B17A 5

Free African Americans

-some set free by masters over moral qualms or after a masters death in their will -some attained wealth and prominence and some usually owned slaves themselves -most lived in abject poverty under conditions worse than that of slaves -lived primarily in cities due to racial prejudice, had to show legal papers to prove free status -By 1860 as many as 250,000 African Americans in the South were free citizens. Most of them lived in the cities where they could own property. However, they were not allowed to vote or work in most skilled professions. (p. 179) -African Americans who were free citizens; majority lived in cities where they could own property, however they were still not considered equal with whites. They were not allowed to vote or travel freely in the South. They were denied the ability to hold many professional jobs.

Slave Resistance

-whites believed that slaves were generally content and happy with their lot -was not the case the vast majority were not content with being slaves and yearned for freedom -combo of adaptation and resistance -the Sambo-shuffling, grinning, head scratching, deferential slave who acted out the role that he recognized the white word expected of him -pattern of behavior that was a charade a facade assumed in the presence of whites -the other extreme was the slave rebel who was the African American who could not bring himself or herself to either acceptance or accommodation but remained forever rebellious -slave revolts were rare but the idea they could happen struck terror within the white southerners -In 1800 Gabriel Poseer gathered 1000 rebellious slaves outside Richmond but two Africans gave the plot awry and the Virginia militia stymie the uprising before it could begin -Prosser and 35 others were executed -In 1822 the Charleston free black Denmark Vesey and his followers rumored to total *9000 made preparations for a revolt but again word leaked out -In 1831 Nat turner a slave preacher led a band of African Americans who armed themselves with guns and axes and on a summer night went from house to house in Southampton county Virginia and killed 60 whit emen and children before being overpowed by state and federal troops more then a hundred blacks were executed in the aftermath -more commonly running away especially with the use of the undergrounds railroad -a pattern of behaviors by which blacks defied their masters -some slaves stole from their masters or neighboring whites -broke tools or perform task improperly -When an owner's slaves rebel against the owner, in the form of running away, boycotting work, etc -Labor Slowdowns, Breaking Tools, Running Away, Underground Railroad, Songs as communication, "stupidness" to get out of working

49ers

Most pre gold rush migrants to the far west had prepared carefully before making the journey. but the gold rush migrants(known as 49ers) threw caution to the winds. They abandoned farms, jobs, homes, families; they piled onto ships and flooded the overland trails many carrying only what they could pack on their backs. the overwhelmingly majority of the 49ers (95%) were men and the society they created on their arrival in Cali was unusually volatile because of the absence of women children and families. -nickname of people that moved to California in hopes to become rich -People who rushed to california in 1849 for gold. -San Francisco

Gadsden Purchase

Pierces secretary of war Jefferson Davis of Mississippi removed one obstacle to a southern route. surveys indicated that a railroad with southern terminus would have to pass through an area in Mexico territory. But in 1853 Davis sent James Gadsden a southern railroad builder to Mexico where he persuaded the Mexican government to accept 10 million in exchange for a strip of land that today comprise part of Arizona and New Mexico and that would have facilitated a southern route for the transcontinental railroad. The so called Gadsden Purchase only accentuated to sectional rivalry. -purchase of land from mexico in 1853 that established the present U.S.-mexico boundary -Agreement w/ Mexico that gave the US parts of present-day New Mexico & Arizona in exchange for $10 million; all but completed the continental expansion envisioned by those who believed in Manifest Destiny. -1853 purchase by the United States of southwestern lands from Mexico

Commitment to Paternalism

Small farmers even more than great planters were also committed to a traditional male dominated family structure. Their household centered economies required the participation of all family member and they believed a stable system of gender relations to ensure order and stability. Men were the unquestioned masters of their homes; women and children, who were both family and workforce, were firmly under the masters control. As the northern attack on slavery increased in the 1840s and 1850s it was easy for such farmers to believe and easy for ministers politicians and other propagandists for slavery to persuade them that an assault on one hierarchical system would open the way to an assault on another such system

Americans in Texas

-US had once claimed Texas until the 1830s as part of the Republics of Mexico but renounced the claim in 1819 where the US offered to buy Texas. --1820s Mexican government launched an experiment and allowed people to migrate to Texas --had hoped to strengthen the economy and increase their tax revenues and believed they would serve as an effective buffer of any further expansion of the US -by 1830 7000 Americans lived in Texas twice the number of Mexicans Stephen Austin established the first legal American settlement in Texas in 1822 -in 1826 one of the intermediaries led a revolt to establish Texas as an independent nation and the Mexicans quickly crushed the revolt and 4 years later passed new laws barring any further American immigration into the region, but they were too late and Americans kept immigrating their and in 1833 Mexico dropped the futile immigration ban and by 1835 more than 30000 Americans white and black had settled in Texas -agreement between Steven Austin and Mexico -Mexican and Spanish government welcome the Americans to develop their land. 1821- Mexico gains their independence from Spain and the new government agrees to renew agreement with Austin family to allow 30000 citizens to settle in Mexico -had to follow Mexican laws( no slavery) 1830 unauthorized settlement is banned, no more free land

The Mormons

-began in upstate NY as a result of the efforts of Joseph smith a young, energetic, but economically unsuccessful man who had spent his 24 yrs moving restlessly through New England and the Northeast -in 1830 he published a document the Book of Mormon named for the ancient prophet who he claimed had written it -It was a translation of a set of golden tablets he had found in the hills of NY reveled to him by and angle of God -Book of Mormon told the story of an ancient successful civilization in America, peopled by one of the lost tribes of Israel who had found their way to the New World centuries before Columbus -God punished the sinful by making them dark -in 1831 gathering a small group of believers around him Smith began searching for a sanctuary for his new community of saints an effort that would continue unhappily for 20 years over and over they would try to establish New Jerusalem but would face persecution from surrounding communities because of their radical religious doctrines which included polygamy -driven from their original settlements in Independence Miso an Nauvoo IL by the 1840s which had been economically successful community -1844 Joseph Smith was arrested charged with treason imprisoned and group of angry people drug him out of his cell and shot him and he died -overtaken by Brigham Young -traveled across the desert in the largest single group migrations in American history and established a new community in Utah. -Original Mormons were men and women who felt displaced in their rapidly changing society people left behind or troubled by the material growth and social progress of their era -members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -Church founded by Joseph Smith in 1830 with headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, religious group that emphasized moderation, saving, hard work, and risk-taking; moved from IL to UT

The Culture of Slavery

-first generation of slaves had difficulty communicating with one another so to overcome this they learned a simple common language known as pidgin -music was also important, they used songs to pass time on he fields and created often rich politically challenging music -by 19th century most of them were Christian -some had their own version of Christianity by incorporating practices such as voodoo or other polytheistic religious traditions of Africa -more joyful and affirming -used Christian salvation as their hope of gaining freedom one day, masters though it was hoping for life after death

Varieties of Slavery

-forbade slaves to hold property leave their masters premise without permission to be out after dark to congregate with other slaves except at church to carry firearms or to strake a white person in self defense some even barred whites from teaching slaves to read or write and denied slaves' to testify in court against white people -no provisions to legalize marriages or divorces -masters could kill slaves while discipling them -slaves faced death penalty if they killed or even resisted or enticed a revolt -enforcement was spotty and uneven -some slaves did acquire property, did learn to read an write, did congregate with other slaves -masters would handle the slaves breaking the laws -on small farms masters would often work alongside the slaves and developed some sort of intimacy -large planters employed two methods --task system under which slaves were assigned a particular task in the morning and after they were done they were free for the rest of the day(common with rice) --gang system under which slaves were divided into groups and each of them directed by a driver and compelled to work for as many hours as the overseer considered a reasonable workday Some slaves lived in almost prison-like conditions (rigidly and harshly controlled by masters), while most enjoyed considerable flexibility and autonomy.

