calling for abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia deluged Congress in 1836, however, Adams had to pick a side, Southerners again raised the stakes by pushing a gag rule through the House requiring the tabling of such petitions. (They were not printed, referred to committee, or debated.) While Jackson stood with the South, Adams stood with the abolitionists and eventually made even Negrophobes in the North see that slavery eroded everyone's civil liberties. He did so by demonstrating the price that the gag-rule advocates were demanding: To protect slavery every American had to suffer the right to petition their government, a right guaranteed in the Constitution's First Amendment. (Nixon's Piano: Presidents and Racial Politics from Washington to Clinton, Kenneth O'Reilly, NY, Free Press 1995)

1830
Census lists 40 slaves to Charles C Lackland and William O'neal (manager) Seems like a labor pool with many free whites and "coloreds" 200 total.. (1830 Census page 201 Washington County)

1831/01
William Lloyd Garrison began abolitionist newspaper The Liberator. (The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1995 from MS Bookshelf)

1831
Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker begins Washington’s first antislavery newspaper, The Genius of Universal Emancipation. (Melder, Keith, City of Magnificent Intentions. A History of the District of Columbia, 1983). Lundy and the Quaker abolitionists inspired more militant abolitionists like William Lloyd Garison, publisher of the of the Liberator. Garrison denounced both colonization and gradualism and called for immediate abolition. In 1833 founded the American Anti-Slavery Society. (From Events hat Changed American in the Nineteenth Century, edited by John E. Findling and Frank W. Thackeray.1997)

In the 1830s, those few Americans who actively sought to abolish slavery were treated as a lunatic fringe. As William Lee Miller points out in this often riveting story of the nation's first great political battle over the servitude of African-Americans, slavery was an interest, "concentrated, persistent, practical, and testily defensive," while antislavery was a mere sentiment, "diffuse, sporadic, moralistic and tentative." Spurred by the Christian evangelical fervor of the era, abolitionism was just beginning to coalesce from a set of privately held beliefs into a political movement that generated a growing stream of books, pamphlets-and petitions. (Bordewich, Fergus M., Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress; book review of book by William Lee Miller, Smithsonian December, 1996)

In 1829 Garrison entered into partnership with the American antislavery agitator Benjamin Lundy to publish a monthly periodical, The Genius of Universal Emancipation, in Baltimore, Maryland. Lundy believed in gradual emancipation, and Garrison at first shared his views; but he soon became convinced that immediate and complete emancipation was necessary. Because Baltimore was then a center of the domestic slave trade in the U.S., Garrison's eloquent denunciations of the trade aroused great animosity. A slave trader sued him for libel; he was fined, and, lacking funds to pay the fine, was jailed. After his release from prison Garrison dissolved his partnership with Lundy and returned to New England. In partnership with another American abolitionist, Isaac Knapp, Garrison launched The Liberator in Boston in 1831; the newspaper became one of the most influential journals in the United States. (Garrison, William Lloyd," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia.)

1831/01/01
The Liberator begins publication January 1 at Boston where local abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, 26, advocates emancipation of the slaves who account for nearly one-third of the U.S. population. (The People's Chronology, 1994 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf.)

1831
Virginia, Thomas Dew, a legislator, proudly refers to Virginia as a Negro-raising state" for other states. Between 1830 and 1860, Virginia exports some 300,000 slaves. The price of slaves increases sharply due to expanding territory in which slaves are permitted and a booming economy in products harvested and processed by slave labor. (The Negro Almanac a reference work on the Afro American, compiled and edited by harry A Ploski, and Warren Marr, II. Third Edition 1978 Bellwether Publishing)

1831/08
Nat Turner slave rebellion in Southampton county Virginia.

Turner, Nat, 1800–1831, African-American slave and revolutionary; b. Southampton co., Va. Believing himself divinely appointed to lead his fellow slaves to freedom, he commanded about 60 followers in a revolt (1831) that killed 55 whites. Although the so-called Southampton Insurrection was quickly crushed and Turner was caught and hanged six weeks later, it was the most serious uprising in the history of U.S. slavery and virtually ended the organized abolition movement in the South. (The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, 1995 by Columbia University Press from MS Bookshelf.) For the extraordinary transcript of Nat Turners Testimony see excerpts from Nat Turner's Trial <http://vi.uh.edu/pages/mintz/32.htm also see http://www.melanet.com/nat/nat.html and http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1826-1850/slavery/confesxx.htm)

Nat Turner revolt, Southampton County, Va., August 21-22. Some 60 whites were killed. Nat Turner was not captured until October 30. Nat Turner was hanged, Jerusalem, Va., Nov. 11. (Major Revolts and Escapes, Lerone Bennett, Before the Mayflower, http://www.afroam.org/history/slavery/revolts.html)

The bloodiest insurrection of all, in which some sixty whites were murdered, occurred in Southampton County, Virginia, in August, 1831. Nat Turner, its leader, besides being a skilled carpenter, was a literate, mystical preacher. He had discovered particular relevance in the prophets of the Old Testament. Besides identifying with the slave experience of the Israelites, Turner and other slaves felt that the social righteousness which the prophets preached related directly to their situation. The picture of the Lord exercising vengeance against the oppressors gave them hope and inspiration. While the Bible did appear to tell the slave to be faithful and obedient to his master, it also condemned the wicked and provided examples that could be interpreted to prove God's willingness to use human instruments in order to bring justice against oppressors. Turner's growing hatred of slavery and his increasing concern for the plight of his brothers, led him to believe he was one of God's chosen instruments. As his conviction deepened, the solar eclipse early in 1831 appeared to him to be a sign that the day of vengeance was at hand. In the following months he collected a small band of followers, and in August they went into action. Unlike Prosser and Vesey, he began with only a very small band which lessened his chance of betrayal. As they moved from farm to farm, slaughtering the white inhabitants, they were joined by many of the slaves who were freed in the process. However, word of the massacre spread. At one farm, they were met by armed resistance. Slaves as well as masters fought fiercely to stop the attack. Some of Turner's men were killed and wounded, and the planned drive towards Jerusalem was thrown off stride. This enabled the militia to arrive and break up the attack. In due time Turner and several of his followers were captured and executed. White men in both the South and the North saw little similarity between these insurrections and the American Revolution. The Turner massacre was universally depicted as the work of savages and brutes, not of men. Vigilance was tightened, and new laws controlling the slaves were passed throughout the South. Both the violence of the slaves and the verbal abuse of the abolitionists only served to strengthen the South in its defense of the peculiar institution. Slaves who revolted were depicted as beasts who could not be freed because they would endanger society. Submissive slaves were pictured as children in need of paternal protection from the evils of a complex, modern world. They were never seen as men whose rights and liberties had been proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence. (Norman Coombs, The Immigrant Heritage of America, Twayne Press, 1972. , Chapter 4, Slave Insurrections)

The Washington City Council reacted by making the Black Codes harsher: A black man who struck a white person was now subject to having his ears cut off. (P 82 Melder, Keith. Slaves and Freedmen Wilson Quarterly 1989 13(1) 77-83)

The corporation of Georgetown enact an ordinance for the regulation including the offense of the possession of abolitionist information including the Liberator. (p142 Bryan, Wilhelmus Bogart. The History of the National Capital. Vol. II 1815-1878. Macmillan 1916 GW lib)

The slave insurrection in cased a bitter reaction in Maryland. The Maryland General Assembly took up the policy of colonization free blacks in Liberia in legislation passed that autumn of 1831, providing an annual appropriation to the Maryland State Colonization Society. At the same time, the Assembly prohibited any further importation of slaves into the state. There was already a statute on the books prohibiting free blacks from other states settling in Maryland. This act of 1807 was given more serious penalties in 1831, and made still more stringent in 1839. The District of Columbia afforded a loophole in the law until 1845, when, on complaint of Montgomery and Prince George's residents, a special act was passed to forbid blacks from crossing the District line to settle. (Jeffrey R. Brackett, The Negro in Maryland, A Study of the Institution of Slavery) (New York, reprint by Negro University Press, 1969 and James M. Wright, The Free Negro in Maryland 1634-1860, NY, Octagon Books 1971, reprint of 1921 ed. Cited in Richard K MacMaster and Ray Eldon Hiebert, A Grateful Remembrance, the story of Montgomery County, Maryland, Montgomery County Historical Society, 1976 p 156-157)

The Maryland General Assembly forbid free black citizens to buy liquor, own guns, sell food without a license, or even attend religious meetings if there wee no whites present. This last provision struck a crippling blow a the independent black church, the only real institution that the black community had been able to develop during its enslavement. (Lawrence H. McDonald, "Failure of the Great Reaction in Maryland" Ph.D. dissertation, University of Maryland, 1974), Appendix VI, cited in Richard K McAlester and Ray Eldon Hiebert, A Grateful Remembrance, the story of Montgomery County, Maryland, Montgomery County Historical Society, 1976 p 157)

