The Civil War through Reconstruction

• The invention of the cotton gin made the production of cotton much more profitable.
• The Southern economy became dependent on cotton. Due to the nature of the industry, the economy also became dependent on slave labor.
• “The peculiar institution” is a euphemism for slavery.
• The overseer was a paid white farm worker whose job was to get the most work out of the slaves
• The Southern Code addressed the behaviors of both men and women. 
• Free Black people lived in all parts of the United States, but the majority lived amid slavery in the American South. It’s estimated that by 1860, there were about 1.5 million free Black people in the southern states.
• Many slaves became free through manumission, the voluntary emancipation of a slave by a slaveowner.
• African American inventors like Thomas L. Jennings, who invented a method for the dry cleaning of clothes, and Henry Blair of Glen Ross, Maryland, who patented a seed planter, contributed to the advancement of science.
• Prominent among free persons of color of the period are Frederick Douglass, Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and Harriet Tubman.
• Starting as early as 1663, slaves were organizing revolts to regain their freedom. 
• Denmark Vesey was planned to murder every white in the South on Sunday, July 24, 1822. Before the uprising began, his plan was revealed and hanged. Forty-seven African Americans were condemned to death for alleged involvement. An estimated 9,000 individuals were involved.
• In 1831, Nat Turner claimed to be responding to a religious vision and organized about 70 slaves who went from plantation to plantation and murdered about 75 white people. Turner and about 18 of his supporters were hanged. The South responded by increasing slave patrols and tightening their ever more repressive slave codes.
• William Lloyd Garrison wrote The Liberator to spread his moral arguments against slavery. His ideas were spread throughout the United States and beyond.
• Former slave Frederick Douglass used his experience and persuasive ability to convince people about the horrible situation brought on by slavery.
• Abolitionists had established safe houses and safe travel routes to get slaves away from slave areas. This network was known as the Underground Railroad.
• Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom’s Cabin tells a story of slave life in the South. This book horrified many across the nation and spurred support for the abolitionist movement.
• In 1829, Walker declared slavery a malignancy, calling for its immediate termination. He cited the four evils causing the greatest harm to African Americans as slavery, ignorance, Christianity, and colonization.
• Frederick Douglass began publishing an anti-slavery newspaper known as the North Star.
• Sojourner Truth was one of the best-known abolitionists. Also concerned with women’s rights, she joined the campaign for female suffrage. When slavery was ended, she continued to fight for equality by protesting segregation laws.
• A gag rule forbade the discussion of bills that restricted slavery.
• In the early 1800s, many Americans believed that the US would come to control the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. This belief became known as manifest destiny.
• In 1835–1836, Texas fought a brief War of Independence from Mexico and became an independent nation
• In 1846, the United States and Britain signed a treaty that officially split up the Oregon territory and set the US border with the Pacific Northwest.
• In 1846, war broke out between the United States and Mexico. The United States won and claimed vast territories of what is now the Southwest of the continental United States.
• The discovery of gold in 1848 led to a large influx of American settlers to California, greatly spurring the growth in the western United States.
• In the early 1800s, many Americans believed that the US would come to control the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans. This belief became known as manifest destiny.
• In 1835–1836, Texas fought a brief War of Independence from Mexico and became an independent nation
• In 1846, the United States and Britain signed a treaty that officially split up the Oregon territory and set the US border with the Pacific Northwest.
• In 1846, war broke out between the United States and Mexico. The United States won and claimed vast territories of what is now the Southwest of the continental United States.
• The discovery of gold in 1848 led to a large influx of American settlers to California, greatly spurring the growth in the western United States.
• In 1845, a Democratic journalist named John L. O’Sullivan coined the phrase “manifest destiny.”
• Spain granted independence to Mexico in 1821.
• A political fight ensued over how to handle the large territorial gain that resulted from the Mexican-American War.
• Popular sovereignty was proposed as a way to decide the issue of slavery in the new territories. Under such a system, the local population would decide the slavery issue rather than Congress.
• By the early 1850s, US leaders who had previously compromised on the slavery issue died. The leaders that followed would be unable (or unwilling) to find long-lasting consensus on the slavery issue.
• The Compromise of 1850 temporarily kept the nation working with regard to the slavery issue, giving pro- and anti-slavery forces a little of what they wanted.
• The Democratic standard-bearer, Lewis Cass of Michigan, coined the term popular sovereignty.
• In the compromise of 1850, the north got California admitted as a free state, Slave trade prohibited in Washington, DC, and Texas loses boundary dispute with New Mexico
• In the compromise of 1850, the south got No slavery restrictions in Utah or New Mexico territories, Slaveholding permitted in Washington, DC, Texas gets $10 million dollars, and Fugitive Slave Law
• Millard Fillmore was the successor of President Zachary Taylor when he died of food poisoning.