Life Under Slavery

-house servants had it easier in the physically okay term some even got to eat leftovers from the family and in some cases even slept in the big house -lack of privacy and isolation from fellow slaves when living in big house -also could face more transgressions -females would be pressured or raped by their masters -there weas high slaver mortalit rate and childrenusually died at a younger age than the average white person -slave auctions that seperated family, poor living conditions, small food rations -slaves had little to no legal rights, it was illegal for them to be literate, but conditions from master to master, most slaveowners had few slaves and worked closely with their slaves, most slaves lived on large plantations and were overseen by overseers, the slaves worked hard (men in fields, women sometimes in fields but also did domestic work in the house (which was easier)), there were high slave mortality rates, female slaves were often sexually abused by their masters and any children they bore would join the slave population, families were often separated -cruel treatment, spirit and hope allowed them to get through, resisted to slavery (underground railroad) -women did the cooking, cleaning, and child rearing and also worked the fields -black parents often found themselves as single parents

The Slave Family

-lack of legal marrriage but carried on nuclear familyes -black women generally began rearing children at a younger age as often as 14 or 15 -did not condemn premarital pregnaancy -lived together often before marrying -occurrd between slaves on neighboring plantations marriage -a third of all black families were broken apart -they had aunts uncles grandparents and even distant cousins -an urge to keep in touch stayed with them when the famileis broke apart -relied on their masters for food clothing and shelter as well as security and protection paternal relationship -usually consisted of the nuclear unit (father, mother, and their children), but often was part of larger kinship networks. -The family unit in slave communities, though marriages were not legally recognized; slaves being resold was a constant threat to familial unity.

Southern Lady

-lives centered in the home -did not engage in public activities or find income producing employment -had less access to education and the only academies in the south were to teach women to be suitable wives -George Fitzhugh wrote in the 1850s that women like children have but one right, and that is the right to protection, the right to protection involves the obligation to obey -most lived on farms isolated from people outside their own families with virtually no access to the public world and thus few opportunities too look beyond their roles as wives and mothers -living on a modest farm they were able to engage in spinning, weaving and other productions and participated in agricultural task and helped supervise the slave workforce -the plantation mistrees became more of an ornament than an active part in the economy -was similar to the middle class white women in the north. they were considered companions to their husbands and caring mothers to their children. they were even more dominated by the men than women in the north because of the men's cult of honor. most lived on plantations or other farms and they were isolated from society. they helped supervise the slave force and did other domestic tasks -their lives centered in the home, where they served as companions and hostesses for their husbands and nurturing mothers for their children, but they seldom engaged in public activities or income- producing employment.

Free Blacks and Abolition

Abolitionism had a particular appeal to the free black of the North, who in 1850 outnumbered about 250,000, mostly concentrated in cities. They lived in conditions of poverty and oppressions often worse than those of their slave counterparts in the South. An English and French man recognized these patterns. Northern blacks were often victimized by mob violence; they had virtually no access to education; they could vote in only a few states; and they were barred from all but the most menial occupation. Most worked either as domestic servants or as sailors in the American merchant marine and their wages were such that they lived in squalor. Some were kidnapped by whites and forced back into slavery. For all their problems, however, northern black's were aware of, and fiercely proud of, their freedom. And they remained acutely sensitive to the plight of those members of their race who remained in bondage, aware that their own position in society would remain precarious as long as slavery existed. Many int the 1830s came to support Garrison to subscribe to his newspaper and to sell subs to it in their own communities. Majority of the Liberator's early subscribers were free African Americans. There were also important African American leaders who expressed their aspiration of their race. David walker on walkers appeal 332 and Sojourner Truth a spokeswomen.

Honor

Above all perhaps white males adopted an elaborate code of chivalry, which obligated them to defend their honor, often through dueling-which survived in the South long after it had largely vanished in the North. Southern white males placed enormous stock in conventional forms of courtesy and respect in their dealings with one another-perhaps to distance themselves from the cruelty and disrespect that were so fundamental to the slave system they controlled. Violations of such forms often brought what seemed to outsiders a disproportionately heated and even violent response. The idea of honor in the South was only partly connected to the idea of ethical behavior and bravery. It was also tied to the importance among white males of the public appearance of dignity and authority-of saving face in the presence of others. Anything that seemed to challenge the dignity, social station, or manhood of a white southern ale might be the occasion for a challenge to a duel or at least for a stern public rebuke. When the South Carolina congressman Preston Brooks strode into the chamber of the US Senate and savagely beat Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts with a cane to retaliate for what he considered an insult to a relative, he was acting wholly in accord with the idea of southern honor. In the north, he was reviled as a savage. In the south, he became a popular hero. Avenging insults was a social necessity in many parts of southern society, and avenging insults to white southern women was perhaps the most important obligation of a white southern gentleman.

Texas Annexation

Above all, American Texans hoped for annexation by the US. One of the first acts of the new president of Texas, Sam Houston, was to send a delegation to Washington with an offer to join the Union. There were supporters of expansion in the US who welcomed these overtures; indeed expansionist in the US had been supporting and encouraging the revolt against Mexico for years. But there was also opposition. Many American northerners opposed acquiring a large new slave territory and others opposed increasing the southern votes in Congress and in the electoral college. Unfortunately for the Texans, one of the opponents was President Jackson, who feared annexation might cause a dangerous sectional controversy and even a war with Mexico. He therefore did not support annexation and even delayed recognizing the new republic until 1837. Presidents Martin Van Buren and William Henry Harrison also refrained from pressing the issue during their times in office. Spurned by the US, Texas cast out on its own. its leaders sought money and support from Europe. Some of them dreamed of creating a vast southwestern nation, stretching to the pacific that would rival the US-a dream that appealed to European nations eager to counter the growing power of America. England and France quickly recognized and concluded trade treaties with Texas. In response, President Tyler persuaded Texas to apply for statehood in 1844. But when secretary of state Calhoun presented an annexation treaty to congress as if its only purpose were to extend slavery, northern senators rebelled and defeated it. Rejection of the treaty only spurred advocates of Manifest Destiny to greater efforts toward d their goal. The Texas question quickly became the central issue in the election of 1844. -1845. Originally refused in 1837, as the U.S. Government believed that the annexation would lead to war with Mexico. Texas remained a sovereign nation. Annexed via a joint resolution through Congress, supported by President-elect Polk, and approved in 1845. Land from the Republic of Texas later became parts of NM, CO, OK, KS, and WY.

