Episodes Nearest to July 11, 1836: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. President Andrew Jackson issues the Specie Circular
    date July 11, 1836map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Economy

    In 1832, President Andrew Jackson refused to re-charter the Bank of the United States, opting instead to deposit government funds in select state or “pet' banks. The state banks, facing little regulation, freely loaned paper money to virtually anyone who asked for it. A flurry of land speculation and inflation followed. To curtail these alarming trends, Jackson issued the Species Circular...

  2. Railroad convention convenes in Knoxville, Tennessee
    date July 4, 1836 to July 8, 1836map KNOX, Tennesseetags Economy, Migration/Transportation

    On July 4th, 1836, delegates from various Southern states including Georgia, the Carolinas, and Kentucky met in Knoxville, Tennessee to discuss possible government-supported railway projects, especially the idea of a railroad stretching from Charleston to Cincinnati. The need for railroads, canals and roads was a necessary complement to the rapid territorial expansion of the U.S. In addition,...

  3. Private Beaufort Slave Sale
    date 1836map BEAUFORT, South Carolinatags African-Americans, Economy, Slavery

    Sometime prior to the first of January 1836, slaveholder Thomas Fuller must have checked his books or given some thought to his economic needs. Perhaps he wanted to make some money, maybe he was in debt and needed to get cash to pay back a lender, or he may have been foreclosing on a loan. All of these were common reasons for selling slaves in the South. Or, maybe Fuller was just trying to get certain...

  4. Slave and Master Cross Ocmulgee River
    date 1836map GLYNN, Georgiatags African-Americans, Migration/Transportation, Race-Relations, Slavery

    Robert Anderson was just a young boy when he became a house servant in a Liberty County plantation home. He cleaned the knives, swept the floors, and later tended to the sheep, cows, and hogs. Robert's mistress thought a great deal of him and kept him around the house as much as possible. In Robert's words his mistress felt that nothing went right if I [Anderson] did not have something to...

  5. Turnpike Road to let out
    date July 2, 1836map GREENVILLE, South Carolinatags Economy, Government, Law

    Internal improvements in the South were underway. The turnpike project near the South Carolina border was going to start next year by the bidder who could complete the project in the fewest years. The expectations were for the road to be completed within three years and to be paid for with bonds and security loans. The project was being headed up by four commissioners who would be in charge of deciding...

  6. Modesty versus Fashion: Nineteenth Century American Women’s Dress
    date 1836map SUFFOLK, Massachusettstags Women, fashion, clothing, dress, virtue, good wife

    In an 1836 lifestyle manual for women, entitled The Young Lady’s Friend, John Farrar outlined the expectations for an American Christian women’s behavior in a particular chapter entitled Dress a Test of Character. In this chapter he discussed the appropriateness and significance of a nineteenth century women’s dress in relation to how she was viewed by society. According...

  7. Congress passes the Surplus Revenue Act
    date June 23, 1836map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Economy

    With the expansion of the United States in the 1830s came an inevitable influx of money from purchases of public land. According to a Treasury Department report issued on February 1, 1836, the surplus amounted to about 30,000,000. In 1833 Congress had passed a bill to distribute the surplus among the states, with the support of Andrew Jackson. But in 1836 the fate of the surplus became a point...

  8. Texan forces take Santa Anna at the battle of San Jacinto
    date June 21, 1836 to June 22, 1836tags War

    In April of 1836, a major turning point occurred in the war between Texas and Mexico. Texan forces under Colonel James Fannin had suffered a crushing defeat at Goliad in late March; Santa Anna had ordered the execution of the 350 remaining soldiers there. News of the “Goliad Massacre' incensed Texan soldiers under the command of Sam Houston. They looked forward to their chance for retribution....

  9. Land not fit for Man or Beast
    date August 3, 1836 to August 6, 1836map ROWAN, North Carolinatags Agriculture

    The grass was greener in Virginia. News from Thomas Anderson to brother Robert Anderson took three days to reach Rockbridge County, VA from Houston, North Carolina. The letter detailed the hardships of the North Carolina soil and terrain paying toll on the farmers and well being of Robert's brother, Thomas, whom he had left behind to care for the farm when he left for Virginia. Thomas explained...

  10. Arkansas enters the Union as a slave state
    date June 15, 1836map PULASKI, Arkansastags Slavery

    The territory of Arkansas began its push for admittance to the Union in 1833, but some Congressmen, as well as many Arkansas citizens, thought statehood could wait until the population had grown considerably. After all, they benefited financially from their status as a territory. However, the need to draft a Constitution and petition Congress for admission became more urgent when Michigan made...

  11. Proposed bill on incendiary publications fails to pass in the Senate
    date June 8, 1836map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Slavery

    In December of 1835, Andrew Jackson proposed to Congress that some form of legislation be drafted to restrict the circulation of “incendiary publications' in slave states. He was quoted by the Mobile Commercial Record as saying: “The General Government, to which the great trust is confided, of preserving inviolate the relations created among the States by the constitution, is especially...

  12. Whig candidate Edward B. Dudley wins gubernatorial race in North Carolina
    date August, 1836map WAKE, North Carolinatags Economy

    Though the Whig Party was not strong enough to win a presidential election in 1836, in some states it was possible to elect Whig governors. In North Carolina, pleas from the western counties for internal improvements were going unheard by prosperous, mostly Democratic planters, who were overrepresented in the legislature. The Whig strategy, therefore, was to garner support by demanding state aid...

  13. House of Representatives passes the first gag rule on slavery
    date May 26, 1836map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Slavery

    First introduced to the House floor by South Carolina's James Henry Hammond, the gag rule was a radical measure designed to completely eliminate debate dealing with abolition. Traditionally, representatives received and tabled antislavery prayers, or buried them in committee; the gag rule, however, prevented even this formality from taking place. This was not a spontaneous development, but...

