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A House Divided, America in the Age of Lincoln

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We have been restructuring the database and the organization of Digital History for the past three years, and we feel this makeover will significantly improve the usability of our materials. In our new interface, materials are organized by era, so users will easily be able to view many different types of resources for a particular era such as the textbook, images, primary sources, multimedia and teacher materials.

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Nathanial "Nat" Turner (1800-1831) was an enslaved man who led a rebellion of enslaved people on August 21, 1831. His action set off a massacre of up to 200 Black people and a new wave of oppressive legislation prohibiting the education, movement, and assembly of enslaved people. The rebellion also stiffened pro-slavery, anti-abolitionist convictions that persisted in that region until the American Civil War (1861-65).

Early Life

Turner was born on the Virginia plantation of Benjamin Turner, who allowed him to be instructed in reading, writing, and religion. Sold three times in his childhood and hired out to John Travis (1820s), he became a fiery preacher and leader of enslaved Africans on Benjamin Turner's plantation and in his Southampton County neighborhood, claiming that he was chosen by God to lead them from bondage.

Did you know? Fifty-six Black people accused of participating in Nat Turner's rebellion were executed, and more than 200 others were beaten by angry mobs or white militias.

Insurrection

Believing in signs and hearing divine voices, Turner was convinced by an eclipse of the sun (1831) that the time to rise up had come, and he enlisted the help of four other enslaved men in the area. An insurrection was planned, aborted, and rescheduled for August 21,1831, when he and six others killed the Travis family, managed to secure arms and horses, and enlisted about 75 other enslaved people in a large but disorganized insurrection that resulted in the murder of an estimated 55 white people.

Afterwards, Turner hid nearby successfully for six weeks until his discovery, conviction, and hanging at Jerusalem, Virginia, along with 16 of his followers. The incident put fear in the heart of Southerners, ended the organized emancipation movement in that region, resulted in even harsher laws against enslaved people, and deepened the schism between slave-holders and free-soilers (an anti-slavery political party whose slogan was 'free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men') that would culminate in the Civil War.

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Nathanial "Nat" Turner (1800-1831) was a black American slave who led the only effective, sustained slave rebellion (August 1831) in U.S. history.

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Article of the Execution of a Slave-Trader

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Article of the Execution of a Slave-Trader

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Freedom's Journal was the first African-American owned and operated newspaper published in the United States. Founded by Rev. Peter Williams, Jr. and other free black men in New York City, it was published weekly as a four-page, four-column newspaper, starting with the March 16, 1827 issue. Freedom's Journal circulated in 11 states, the District of Columbia, Haiti, Europe, and Canada.

Subjects contained in the journal:

current events of the day, with regional, national and international information

editorials declaiming slavery, lynching and other injustices

biographies of prominent African-Americans

vital record listings of births, deaths and marriages in the African-American New York community

Freedom's Journal Online Archive

All 103 issues of the Freedom's Journal have been digitized and posted on our website. You'll find these documents in PDF format.

Please note that our digital copies are almost illegible in many places. If we can conveniently replace our defective scans with higher quality scans in the future, we may consider posting new versions.

A much better digital version is available in Newsbank's African American Newspapers, a commercial online newspaper product available from many university libraries across the country. If you do not have access to the commercial online newspaper product, you may access our version of Freedom's Journal PDFs at these links:

Volume 1 - Freedom's Journal

Volume 2 - Freedom's Journal

More About Freedom's Journal
OCLC#: 1570144
LC card #: sn83-30455
We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us.

Samuel Cornish and John B. Russwurm, co-editors of Freedom's Journal

Freedom's Journal, the first African-American owned and operated newspaper published in the United States, was published weekly in New York City from 1827 to 1829.

Samuel Cornish served as co-editor with John B. Russwurm between March 16, 1827 and September 14, 1827. Russwurm became sole editor of the Journal following the resignation of Cornish in September 1827.