Literature

American readers in the first decades of the 19th century were relatively indifferent to the work of their nations own writers. The most popular novelist in America in these years was the British writer Sir Walter Scott, whos swashbuckling historical novels set in the 18th century England and Scotland won him an impassioned readership in both Britain and America. When Americans read books written in their own country many were likely to turn to the large number of sentimental novels written mostly by and for women.

John Brown

Among the most fervent abolitionists in Kansas was Joh brown a fiercely committed foe of slavery who considered himself an instrument of Gods will to destroy slavery. He had moved to Kansas with his sons so that they could fight to make it a free state. After the events in Lawrence he gathered six followers including four of his sons and in one night murdered five pro slavery settlers leaving their mutilated bodies to discourage other supporters of slavery from entering Kansas. This bloody episode known as the Pottawatomie Massacred led to more civil strife in Kansas-irregular guerrilla warfare conducted by armed bands some of them more interested in land claims or loot than in ideologies northerners and southerners alike came to believe that the events in Kansas illustrated and caused by the aggressive designs of the other section. "Bleeding Kansas became a symbol of the sectional controversy. -An abolitionist who attempted to lead a slave revolt by capturing Armories in southern territory and giving weapons to slaves, was hung in Harpers Ferry after capturing an Armory -(1800-1859) anti-slavery advocate who believed that God had called upon him to abolish slavery. May or may not have been mentally unstable. Devoted over 20 years to fighting slavery, due to misunderstanding, in revenge he and his followers (his sons and others) killed five men in the pro slavery settlement of Pottawatomie Creek. Triggered dozens of incidents throughout Kansas some 200 people were killed. Was executed, still debated over whether he is a saint or killer. -Abolitionist who was hanged after leading an unsuccessful raid at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (1800-1858)

Kansas Nebraska Act

As a senator from Illinois a resident of Chicago and the acknowledged leader of northwestern Democrats, Stephen A Douglas naturally wanted the transcontinental railroad for his own city and section. He also realized the strength of the principal argument against the northern route west of the Mississippi that it would run mostly through country with a substantial Indian population. As a result he introduced a bill in January of 1854 to organize a huge new territory known as Nebraska west of Iowa and Missouri. Douglas knew the South would oppose his bill because it would prepare the way for a new free state; the proposed territory was in the area of the Louisiana Purchase north of the Missouri compromise line 36d30d and hence closed to slavery. In an effort to make the measure acceptable to southerners, Douglas inserted a provision that the status of slavery in the territory would be determined by the territorial legislature that is according to popular sovereignty. In theory the region could choose to open itself to slavery. when southern Democrats demanded more, Douglas agreed to an additional clause explicitly repealing the Missouri compromise. he also agreed to divide the area into two new territories Nebraska and Kansas. The new second territory Kansas was more likely to become a slave state. In its final form the measure was known as the Kansas Nebraska Act, President Pierce supported the bill and after a strenuous debate it became law in May 1854 with the unanimous support of the South and the partial support of northern democrats. -a law that allowed voters in Kansas and Nebraska to choose whether to allow slavery -1854 - Created Nebraska and Kansas as states and gave the people in those territories the right to chose to be a free or slave state through popular sovereignty.

Popular Sovereignty

As the sectional debate continued to intensify President Polk supported the proposal to extend the Missouri compromise line through the new territories to the Pacific Coast, banning slavery north of the line and permitting it south of the line. Other politicians supported a plan originally known as squatter sovereignty and later by the more dignified phrase popular sovereignty, which would allow the people of each territory to decide the status of slavery there. The debate over these various proposal dragged on for many month and the issue remained unresolved when Polk left office in 1849. A government in which the people rule by their own consent.

Garrison and the Liberator

At this crucial juncture with he antislavery movement seemingly on the verge of a collapse, a new figure emerged to transform it into a dramatically different phenomenon. He was William Lloyd Garrison. born in Mass in 1805, Garrison was an assistant in the 1820s to NJ Quaker Benjamin Lundy who published the leading antislavery of the time the Genius of Universal Emancipation- in Baltimore. Garrison shared Lundy's abhorrence of slavery, but he soon grew impatient with his employers moderate tone and mild proposal for reform. In 1831 therefore he returned to Boston to found his own weekly newspaper, the Liberator. Garrisons simple philosophy was genuinely revolutionary. Opponents of slavery he said should view the institution from the point of view of the black man not the white slaveowner. They should not as earlier reformers had done, talk about the evil influence of slavery on white society and instead they should talk about the damage the system did to Africans. They should therefore reject gradualism and demand the immediate unconditional universal abolition of slavery. Garrison spoke with particular scorn about the advocates of colonization. They were not emancipationists he argued on the contrary their real aim was to strengthen slavery by ridding the county of those African Americans who were already free. The true aim of foes of slavery he insisted must be to extend to African Americans all the rights of American citizenship. Quote on the liberator and being uncompromisingly harsh on 331 -*Definition:* Advocated for immediate abolition of slavery without compensation, found the American Antislavery Society. *Beginning of radical abolitionist movements.* Made The Liberator *Cause:* Condemned and burned the Constitution as a proslavery document, no union with slaveholders until they freed their slaves *Effect:* Led to a split (Liberty Party believing political action was more practical and would bring an end to slavery by political and legal means) *Patterns/turning points:* Radical vs moderate vs neutral types of liberators of slavery, split "parties" because of different opinions -Antislavery newspaper that called for the immediate emancipation of all slaves -American abolitionist newspaper, helped form the New England anti-slavery society

The Temperance Crusade

Evangelical Protestantism added major strength to one of the most influential reform movements of the era: the crusade against drunkenness. No social vice, argued some reformers was more responsible for crime, disorder, and poverty that the excessive use of alcohol. Women who were particularly active in the temperance movement claimed that alcoholism placed a special burden on wives: men spent money on alcohol that their families needed for basic necessities, and drunken husbands often abused their wives and children. In fact alcoholism was an even more serious problem in antebellum America that it had been in the twentieth and twenty first centuries. The supply of alcohol was growing rapidly particularly in the west; farmers there grew more grain that they could sell in the still limited markets in this prerailroad era, so they distilled much of it into whiskey. but in the East too commercial distilleries and private stills were widespread. The appetite for alcohol was growing along with the supply: in isolated western areas where drinking provided a social pastime in small towns and helped ease the loneliness and isolation on farms; in pubs and saloons in eastern cities, where drinking was the principal leisure activity for many workers. The average male in the 1830s drank nearly 3 times as much alcohol as the average person does today. And as that figure suggest many people drank habitually and excessively with bitter consequences for themselves and others. Among the many supporters of the temperance movement were people who saw it as a way to overcome their problems with alcoholism. In 1826 the American Society for the Promotion of Temperance emerged along with other groups preaching abstinence the in 1840 six reformed alcoholic in Baltimore organized the Washington Temperance Society. -was supported by most business employers -Many people, mostly women and also factory workers, wanted to get rid of alcohol because they thought it caused many problems. Many progressices involved in politics wanted to get rid of it as well because they saw saloons as the workplace of the urban machines. In the 1870s the movement experiences a resurgence. -Supported mostly by women and employers. Alcohol was viewed as an inhibitor to performance in families and factories; Women's Christian Temperance Union formed; pressed for legislative abolition of saloons.

