Missouri's first state elections were scheduled to choose a governor, a lieutenant governor, Congressional representative, and membership of both houses of the General Assembly. Following the contemporary national pattern during the 1820s' “Era of Good Feelings,' Missouri did not have opposing political parties. Virtually all adult, white males were Republicans, but the most powerful...
The Missouri Territory had requested admission to the US as a slave state as early as 1818. This otherwise routine petition became a complicated national debate over slavery. At the time, the nation held a balance of eleven slave and eleven free states, and although Missourians were undivided in their desire for unrestricted slavery, implementing such a system in a new state could cause bitter...
The passengers of the steamship Virginia witnessed a shocking scene on the afternoon of August 12, 1820. In fact, the scene was so unnerving and immoral that one passenger decided to write a letter to the Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald to express his disgust. The episode began when the steamship happened upon a small boat while traveling up the river near Fort Norfolk. Hearing cries...
Southerners wasted no time after the completion of the Missouri Compromise to create a sound structure of government for the newest slave state. The 1820 Convention to establish guidelines for Missouri statehood consisted of 41 delegates, all but eight of whom were born in slave states or territories. The convention was organized with David Barton as president, William G. Pettus as secretary,...
One of the worse things that could happen to a slaveholder was to have one of their slaves run away. They ran away for many reasons. They suffered from the brutal treatment of their master. They sought to be reunited with relatives or friends that lived in the North. They could run away just to experience the taste of freedom that had been stripped away from them. Most slave holders posted news...
On July 7, 1820, the American Colonization Society took out an advertisement in the Norfolk and Portsmouth Herald. The ad, which was actually more of an announcement, concerned the need for equipment, tools, food, and other supplies by the colonists whom the Society sponsored. These colonists were free African Americans who had volunteered to set up a black colony on the west coast of the...
In the early nineteenth century, the country was concerned with slavery in America and getting rid of it in a timely manner with as little consequences as possible. In order to help this concern, The American Colonization Society was founded in 1817. Border States such as Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia had the most chapters because of their locations and ideas about slavery. In Virginia, many...
It was a discovery for the ages. John Clifford's exploratory work in the hills of rural Kentucky had uncovered an extinct specimen key to the development of the field of naturalism: the univalve flinty shell. In 1819, the good scientist unabashedly declared it highly valuable and [it] will be deemed as such by all the enlightened naturalists of America and Europe. In Garrard and Estill counties,...
John W. Bridges of Wilcox County, Alabama, desperately penned a letter to the Southern Recorder, the Columbian Telescope, the Carolina Observer, and the Georgia Advertiser on May 27, 1820, looking for a runaway slave by the name of Aaron. A few weeks prior to the publication of this letter, Aaron, a stout well-fed Negro man of 30 years standing around 5'10 had escaped from the John Bridges'...
John England served a priest in various capacities in his native country, Ireland, from 1808 to 1820. On June 17, 1820, England was appointed by Pope Pius VII as bishop of the new diocese centered in Charleston, SC. He did not receive word of this decision until July 10, when he read the news in a letter from Reverend Henry Hughes. England was asked to accept the position and travel to America...