Freedom's Journal was superseded by The Rights of All, published between 1829 and 1830 by S. E. Cornish. Learn more about history of the Journal and its editors on the PBS website.

Freedom's Journal provided international, national, and regional information on current events and contained editorials declaiming slavery, lynching, and other injustices. The Journal also published biographies of prominent African-Americans and listings of births, deaths, and marriages in the African-American New York community. Freedom's Journal circulated in 11 states, the District of Columbia, Haiti, Europe, and Canada.

The newspaper employed subscription agents. One of these, David Walker, in 1829 published the first of four articles that called for rebellion. Walker's Appeal stated that "I t is no more harm for you to kill the man who is trying to kill you than it is for you to take a drink of water." This bold attack was widely read, and Walker distributed copies of his pamphlet into the South, where it was widely banned.

Learn More

Explore these organizations and resources for more information on African-American periodicals.
The Amistad Research Center, Tulane University William Monroe Trotter Institute of the University of Massachusetts Boston John Henrik Clarke Africana Library National Endowment for the Humanities Resources in Black Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara Library The African Diaspora: University of Texas at Austin Lists of African and Diaspora University Study Programs
Africans in America: America's Journey through Slavery from WGBH

Have Questions?

Contact our Library and Archives staff by phone at 608-264-6535 or by email.
asklibrary@wisconsinhistory.org

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Freedom's Journal, the First U.S. African-American Owned Newspaper | Wisconsin Historical Society

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Freedom's Journal was the first African-American owned and operated newspaper published in the United States. Founded by Rev. Peter Williams, Jr. and other free black men in New York City, it was published weekly as a four-page, four-column newspaper, starting with the March 16, 1827 issue.

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Scroll Down for Narratives and Writings of a Former Slave's Account

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Scroll Down for Narratives and Writings of a Former Slave's Account

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Andrew Jackson, b. 1814. Narrative and Writings of Andrew Jackson, of Kentucky; Containing an Account of His Birth, and Twenty-Six Years of His Life While a Slave; His Escape; Five Years of Freedom, Together with Anecdotes Relating to Slavery; Journal of One Year's Travels; Sketches, etc. Narrated by Himself; Written by a Friend.

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Narrative and Writings of Andrew Jackson, of Kentucky; Containing an Account of His Birth, and Twenty-Six Years of His Life While a Slave; His Escape; Five Years of Freedom, Together with Anecdotes Relating to Slavery; Journal of One Year's Travels; Sketches, etc. Narrated by Himself; Written by a Friend.

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George Johnson Personal Narrative on Education

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George Johnson Personal Narrative on Education

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Slavery and the Making of America . The Slave Experience: Education, Arts, & Culture | PBS

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In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) sponsored a federal project dedicated to chronicling the experience of slavery as remembered by former slaves and their descendants. Their stories were recorded and transcribed, and this site presents dozens of select sound recordings and hundreds of transcriptions from the interviews.

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The American Colonization Society is founded to help free blacks resettle in Africa.

1817-19
Fugitive slaves in Florida and Native Americans fight together against the forces of Andrew Jackson in the First Seminole War.

1817
The state of Georgia officially bans the slave trade.

1819
The U.S. annexes East Florida, which previously served as a refuge for runaway slaves.

1819
U.S. law declares slave trading to be a capital offense.

1819
Canada denies the American government the right to pursue runaway slaves within its borders.

1819
Virginia and North Carolina remove restraints on interstate slave trade.

1819
Virginia outlaws blacks and mulattos, whether free or slave, from meeting for the purposes of education and forbids teaching blacks to read and write.

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Slavery and the Making of America . Timeline | PBS

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The American Colonization Society is founded to help free blacks resettle in Africa. 1817-19 Fugitive slaves in Florida and Native Americans fight together against the forces of Andrew Jackson in the First Seminole War. 1817 The state of Georgia officially bans the slave trade. 1819 The U.S.

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Slavery and the Making of America . The Slave Experience: Men, Women & Gender | PBS

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SLAVERY AND THE MAKING OF AMERICA is a production of Thirteen/WNET New York. © 2004 Educational Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved.