James Fenimoore Cooper

Even during the heyday of Scott in the 1820s the effort to create distinctively American literature which Washington Irving and others had advanced in the first decades of the century-made considerable progress with the emergence of the first great American novelists: James Fenimore Cooper. The author of more than 30 novels in the space of 3 decades, Cooper was known to his contemporaries as a master of adventure and suspense. what most distinguished his work however was its evocation of the American Wilderness. Cooper had grown up in central NY at a time when the edge of white settlement was not far away: and he retained throughout his life a fascination with mans relationship to nature and with the challenges and dangers of Americas expansion westward. his most important novels were known as Leatherstocking Tales. Among them were The Last of the Mohican(1826) and The Deerslayer 1841, which explored the American frontiersman's experience with Indian pioneers violence and the law. Coopers novels were a continuation of the early 19th century effort to produce a truly American literature. But they also served as a link to the concerns of later intellectuals. -American novelist who is best remembered for his novels of frontier life, such as The Last of the Mohicans (1826). -The Last of the Mohicans -Wrote adventure stories that idealized the American Indian and the frontier

Bleeding Kansas

Events in Kansas in the the next 2 years increased the political turmoil in the North. White settlers from both the north and the south began moving into the territory almost immediately after the passage of the Kansas Nebraska act. In he spring of 1855, elections were held for a territorial legislature. There were only about 1500 legal voters in Kansas by then, but thousands of Missourians some traveling in armed bands into Kansas swelled the vote to over 6000. The result was that pro slavery forces elected a majority to the legislature which immediately legalized slavery. Outraged free staters elected their own delegates to a constitutional convention, which met at Topeka and adopted a constitution excluding slavery. They then chose their own governor and legislature and petitioned congress for statehood. President Pierce denounced them as traitors and threw the full support of the federal government behind the pro slavery territorial legislature. A few month later a pro slavery federal marshal assembled a large posse consisting mostly of Missourians to arrest the free state leaders who had set up their headquarters in Lawrence. The posse sacked the town burned the governors house and destroyed several printing presses. Retribution came quickly. -Term referring to bloodshed over popular sovereignty in a particular western territory -(1856) a series of violent fights between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces in Kansas who had moved to Kansas to try to influence the decision of whether or not Kansas would a slave state or a free state. -A sequence of violent events involving abolitionists and pro-Slavery elements that took place in Kansas-Nebraska Territory. The dispute further strained the relations of the North and South, making civil war imminent.

Seneca Falls

Finally in 1840 the patience of several women snapped. A group of American Female delegates arrived at a world antislavery convention in London, only to be turned away by the men who controlled the proceedings. Angered at the rejection, several delegates-notable Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton convinced that their first duty as reformers should now be to elevate the status of women. Over the next several years, Mott, Stanton, Susan B Anthony, and others began drawing pointed parallels between the plight of women and the plight of slaves; and in 1848, they organized a convention in Seneca Falls NY to discuss the question of women's rights. Out of the meeting emerged the Declaration of Sentiments which stated that all men and women are created equal, that women no less than men have certain unalienable rights. Their most prominent demand was for the right to vote, thus launching a movement of woman suffrage that would continued until 1920. But the document was in many ways more important for its rejection of the whole notion that men and women should be assigned separate sphere's in society. Manu women involved in feminist efforts are Quakers. Quakerism had long embraced the ideal of sexual equality and had tolerated and encouraged the emergence of women as preachers and community leaders. They also helped in the antislavery movement. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was one of the women who was a Quaker and drafted the Declaration of Sentiments. -The site of the women's rights convention that met in July in 1848. They met in the Wesleyan Chapel, and 300 men and women attended. At the convention, they vote in the Seneca Falls Declaration, which was signed by 32 men. -(1848) the first national women's rights convention at which the Declaration of Sentiments was written

Mexican War

Having appeared to prepare for war, Polk turned to diplomacy and dispatched a special minister John Slidell to try and buy off the Mexicans. But Mexican leaders rejected Slidell's offer to purchase the disputed territories. On January 13, 1846 as soon as he heard the news, Polk ordered Taylors army in Texas to move across the Nueces River where it had been stationed to the Rio Grande. For months, the Mexicans refused to fight. But finally, according to disputed American accounts, some Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande and attacked a unit of American soldiers. Pol now told congress; war exist by the act of Mexico herself. On May 13, 1846 congress declared war by votes of 40 to 2 in the senate and 174 to 14 in the house. The war had many opponents in the US, Whig critics charged from the beginning that Polk had deliberately maneuvered the country into the conflict and had staged the border incident that had precipitated the declaration. Many other critics argued that the hostilities with Mexico were draining resources and attention away from the more important issue of the Pacific Northwest. Even when the US finally reached its agreement with Brittan on the Oregon question, opponents claimed that Polk had settled for less than he should have because he war preoccupied with Mexico. Opposition intensified as the war continued and the public became aware of the causalities and expenses. To others war was a moral crime(Ulysses S Grant). Pacifist's were dismayed(David Henry Thoreau) American forces did well against the Mexicans but victory did not come as quickly as Polk had hoped. The president ordered Taylor to cross the Rio Grande to seize parts of northeastern Mexico, beginning with the city of Monterrey, and then march on to Mexico City itself. Taylor captured Monterrey in Sept 1846 but he let the Mexican garrison evacuate without pursuit. Polk now began to fear that Taylor lacked the tactical skill to advance against Mexico City. And become a political rival. -(1846-1848) The war between the United States and Mexico in which the United States acquired one half of the Mexican territory. -after disputes over Texas lands that were settled by Mexicans the United States declared war on Mexico in 1846 and by treaty in 1848 took Texas and California and Arizona and New Mexico and Nevada and Utah and part of Colorado and paid Mexico $15,000,000