Maryland further discouraged slave owners from manumitting their slaves by requiring them to send the free person out of the state. (Richard K MacMaster and Ray Eldon Hiebert, A Grateful Remembrance, the story of Montgomery County, Maryland, Montgomery County Historical Society, 1976 p 157)

The Maryland State Colonization Society established a settlement at Cape Palmas, some miles south of the major Liberian colony at Monrovia. It made a determined effort to recruit free black settlers from Maryland. Black Marylanders identified the colonization movement with a desire to remove the free blacks from the state lest they encourage restiveness among the slaves. They saw it generally committed to the preservation of slavery and inequality of free black citizens. Very few Marylanders were willing to leave their homes for n uncertain future in Africa. (Richard K MacMaster and Ray Eldon Hiebert, A Grateful Remembrance, the story of Montgomery County, Maryland, Montgomery County Historical Society, 1976. P 157)

With regard to the Nat Turner revolt, "It is difficult to decide with certainty whether it occurred as a reaction to the harshness of slave rule or as a result of the weakness of control." (Michael Craton, Sinews of Empire, A Short History of British Slavery, Anchor Books NY., 1974 p 227)

Turner, Nat b. Oct. 2, 1800, Southampton county, Va., U.S.--d. Nov. 11, 1831, Jerusalem, Va.), black American bondsman who led the only effective, sustained slave revolt (August 1831) in U.S. history. Spreading terror throughout the white South, his action set off a new wave of oppressive legislation prohibiting the education, movement, and assembly of slaves and stiffened proslavery, antiabolitionist convictions that persisted in that region until the American Civil War (1861-65). (On-Line African American History Reference)

Nat Turner's rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, in the summer of 1831, threw the slaveholding South into a panic, and into a determined effort to bolster the security of the slave system. Turner, claiming religious visions, gathered about seventy slaves who went on a rampage from plantation to plantation, murdering at least fifty-five men, women, and children. They gathered supporters but were captured as their ammunition ran out. Turner and perhaps eighteen others were hanged.(Major Revolts and Escapes, Lerone Bennett, Before the Mayflower,)

Soon after the Nat Turner Rebellion, the General Assembly of Virginia, convened in 1831 to hear Governor John Floyd's annual message, which urged the Assembly to address the current crisis so as to quell the fears of the citizens and to restore order and safety to the Commonwealth. His address called for funds for the removal of free blacks from Virginia and for the houses to discuss what further action should be taken. As a result of Governor Floyd's address, a special committee was formed by the speaker of the House of Delegates to discuss the revolt of the past summer and present the house with possible solutions to the problem. The first week of the assembly saw numerous proposals for the colonization of free blacks and on December 14, William Henry Roane of Hanover presented a petition from the Society of Friends which proposed the abolition of slavery through the gradual colonization of slave in Africa. This proposal sparked intense debate between the members of the house and divided Tidewater delegates and those from the heavily agricultural "southside" of the James River. On January 11, 1832, Piedmont Delegate William O. Goode, a southsider, argued that debate on emancipation placed all of Virginia in grave danger because of the threat posed by blacks watching the actions of the Assembly. He proposed a resolution to table discussion for the safety of the Commonwealth. A counter-resolution was proposed by western Piedmont delegate Thomas Jefferson Randolph proposing a state-wide referendum on gradual emancipation so that the people of Virginia could decide the issue rather than the members of the Assembly, who held a disproportionate stake in the institution of slavery. If the majority of the citizens were for abolition, the process would begin with all slaves born on or after July 4, 1840, becoming the property of the Commonwealth. They would be hired out by the state until enough money had been raised to provide for their removal from the country. The session closed with the passage of a statement supporting the exploration of possible colonizing of slaves. That mood would change by the next fall, a result in large part of the essay on slavery published by William and Mary professor Thomas R. Dew at the close of the 1831-32 session. (Corey McLellan, The Debate in the 1831-32 Virginia General Assembly on the Abolition of Slavery, The University of Virginia.)

Dew attacked the plan, which called for all slaves to become property of the Virginia Commonwealth after July 4, 1840-- males at twenty-one, females at eighteen. This proposal, according to Dew, was a violation of property rights to slave owners and could never be accomplished because of the expense involved. Dew went on to the Biblical argument for slavery. He emphasized that nowhere does Scripture tag slavery as a sin, and that there is no command to abolish it. From the Biblical argument for slavery, Dew moved on to the historical one, pointing that slavery had existed continuously since the beginnings of recorded human history. Dew's arguments were the key factor in closing the door to emancipation in Virginia until the Civil War. (Thomas Dew's Review of the Debate in the Virginia Legislature of 1831- 1832)

James Hamilton, the governor of South Carolina, requested that Virginia governor John Floyd discuss the factors that led to the Nat Turner revolt in Southampton, Virginia in 1831, the most well known slave revolt in U.S. history. About sixty white people were killed. Governor Floyd's lengthy reply is in this letter. Floyd blamed the "spirit of insubordination" on the "Yankee population" in general and Yankee peddlers and traders in particular who shared Christianity with the slaves and taught them that all are born free and equal, and "that white people rebelled against England to obtain freedom, so have blacks a right to do." Floyd placed the blame for masterminding the plan on the church leaders, but he believed that all the discussions about freedom and equality led to the uprising. (Library of Congress, African American Odyssey, Slavery--The Peculiar Institution)

1831/09
At a dinner in Boston, Alexis de Tocqueville, a young French magistrate who would go back home to write his classic book "Democracy in America," was seated next to former President John Quincy Adams and asked the old man: "Do you look on slavery as a great plague for the United States?" "Yes, certainly," Adams answered. "That is the root of almost all the troubles of the present and the fears for the future." ("Black justice, white cynicism," Byline: Richard Reeves; Universal Press Syndicate in The Baltimore Sun, October 5, 1995)

1831/12/05
John Quincy Adams became a member of the First session of the twenty second Congress of the House of Representative from a district in Massachusetts.

Adams returns to Washington. "The issue of slavery was not, at this time, neatly defined and categorized in the minds of Louisa and John Quincy Adams, they did not abhor it with all their souls, as the abolitionists did. Nor were they ready to commit themselves without hesitation to its demise. "The Adams’s, as residents of Washington, saw slaves around them all the time. There were few free blacks, and it was common practice for householders to employ slaves as servants; a few lucky and hard-working slaves were even allowed to buy their own freedom in this manner. While the Adams’s never owned a slave, they frequently hired one or two from slaveholders, usually residents of Maryland or Virginia, as cooks or house servants. Such employment did not conflict, as we shall see with Louisa's or John Quincy’s position on slavery (337) Louisa, as a resident of Washington with relatives in Maryland, feared retribution of the slaves, and the surliness of the free blacks. Adams put the preservation of the union before slavery. (Shepherd, Jack; Cannibals of the Heart, 1980)

1831
At the start of each session of Congress, on Petition Days, the number of "prayers" to ban slavery in the nation's capital had been increasing since William Lloyd Garrison launched his abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, in 1831. That event coincided with the bloody Nat Turner slave rebellion in Virginia and the introduction of the steam printing press in New York City, where abolitionists began to print thousands of antislavery tracts and mail them South for distribution. Southern postmasters, prompted by pre-Ku Klux Klan vigilantes, began seizing and burning abolitionist material, and death threats were made against abolitionist visitors to the South. (Willard Sterne Randall, Newsday, January 28, 1996, p 33)

1831
In the United States, the notion that slavery was God's will gained momentum after the Nat Turner slave rebellion of 1831. In hundreds of pamphlets, written from 1836 to 1866, Southern slaveholders were provided a host of religious reasons to justify the social caste system they had created. In their quest to justify black slavery, Southerners looked to the story of Noah's curse over his son Ham. According to Genesis 9, Noah planted a vineyard, drank too much wine and lay naked in his tent. When he awoke, Noah learned that his son Ham had seen him naked - a shame in the ancient world. He cursed Ham and his son, Canaan, saying, "lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers," 9:25. Since Canaan and his descendants were said to settle Africa, some believed African-Americans therefore were destined to be slaves. According to Dale Martin, a professor of religion at Duke University. (Bible neither condemns nor condones slavery, News & Observer on the Web, Raleigh NC: August 9^th 1996))

1831
B & O Railroad between Georgetown and the Ellicott Mills running and generating modest income. (Walsh, Richard and Fox, William Lloyd. Maryland, A History 1632-1974. Maryland Historical Society)

1832
In January of 1832, while President Andrew Jackson was dining with friends at the White House, someone whispered to him that the Senate had rejected the nomination of Martin Van Buren as Minister to England. Jackson jumped to his feet and exclaimed, "By the Eternal! I'll smash them!" So he did. His favorite, Van Buren, became Vice President, and succeeded to the Presidency when "Old Hickory" retired to the Hermitage, where he died in June 1845. (Andrew Jackson White House Bio)

1832
In the wake of the Nat Turner’s insurrection in Virginia, Georgetown strengthened its black code punishing with particular severity any person of color possessing abolitionist literature. (Slavery and the Slave Trade in the District of Columbia, The Negro History Bulletin, Oct 1950, Springharm Library, Howard University Vertical File Washington, DC)

1832
Louisiana presents resolution requesting Federal Government to arrange with Mexico to permit runaway slaves from Louisiana to be claimed when found on foreign soil. (Underground Railroad Chronology, National Park Service)

1832
An act to abolish slavery was introduced into the Virginia legislature by Thomas Jefferson’s grandson and was defeated by only seven votes. ("Virginia," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation.)