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Smalley, Smith, Hughes Personal Narratives

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Smalley, Smith, Hughes Personal Narratives

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Slavery and the Making of America . The Slave Experience: Men, Women & Gender | PBS

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In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) sponsored a federal project dedicated to chronicling the experience of slavery as remembered by former slaves and their descendants. Their stories were recorded and transcribed, and this site presents dozens of select sound recordings and hundreds of transcriptions from the interviews.

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For black men and women, slavery was an equally devastating experience. Both were torn from homeland and family. Both were forced to perform grueling labor, subjected to mental and physical degradation, and denied their most basic rights. Enslaved men and women were beaten mercilessly, separated from loved ones arbitrarily, and, regardless of sex, treated as property in the eyes of the law. Despite common factors, however, the circumstances of enslavement were different for black women and black men. The first slaves to be brought to the British colonies of North America were disproportionately male. Considered more valuable workers because of their strength, enslaved men performed labors that ranged from building houses to plowing fields. When the Dutch brought African and Creole women into New Amsterdam in the late 1620s, they did so not to supplement their workforce, but to provide company for their black male slaves. Early on, slave buyers in the colonies turned to purchasing female field hands, who were not only more readily available, but also cheaper. In fact, because skilled labor, such as carpentry and blacksmithing, was assigned only to male slaves, the pool of black men available for agricultural work was further reduced. As a result, female slaves eventually outnumbered men in field forces.

Although most planters in colonial North America favored robust young men as slaves, the bulk of these were shipped to the West Indies, whose sugar crops dominated the international trade economy.

On small farms with few slaves, women were more likely to perform the same labor as men. Usually, however, especially on larger farms and plantations, fieldwork was divided along gender lines, with more physically demanding tasks assigned to male gangs. Men, for instance, might chop the wood for a fence, while women were put in charge of its construction. Men generally plowed the fields, while women hoed.

The activity of hoeing, in particular, speaks to several ways in which the institution of American slavery upset the gender roles men and women played in Africa before enslavement. In South Carolina, where rice was the dominant crop, men hoed the fields alongside women. The task was an emasculating one given that the hoe was specifically identified with woman's work in West Africa. Because rice was a staple food item in this region of Africa, hoeing was considered among female domestic duties, along with cooking. Ironically, therefore, the task of hoeing also disturbed the gender identity of the female slave. In the American South, enslaved women wielding hoes were contributing to the commercial production of their masters, not to the nourishment of their families.

In Africa, woman's primary social role was that of mother. In slavery, this aspect of African womanhood was debased. Whereas childbirth in Africa was a rite of passage for women that earned them increased respect, within the American plantation system that developed by the mid-eighteenth century, it was an economic advantage for the master, who multiplied his labor force through slave pregnancy. The average enslaved woman at this time gave birth to her first child at nineteen years old, and thereafter, bore one child every two and a half years. This cycle, encouraged by the master, was not without benefits to the mother. While pregnant, she could usually expect more food and fewer working hours. Because proven fertility made her more valuable to her owner, she was also less likely to be sold away from friends and family.

Of course, the burdens, physical as well as psychological, that came with childbearing were enormous for enslaved women. Expected to put the needs of the master and his family before her own children, the slave mother on a large plantation returned to the fields soon after giving birth, leaving her child to be raised by others. On a smaller farm, the slave's mothering responsibilities were simply added on top of her usual duties. For the love of their children, slave mothers often chose to stay in bondage, while their male counterparts attempted escape. The female slave was, moreover, faced with the prospect of being forced into sexual relationships for the purposes of reproduction. Perhaps more harrowing, she might be witness to her daughters suffering the same fate.

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Slavery and the Making of America . The Slave Experience: Men, Women & Gender | PBS

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For black men and women, slavery was an equally devastating experience. Both were torn from homeland and family. Both were forced to perform grueling labor, subjected to mental and physical degradation, and denied their most basic rights. Enslaved men and women were beaten mercilessly, separated from loved ones arbitrarily, and, regardless of sex, treated as property in the eyes of the law.

