Browse Items (19 total)

The temperance movement, or the movement to make alcohol consumption illegal, became widespread in nineteenth-century America. Since the European settlement of North America, alcohol consumption had been common. By the 1830s, Americans consumed an…

Before the end of slavery, free Black Virginians found their liberty in constant jeopardy because they were not considered citizens. After Gabriel's attempted slave rebellion in 1800, the General Assembly passed an act in 1801 requiring county…

Nat Turner was born enslaved in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1800. He became a preacher and self-proclaimed prophet who believed that he had been called to lead a rebellion against slavery. On August 21, 1831, Turner began a slave revolt that…

In December 1833, a group of about sixty Black and white men met in Philadelphia and organized the American Anti-Slavery Society to seek the immediate emancipation of enslaved people. The Society viewed slavery as a violation of the principle of…

In 1806, Virginia's General Assembly passed a law that required enslaved people who had been freed after that date to leave the state within one year's time. Those who remained in the Commonwealth more than a year could be re-enslaved and sold.…

Gabriel’s Conspiracy illustrated the lengths to which some enslaved people were willing to fight for freedom in pre-Civil War America. In 1800, a group of enslaved men living in the vicinity of Richmond planned a conspiracy to take over the capital,…

After the American Revolution, some Virginians, inspired by the language of liberty, freed their enslaved laborers. By 1800 the population of free Black men and women had increased to nearly 20,000, primarily in urban areas like Richmond and…

In 1803, Congress appropriated money for an exploration of the Louisiana Purchase, the vast expanse of land the United States had purchased from France for $15 million. Americans had not yet explored much of the 828,000 square miles, and President…

In 1801, following Gabriel's failed slave rebellion, the Virginia General Assembly decreed that county commissioners of the revenue were to return a complete list of all free Black men and women in their districts on an annual basis. The list was to…

In 1848, Spain ceded a vast western territory to the United States as part of the Treaty of Hidalgo that ended the Mexican-American War. This included California, home to about 6,500 Californios of Mexican descent, 700 Americans, and 150,000…