1832/12
Jackson reelected will serve till Mar 1833 and Martin Van Buren , 1833-37.In 1832 the Anti-Masonic Party nominated a lawyer, William Wirt, as its candidate for the presidency, but he was defeated by Andrew Jackson, who supported Masonry. Ironically, Wirt himself was a Mason. After that date the Freemasons encountered little political opposition in the U.S. or elsewhere, until the rise to power of the National Socialists in Germany in 1933.

Opponents of Freemasonry, including sections of the press, churches, and antislavery elements, joined in the condemnation of the order. Thurlow Weed, publisher of the Rochester (New York) Telegraph and later of the Anti-Masonic Enquirer, led the press attack on Freemasonry and endorsed anti-Masonic candidates for New York State offices in the election of 1827. When 15 of these candidates were elected to the state Assembly, an Anti-Masonic Party was formed and in 1828 held its first state convention. National conventions were held in Philadelphia in 1830 and in Baltimore in 1831. At the latter, William Wirt, who had served as U.S. attorney general under Presidents James Monroe and John Quincy Adams, was nominated for president in opposition to Andrew Jackson, who supported Masonry. Wirt himself was a Freemason. The convention required a three-fourths majority to nominate, thereby setting a precedent for the two-thirds rule used by the Democrats in subsequent national conventions for more than 100 years. In the 1832 elections, however, the Anti-Masonic Party carried only the state of Vermont. It did win a considerable number of seats in the 23rd Congress (1833-35). The party survived until about 1834, when several prominent leaders founded the Whig Party or shifted to the Democratic Party. (Anti-Masonic Party," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. 1993-1997) (For antimasonic literature see John Quincy Adams, Letters On The Masonic Institution Originally Published: 1847 T. R. Marvin Boston, Massachusetts and in general http://www.crocker.com/~acacia/antim.html)

1833
The Anti-Slavery Convention of 1833 held. A list of officers of the new society was then chosen: Arthur Tappan, of New York, president, and Elizur Wright, Jr., William Lloyd Garrison, and A. L. Cox, secretaries. Among the vice-presidents was Dr. Lord, of Dartmouth College, then professedly in favor of emancipation, but who afterwards turned a moral somersault, a self-inversion which left him ever after on his head instead of his feet. He became a querulous advocate of slavery as a divine institution, and denounced woe upon the abolitionists for interfering with the will and purpose of the Creator. ( Published originally in John G. Whittier's "Prose Works," the following is an excerpt from Whittier's recollection of the founding convention of the American Anti-Slavery Society.John G. Whittier, "The Anti-Slavery Convention of 1833," 1874.)

1833
Monocracy Aqueduct built in 1833 as part of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C & O Canal) system, it carried canal boats above the Monocacy River. It is one of ten such structures that still stand along the 185-mile stretch of the canal that extends from Cumberland, MD to Washington, DC. The 430-foot long aqueduct is composed of seven arches, built with white stone from nearby Sugarloaf Mountain, and is considered one of the finest examples of early civil engineering. (Press release of Senator Mikulski June 15, 1998 naming Monocracy Aqueduct, one of "America's Most Endangered Historic Sites" by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Press release titled "Senator Mikulski Joins First Lady Hillary At Monocacy Aqueduct, Named One Of America's Most Endangered Historic Places")

In the days before the railroads, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was designed to bypass the rapids of the Potomac River and move goods cheaply and efficiently from the Chesapeake Bay to the Ohio River. According to one expert, the construction of the C&O Canal was "a typical American heroic enterprise."

Along the way, a series of challenges faced engineers, including how to carry barges across the 11 major intersecting tributaries that drain into the Potomac River. The solution was a system of aqueducts.

At Mile 42, workers constructed the largest -- the Monocacy Aqueduct. Essentially a 516-foot bridge over the river, the aqueduct carried the canal in a flume-like trough supported by seven graceful arches. Mules dragging the barges walked along a towpath by the canal. The Monocacy Aqueduct is now considered to be one of the finest canal structures in the United States.

Hundreds of manual laborers, many of them Irish and Welsh immigrants, hauled heavy stone blocks from nearby Sugar Loaf Mountain to build the aqueduct, which took five years to complete. During the Civil War, Confederate troops tried to dynamite it to stop the movement of Northern soldiers, but they were unable to penetrate the dense stone. (Talking It Over by Hillary Rodham Clinton, June 17, 1998 )

1833
Slavery abolished in Canada. See also the Upper Canada for 1791 and 1818.

1834/0129
Workers along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C & O Canal) stage a riot January 29. President Jackson orders Secretary of War Lewis Cass to send in the Army, using federal troops for the first time in a U.S. labor conflict. (The People's Chronology, 1994 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf.)

1834
Parliament orders abolition of slavery in the British colonies by August 1, 1834, in a bill passed August 23 after a long campaign by the humanitarian William Wilberforce who has died July 29 at age 73. Children under 6 are to be freed immediately, slaves over 6 given a period of apprenticeship that will be eliminated in 1837, slave-owners given a total of £120 million in compensation. (The People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf)

1834
U.S. Marshal for the District of Columbia petitioned the House Committee on the District of Columbia regarding a bill of $1,500 for housing runaway "Negroes" in the public jail 23A-G4.4. (National Archives, Guide to the Records of the United States House of Representatives Records Of The District Of Columbia Committee 10th-45th Congresses 1807-79)

The Senate also received petitions decrying the District's practice of arresting and then selling undocumented "persons of color" for jail fees (28A-G3). (National Archives, Guide to the Records of the United Senate. Records Of The Committee On The District Of Columbia 1816-1968 (512 ft.)

1835
"A Colonization minded parson investigating a slave depot in Washington in 1835 consciously recorded that the premises were as clean and orderly as those of the District's penitentiary, which he had visited a few days before, but "the situation of the convicts at the penitentiary was far less deplorable than that of these slaves. Confined for the crime of being descended from ancestors who were forcibly reduced to bondage." (J.C. Furnas, Goodbye to Uncle Tom, William Sloane Associates, NY, 1956 p69)

1835/08
Riots touched off by discovery of abolitionist literature among specimens of Dr. Reuben Crandall a botanist when an angry crowd of Navy Yard workers descend on the Washington County Jail where he was held. The mob was coursed out by a free Negro Beverly Snow who said some derogatory things about their wives. The crowd immediately surged towards Snow's tavern and, although they failed to lay their hands on Snow himself, they proceeded to wreck his establishment. Riots lasted for two days and three nights, smashing the windows of Negro churches and school, and homes. Drastic legislation would follow restricting the rights of free Negroes. (Dorothy Sproles Provine, The Free Negro In the District of Columbia 1800-1860, Thesis Louisiana State University Department of History, 1959, 1963)

In 1835 a slave reputedly attempted to murder Mrs. William Thornton, the widow of the architect of the Capitol, and passions were inflamed because it was thought that this abortive action was inspired by abolitionist sentiments. The resulting mob behavior was intended to intimidate free Negroes in the city. A Negro school and some tenements were destroyed, churches were attacked, and the furnishings were smashed in the fashionable Beverly Snow restaurant owned by a free Negro of that name. The School was set up by John f. Cook, a shoemaker in 1834.