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February 14, 2018
Frederick Douglass arrived at the White House on a hot day in August 1863 without an appointment. He was a black man on a mission at a time when the country was torn by Civil War.

Douglass, the famous orator and abolitionist who had been recruiting "colored troops" for the Union Army, was incensed that black soldiers captured by Confederate troops had been mutilated, tortured and assassinated in cold blood. Some had been sold into slavery.

Douglass wanted an immediate meeting with President Abraham Lincoln. He was not sure he would get in. There was a throng in front of the White House waiting to see Lincoln. Some of them looked ragged and worn, like they had been waiting for days.

"They were white; and as I was the only dark spot among them," Douglass said later. "I expected to have to wait at least half a day."

Douglass sent his card up the line. It took only two minutes for a White House messenger to come out of the White House and summon in "Mr. Douglass!"

The crowd of white people in line murmured.

"I could hear, in the eager multitude outside, as they saw me pressing and elbowing my way through, the remark, 'Yes, damn it, I knew they would let the n-- through,'" Douglass would later recount to an audience of abolitionists in Philadelphia, according to his book " Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings."
[Listen to a great history story every day. Subscribe to "Retropod" on Amazon Echo, Google Home or your favorite podcast app.]

It was an astonishing moment in the astonishing life of Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, who was born enslaved on Maryland's Eastern Shore 200 years ago. Although he did not know the exact date of his birth, he would later celebrate it as Feb. 14, 1818 - a bicentennial being marked across the country this week amid black history month. His mother was an enslaved black woman, whom he could barely remember, and his father was a white man - perhaps a slave owner.

Douglass, who bore the scars of brutal lashings, was 20 when he escaped slavery. "It was life and death with me. On the third day of September, 1838, I left my chains, and succeeded in reaching New York without the slightest interruption of any kind," Douglass wrote in " FREDERICK DOUGLASS' NARRATIVE - Memoirs of an American Slave, Freedom Fighter & Statesman."

He changed his name from Bailey to Johnson. After he married Anna Murray, they both changed their last names to Douglass.

Frederick Douglass went on to become one of the most famous men in the country, an abolitionist, a powerful orator, an advocate for women's rights, a brilliant strategist, a newspaper owner, a friend to John Brown and Harriet Tubman.
[Whether she's on the $20 bill or not, Harriet Tubman made men pay for underestimating her]
After Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, which included a provision calling for black men to enlist in the U.S. Army, Douglass fervently began recruiting for the Union.

"Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket," Douglass wrote, "there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship."

Two of Douglass's sons - Charles and Lewis - were among the first black men to enlist. His son Frederick worked to recruit "colored troops" in the Mississippi Valley. Douglass helped recruit at least two regiments - the 54th and 55th - Massachusetts regiments of "colored troops."

As the war raged, black soldiers imprisoned by Confederate forces were mutilated and assassinated. Some free black men fighting for the Union were captured and sold into slavery.

The silence from the White House infuriated Douglass, who published a letter in his "Douglass Monthly" newspaper criticizing the president.

The letter, which carried a Rochester dateline, was addressed to Maj. George L. Stearns, who helped establish the Emancipation League and recruited the 54th and 55th regiments.

"I owe it to my long-abused people, and especially to those already in the army, to expose their wrongs and plead their cause," Douglass wrote in "Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself."

Douglass explained he could not in good faith continue to recruit black men, criticizing Lincoln and the War Department for failing to retaliate for "colored" prisoners of war assassinated "in cold blood" by Confederate troops.

"No word was said when free men from Massachusetts were caught and sold into slavery in Texas," Douglass wrote. "No word is said when brave black men, who according to testimony of both friend and foe, fought like heroes to plant the star-spangled banner on the blazing parapets of Fort Wagner, and in doing so were captured, some mutilated and killed, and others sold into slavery."