Pro-Slavery Argument

In response to these pressures a number of white southerners for years produced a new intellectual defense of slavery. Professor Thomas R Dew of the College of William and Mary helped begin that effort in 1832. 20 years later supporters of slavery summarized their views in an anthology titled The Pro-Slavery Argument. John C Calhoun stated the essence of the case in 1837: Southerners should stop apologizing for slavery as a necessary evil and defend it as a good a positive good. It was good for the slaves, white southerners argued, because they enjoyed better conditions than industrial workers in the North. Slavery was good for southern society as a whole because it was the only way the two races could live together in peace. It was good for the entire country because the southern economy was based on slavery, was the key to prosperity of the nation. Above all southern apologists argued slavery was good because it served as the basis for the southern way of life a way of life superior to any other in the US perhaps the world. White southerners looking at the north saw a spirit of greed debauchery and instability. -slavery was good for the slaves because they enjoyed better conditions that industrial workers of the north; good for southern society because it was the only way the two races could live together; good for the community because the southern economy was the key to prosperity of the nation; inferiority; basis for way of life -Claimed that slavery was a "positive good" rather than a "necessary evil" due to biblical reasons, a commitment to white supremacy, slaves' incapability of freedom, and a rich history with slavery. Southerners that slavery let all white people be equal and that slavery was in fact beneficial for slaves -An ideology of the justification for slavery that covered a broad range of sources, including the Bible and economic theory

Early Opposition to Slavery

In the early years of the 19th century those who opposed slavery were mostly calm and genteel expressing moral disapproval but engaging in a few overt activities. To the extent there was an organized antislavery movement centered on the concept of colonization-the effort to encourage the resettlement of African Americans in Africa or the Caribbean. In 1817 a group of prominent white Virginians organized the American Colonization Society ACS which worked carefully to challenge slavery without challenging property rights or southern sensibilities -proposes a gradual freeing of slave(manumission) with masters receiving compensation through funds raised by private charity or appropriated by state legislatures. -would then transport liberated slaves out of the country and help establish a new society elsewhere -they did receive a little bit of funding and had arranged shipment of a few groups of African Americans out of the country --one went to the west coat of Africa where they helped them in 1830 establish the nation of Liberia and its capital Monrovia who was named after the American president who presided over their initial settlement -there was not enough funding to continue and civilizing African Americans was futile and there were too many.

Bear Flag Revolution

In the meantime Polk ordered other offensives against New Mexico and Cali. In the summer of 1846 a small army under Colonel Stephen W Kearny captured Santa Fe with no opposition. Then Kearny proceeded to Cali, where he joined a conflict already in progress that was being staged jointly by American settlers a well armed exploring partly led by John C Fremont and the US navy; the so called Bear Flag Revolution. Kearny brought the disparate American forces together under his command, and by the autumn of 1846 he had completed the conquest of all California. The US now controlled two territories for which it had gone to war. But Mexico still refused to concede defeat. At this point Polk and General Winfield Scott, the commanding general of the army and its finest solider, launched a bold new campaign. Scott assembled an army at Tampico which the Navy transported down the Mexican coast to Veracruz. With an army that never numbered more than 14,000. Scott advanced 260 miles along the Mexican national highway toward Mexico City, kept American casualties low, and never lost a battle before finally seizing the Mexican capital. A new Mexican government took power and announced its willingness to negotiate a peace treaty. -The California Revolution against Mexico; Kearny joined a party led by John C Fremont in a conflict being staged by American settlers ( a well armed exploring navy). Kearny brought the disparate American forces together and by Autumn of 1846 he conquered California. -Fremont raised a flag with an image of a grizzly bear on it over the town square in Sonoma -A revolt of American settlers in California against Mexican rule. It ignited the Mexican War and ultimately made California a state.

Lincoln's Position

Lincoln believed slavery was morally wrong, but he was not an abolitionist. That was in part because he could not envision an easy alternative to slavery in the areas where it already existed. He shared the prevailing view among northern whites that African Americans were not prepared to live on equal terms with whites. But even while Lincoln accepted the inferiority of black people, he continued to believe that they were entitled to basic rights. Lincoln and his party wanted to arrest further spread of slavery that is prevent its expansion into territories but they would not directly challenge it where it already existed and would instead trust that the institution would gradually die there of its own accord. -slavery was morally wrong but didnt want to abolish slavery, just wanted to stop the spread of it; spread of free labor

Manifest Destiny

Manifest destiny reflected both the burgeoning pride that characterized American nationalism in the mid nineteenth century, and the idealistic vision of social perception that fueled so much of the reform energy of the time. it rested on the idea that America was destined by God and by history to expand its boundaries over a vast area, an area that included, but not necessarily restricted to, the continent of North America. American expansion was not selfish its advocates insisted it was an altruistic attempt to extend American liberty to new realms. John L O Sullivan the influential Democratic editor who gave the movement its name wrote in 1845 that American claim to new territory is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federative self government entrusted to us. It also went to defend the superiority of the American race. -the 19th-century doctrine or belief that the expansion of the US throughout the American continents was both justified and inevitable. -1800s belief that Americans had the right to spread across the continent. -A notion held by a nineteenth-century Americans that the United States was destined to rule the continent, from the Atlantic the Pacific.

Oregon Trail

Most migrants- about 300,000 between 1840 and 1860-travled west along the great overland trails. They generally gathered in one of several major depots in Iowa and Missouri, joined a wagon train led by hired guides, and set off with their belongings piled in covered wagons, livestock trailing behind. The major route west was the 2000 mile Oregon Trail, which stretched from Independence across the Great Plains and through the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains. From there migrants moved north into Oregon or south along the Cali trail to the northern Cali coast. Other migrations moved along the Santa Fe Trail southwest from Independence into New Mexico. However they traveled overland migrants faced considerable hardships-although the death rate for travelers was only slightly higher than the rate for the American population as a whole. The mountain and desert terrain in the later portions of the trip were particularly difficult. Most journeys lasted five or six months and there was always pressure to get through the Rockies before the snows began not always an easy task given the very slow pace of most wagon trains about 15 miles a day. And although some migrants were moving west at least in part to escape the epidemic diseases of eastern cities, they were not immune from plagues. Thousands of people died on the trail of cholera during the great epidemic of the early 1850s. Before the civil war fewer than 400 migrants about 1/10 a 1% died in conflicts with tribes, rather the native Americans were more helpful then dangerous and served as guides through the difficult terrain or aided travelers in crossing streams or herding livestock. They also traded with one another. The life on the trail was broken down between gender duties men driving and repairing and hinting and women cooking caring and washing. -pioneer trail that began in missouri and crossed the great plains into the oregon country -Trail from independence Missouri to Oregon used by many pioneers during the 1840s -2000 mile long path along which thousands of Americans journeyed to the Willamette Valley in the 1840's.