  14. Slave Sale Comes in Many Forms
    date May 20, 1836map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags African-Americans, Economy, Race-Relations, Slavery

    ohn Stapleton, an English attorney, handled the affairs of several Charleston properties included in the estate of Mrs. Hannah Bull. He managed the sale of her slaves, cattle, hogs, sheep and other effects of Mrs. Bull's properties after her death. In a letter to Higham, Fife & Co. dated May 20, 1836, Stapleton detailed the sale of several slaves and included the titles. As the attorney, the...

  15. Creek Indians burn the town of Roanoke, Georgia
    date May 15, 1836map INDIAN LANDS, Georgiatags Crime/Violence, Race-Relations, War

    In May of 1836, a long simmering conflict between whites and Creek Indians in Alabama and Georgia finally erupted. President Jackson's destruction of the Bank of the United States had resulted in uncontrolled speculation, and frontier people were clamoring for more land. This was in spite of the 1832 Treaty of Cusseta, which stipulated that individual Creeks be given a parcel of 320 acres...

  16. Sylvia, the Runaway Slave
    date September 30, 1836map CONECUH, Alabamatags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Economy, Migration/Transportation, Slavery, Women

    In 1836, Sylvia, about twenty years of age, of common size, very likely and almost black, was sold from her plantation in Conecuh County, Alabama to the plantation of Thomas L. Stark in Washington County. Perhaps she was separated from her husband. Perhaps she left behind a child. Whatever the circumstances, Sylvia decided to run away. After several months with no sign of Sylvia, her owner finally...

  17. Alexander Campbell's Movement Grows
    date April, 1836map BROOKE, Virginiatags Church/Religious-Activity

    By the time the Millennial Harbinger hit the presses for its April 1836 issue, the movement begun by its editor, Alexander Campbell, had grown so substantially that it began to challenge other Christian denominations. D.S. Burnet, a writer for the Millennial Harbinger, exclaimed the growth of the restoration movement of primitive Christianity. He explained that ever since its founding,...

  18. A Desperate Plea to the Whigs of Virginia
    date October 6, 1836map AUGUSTA, Virginiatags Economy, Government, Politics, Slavery

    The nomination of a candidate for president proved to be a trying issue in Augusta County in 1836. The South was weakened by growing factionalism. It was divided between Southern Democrats in favor of Martin Van Buren and Southern Whigs in favor of William H. Harrison. An anonymous Whig within the vicinity of Augusta County published an earnest appeal in the Staunton Spectator to his fellow Whigs...

  19. Jump Jim Crow
    date October 15, 1836map NEW YORK, New Yorktags Arts/Leisure, Race-Relations

    The performer Thomas Dartmouth Rice, the original Jim Crow, introduced new lines for the debut at the Surrey theatre in London in 1836. Rice, a New York native, was performing his highly successful "Jim Crow" act in London after its rave reviews from across the Atlantic. The caricature of "Jim Crow" was meant to represent a low class runaway slave who used cunning to reap the benefits of middleclass...

  20. Angelina Grimke's abolitionist Appeal is burned in Charleston
    date October, 1836map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags Church/Religious-Activity, Slavery

    Angelina Grimke was born in 1805 to a prominent slaveholding family in Charleston, South Carolina. Her older sister, Emily, was also her godmother, and the two were very close. Both sisters grew to despise slavery. They moved to Philadelphia to join the Quaker Society of Friends and took up the abolitionist cause in the mid-1830s, eventually joining the American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1836,...

  21. The Macon Messenger refutes charge that Hugh White escorted a free black to the election polls.
    date October 18, 1836map BALDWIN, Georgiatags African-Americans, Slavery

    On October 18, 1836, two articles appeared in the Southern Recorder denying that Whig presidential candidate Hugh White “upon one occasion did actually walk to the Ballot Box, arm in arm with a free negro.' The accusation had been made against Judge White by Milledgeville's Standard of Union, and it was connected with the greater charge that White had “taken an active part in...

  22. Dilue Harris's Experience in the Runaway Scrape
    date March, 1836map TERRITORY, Territorytags Health/Death, Migration/Transportation, War

    The Alamo had fallen and Sam Houston decided that it was time. On March 11, 1836, Houston ordered Texas families to retreat across the Colorado River in order to escape the Mexican army. Dilue Harris, a young white girl, packed up her belongings and left her home with her family. They began to encounter trouble when they attempted to cross the Trinity River. The water level of the river and the...

  23. Martin Van Buren wins presidential election
    date November, 1836map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Slavery

    Commonly referred to as the “Little Magician' of President Andrew Jackson, Van Buren was a Northern Democrat who did not own slaves. As such, his victory in the 1836 election was by no means inevitable; he was widely considered a compromising Yankee who could not be trusted to respect states' rights or slavery. Southern whites already felt greatly threatened by the perceived expansion...

  24. The Republic of Texas declares independence from Mexico
    date March 2, 1836tags Slavery

    Delegates from 57 Texas communities met at Washington-on-the-Brazos in March of 1836 to draft a declaration of independence from Mexico. This formal separation from the Mexican government came about five months after war broke out in October of 1835. The language of the document written by Tennessean George C. Childress reflected a growing concern over Santa Anna's centralistic, militaristic...

  25. Alexander Campbell and John Thomas Debate Reimmersion
    date February, 1836map BROOKE, Virginiatags Church/Religious-Activity

    As Alexander Campbell promoted his restoration movement, one of his colleagues questioned him on the issue of baptism. In 1836, he entered into a debate with Dr. John Thomas in the Millennial Harbinger, Campbell's own religious journal. At first, their ideas corresponded well with one another, as they both required immersion to attain salvation. Their concurrence did not last long,...