Stearns urged Douglass to travel to Washington to talk directly to Lincoln, a trip still dangerous for a black man.

"I hereby authorize Frederick Douglass," Stearns wrote, "to go to Washington, D.C. as my Agent to transact business connected with Recruiting Service for United States Colored Volunteers."

Douglass was unsure how he would be received.

"The distance then between the black man and the white American citizen was immeasurable," Douglass wrote in "Life and Times." "I was an ex-slave, identified with a despised race, and yet I was to meet the most exalted person in this great republic."

It was early morning when Douglass arrived at the B&O station in Washington.

"Yet the city was bustling," John Stauffer wrote in " Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass." "He could not help but notice the large numbers of blacks, some already working, a few sleeping in the open air. In a little over a year, over eleven thousand freedmen and women, called 'contraband of war,' had flocked on the city, and another three thousand were housed at Alexandria."

Douglass, dressed in a white stiff collar and black over coat, cut a distinguishing figure in the crowd. On the street, he encountered Samuel C. Pomeroy, a senator from Kansas, who accompanied him to the White House and introduced him to Lincoln.

When Douglass entered the room, he found Lincoln sitting in a low-arm chair, without vanity or "pomp and ceremony." Lincoln's feet, Douglass wrote, were extended and the president was surrounded by stacks of documents and "busy" secretaries.

Lincoln appeared tired, but rose and extended his hand. Douglass began to introduce himself. Lincoln stopped him: "I know who you are, Mr. Douglass."

Douglass wasted no time getting to the point.

"I wished to bring to his attention," Douglass later wrote, "first, that colored soldiers ought to receive the same wages as those paid to white soldiers. Second, that colored soldiers ought to receive the same protection when taken prisoners, and be exchanged as readily and on the same terms as any other prisoners, and if Jefferson Davis should shoot or hang colored soldiers in cold blood, the United States government should retaliate in kind and degree without delay upon Confederate prisoners in its hands."

Lincoln's voice quivered, Douglass later wrote, when he explained his loathing of executions done in retaliation.

"If I could get hold of the men that murdered your troops, murdered our prisoners of war, I would execute them," Lincoln told Douglass. "But I cannot take men that may not have had anything to do with this murdering of our soldiers and execute them."
[The truth about Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee: He wasn't very good at his job]
Lincoln promised to sign any commission recommended by the secretary of war for black soldiers. He did not commit to equal pay.

"Though I was not entirely satisfied with his views," Douglass wrote later, "I was so well satisfied with the man and with the educating tendency of the conflict that I determined to go on with the recruiting."

Lincoln extended at least three more White House invitations to Douglass, including to the president's second inauguration. He listened on March 4, 1865, as Lincoln called slavery "an offense" against God and described "this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came."

The president concluded: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

After the swearing-in ceremony, Douglass walked to the White House. Douglass recalled the "grand procession of citizens from all parts of the country," making their way there.

"I had for some time looked upon myself as a man, but now in this multitude of the élite of the land, I felt myself a man among men," Douglass wrote in "The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass."

When he arrived at the door, two police officers stopped him because he was black. The officers "took me rudely by the arm and ordered me to stand back, for their directions were to admit no persons of my color."

Douglass told the officers they were making a mistake and he had been invited by Lincoln himself.

"If he knew I was at the door, he would desire my admission," Douglass insisted. The officers escorted Douglass to a "temporary passage for the exit of visitors."

Douglass refused to leave. "I shall not go out of this building till I see President Lincoln," he told them.

Just then a man who was passing recognized Douglass, who asked him to relay a message to Lincoln that he was being detained at the door. Not long after that, Douglass was escorted into the East Room.

"Amid a scene of elegance such as in this country I had never before witnessed," Douglass wrote. "Like a mountain pine high above all others, Mr. Lincoln stood, in his grand simplicity, and homelike beauty. Recognizing me, even before I reached him, he exclaimed, so that all around could hear him, 'Here comes my friend Douglass.'"

