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Class Date: March 11th, 9:30am
Location: Your couch! See your weekly e-mail for Zoom link!
A New Nation
A New Nation
This week we skim over the Civil War and look at its aftermath. On the surface ending slavery was a major achievement, but integrating a society with newly freed people and traitors was a difficult task, at best. Here is a brief overview of the events of the time:
January 1, 1808 - Abolishment of slave importation
In an effort to curb slavery, Congress abolishes the international importation of enslaved people. In 1807, Great Britain had abolished the slave trade altogether. As Northern states in the U.S. began to end slavery, instead of ending in the South, the practice only solidified as cotton production exploded. Though enslaved people cannot be imported from overseas, a bustling trade continues within the United States as Northern states sell their enslaved people to Southern plantation owners.
1849 - Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery
Harriet continued to back down into slave states, leading people out of slavery along the Underground Railroad. She became the most famous ‘conductor’ and proudly stated that she ‘never lost a passenger’.
The National Parks system just recently added more Underground Railroad locations to their registry. For more information on this new addition, check out this article: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/amid-racial-reckoning-national-park-service-recognizes-underground/story?id=77267638
1850 - Fugitive Slave Act passed
Prior to the Act, enslaved people who crossed into Northern ‘free’ states were considered free. Angry that their free laborers were escaping to freedom, Southern proponents of slavery pushed for legal help in tracking down and re-kidnapping people. The Act made aiding those attempting to escape enslavement a crime punishable by fines and imprisonment. It also made it easier for ‘slave catchers’ to kidnap free Black people to enslave them.
May 1, 1851 - World’s Fair begins
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations opens in Hyde Park, London. It is the first ever World’s Fair. Prince Albert, with the support of Queen Victoria, executes the international event that will spur innovation and art for decades, including the Eiffel Tower, Hershey chocolate, and the Ferris Wheel.
The Fair closed after 141 days, having hosted 6,039,195 visitors to the 26-acre park. Exhibits from 59 nations and 39 colonies were featured, including 499 exhibits from the United States. McCormick’s reaper won a gold medal. Profits from the first exposition still provide scholarship funds and cultural endowments throughout England and more than 100 more World’s Fairs have been held since.
1852 - The Studebaker Brothers Wagon Company established
A family affair, the Studebakers began manufacturing wagons and horse-drawn carriages in the 1740s. While some of the Studebaker brothers became blacksmiths and foundry men in South Bend, Indiana, to begin the official Wagon Company, John M Studebaker was making wheelbarrows in Placerville, California. The California gold rush provided a large enough profit that the brothers continued to expand, providing wagons for the U.S. Army and eventually moving on to automobiles.
1852 - Uncle Tom’s Cabin published
Harriet Beecher Stowe published her literary masterpiece on slavery, further fanning the flames of abolitionist passions. Readers in the South denounced the book for its vivid depictions of slavery, but the novel continued to gain acclaim in the North and in Great Britain. It was adapted for the theater multiple times, beginning soon after the book was published, playing for sold-out audiences.
June 29, 1852 - Henry Clay died
A giant among American political leaders, Henry Clay had put together many of the compromises that held the Union together, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. Clay’s focus on compromise and economic expansion left a legacy of American politics that rippled for generations. His loss was felt by many as the nation continued to navigate the choppy waters surrounding slavery.
1853 - Gadsden Purchase completed
Also known as the Treaty of La Mesilla, the Purchase followed the cessation of most of the American Southwest from Mexico following the Mexican-American War. In exchange for $10 million, Mexico gave the U.S. an additional 30,000 square miles. Many advocates for a southern transcontinental railroad argued that a new railroad should pass through the newly acquired territory.
1855 - The United States Camel Corps is created
Jefferson Davis, the U.S. Secretary of War, convinced Congress to fund a Camel Corps for the U.S. Army to help deliver supplies to the American West. Congress appropriated $30,000 for camels to be brought over from the Middle East to begin the program. Native camel herders were also brought, to teach the American Army how to handle and train camels to be used as pack animals.
For a 6-minute overview of this program, click here
1856 - The first railroad train crosses the Mississippi River
Crowds gathered and bands played in Rock Island, Illinois and Davenport, Iowa, as a train crossed the first railroad bridge to span the Mississippi River. The bridge would actually foreshadow many political adversaries in the months to come: Jefferson Davis attempted to halt construction of the bridge in Illinois, arguing that a more southern route through St. Louis would be more beneficial. Davis failed to stop construction, but shortly after the bridge was completed, a steamboat owner crashed his steamboat into a bridge piling, setting his boat and the bridge on fire. Though the crash was almost certainly deliberate, as steamboat owners fought railroad expansion, the steamboat owners sued the railroad for damages. The railroads brought in railroad attorney Abraham Lincoln to successfully argue that the bridge did not impede boat traffic and railroad bridges were needed to settle the West.