The upheaval became known as the "Snow Riot" and was followed by restrictive legislation in 1836 designed to limit the right of the free Negroes to perform work other than "drive carts, drays, hackney carriages or wagons." There were no longer to operate restaurants, for example, a major outlet of work for the more enterprising blacks. The intent of the legislation was to reduce free Negroes to servile status. (G. Franklin Edwards and Michael R. Winston, Commentary: The Washington of Paul Jennings—White House Slave, Free Man, and Conspirator for Freedom. White House Historical Association. )

Snow Riot leads to formation of National Guard and Washington Light Infantry Company. By 1838, citizen patrols established. (Wilkelmus Bogart Bryan, A History of the National Capital from its Foundation through the Period of the Adoption of the Organic Act, (NY: Macmillan Co. 1916, II 147-148. Cited by Dolores T. Williams, Preliminary Checklist of Non-Official Imprints for the District of Columbia, 1836-37, with a Historical Introduction)

Between the 1820s and 1840s mob violence in the North and West came to be identified with lower class white attacks, fueled by racism and economic competition, on the increasingly visible urban black community. As blacks began organizing in earnest to claim their rights as Americans, white mob violence was used to restrict their ability to make political statements in the public sphere. Old traditions like Election Day and Pinkster celebrations were banned, black parades were frequent targets of mob attacks, and the representation of black culture in public was largely controlled by whites in blackface perpetuating the degrading stereotypes of the minstrel show. (James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton. _In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community and Protest Among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860_. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Reviewed for H-Shear by Mitch Kachun, in Slavery@Listserv.uh.edu., Thu, 21 May 1998)

This was a time when European immigrants were pouring into the North. Many of these people had faced discrimination and hardship in their native countries. But in America they found their rights expanding rapidly. They had entered a country in which they were part of a privileged category called "white." Classism and ethnic prejudices did exist among white Americans and had a tremendous impact on people's lives. But the bottom line was that for white people in America, no matter how poor or degraded they were, they knew there was a class of people below them. Poor whites were considered superior to blacks, and to Indians as well, simply by virtue of being white. Because of this, most identified with the rest of the white race and defended the institution of slavery. Working class whites did this even though slavery did not benefit them directly and was in many ways against their best interests. (Public Broadcasting Service Resource Bank. Race-based legislation in the North 1807 – 1850)

1835
-- represented a "crest of rioting in the United States." Anti-abolitionist riots in the North erupted. The abolitionist mail campaign triggered riots in Charleston and other Southern towns. The work of vigilantes in Mississippi responding to the Murrell slave-stealing conspiracy and the Vicksburg gamblers, this, "inaugurated" America's most mob-filled year. The example for this mayhem, was set by the "slave-driving aristocrat" in the White House. Andrew Jackson's treatment of African and Native Americans, his war against the Bank, his contempt for the traditional political establishment, and his lack of respect for the law--all set a violent example for other Americans to follow, and they did so by going to the streets. Jackson, "was in public life a general, a man trained to act in terms of friends and foes, victories and defeats, rather than in terms of political and diplomatic courtesy and compromise." Jackson was a "bravely determined man certainly, but one who paid little heed to process or legality if they stood in the way of what he thought desirable" (p. 5). Thus Jackson and his movement was the wellspring of violence. (H-NET BOOK REVIEW Published by H-CivWar@h-net.msu.edu (February 1999) David Grimsted. _American Mobbing, 1828-1861: Toward the Civil War_. New York and Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1998. xviii + 372 pp. Notes and index. $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-19-511707-7. Reviewed for H-CivWar by James M. Denham <jdenham@flsouthern.edu>, Department of History, Florida Southern College)

Amos Kendall, Postmaster General under Andrew Jackson, bans abolitionist literature from use of the mail service. "It is universally conceded, that our States are united only for certain purposes. There are interests, in relation to which they are believed to be as independent of each other as they were before the constitution was formed. The interest which the people of some of the States have in slaves, is one of them. No State obtained by the union any right whatsoever over slavery in any other State, nor did any State lose any of its power over it, within its own borders. On this subject, therefore, if this view be correct, the States are still independent, and may fence round and protect their interest in slaves, by such laws and regulations as in their sovereign will they may deem expedient." (Postmaster General Amos Kendall's Report on the delivery of Abolition Materials in the Southern States Report of the Postmaster General, House Documents, 24th Congress, First Session (1835), Appendix, 9. Located by Jenny Adamson and transcribed by Carolyn Sims, Department of History, Furman University)

Between 1820 and 1850, Northern blacks also became the frequent targets of mob violence. Whites looted, tore down, and burned black homes, churches, schools, and meeting halls. They stoned, beat, and sometimes murdered blacks. Philadelphia was the site of the worst and most frequent mob violence. City officials there generally refused to protect African Americans from white mobs and blamed blacks for inciting the violence with their "uppity" behavior. (Public Broadcasting Service Resource Bank. Race-based legislation in the North 1807 – 1850)

1835/12/16
Congressman John Fairfield of York County, Maine, stood up on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and presented a petition signed by 172 women calling for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. (Willard Sterne Randall, Newsday, January 28, 1996, p 33)

1835/12/28
Seminoles and their African Americans massacre a 103-man U.S. Army force under Major Francis L. Dade in Florida. (The People's Chronology, 1994 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf.)

An examination of Alexis de Tocqueville's thesis on the march of Russia and the United States to manifest destiny in the first half of the 19th century. Assesses first the impact of the age of democratic revolution, comparing the false images of President Andrew Jackson and Czar Nicholas I. Goes on to discuss abolitionism (of Negro slavery and serfdom) and expansionism (the Monroe Doctrine and Russophobia in Eastern Europe and Central Asia). Urbanization and the industrial revolution in the United States, and the growth of cultural maturity in Russia, were significant developments which limit the extent to which one can compare the experiences of these two emergent nations. Based on the author's forthcoming book, The Emergence of the Super-Powers; illus. (Dukes, Paul. Two Great Nations, 1815-50. Journal citation: History Today [Great Britain] 1970 20(2): 94-106.)

1836/10/29
[In Washington, DC], To prove they were free, blacks had to carry identity papers. Free blacks needed permission to have a meeting or party in their house. They could not go on the streets after 10 p.m. without a pass. In 1836, the city, by denying licenses to blacks, tried to run them out of most businesses. (Bob Arnebeck A Shameful Heritage, Washington Post Magazine January 18, 1889, also see Washington Ordinances of October 29, 1836 and November 9, 1836)

1836
In Virginia, a slave manumitted after 1836 had to obtain the permission of county court to remain legally in the state for more than a year after his manumission. Until the mid-1850's, the Fairfax court routinely permitted reputable, newly emancipated slaves to remain in the county. But in 1855 when Lewis Casey, a "free man of color' who had been recently manumitted by will and was known to be "honest, sober and industrious," petitioned the court for permission to remain, the justices refused. It was, they declared, "impolitic to encourage any larger increase in this class of our population." By the 1850s, the Virginia legislature, angered by Northern demands for the immediate abolition of slavery, was prepared to make the black code even harsher. One or two Virginia governors advocated that all free blacks be forcibly expelled from the state. Though the Assembly refused to accede to the governors' requests, it provided for the voluntary enslavement of free blacks, made it illegal for free blacks to purchase slaves, authorized the sale into slavery of free blacks convicted of certain crimes, and enacted legislation which made the escape of slaves more difficult. (Fairfax County, Virginia a History. Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Fairfax, Virginia, 1978 p 273)

1836/01
In an effort to suppress the still feeble antislavery forces, Southern Congressmen proposed what was, in effect, an intellectual blockade. They urged federal authorities to allow states to censor literature that they deemed "incendiary," including not only abolitionist broadsides but also a wide range of general magazines, Northern newspapers and religious journals that only occasionally mentioned slavery. Postmasters were encouraged to monitor citizens' mail and remove anything that they deemed related to abolitionism. All petitions to Congress on the subject of slavery were to be automatically tabled, without being printed or referred to in any way. (Bordewich, Fergus M., Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress; book review of book by William Lee Miller, Smithsonian December, 1996)

"When Adams idly presented his colleagues with another anti-slavery petition, a Georgian congressman rose to move that the list of signatures not be accepted. Some months later the notorious "gag rule" was put into effect, forbidding the further admission of such petitions to Congress. It would prove one of the more maladroit instances of Southern intransigence.

