A free man must go. After three years of recommendations, petitions, and court proceedings, the Senate of the state of North Carolina denied Lunsford Lane extension on his residency in the state to allow more time to purchase his wife and seven children. Lunsford had been commended and allowed by his employer, the Governor of the State, to remain employed in the Governor's office keeping order,...
As the year of 1840 drew to an end, the residents of Albemarle County prayed that the new year would finally bring relief and economic stability to the nation still recovering from the Panic of 1837. President Martin Van Buren echoed these sentiments in his speech to the second session of the Twenty-sixth Congress concerning the general state of the nation. As almost half of the speech discussed...
It is only appropriate that on the first day of the year 1841 that a major American bank would fail. After the Panic of 1837 and the continual congressional debates on the issue of a national bank, this was an issue of strong national contention and extreme public distrust. Unrest was heightened when, on the first of January, the President and Directors of the Franklin bank of Baltimore announced...
During the fall of 1841, the townspeople of Ashwood erected St. John's Episcopal Church halfway between Columbia and Mt. Pleasant, Tennessee. A Philadelphian man gave an in depth account of the church?s first service in a letter he wrote to the editor of The Guardian. As a northerner, he acted as an outside observer in this small southern town. He elaborately described the architecture, location,...
Born and raised a freeman, Solomon Northup met a group of men in his hometown of Saratoga Springs one March day in 1841. They claimed to have heard of his propensity at the violin and requested to hire him to accompany their traveling circus performances. The pay was quite reasonable and Northup eagerly took on the job. He accompanied them the entire way down to Washington, D.C. without realizing...
“I am an Abolitionist!”
In the mid nineteenth century abolitionists would assemble and sing songs to inspire their movement. William Lloyd Garrison, a famous abolitionist and activist wrote “Song of the Abolitionist”, set to the famous tune “Auld Lange Syne”. The beginning of each verse starts with the emphatic phrase “ I am an Abolitionist!”, which is repeated...
Land hungry Americans who eyed rich, sparsely settled lands in the west and their attempt to bring civilization and self-governing establishments to Indian land became known as manifest destiny. By the 1840s, the United States had become expansion-minded, and Americans began to believe they were destined to spread to the pacific. During this westward expansion, the settlers devastated the Indian...
William Wells Brown’s narrative is not one of common consistency. He was unfortunate enough to be subjected to the harsh realities of chattel slavery through years of being rented out to various owners stretching from Missouri to Mississippi. A great deal of his time was spent aboard steamships, as a hand to take care of slaves or to wait on passengers. Wells recounts that after one particular...
On the 26th of July 1840 the slave, Joe was thrown in the Rappahannock County jail, based on the charge that he was a runaway. Joe contested this charge, saying that his owner, Miss Jane Rust, of Page County died in March, and he assumed that he was a free man. Despite notices of Joe's capture, Sheriff French Strother was unable to prove the certainty behind his claim, because no one from...
Evidently, Clement Comer Clay had been driving Dixon Hall Lewis absolutely crazy. Clay, a U.S. senator from Alabama, was in a feeling of intense anxiety concerning the upcoming election of 1841. Lewis, an Alabama representative, was getting rather annoyed. At Clay's request, Lewis finally sat down to write a letter on January 18, 1841, to Benjamin Fitzpatrick, his brother-in-law and wealthy...