In June of 1845, the True American abolitionist newspaper was founded. Its editor, Cassius Marcellus Clay, was an outspoken abolitionist from the South (a Whig from Kentucky). His arguments against slavery usually were primarily economic in nature, thus appealing to the self-interests of farmers and small slaveholders that, at the time, were feeling the effects of severe economic depression...
The advent of the penitentiary in the nineteenth century brought about two distinct perspectives about the use of solitary confinement as a means of punishment in the antebellum south. Southern proponents of the penitentiary argued that solitary confinement, as according to the historian Edward Ayers constituted an essential view of an enlightened government. Opponents of the newly praised penitentiary...
Andrew Jackson, otherwise known as “Old Hickory' and a “man of the people', was the 7th President of the United States, and the first to hail from a state other than Virginia or Massachusetts. Born in a backwoods area in the Carolinas, Jackson served during the American Revolution and eventually ended up as a lawyer in Tennessee. His later distinguished military career included...
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) grew up as a slave on a plantation in Maryland; he was the son of a white man. After 20 years of living in the horrible, violent conditions of the institution of slavery, Douglass escaped to the North. He became educated and one of the most prominent and outspoken abolitionists. This book is a narration of his life, with a preface written by another strong abolitionist,...
Rufus Porter was a man of many talents. Born in 1792 in Massachusetts but moving to Maine when he was nine, Porter was apprenticed to a shoemaker by his family, but he was far too restless for that kind of life. After leaving home he played the fiddle, traveled to Hawaii, taught dancing school, had 15 children by two wives and became one of the most accomplished mural painters of his day. ...
In 1845, a group of Southern Baptists broke away from the Triennial Convention and the American Baptist Home Mission Society (ABHMS) due to differences on the slavery issue. This particular group of Southern Baptists did not oppose slavery, as the Triennial Convention and the ABHMS had begun to do. The Baptist Board, situated in Boston, in November of 1844, adopted certain resolutions, one of...
In May of 1845, a committee of ordained leaders from the German Baptist Brethren (Church of the Brethren) convened in Roanoke County, Virginia to discuss the most pressing questions facing their denomination. Much of their discussion, according to the minutes of the meeting, focused on the nuances of traditional Brethren theology in terms of worldliness, alcohol use, nonresistance, feet washing,...
The inhumane murder of James T. Vermillion by a runaway slave sparked a manhunt in Fairfax County. The slave, owned by Mr. William Brawner of Prince William County, had not gotten very far when Mr. Vermillion caught him near his house, Pleasant Valley, in Fairfax County. Upon apprehending the runaway, Mr. Vermillion was going to take him to the magistrate for a proper conviction and return to his...
In the Clutches of Slavery
As time went on and the distribution of slaves increased it became much easier to buy slaves. The fact that labor could be bought for pennies was perfect for land owners in the New World. There were many ways that people could buy and sell their slaves. For many, purchases came right from the ships, these ships were coming up from the Caribbean. The process of slavery...
On April 10, 1845, the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania lost about two-thirds of its properties. A fire that started in an icehouse on Second Avenue tore through the city and destroyed over 1000 buildings that stood in its way according to The Pittsfield Sun out of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The fire consumed more than just the buildings, it destroyed the hopes and dreams of thousands...