"Where Adams had hitherto been a mild thorn in the side of the slave forces, he now became "old Man Eloquent," challenging the gag rule and slavery with a fanatical devotion that knew no pause. Moreover, the spectacle of a former president standing alone, unswayable and unyielding was not without its political psychodrama. Men who had no fixed opinion on slavery could not help but be moved by the struggle of wills between one old man and the whole Southern delegation. (Tom Dowling, Washington Star, Great Drama in Saving the Nation, October 6, 1976)

More shocking still, a gag rule imposed by Southerners and their Northern Democrat allies forbade members to discuss the subject of slavery upon the floor of Congress, under threat of censure. Not only was the enslaved black person denied every freedom but now the white person was even to be denied the freedom to talk about it. The hero of Miller's story is John Quincy Adams, the only former President in American history to later be elected to Congress, where he served with distinction for 17 years. Steeped from childhood in the hardheaded New England idealism of the Revolutionary era, Adams not only deplored slavery in principle, as many of his contemporaries did, but went far beyond most of them in condemning racial prejudice, which, as he put it, "taints the very sources of moral principle" by establishing "false estimates of virtue and vice." (Bordewich, Fergus M., Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress; book review of book by William Lee Miller, Smithsonian, December, 1996)

Beginning in 1836, and for nearly a decade, Adams relentlessly fought the gag rule, struggling to make white citizens see that the South's determination to protect slavery at all costs represented an assault upon their own treasured rights. It was a lonely and humiliating battle, almost without allies. Although a vigorous septuagenarian, Adams was openly scorned as a dotard by his enemies. He was at least twice threatened with assassination. At one point, the ex-President was nearly censured for daring to attempt to submit what his colleagues believed was a petition from a group of Maryland slaves. "Had anyone, before today, ever dreamed that the appellation of the people' embraced slaves?" demanded Aaron Vanderpoel, an influential New York Democrat and frequent apologist for slavery. (Bordewich, Fergus M., Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress; book review of book by William Lee Miller, Smithsonian December, 1996)

"All petitions, memorials, resolutions, propositions or papers relating in any way or to any extent whatsoever to the subject of slavery shall, without either being printed or referred, be laid on the table and that no further action whatever shall be had thereon."

1836/05/26
Congress passes a resolution, stating that it has no authority over state slavery laws. (The People's Chronology, 1994 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf.)

1836
Anti-Masonic leaders joined the new Whig Party. (Vermont," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. 1993-1997)

1836
Death of the National Bank Jackson interpreted his election as a popular mandate to proceed against the Bank of the US and started removing Federal funds, depositing them in select state banks beginning in October, using 23 state banks, called "pet banks," by the end of 1833. Jackson justified his actions in his annual message to Congress, claimed complete responsibility for removing the deposits on the grounds that the bank had tried to influence elections.

Henry Clay introduced two resolutions in the Senate which censured the actions of the Treasury and of Jackson over this issue, both of which were adopted. Jackson supporters in the House passed 4 resolutions in support of his Bank policy. Jackson's conciliatory actions toward the Senate were rejected, as well as Taney , his nomination for the Treasury. Senator Benson successfully expunged the censure from the Senate record (January 1837)

The Bank died and was rechartered as the Bank of the US of Philadelphia. g. Deposit Act required the Secretary of the Treasury to designate at least one bank in each state and territory as the place of public deposit (1) The banks were assigned the general services previously given to the national government by the Bank of the US. (2) It also required that surplus revenue in excess of $5 million be distributed among the states as a loan subject to recall although it was never recalled.

Specie Circular July 1836. The use of paper currency was expanded by Biddle's banking policies, causing inflation and land speculation to increase. (1) In 1823 the average Bank notes issued was $4.5 million but by 1831 it increased to $19 million (2) The bank also made credit and currency more abundant in the West and South, causing land sales to skyrocket ($2,623,000 in 1832 to $24,877,000 in 1836). Jackson ordered the issuance of the Specie Circular which provided that after 15 August 1836, only gold, silver or Virginia land scrip would be accepted by the government in payment for public lands, although paper money was permitted until 15 December for parcels of land up to 320 acres purchased by actual settlers or bona fide residents of the state in which the save was made.

The purpose -- to repress "alleged frauds" from "the monopoly of the public lands in the hands of speculators and capitalists" and the "ruinous extension" of bank notes and credit d. Although public-land sales were reduced in the West, the circular taxed the inadequate resources of the state "pet" banks, drained specie from the East, led to hoarding, and weakened public confidence in the state banks. After Jackson defended the circular in his annual message in December 1836, and recommended that land sales be limited to actual settlers, Congress passed a measure that rescinded the Specie Circular, but it was pocket-vetoed by Jackson. The Specie Circular was not repealed until a joint resolution in May 1838. (Growth Of The Nation 1800 – 40 Jefferson's Administrations Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, TX )

1836
President Jackson issues his Specie Circular. The circular lays down that future purchases of government land must be paid in gold or silver, or their strict equivalent, rather than in local notes or promises to pay. This has the effect of swelling the US government's coffers with specie. p 479 (A Comparative Chronology of Money from Ancient Times to the Present Day, 1830 – 1849, Based on the book: A History of Money from Ancient Times to the Present Day by Glyn Davies, rev. ed. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996. 716p. ISBN 0 7083 1351 5.)

1837
Congress enacts a gag law to suppress debate on the slavery issue. (The People's Chronology, 1994 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf.)

1837
Country suffers severe depression. (Stefan Lorant, The Presidency, NY Macmillan, 1951, page 148-150. Cited by Cited by Dolores T. Williams, Preliminary Checklist of Non-Official Imprints for the District of Columbia, 1836-37, with a Historical Introduction)

1837
Panic of 1837. The reckless land speculation and the specie circular resulted in a serious downturn in the US economy which worsened as Van Buren took office. The price of cotton fell by one-half in New Orleans. New York's unemployed demonstrated against high rents and inflated food and fuel prices and one mob broke into food warehouses and sacked their supplies. Several banks, beginning in New York, suspended specie payments. Public land sales fell from 20 million acres (1836) to 3 1/2 million acres (1838). The effects of the panic persisted until 1842-43 particularly in the South and West. (Growth Of The Nation 1800 – 40 Jefferson's Administrations Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, TX)

The uncontrolled, chaotic expansion of banking in the US is slowed, then partly reversed by a financial crisis in which every bank is forced to suspend specie payment of notes. The crisis leads to a depression in the economy which lasts until 1843.( p 480,483-484. A Comparative Chronology of Money from Ancient Times to the Present Day, 1830 – 1849, Based on the book: A History of Money from Ancient Times to the Present Day by Glyn Davies, rev. ed. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996. 716p. ISBN 0 7083 1351 5. )

1837-41
Martin Van Buren becomes President as Democrat. VP is Richard M. Johnson

1837/03/04
Martin Van Buren presidential Inaugural Address deals with Slavery in the District of Columbia, "Fellow-Citizens: I then declared that if the desire of those of my countrymen who were favorable to my election was gratified. I must go into the Presidential chair the inflexible and uncompromising opponent of every attempt on the part of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia against the wishes of the slaveholding States, and also with a determination equally decided to resist the slightest interference with it in the States where it exists. I submitted also to my fellow-citizens, with fullness and frankness, the reasons which led me to this determination."

Two weeks after Van Buren`s inauguration a financial panic struck the New York commercial and financial community. Years earlier, Jackson decentralized the national bank, which allowed many state and local banks to engage in land and profit speculation. This speculation continued throughout Jackson`s final four years in office and into Van Buren`s administration. However, in 1837, the wild speculation ended, and a panic concerning the stability of the financial markets, the banks, and even in the government, spread across the nation. These fears caused a wide spread recession, ultimately ending in a depression, to engulf the nation. (The Depression of 1837; Economic Issues ))

1837
Victorian Style, trends in British architecture and furniture in the Victorian era (1837-1901). An especially widespread tendency, called Eclectic Revivalism, was to adapt earlier styles to industrial-age needs... (Encarta 98 Desk Encyclopedia Microsoft Corporation.)

1838
The "underground railway" organized by U.S. abolitionists transports southern slaves to freedom in Canada, but slaving interests at Philadelphia work on the fears of Irish immigrants and other working people who worry that freed slaves may take their jobs. A Philadelphia mob burns down Pennsylvania Hall May 17 in an effort to thwart antislavery meetings. (The People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf.)

A book, co-authored by a professor at Howard University, pieces together a story of how quilts made by slaves before and during the Civil War were stitched with patterns that formed a secret code, part of a network of communication that helped slaves escape to freedom.