Dred Scott

On March 6 1857 the supreme court of the United States projected itself into the sectional controversy with one of the most controversial and notorious decisions in its history its ruling in the case of Dred Scott v Sanford, handed down two days after Buchanan was inaugurated. Dred Scott was a Missouri slave once owned by an army surgeon who had taken Scott with him into Illinois and Wisconsin, where slavery was forbidden. In 1846 after the surgeon died, Scott sued his masters widow for freedom on the grounds that his new residence in free territory liberated him from slavery. The claim was well grounded in Missouri aw and in 1850 the circuit court in which Scott filed the suit declared him free. By now, John Sanford, the brother of the surgeons widow was now claiming ownership of Scott and he appealed the circuit court ruling to the state supreme court, which revealed the earlier decision. When Scott appealed to the federal courts, Sanford's attorneys claimed that Scott had no standing to sue because attorneys claimed that Scott had no standing to sue because he was not a citizen but private property. Justice Roger Taney wrote that Scott could not bring a suit in the federal courts because he was not a citizen. -American slave who sued his master for keeping him enslaved in a territory where slavery was banned under the missouri Compromise -United States slave who sued for liberty after living in a non-slave state -A black slave, had lived with his master for 5 years in Illinois and Wisconsin Territory. Backed by interested abolitionists, he sued for freedom on the basis of his long residence on free soil. The ruling on the case was that He was a black slave and not a citizen, so he had no rights.

Redefining Gender Roles

One of the principal concerns of many of the new utopian communities was the relationship between men and women. Transcendentalism and other movements of this period fostered expressions of a kind of feminism that would not gain a secure foothold in American society until the late 20th century. One of those most responsible for raising issues of gender was Margaret Fuller. A leading transcendentalist and close associate of Emerson, she suggested the important relationship between the discover of the self that was so central to antebellum reform and the questioning of gender roles "Many women are considering within themselves what they need and what they have not" she had written in a famous work Woman in the 19th century (1844). woman lay aside all thought quote 319. Fuller herself before her premature death in a shipwreck in 1850 lived a life far different from the domestic ideal of her time. she had intimate relationships with many men; became a great admirer of European socialists and a great champion of the Italian revolution o f1848, which she witnessed during travels there; and established herself as an intellectual leader whose power came in part from her perceptive as a woman. A redefinition of gender roles was crucial to one of the most enduring utopian colonies of the 19th century the Oneida Community established in 1848 in upstate NY by John Humphrey Noyes. The Oneida perfectionists as resident s of the community called themselves rejected traditional notions of family and marriage. Noyes declared married to all other residents with no permanent conjugal ties. It was not an experiment of free love because the community carefully monitored sexual behavior; where women were to be protected form unwanted childbearing; in which children were raised communally, often seeing little of their parents. The Oneidas took special pride in what they considered the liberation of their women from the demands of male lust and from the traditional bonds of family. relationship betw. man + woman = central question to utopias/transcendentalists, sparked new form of feminism.

Treaty of Gaudalupe Hidalgo

President Polk was unclear about his objectives. He continued to encourage those who demanded that the US annex much of Mexico itself. At the same time, concerned about the approaching presidential election, he was growing anxious to finish the war quickly. Polk had sent a special presidential envoy Nicholas Trist to negotiate a settlement. On Feb 2 1848 Trist reached agreement with the new Mexican government on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, by which Mexico agreed to cede Cali and New Mexico to the US and acknowledge the Rio Grande at the boundary of Texas. In return the US promised to assume any financial claims its new citizens had against Mexico and pay to the Mexicans $15 million. Trist had obtained most of Polk's original dreams of acquiring additional territory in mexico itself. Polk angrily claimed that trist had violated his instructions but he son realized that he had no choice but to accept the treaty to silence a bitter battle growing between ardent expansionists demanding the annexation of all mexico and antislavery leaders charging that expansionist were conspiring to extend slavery to new realms. The president submitted the Trist treaty to the Senate which approved it by a vote of 38 to 14. the war was over and America had gained vast new territory. But it had also acquired a new set of troubling and divisive issues. -Treaty that ended the Mexican war Treaty of Mexico ends, February 1848, Treaty confirmed the annexation of Texas California and New Mexico, In return the U.S. paid 18.2 million, -treaty that ended the mexican war and gave the U.S much of Mexico's northern territory (1848)

Hill People

Some nonslaveowning whites did oppose the planter elite, but for the most part in limited ways and in relatively few. These were southern highlanders, the hill people who lived in the Appalachian ranges east of the Mississippi in the Ozarks to the west of the river, and in other hill country or back-country areas cut off from the commercial world of the plantation system. Of all southern whites they were the most isolated from the mainstreams of the regions life. They practiced a simple form of subsistence agriculture, owned practically no slaves, and had a proud sense of seclusion. They were in most respects unconnected to the new commercial economy that dominated the great cotton planting region of the South. They produced almost no surplus for the market, had little access to money, and often bartered for the goods they could not grow themselves. To such men and women slavery was unattractive for many of the same reasons it was unappealing to workers and small farmers in the north; because it threatened their sense of their own independence. Hill country farmers lived in a society defined by individual personal freedom and unusual isolation from modern notions of property. They also held older political ideals which for many included the ideal of fervent loyalty to the nation Such whites frequently expressed animosity toward the planter aristocracy of the other regions of the South. The mountain region was the only part of the South to defy the trend toward sectional conformity and the only part to resist the movement toward secession when it finally developed, even during the civil war many hill country support the confederacy some even fought for the union. -the non-slaveowning whites who opposed the planter elite. They lived in the Appalachian ranges east of the Mississippi, in the Ozarks to the west of the river, and in other hill/ back- country areas. They were the most isolated from the mainstream southern lifestyle, practiced subsistence farming, owned almost no slaves, and were unconnected with the new commercial economy of the South. -non-slaveowning whites who lived in the Appalachian ranges cut off from the plantation system, subsistence farming, animosity towards planter aristocracy -Whites who lived in the back-county areas of the Appalachians east of the Mississippi and practiced subsistence farming, disconnected from the Southern commercial economy, mostly did not own slaves

Indian Reservation

Some of these same beliefs underlay the emergence in the 1840s and 1850s of a new reform approach to the problems of Native Americans: the idea of the reservation. For several decades, the dominant thrust of US policy toward the Indians in areas of white settlement had been relocation. The principal motive behind relocation had always been a simple one: getting the tribes out of the way of white civilization. But among some whites there had also been another, if secondary, intent: to move the Indians to a place where they would be protected from whites and allowed to develop to appoint where assimilation might be possible. Even Andrew Jackson whos animus towards Indians was legendary once described the removals as part of the nations moral duty to protect and if possible to preserve and perpetuate the scattered remnant of the Indian race. It was a small step from the idea of relocation to the idea of the reservation: the idea of creating an enclosed region in which Indians would live in isolation from white society. The reserves served white economic purposes above all0moving Native Americans out of good land that white settlers wanted. But they were also supposed to serve as a reform purpose. Just as prisons asylums and orphanages would provide society with the opportunity to train and uplift misfits and unfortunates within white society, so the reservations might provide a way to undertake what one official called the great work of regenerating the Indian race. native Americans on reservations, reformers argued, would learn the ways of civilization in a protected setting. -Indians were sent to reservations to "protect their culture". In reality, these reservations just pulled Indians off of lands the whites wanted and kept them separate from American society.

