Thursday, January 13, 2011

Slavery and Sectionalism (1845-1860)


Nat Turner’s Rebellion – Nat Turner led a slave rebellion in Virginia, attacked many whites, prompted non-slaveholding Virginians to consider emancipation
Yeoman Farmers – family farmers who hired out slaves for the harvest season, selfsufficient, participated in local markets alongside slave owners
Underground Railroad – network of safe houses of white abolitionists used to bring slaves to freedom
Harriet Tubman – worked alongside Josiah Henson to make repeated trips to get slaves out of the South into freedom 
“Wage slaves” – northern factory workers who were discarded when too old to work (unlike the slaves who were still kept fed and clothed in their old age)

Nativism – anti-immigrant, especially against Irish Catholics

The Alamo – Mexicans held siege on the Alamo (in San Antonio), Texans lost great number of people, “Remember the Alamo”
Stephen Austin – American who settled in Texas, one of the leaders for Texan independence from Mexico

James K. Polk – “dark horse” Democratic candidate; acquired majority of the western US (Mexican Cession, Texas Annexation, Oregon Country), lowered tariffs, created Independent Treasury

Oregon and “Fifty-four Forty or Fight!” – Oregon Territory owned jointly with Britain, Polk severed its tie to Britain, forced to settle for compromise south of 49° rather than 54°40’

Manifest Destiny – stated the United States was destined to span the breadth of the entire continent with as much land as possible, advocated by Polk

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo – acquired Mexican Cession (future California, Arizona, and New Mexico); Mexico acknowledged American annexation of Texas
Wilmot Proviso – slavery to be barred in all territory ceded from Mexico; never fullypassed Congress
California Gold Rush – gold discovery in Sutter’s Mill in 1848 resulted in huge mass of adventurers in 1849, led to application for statehood, opened question of slavery in the West