Existence of such coded quilts had long been suspected among those familiar with African-American quilting traditions, according to Raymond Dobard, professor of art history at Howard and co-author of "Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad" (Doubleday; 272 pages; $27.50). But the new book by Dobard and University of Denver professor Jacqueline Tobin adds a scholarly dimension to what had been largely a story preserved in oral tradition, passed down from generation to generation. The research effort began when Tobin learned of the story from Ozella McDaniel Williams, an African-American quilter from South Carolina. The code Williams described had three main components: a series of 10 symbols that told slaves where and when escapes were planned, what routes to take and instructions about how to survive in the wilderness; an enigmatic story passed down by oral tradition that explained what the symbols meant; and spirituals whose titles and lyrics have long been recognized as covert traveling instructions ("Wade in the Water," "Steal Away"). (Fern Robinson "Underground Railroad Signals" Washington Post. Thursday, February 18, 1999; Page T04)
(Conducting Underground Railroad Research? See http://www.ugrr.org/research.htm & http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/exugrr/exuggr5.htm which has an excellent bibliography on slavery. see also underground railroad bibliography at http://education.ucdavis.edu/NEW/STC/lesson/socstud/railroad/Books.htm)

1838
Presbyterians divide over slavery. (Slavery and Religion in America: A timeline 1440-1866. By the Internet Public Library

1838
Frederick Douglas escaped from slavery in Baltimore, Sept. 3. (Major Revolts and Escapes, Lerone Bennett, Before the Mayflower)

1839
The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal started in 1828 reaches 134 miles west of Georgetown but runs into financial difficulties (see 1850). (The People's Chronology, 1994 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf.)

1839-42
William Grason Governor of Md. (MD info from Maryland A Chronology & Documentary Handbook, 1978 Oceana Publications, Inc.)

1840
Roughly a 30 per cent of the inhabitants of the District of Columbia were Negroes. (Letitia W Brown, Residence Patterns of Negroes in the District of Columbia, 1800-1860, Records of the Columbia Historical Society of Washington DC, 1969-70, p68)

1840

The World’s Anti-Slavery Convention opens at London, but Boston abolitionist William Garrison refuses to attend, protesting the exclusion of women (see 1831). The U.S. antislavery movement has split into two factions in the past year largely because of Garrison’s advocacy of women’s rights, including their right to participate in the antislavery movement (see first Women’s Rights Convention, 1848). (The People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf.)

.At the World's Anti-slavery Convention, African American Charles Remond refused to be seated when he learned that women were being segregated in the gallery (Denise Pazur, The Plain Dealer, Jan 31, 1993, page 8)

1840
United States Census pages for President Van Buran and Congressperson John Q. Adams missing (DC Census 1840 Roll 35 page 5 microprint 0006)

1841
A court at Washington, D.C., rules March 9 that Cinque and his fellow mutineers aboard the Spanish slave ship Amistad last year are not guilty and orders their release. Madrid protests. (The People's Chronology, 1994 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf.)

The 1839 case involved about 50 Africans who, against international law, had been captured and shipped to Havana, Cuba, where they seized the schooner Amistad, which was taking them to a plantation. Two crewmen were killed in the fight, and the rest of the crew were put ashore. Then the Africans ordered the owners to sail the ship back to Africa. However, the Amistad was seized by a U.S. brig off the Atlantic coast, and the Africans were imprisoned in Connecticut. The Connecticut court referred the case to the Supreme Court of the United States.

The Supreme Court heard arguments in 1841. Adams argued that the United States should treat as free any persons escaping from illegal bondage. He denounced the administration of President Martin Van Buren for favoring the return of the captives to the Spanish planters who claimed ownership of them. The court decided for the Africans and, with money raised by abolitionists, 32 of them were returned to their homeland of Sierra Leone. The others had died at sea or while awaiting trial. ("Adams, John Quincy," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation.)

1841
The Second Bank of the United States crashes. By this time it is simply a private bank and no longer a national institution. When it ran into difficulties during the 1837 crisis it was still the largest bank in the world, but it finally crashes in 1841. p 484 (A Comparative Chronology of Money from Ancient Times to the Present Day, 1830 – 1849, Based on the book: A History of Money from Ancient Times to the Present Day by Glyn Davies, rev. ed. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996. 716p. ISBN 0 7083 1351 5.)

William H. Harrison, Whig becomes President. VP John Tyler

Journal Article traces the controversy stemming from the reply of Julia Gardiner Tyler, wife of former President John Tyler, to the 1852 address of an English duchess which called on American women to support gradual abolition, immediate ending of the breakup of slave families, and improvement of slave education. Mrs. Tyler claimed that British social conditions were worse than those of American slaves, and attacked the British "Affectionate and Christian Address . . . " mainly as unwarranted interference in US domestic affairs. She defended southern womanhood and questioned the motivation of British appealers. 63 notes. (Pugh, Evelyn L., Women And Slavery: Julia Gardiner Tyler And The Duchess Of Sutherland. Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 1980 88 (2): 186-202.)

1841
Slave revolt on slave trader 'Creole' which was en route from Hampton, Va., to New Orleans, La., Nov 7. Slaves overpowered crew and sailed vessel to Bahamas where they were granted asylum and freedom. (Major Revolts and Escapes, Lerone Bennett, Before the Mayflower,)

Maryland passed a law requiring a penalty of ten to twenty years imprisonment for any free black having any materials relating to abolition in his possession. In 1858, Samuel Green, a minister from Dorchester County, was sentenced to a ten year prison term for possessing a copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Green was also suspected of having actively participated in the Underground Railroad. (Roland C. McConnell, Editor, Three Hundred and Fifty years: A Chronology of the Afro-American in Maryland, 1634-1984, 1985)

1842/03/01
Supreme Court rules in Prigg v. Pennsylvania that state officials are not required to assist in the return of fugitive slaves. (Underground Railroad Chronology, National Park Service))

The owner of a fugitive slave may recover him under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, the Supreme Court rules March 1 in Prigg v. Pennsylvania. The court overturns an 1826 Pennsylvania law that made kidnapping a slave a felony, saying an owner cannot be stopped from recovering a slave, but it says also that state authorities are under no obligation to help the slaveowner. (The People's Chronology, 1994 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf.)

In 1848, William Craft (d. 1900) and Ellen Craft (d. 1890), slaves on a Georgia plantation, escaped to Philadelphia and later moved to Boston where they remained until Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Their owners then demanded extradition of the Crafts to Georgia. Despite aid from antislavery groups, extradition appeared inevitable, forcing the Crafts to flee to Great Britain where they remained until the American Civil War ended. In England, the Crafts played prominent roles in helping British abolitionist groups oppose slavery. Based on archival, newspaper, and secondary sources; 54 notes. (Blackett, R. J. M. Title: Fugitive Slaves In Britian: The Odyssey Of William And Ellen Craft . Journal of American Studies [Great Britain] 1978 12(1): 41-62. Also see the National Park Service Biographies of the Crafts Taken from: The African Meeting House in Boston: A Sourcebook, by William S. Parsons & Margaret A. Drew)

1842/09/21
The Council of the District of Columbia passed an Act to created an auxiliary night police to patrol the streets of the city and in part to enforce the 10pm "colored curfew." At 10: PM, all "colored" people out without a pass were liable to arrest, fine and flogging. The floggings were administered sometimes at the guard post and sometimes at the whipping-post of the jail, on the northeast corner of Judiciary Square. "In place of the baton, each officer carried a stick surmounted by an iron spear-head, intended originally to pry open doors in case of fire or when in pursuit of thieves...some of the officers became so proficient as to make it a formidable weapon either when used as a club or thrown as a javelin." (Richard Sylvester, District of Columbia Police, Policemen's Fund, Washington, DC 1894 page 29)

1843 Africa
-- November 29 to December 16. Four United States vessels demonstrated and landed various parties (one of 200 marines and sailors) to discourage piracy and the slave trade along the Ivory coast, and to punish attacks by the natives on American seamen and shipping. (Instances of Use of United States Forces Abroad, 1798 – 1993 by Ellen C. Collier, Specialist in U.S. Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division Washington DC: Congressional Research Service -- Library of Congress -- October 7, 1993 )

1844/01/10
The law that now exists in the District of Columbia, relative to fugitive slaves, compels a Negro under arrest to prove that he was born free. (The Sun (Baltimore) Jan 9-15, 1844, reprinted January 9^th 1994)

1844
Mexico-. President Tyler deployed U.S. forces to protect Texas against Mexico, pending Senate approval of a treaty of annexation. (Later rejected.) He defended his action against a Senate resolution of inquiry. (Instances of Use of United States Forces Abroad, 1798 -1993 by Ellen C. Collier, Specialist in U.S. Foreign Policy, Congressional Research Service -Oct 7, 1993,)

The questions of slavery in the territories and slavery in the Mexican province of Texas divided the nation. Before 1836, the Mexican border with the United States was Louisiana, Arkansas territory, and the Indian lands of Oklahoma. As one of Spain's New World colonies, slavery was legally protected in Mexico. Still, there was little slavery in the underpopulated province of Texas until, at almost the same time that Mexicans rose in revolt against Spanish domination (1819), American slaveholders moved into Texas and began to carve out plantations with slave labor. The newly-independent Mexicans wanted Texas to be settled, but they did not want American slavery to be a permanent part of their new nation. The Mexican legislature agreed in 1827 that, after the adoption of its constitution, no one would be born a slave on Mexican soil. American efforts to get around this by registering their slaves as indentured servants ultimately failed. This tension over slavery was a primary cause for American Texans to seek independence from Mexico and to establish the Republic of Texas (1836-1848).⁵⁰ (See Randolph Campbell, An Empire for Slavery: The Peculiar Institution in Texas, 1821-1865 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989 cited in The Underground Railroad In American History, The National Park Service)