Lincoln took his hand and said, according to Douglass, "I am glad to see you. I saw you in the crowd today, listening to my inaugural address. How did you like it?" "I said, 'Mr. Lincoln, I must not detain you with my poor opinion, when there are thousands waiting to shake hands with you.' "

"No, no," he said, "you must stop a little, Douglass; there is no man in the country whose opinion I value more than yours. I want to know what you think of it?"

Douglass replied, "Mr. Lincoln, that was a sacred effort."
Read more Retropolis: Hunting down runaway slaves: The cruel ads of Andrew Jackson and 'the master class' Missouri v. Celia, a Slave: She killed the white master raping her, then claimed self-defense 'Unflinching': The day John Brown was hanged for his raid on Harpers Ferry A surgeon experimented on slave women without anesthesia. Now his statues are under': After slavery, the desperate search for loved ones in seen 'last ads''My mother was sold from me attack.

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frederick douglass meets abraham lincoln

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Frederick Douglass needed to see Lincoln. Would the president meet with a former slave?

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February 14, 2018 Frederick Douglass arrived at the White House on a hot day in August 1863 without an appointment. He was a black man on a mission at a time when the country was torn by Civil War.

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By the beginning of the 19th century, slavery in the U.S. was firmly established with a series of statutes and penal codes enacted in various states to regulate the activity of slaves and all conduct involving slaves and free blacks. With the Louisiana Purchase, the question of slavery became both geographical and political, and ushered in a period of national debate between pro- and anti-slavery states to gain political and economic advantage. But by 1820, Congress was embroiled in the debate over how to divide the newly acquired territories into slave and free states.

The Missouri Compromise-also referred to as the Compromise of 1820-was an agreement between the pro- and anti-slavery factions regulating slavery in the western territories. It prohibited slavery in new states north of the border of the Arkansas territory, excluding Missouri. Constitutionally, the Compromise of 1820 established a precedent for the exclusion of slavery from public territory acquired after the Constitution, and also recognized that Congress had no right to impose upon states seeking admission to the Union conditions that did not apply to those states already in the Union. After Missouri's admission to the Union in 1821, no other states were admitted until 1836 when Arkansas became a slave state, followed by Michigan in 1837 as a free state. Indeed, the debate over slave and free states remained relatively calm for almost 30 years. However by the late 1840s, several events occurred that upset the balance: the U.S. added new territory as a result of the Mexican war, and the question of whether that territory would be slave or free arose again. California, beneficiary of an increased population because of the gold rush-petitioned Congress to enter the Union as a free state. At the same time, Texas laid claim to territory extending all the way to Santa Fe. Of course Washington, D.C., the nation's capital, not only allowed slavery but was home to the largest slave market in North America.

In January 1850, Henry Clay presented a bill that would become known as the Compromise of 1850. The terms of the bill included a provision that Texas relinquish its disputed land in exchange for $10 million to be paid to Mexico. The territories of New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah were defined while leaving the question of slavery off the table, on the understanding that the issue would be decided when the territories applied for statehood. In addition, the slave trade would be abolished in the District of Columbia, although slavery would still be permitted in the nation's capitol. It was agreed that California would be admitted as a free state, but the Fugitive Slave Act was passed to mollify pro-slavery states. This bill was the most controversial of all the bills that made up the Compromise of 1850. According to its tenets, citizens were required to aid in the recovery of fugitive slaves. Fugitives had no right to a jury trial. The cases were handled by special commissioners, who were paid $5 if a fugitive was released and $10 if the captive was returned to slavery. In addition, the act called for changes that made the process for filing a claim against a fugitive easier for slave owners. The new law was devastating. Many former slaves who had been attempting to build lives in the North left their homes and fled to Canada, which added approximately 20,000 blacks to its population over the following decade. Harriet Jacobs, a fugitive living in New York, described this period as "the beginning of a reign of terror to the colored population." She was one of the runaways who remained in New York, despite learning that slave catchers had been hired to track her down. Many were captured and returned to slavery, however, including Anthony Burns, a fugitive living in Boston. Even free blacks, too, were captured and sent to the South, completely defenseless with no legal rights. The compromise lasted until the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, when Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas proposed legislation allowing the issue of slavery to be decided in the new territories.