May 22, 1856 - Brooks attacks Sumner
South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks took his cane to the head of Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Sumner gave a speech against slavery and attacking pro-slavery violence in Kansas. Sumner was severely injured in the attack, taking 3 years to recover. Brooks became a Souther hero for his violent defense of slavery and pro-slavery violence.
1857 - Dred Scott decision
A landmark slavery case, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that an enslaved person did become free once transported into a free state. Furthermore, the Court ruled that slavery could not be banned by Congress in the territories and that Black people were not eligible for citizenship. This dealt a devastating blow to the plight of Black people throughout the country, but further galvanized the anti-slavery movement.
1861 - April 12 - Battle of Fort Sumter, South Carolina
After creating the Confederate States of America, rebellious forces fire upon Fort Sumter, officially beginning the Civil War. For a great 2.5 minute overview of this pivotal moment, check out this History Channel video here: https://youtu.be/c3IwgtrMKKM?si=JRllsmivaO536JAo
1862 - September 17 - Battle of Antietam, Maryland
The single bloodiest day of the Civil War, General Lee’s first invasion into the North comes to an end. After the Union victory, President Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing enslaved people located in the Confederate States. The Proclamation did not free enslaved persons in bordering Union States, so slavery was still not officially ended until after the war.
1865 - April 9 - Battle of Appomattox Court House and Surrender
After an early morning defeat, Lee seeks to meet with General Grant to discuss terms of surrender. In the afternoon, in Wilmer McLean’s parlor, Lee signs documents surrendering and ending the Civil War.
That is where our timeline leaves us for this week! Check below for additional reading resources!
Want MORE about the Civil War? Ken Burns can oblige! Check out the link below where you can watch all 10 hours of the Ken Burns documentary "The Civil War"!
Recommended Reading
Recommended Reading
To read more about this period, here are some great books to get you started:
Do You Know Them? by Shana Keller
A moving and triumphant picture book inspired by the printed newspaper ads placed by African Americans who were separated from family members by the Civil War, enslavement, and emancipation.
After the war’s end, everyone is missing someone. Lettie’s missing her family. They had been sold and lost long before enslavement was abolished. Every week, she reads the advertisements in the newspapers to her congregation. “Do you know them? I would like to find my people. My mother’s name was Charlotte King, and when I was sold, I had five brothers.”
Lettie is determined to find her loved ones, too. She saves every penny she earns, but not to buy candy or toys. She saves for something better—something that could bring her whole family together.
Every ad depicted in this poignant tale is authentically historical, bringing the heart-wrenching past to life.
Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule by Harriette Gillem Robinet
This chapter book of historical fiction by Harriette Gillem Robinet is one of the best resources available for elementary school classrooms on the Reconstruction era.
40 Acres and Maybe a Mule tells the story of Pascal, who is still enslaved at the end of the Civil War. When his older brother Gideon, who had run away to join the Union Army earlier in the war, returns with news of the government distributing “40 acres and a mule” to freed families, Pascal decides to follow his brother off the plantation. After gathering Pascal’s friend Nelly, an eight-year old girl who had been sold away from her family, the three begin a journey across South Carolina and eventually into Georgia to begin a new life in freedom. Along the way they meet other freed people they incorporate into their new family.
For adults:
Black Reconstruction in America - 1860 - 1880 by W.E.B. Du Bois
The pioneering work in the study of the role of Black Americans during Reconstruction by the most influential Black intellectual of his time. This book was the first full-length study of the role black Americans played in the crucial period after the Civil War when the slaves had been freed and the attempt was made to reconstruct American society. Hailed at the time, Black Reconstruction in America 1860–1880 has justly been called a classic. Du Bois history undermined the previous historical works on Reconconstruction written by historians who were from the Dunning the school which openly supported white southerners.
The Death of Reconstruction by Heather Cox Richardson
Historians overwhelmingly have blamed the demise of Reconstruction on Southerners' persistent racism. Heather Cox Richardson argues instead that class, along with race, was critical to Reconstruction's end. Northern support for freed blacks and Reconstruction weakened in the wake of growing critiques of the economy and calls for a redistribution of wealth.
Using newspapers, public speeches, popular tracts, Congressional reports, and private correspondence, Richardson traces the changing Northern attitudes toward African-Americans from the Republicans' idealized image of black workers in 1861 through the 1901 publication of Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery. She examines such issues as black suffrage, disenfranchisement, taxation, westward migration, lynching, and civil rights to detect the trajectory of Northern disenchantment with Reconstruction. She reveals a growing backlash from Northerners against those who believed that inequalities should be addressed through working-class action, and the emergence of an American middle class that championed individual productivity and saw African-Americans as a threat to their prosperity.
The Death of Reconstruction offers a new perspective on American race and labor and demonstrates the importance of class in the post-Civil War struggle to integrate African-Americans into a progressive and prospering nation.
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Works Cited
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