1844/12/03
The gag rule was revoked when Northern Democrats, breaking ranks with their Southern counterparts, voted against the rule. The gag rule was overturned, after an alliance of Northern and Southern Democrats at last began to fissure. But it would take a civil war before the questions raised by Adams were finally answered. Yet, in those debates of the 1830s, tectonic plates had shifted. Adams had shaken the "immense, rooted institution" of slavery as no one had before. The effort to silence Adams and his handful of allies had only intensified popular concern over the moral and political cost of protecting slavery. . (Bordewich, Fergus M., Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress; book review of book by William Lee Miller, Smithsonian December, 1996)

1844
Morse invented the telegraph (Selected Review Of Important Media Related Historical Events And Facts. Oklahoma Baptist University)

Daniel Reaves Goodloe of Louisburg began his career as an anti-slavery journalist in Washington, D.C. (Some Notable Events and Persons, in the First 200 Years of Franklin County's North Carolina History, Compiled by Dr. George-Anne Willard, )

1845-49
James Knox Polk, Democrat becomes President. VP George M. Dallas.

In a cost cutting measure Sarah Polk wife of the President replaced White House servants with slaves and rearranged the White House Basement into slave quarters. (William Seale, "The President's House: a History," White House Historical Association with the Cooperation of the National Geographic Society and Harry N Abrams, 1986, vol. 1, pages 256 see Commissioner's letters sent, May-Oct 184, passim: see also Polk's financial records in Polk papers LC not draft of July 20, 1846, to for January 9, 1847, Feb 2, 1847 and Jan 1, N.D. for purchase of slaves.)

Her primary economic measure had been tried by previous southern Presidents, a substantial reduction of the numbers in the salaried staff and their replacement with slaves. About ten hired servants were let go, and their positions were taken by a combination of slaves from the Polk's home place in Tennessee and several more slaves purchased from relatives and friends during the first three years of Polk's Presidency. (The President's House: a History by William Seale, White House Historical Association with the Cooperation of the National Geographic Society and Harry N Abrams, 1986, vol. 1, page 257)

1845
The Methodist Episcopal Church in America splits into northern and southern conferences after Georgia bishop James O. Andrews resists an order that he give up his slaves or quit his bishopric. (The People's Chronology, 1994 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf.)

"It is well known that the rift came over Georgia Bishop James O. Andrew's acquisition of slaves. Ironically, Andrew was chosen bishop by the General Conference of 1832, because he owned no bondsmen (although servants belonging to others were provided for his use). In an age when a woman's property routinely passed at marriage to her husband, Owen became a slaveholder when he remarried, following the death of his first wife. The bishop thought that he could avoid controversy by deeding his human property back to his spouse, but northern delegates to the 1844 General Conference demanded his resignation. A peacemaker, Andrew would have given up his post, except for the southern delegation's strong urging that he stand firm. The southerners feared that they would lose influence at home, if they gave into northern "ultraism."

In the end Methodists, North and South, agreed to an amicable divorce, with a prorated division of church assets. Both sides displayed a measure of moderation, with the Georgia Methodists supporting the legalization of slave marriages and keeping antislavery references in their _Discipline_ until 1857, and the northern Methodist Episcopal Church waiting almost to the end of the Civil War before barring slaveholders from membership. (Christopher H. Owen. _The Sacred Flame of Love: Methodism and Society in Nineteenth-Century Georgia. Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 1998. xx + 290 pp. Notes, bibliography, and index. $50.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-8203-1963-5. Reviewed for H-AmRel by Thomas A. Scott <tscott@ksumail.kennesaw.edu>, Department of History and Philosophy, Kennesaw State University, Georgia)

In the 1840's pastors and congregations of the Methodist church were expressing their views on slavery in no uncertain terms. In Alexandria Virginia, the Methodists presented a house dived unto itself. Trading in slaves must have been considerable as the slave pen, located at 1318 Duke Street, was known as "The Norman". The tense feeling of the day was reflected in the views of two outstanding pastors: Norval Wilson, a man of strong Southern views who preached at the Alexandria Station in 1850 and Alfred Griffith pastor in this city in 1843 and 1844, whose deep anti-slavery views crystallized the break that came in the General Conference in 1844. The General Conference of 1844 agreed upon a Plan of Separation. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, became a distinct organization. The split in Alexandria Virginia was finalized in 1849 when the Virginia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, with The Reverend J. H. Davis presiding met. The new congregation had made arrangements with Benjamin Hollowell, Quaker schoolmaster and president of the Lyceum organization to use that building which then was comparatively new, being only fourteen years old. (Washington Street United Methodist Church, Alexandria, Virginia, Reflections 1849-1989. Researcher and Editor Kathryn Pierpoint Hedman, 1989)

In 1843, 1,200 Methodist ministers owned 1,500 slaves, and 25,000 members owned 208,000 slaves, the Methodist Church as a whole remained silent and neutral on the issue of slavery. (Growth Of The Nation, 1800 – 40 Jefferson's Administrations Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, TX))

1845
Samuel Morse hired Andrew Jackson's former postmaster general, Amos Kendall, as his agent in locating potential buyers of the telegraph. Kendall realized the value of the device, and had little trouble convincing others of its potential for profit. By the spring he had attracted a small group of investors. They subscribed $15,000 and formed the Magnetic Telegraph Company. Many new telegraph companies were formed as Morse sold licenses wherever he could. (Smithsonian Institution, Resources for the history of invention Collections on Invention and Innovation in the NMAH, Archives Center. Register of the Western Union Telegraph Company Collection 1848-1963 by Robert S. Harding Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution )

Amos Kendall’s Expositor, was published in Washington DC, One issue of June 16, 1841 was sold at auction, described as "A lively political sheet produced by Amos Kendall, a self-appointed watchdog for the new Whig administration of Harrison and Tyler. Interesting opinions on the functioning of the government and special interests lobbyists show that very little has really changed! (Old World Auctions. Antique Newspapers )

Kendall would also edit along with other the Globe according to auction. [Harrison, William Henry}. Extra Globe, Containing Official Discussions, Documentary Props, Etc., [Washington, D. C.]. Vol. 6 # 1-27. May 16, 1840 - Jan. 29, 1841. Contemporary half morocco. First edition. A Jacksonian periodical which covers the entire election season ( May - Oct) 1840. Much on abolition, J. C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, presidential election returns, Amos Kendall, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, Daniel Webster, etc. Each number contains valuable material. Very scarce. Edited by Blair, Rives, and Kendall. 450.00 (Michael Ginsberg Books, Sharon, MA.)

1846
The slow economic development of the city of Washington in the early years, coupled by the political disincentives of having no vote for representation in the Congress or the presidential election, spurred discussion of retrocession among the residents almost immediately. In 1846, the residents of Alexandria City successfully won their fight for retrocession into Virginia, thus leaving the District its current size. Residents in the Virginia portion also feared the impending abolition of the slave trade in the federal city as Alexandria was a slave port (Harris, Congress and the Governance of the Nation's Capital: The Conflict of Federal and Local Interests, p. 4). (District of Columbia Home Rule Charter Review in collaboration with the Federal City Council )

Alexandria given back to Virginia. DC had been called "the very seat and center of the slave trade." (John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr. From Slavery to Freedom, 1947, 1997 pages 114-115 in LC reference.) See also William T. Laprade, "The Domestic Slave-Trade in the District of Columbia," Journal of Negro History, XI (January, 1926 pp 17-34)

Smithsonian Institution research institution founded by the bequest of the English scientist James Smithson. Although it was held by John C. Calhoun and other members of Congress that the federal government had no power to accept such a gift, it was finally secured, largely through the efforts of John Quincy Adams, and in 1846 the institution was established by congressional act at Washington, D.C. (Encyclopedia Britannica On-Line)

The Cornerstone of the Smithsonian Institution was laid in 1847 by the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons, Benjamin B. French in the presence of President James K Polk. (Ray Baker Harris, The Laying of cornerstones, Supreme Council 33°, Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite, Washington DC, 1961)

Scholars generally agree that the Industrial Revolution occurred in the United States beginning at about the middle of the 19th century.