In 1801, Congress extended Virginia and Maryland slavery laws to the District of Columbia, establishing a federally sanctioned slave code.

In 1803, the Louisiana Purchase added Creoles and French settlers to the U.S. population. Congress approved the Louisiana Purchase from France for $15 million, which virtually doubled the country's land size. It also re-ignited controversy over the spread of slavery in the territory.

In 1807, Congress banned the importation of slaves into the U.S., although smuggling continued in some parts of the South. Once the transatlantic slave trade was prohibited, domestic slave trading throughout the South increased.

The 1820 census added free colored persons to its racial categories.

In 1820, the Missouri Compromise brought Missouri and Maine into the Union. By this time more than 20,000 Indians lived in virtual slavery on California missions. The same year, Congress made trade in foreign slaves an act of piracy.

In 1821, Missouri entered the Union as the 24th state and a slave-holding state, maintaining the balance of slave and free states.

The Office of Indian Affairs was created in 1824.

In 1825, a ship operated by the U.S. Revenue seized a slave ship, the Antelope, sailing under a Venezuelan flag with a cargo of 281 Africans. The case was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court, which issued a unanimous opinion declaring the slave trade to be a violation of natural law. Only some of the Africans were set free, however, since the ruling also held that the U.S. could not prescribe law for other nations, and the slave trade was legal in Spain, Portugal and Venezuela. The 39 Africans designated by the court as property of Spain and the Antelope itself were restored to their owners.

The Compromise of 1850 admitted California as a free state; voters in New Mexico and Utah territories would decide whether they would be slave or free upon applying for statehood.

The new Fugitive Slave Act, also passed in 1850, made the federal government responsible for apprehending fugitive slaves in the North, and sending them back to the South. This extended slavery and its enforcement beyond the South. The South, however, felt that even this law was not strong enough, and the demand for more effective legislation resulted in enactment of a second Fugitive Slave Act that same year. However, the law was so severe that its implementation was open to abuses that defeated its purpose. Even during the Civil War, the Fugitive Slave Acts were used to prosecute blacks fleeing their masters in border states that were loyal to the Union. The acts were eventually repealed, but not until June of 1864.

In 1851 Shadrach Minkins, an African American working as a waiter in Boston, was abducted by slave catchers. Before he could be freed by legal means in a challenge to the Fugitive Slave law, Minkins was rescued by a group of African Americans.

In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed, dividing the region along the 40th parallel, with Kansas to the south and Nebraska to the north, and providing both territories the right to vote on whether to be slave or free. For all practical purposes the act effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850, which had attempted to regulate the spread of slavery. As a result of the new law, both pro- and anti-slavery supporters tried to convince settlers to move to Kansas in order to sway the vote. The New England Emigrant Aid Company, an anti-slavery group, was very successful, and a group of anti-slavery activists was established around the town of Lawrence, Kansas. At the same time, pro-slavery settlers from Missouri began moving across the border to Kansas, some establishing themselves as residents of the territory, others simply coming across to vote. They were called "border ruffians" by their opponents. Lecompton, Kansas, the territorial capital, boiled with tension over the issue, and so-called "free-soilers" felt so threatened there that they set up their own unofficial legislature at Topeka. The enmity between the sides verged on civil war, and the period became known as "Bleeding Kansas."

The Dred Scott decision was handed down in 1857, which denied citizenship to free and enslaved blacks.

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1800s-1850s: Expansion of slavery in the U.S.

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By the beginning of the 19th century, slavery in the U.S. was firmly established with a series of statutes and penal codes enacted in various states to regulate the activity of slaves and all conduct involving slaves and free blacks.