Other Burdens

Southern white women had other special burdens as well. The southern white birth rate remained nearly 20 percent higher that that of the nation as a whole, and infant mortality rate in the region remained higher than elsewhere; nearly half the children born in the south in 1860 died before they reached fiver years of age. The slave labor also had a mixed impact on white women. It helped spare many of them from certain kinds of arduous labor, but it also threatened their relationships with their husbands. Male slave-owners had frequent sexual relationships with the female slaves on the plantations; the children of those union became part of the plantation labor force and served as a constant reminder to the white women of their husbands infidelity. Black women and men were obviously the most important victims of such practices but white women suffered too. A few southern white women rebelled against their roles and against the prevailing assumption of their region, Some became outspoken abolitionists and joined northerners in the crusade to abolish slavery. Some agitated for other reforms within the south itself. Most white women however found few outlets for their discontent they may have felt within their lives. Instead they generally convinced themselves of the benefits of their position and even more reverently than southern white men.

Free Soil Party

Taylor won a narrow victory. But while Vane buren failed to carry a single state, he polled an impressive 291,000 votes 10% of total and the Free Soilers elected 10 members to Congress. The emergence of the Free Soil Party as an important political force, like the emergence of the KnowNothing and Liberty parties before it, signaled the inability of the existing parties to contain the political passions slavery was creating. -a political party formed in 1848 to oppose the extension of slavery into U.S. territories -Formed in 1847 - 1848, dedicated to opposing slavery in newly acquired territories such as Oregon and ceded Mexican territory.

The Shakers

The Shakers even more than the Oneidas made a redefinition of traditional sexuality and gender roles central to their society. Founded by "Mother" Ann Lee in the 1770s the society of the Shakers survived throughout the 19th century and into the 20th. But the Shakers attracted a particularly large following in the antebellum period and established more than 20 communities throughout the Northeast and Northwest in the 1840s. They derived their name from unique religious ritual sort of ecstatic dance in which members of a congregation would shake themselves free of sin while performing a loud chant. The most distinctive feature of shakerism, however was its commitment to complete celibacy which meant of course that no one could be born to Shakerism; all shakers had to choose the faith voluntarily. Shaker communities attracted about 6000 members in the 1840s more conditions in which contact between men and women was very limited. Shakers openly endorsed the idea of sexual equality; they even embraced the idea of a God who was not clearly male or female. Within the shaker society as a whole it was women who exercised the most power. Mother Ann Lee was succeeded as leader of the movement by Mother Lucy Wright. shakerism one observer wrote in the 1840s was a refuge from the perversions of marriage and the gross abuses which drag it down. The Shakers were not however motivated only by a desire to escape the burdens of traditional gender roles. They were trying as well to create a society separated and protected from the chaos and disorder that they believed had come to characterize American life as a whole. Less interested in personal freedom then in social discipline they were like some other dissenting religious sects and utopian communities. -a celibate and communistic Christian sect in the United States -A millennial group who believed in both Jesus and a mystic named Ann Lee. Since they were celibate and could only increase their numbers through recruitment and conversion, they eventually ceased to exist. -1770's by "Mother" Ann Lee; Utopian group that splintered from the Quakers; believed that they & all other churches had grown too interested in this world & neglectful of their afterlives; prohibited marriage and sexual relationships; practiced celibacy

John Browns Raid

The battles in congress however were overshadowed by a spectacular event that enraged an horrified the entire south and greatly hastened the rush toward disunion. In the fall of 1859, John brown the antislavery zealot whose bloody actions in Kansas had inflamed the crisis there staged an even more dramatic episode, this time in the South itself. With private encouragement and financial aid from some prominent eastern abolitionists he made elaborate plans to seize a mountain fortress in Virginia from which he believed he could foment a slave insurrection in the South. On October 16, he and a group of 18 followers attacked a seized control of a US arsenal in Harper Ferry, Virginia. But the slave uprising brown hoped to inspire did not occur and he quickly found himself besieged by citizens, local militia companies and before long US troops under the command of Robert Lee. After ten of his men were killed brown surrendered, he was promptly tried in a Virginia court for treason against the state found guilty and sentenced to death. Him and six of his followers were hanged. -In 1859, the militant abolitionist John Brown seized the U.S. arsenal at Harper's Ferry. He planned to end slavery by massacring slave owners and freeing their slaves. He was captured and executed. -tried to overtake a federal arsenal in hopes of starting a slave revolt -Began when he and his men took over the arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in hopes of starting a slave rebellion.

Foreign Slave Trade

The foreign slave trade was usually badly conducted resulting in many people dying along the way. Although federal law had prohibited the importation of slaves from 1808 on, some continued to be smuggled into the US as late as the 1850s when the supply of slaves had become inadequate. At the annual southern commercial conventions planters began to discuss the legal reopening of the trade. The convention that year voted to repeal all the laws against slave imports but the government never acted on its proposal. The continued smuggling was not without resistance from the slaves themselves. In 1839 a group of 53 slaves in Cuba took charge of the Ship Amistad that was transporting them to another part of Cuba. Their goal was sail back to their homeland in Africa. The slaves had no experience with sailing and they tried to compel the crew to steer them across the Atlantic. Instead the ship sailed up the Atlantic coast until it was captured by a ship of the US revenue service. Many Americans including president van buren though the slaves should be returned to Cuba. But at the request of the abolitionists former president john Quincy Adams went before the supreme court to argue that the foreign slave trade was illegal and thus the Amistad rebels could not be returned to slavery. The court accepted his argument in 1841 and most of the former slaves were returned to Africa with funding from American abolitionists. -Federal law prohibited the importation of slaves from 1808 on, some continued to be smuggled into the United States as late as the 1850's

Indian Slavery

The gold rush created a serious labor shortage in California as many male workers left their jobs and flocked to the gold fields. This shortage created opportunities for many people who need work. It also led to an overt exploitation of Indians that resembled slavery in all but name. White vigilantes who called themselves Indian hunters were already hunting down and killings thousands of Indians before the gold rush(contributing to the process which by the Native American population in Cali declined from 150000 to 30000 between the 1850s and 1870).. Now a new state law permitted the arrest of loitering or orphaned Indians and their assignment to a term of indentured labor. The gold rush was of critical importance to the growth of Cali but bot for the reasons most of the migrants hoped. There was substantial gold in the fields of the sierra Nevada and many people got rich from it but only a tiny fraction of the 49ers ever found gold, or even managed to stake a claim to land on which they could look for gold. Some disappointed migrants returned home after a while but many stayed in Cali and swelled both the agricultural and urban populations of the territory. -Indians were forced to work as 'indentured servants' during the period of the gold rush -California state law allowed for the arrest of "loitering" or orphaned Indians that would be assigned to a term of "indentured" labor that was akin to slavery. -There was not much of this, because Indians were not very good slaves, but for those that were slaves, the whites treated them just as they did the Africans. The whites felt superior to the Indians and felt that it was their Christian duty to help them.