1845
Irish immigration increases due to the potato famine.

1846/04/24 – 1848/05/30
War against Mexico adds territory to the United States (Dates given by US Navy & Marine Casualty WEB page )

On May 13,1846, the United States recognized the existence of a state of war with Mexico. After the annexation of Texas in 1845, the United States and Mexico failed to resolve a boundary dispute and President Polk said that it was necessary to deploy forces in Mexico to meet a threatened invasion. (Instances of Use of United States Forces Abroad, 1798 -1993 by Ellen C. Collier, Specialist in U.S. Foreign Policy, Congressional Research Service -Oct 7, 1993)

1847

Escaped slave Frederick Douglas, 30, begins publication at Rochester, N.Y., of an abolitionist newspaper, the North Star. The Massachusetts Antislavery Society published Douglas's’ autobiography 2 years ago and he has earned enough from lecture fees in Britain, Ireland, and the United States to buy his freedom. (The People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf.)

About 1000 slaves per year escaped to the North during the pre-Civil War decades, most from the upper South. This represented only a small percentage of those who attempted to escape, however, since for every slave who made it to freedom, several more tried. Other fugitives remained within the South, heading for cities or swamps, or hiding out near their plantations for days or weeks before either returning voluntarily or being tracked down and captured. ("Slavery in the United States," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation.)

1847
Steam powers a U.S. cotton mill for the first time at Salem, Mass., where the Maumkoag Steam Cotton Mill begins production. (The People's Chronology 1995, 1996 by James Trager from MS Bookshelf.)

1847/07/26
Liberia declares independence from American Colonization Society. (D.T.'s Chronology of History 1840-1849! )

1847-48
The Virginia Legislature has enacted (Sess. Acts 1847-8, ch. 10, § 24,) that "any free person who, by speaking or writing, shall maintain that owners have not right of property in their slaves, shall be punishable by confinement in the jail, not more than twelve months, and by fine not exceeding five hundred dollars." (Bacon v. The Commonwealth. Supreme Court Of Virginia, 48 Va. 602; 1850 Va. Lexis 43; 7 Gratt. 602, June Term, 1850)

1848
Gold Rush in California. The discovery of gold in California leads in the following decade to a massive increase in the production of gold coins by the mint with the result that in practice the US moves away from bimetallism towards a gold standard. p 481 (A Comparative Chronology of Money from Ancient Times to the Present Day, 1830 – 1849, Based on the book: A History of Money from Ancient Times to the Present Day by Glyn Davies, rev. ed. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996. 716p. ISBN 0 7083 1351 5. ))

1848
Work begun on the Washington Monument, DC Obelisk honoring the first U.S. president. (The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1996 from MS Bookshelf)

1848/03/10
Mexican War ends, expanding U.S. slave territory into Texas.

1848/04/15
Daniel Drayton attempted to smuggle 76 slaves on the ship Pearl out of Washington to Freedom in the North. The slaves belonged to "41 of the most prominent families in Washington and Georgetown and were valued at $100,000." The Pearl got as far as Chesapeake but ran into headwinds. "A steamer was chartered by owners and friends armed to the teeth with guns pistols and bowie knives for the pursuit. The steamer took Drayton's vessel into tow, and brought them back to Washington. A mob had assembled on 4^th street and rushed the group when they reached Pennsylvania avenue shouting Lynch them, Lynch them. (George Rothwell Brown, Capital Silhouettes, Washington Post March 10, 1924)

According to Josephine Pacheco, professor emeritus of history at George Mason University, former first lady Dolley Madison owned one slave heading for the Pearl. Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison claimed that another worked in President James K. Polks's White House. (Mary Kay Ricks, Escape on the Pearl,, Washington Post, Horizon August 12, 1998.)

"The public was infuriated and tended to blame Dr. Gamaliel Bailey, the editor of the antislavery newspaper, the National Era, for conceiving and planning the whole affair. A crowd formed before the office of Bailey's newspaper and pelted the building with stones until they were dispersed by the police (National Era, April 27, 1848; The Liberator, April 28 1848 cited in Dorothy Sproles Provine, The Free Negro In the District of Columbia 1800-1860, Thesis Louisiana State University Department of History, 1959, 1963)

Drayton, Daniel. Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton, (For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake In Washington Jail, Negro Universities Press, 1969 122pp) including a narrative of the voyage and capture of the schooner Pearl. First published in 1855 by Bela. Drayton, born in Cumberland County, NJ, plied a vessel between Delaware Bay and Virginia's eastern shore, coming into frequent contact with the African-American slaves in the Chesapeake region. Soon, he was helping slaves escape North aboard his schooner "Pearl," until he was seized on the Potomac and imprisoned.

For the Role of Paul Jennings in the Pearl escape, see (G. Franklin Edwards and Michael R. Winston, Commentary: The Washington of Paul Jennings—White House Slave, Free Man, and Conspirator for Freedom. White House Historical Association.)

In Washington DC, a description of conditions just beyond the city limit, Florida Avenue "The slaves are watched by the patrols, who ride about to try to catch them off the quarters, especially at the house of a free person of color. I have known the slaves to stretch clothes lines across the street, high enough to let the horse pass, but not the rider; then the boys would run, and the patrols in full chase would be thrown off by running against the lines. The patrols are poor white men, who live by plundering and stealing, getting rewards for runaways, and setting up little shops on the public roads. They will take whatever the slaves steal, paying in money, whiskey, or whatever the slaves want. They take pigs, sheep, wheat, corn- - any thing that's raised they encourage the slaves to steal: these they take to market next day. It's all speculation- - all a matter of self- interest, and when the slaves run away, these same traders catch them if they can, to get the reward. If the slave threatens to expose his traffic, he does not care- - for the slave's word is good for nothing- - it would not be taken." ("My Bedstead Consisted Of A Board Wide Enough To Sleep On". Francis Henderson was 19 when he managed to escape from a slave plantation outside of Washington, D.C., in 1841. Here, he describes conditions on his plantation. Source: Benjamin Drew, A North- Side View of Slavery (Boston, 1856). (For a description of the conditions of slave just outside Washington, DC see slave narrative)

Another well-known example of abolitionist activity in the South was the case of the ship Pearl which attempted to leave Washington City in April, 1848, with 77 slaves who were to leave the ship as free persons when it docked in New York. Betrayed by an offended black man, the Pearl was seized and its captain, Daniel Drayton, and owner, Sayres, were arrested and tried in Washington. The trial lasted six weeks in the summer of 1848 and Drayton was sentenced to prison while Sayres paid a fine of $10,000. Drayton, whose release was gained in April 1853 by black Boston lawyer Robert Morris after he served four years, committed suicide in New Bedford in 1857.

Leonard Grimes, born to free parents in Leesburg, Virginia, became a hackman in Washington, D.C., and part of a large group of African Americans, both free and fugitive, who had grown up in the south and were intimately acquainted with its geography and many of its people. These residents of Washington were well positioned to aid runaways -- and they did so. Grimes was apprehended by the local authorities on one of his trips to Virginia while attempting to transport a free black man and his slave family out of the state. He served two years in the Virginia penitentiary. After his release, he moved north and became the minister of the Twelfth Baptist Church in Boston where he and his congregation continued to aid fugitives.

1847-48
Free-Soil party, U.S. political party born in 1847–48 to oppose the extension of slavery into territories newly gained from Mexico. In 1848 the Free-Soil party ran Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams for president and vice president; by polling 300,000 votes it gave New York State to the Whigs and thus made Zachary Taylor president. After the Compromise of 1850 seemed to settle the slavery-extension issue, the group known as the Barnburners left the Free-Soilers to return to the Democratic party, but radicals kept the Free-Soil party alive until 1854, when the new Republican party absorbed it. (The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, 1995 by Columbia University Press from MS Bookshelf.)

A third party took part in the election of 1848. Called the Free-Soil Party, it included Democrats and Whigs who disagreed with their parties, and abolitionists, who wanted an immediate end to slavery. The Free-Soil Party nominated former president Martin Van Buren of New York for president and Massachusetts legislator Charles Francis Adams for vice president. (Fillmore, Millard, Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia.)

1848
Congress passed the Oregon Territory bill, which prohibited slavery in the area. President James K. Polk signed the bill because the Oregon Territory lay north of the Missouri Compromise line. Later proposals tried to extend the line by law across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. These efforts failed. The Missouri Compromise was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. (Political Compromises: Missouri Compromise, The World Book, African American Journey.)

Zachary Taylor, Whig becomes President. VP Millard Fillmore.Taylor brought house slaves from Louisiana to work at the White House. There were approximately 15, including children; one was the body servant who had accompanies General Taylor to Mexico. (The President's House: a History by William Seale , White House Historical Association with the Cooperation of the National Geographic Society and Harry N Abrams, 1986, vol. 1, page 282)

1849
Abraham Lincoln as Representative, unsuccessfully proposed a bill for the "compens