Frederick Douglass

The greatest African abolitionist of all- and one of the most electrifying orators of his time black or white-was Frederick Douglass. Born a slave in Maryland Douglass escaped to Massachusetts in 1838, became an outspoken leader of antislavery sentiment, and spent two years lecturing in England, where members of that country's vigorous antislavery movement, lionized him. On his return to the US in 1847, Douglass purchased his freedom from his Maryland owner and founded an antislavery newspaper, the North Star, in Rochester, NY. He achieved wide renown as well for his autobiography. Narrative of the Life of Frederic Douglass(1845), in which he presented a damning picture of slavery. Douglass demanded for African Americans not only for freedom but full social and economic equality as well. Black abolitionists had been active for years before Douglass emerged as a leader of their causes; they became a more influential force; and they began too to forge alliances with white antislavery leaders such as Garrison. Reference book for quote on 4th July 332 -United States abolitionist who escaped from slavery and became an influential writer and lecturer in the North (1817-1895) -Escaped slave and great black abolitionist who fought to end slavery through political action -(1817-1895) American abolitionist and writer, he escaped slavery and became a leading African American spokesman and writer. He published his biography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and founded the abolitionist newspaper, the North Star.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

The most powe4rful document of abolitionist propaganda however was a work of fiction; Harriet Beecher Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin. IT appeared first in 1851-1852 as a serial in an antislavery weekly. Then in 1852, it was published as a book. It rocked the nation, selling more than 300,000 copies within a year of publication, and was later issued again and again to become one of the most remarkable best sellers in American history. Stowes novel emerged not just out of abolitionist politics, but also out of a popular tradition of sentimental novels written by and largely for women. stowe combined the emotional conventions of the sentimental novel with the political ideas of the abolition movement, and to sensational effect. her novel , by embedding the antislavery message within a familiar and popular literary form, succeeded in bringing the message of abolitionism to an enormous new audience- not only those who read the book, ut also those who watched dramatizations of its story by countless theater companies throughout the nation. The novels emotionally portrayal of good, kindly slaves, victimize buy a cruel system; of loyal, trusting uncle Tom; one of the vicious overseer Simon Legree; of the escape of beautiful Eliza ; of the heartrending death of little Eva-all became a part of American popular legend. Reviled throughout the South, Stowe became a hero to many in the North. An in both regions, her novel helped to inflame sectional tensions to a new level. Few books in American history have had so great an impact on the course of public events. (1811-1896) American author and daughter of Lyman Beecher, she was an abolitionist and author of the famous antislavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Feminism

The reform ferment of the antebellum period had a particular meaning for American women. they played central roles in a wide range of reform movements and a particularly important role in the movement s on behalf of temperance and the abolition of slavery. In the process they expressed their awareness of the problems that women themselves face in a male dominated society. The result was the creation of the first important American feminist's movement, one that laid the groundwork for more than a century of agitation for women's rights. Women in the 1830s and 1840s faced not only all the traditional restrictions imposed on members of their sex by society but also a new set of barriers that emerged from the doctrine of separate spheres and the transformation of the family. Many women who began to involve themselves in reform movements in the 1820s and 1830s came to look on such restrictions with rising resentment. Some began to defy them. Sarah and Angeline Grimke sisters born in South Carolina who had become active outspoken abolitionists ignored attacks by men who claimed their activities were inappropriate for their sex. Quote moral and accountable beings 327. Other reformers Catharine Beecher Harriet Beecher Stowe and her sister, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Dorothea Dix also charging at the restrictions place on them by men similarly pressed at the boundaries acceptable female behavior. The belief that women should have economic, political, and social equality with men

Plain Folk

The typical white southerner was not a great planter and slaveholder, but a modest yeoman farmer. Some of these plain folk as they have become known owned a few slaves, with whom they worked and lived far more closely than did the large planters. Most (3/4) owned no slaves. Some plain folk, most of whom owned their own land, devoted themselves largely to subsistence farming; others grew cotton or other crops for the market, but usually could not produce enough to allow them to expand their operations or get out of debt. During the 1850s the number of nonslaveholding landowners increased much faster than the number of slaveholding landowners. While there were occasional examples of poor farmers moving into the ranks of the planter class, such cases were rare. Most yeomen knew that they had little prospect of substantially bettering their lot. One reason was the southern educational system which provided poor whites with few opportunities to learn and thus limited their chance of advancement. -Poorer Southern whites who did not own plantations. -Attempting to convince the public that one's views reflect those of the common person

Limited class Conflict

There were other white southerners however who did not share in the plantation economy in even limited ways and yet continued to accept its premises. These were members of a particularly degraded class numbering perhaps half a million in 1850 known to other classes variously and demeaningly as crackers, sand hillers, or poor white trash(Uncle Toms Cabin). occupying the infertile lands of the pine barrens the red hill and the swamps, they lived in miserable cabins amid genuine destitution. Others worked as common laborers for their neighbors although the slave system limited their opportunities. Their degradation resulted partly from dietary deficiencies and disease. Some resorted at times to eating clay and they suffered from pellagra hookworm and malaria. Planters and small farmers alike held them in contempt. They formed a true underclass. In some material respects their plight was worse than that of the African American slaves(who also looked down upon them). Yet even among these southerners the true outcasts of white society in the region there was no real opposition to the plantation system or slavery. In part this was because these men and women were so benumbed by poverty that they had little strength to protest. But their relative passivity resulted also from perhaps the single greatest unifying factor amongst the southern white population, the one of the various classes; their perception of race. However poor and miserable these white southerners were they could still consider themselves members of the ruling race; they could still look down on the black population of the region and feel a bond with their fellow whites born of determination to maintain their racial supremacy. -There was not much opposition to the plantation system throughout the classes. Poor white felt more powerful than blacks. -There was not much opposition to the plantation system from the middle or low class towards the upper class. A factor was that even poor whites felt superior to slaves.

Public Education

They built new schools, created teachers colleges, and offered large new groups of children access to education. henry Barnard helped produce a educational system in Connecticut and Rhode Island. PA passed a law in 1835 appropriating state funds for the support of universal education. governor William Sewar of NY extended public support of schools throughout the state in the early 1840s. By the 1850s the principle of tax supported elementary schools had been accepted in all states; and were all making at least a start toward putting the principle into practice. Yet the quality of the new education continued to vary widely. Some place like Mass where Manne stablished the first American state supported teachers college in 1839 and where the first professional association of teachers was created in 1845-educators were usually capable men and women often highly trained, but in other areas teacher literacy was bad and there was little to no funding. In new settled regions in the west where the white pop was highly dispersed many children had no access to schools. In the south the entire black population was barred from receiving formal education(10% literacy) and only about a third of all white children of school age actually enrolled in 1860. In the north the percentage was 72% but even there many students attended classes only briefly and causally. -Between 1830-1850, many northern states opened free public schools. Education allowed kids more chances. (Leaders; Horace Mann)