Episodes Around: 18500803

  1. Governor Aaron V. Brown of Tennessee and the Question of Slavery
    date 1850map DAVIDSON, Tennesseetags Government, Politics, Race-Relations, Slavery

    In 1850, Governor Aaron V. Brown of Tennessee spoke at a benefit for an orphan's asylum in Nashville, Tennessee. During his speech at Odd Fellow's Hall, he addressed the recent progress of the United States in regarding the escalating question of slavery. Governor Brown expressed the feelings of many southerners who felt threatened by the anti-slavery rhetoric in the North. The Governor...

  2. Mass Slave Runaway from McIntosh, GA Plantation
    date 1850 to December, 1850map MC INTOSH, Georgiatags African-Americans, Agriculture, Crime/Violence, Economy, Race-Relations, Slavery

    Things were looking promising on Mr. Thomas' plantation, Peru, in 1850. He owned over 150 slaves and 15,000 acres, all of which produced great wealth in the form of cotton and other crops. Most of his slaves had been reared on his plantation alongside him and his son ten-year old son, Edward. Both father and son felt they were very good to their slaves and provided them with ample food, clothing,...

  3. A Different Type of Honor
    date 1850map AUGUSTA, Virginiatags Health/Death, Education

    University honor systems meant something very different in nineteenth century South from what they do in the twenty-first century. The Honor Systems essentially were guides on how to be a Southern Gentlemen. The University of Virginia's Honor Code, which in the twentieth century the university defined as only outlawing lying, cheating, and stealing, included rules against spitting in public...

  4. The Montpelier Guard Repairs to Charleston
    date 1850map ORANGE, Virginiatags Government, Politics, War

    In 1859, John Brown endeavored to start a liberation movement among enslaved people in Virginia. A staunch abolitionist, Brown was the first white American to set about culling up a slave insurrection. He first gained the nation's attention when he led a volunteer militia during the Bleeding Kansas crisis of the previous decade. Following his involvement in that conflict, Brown was responsible...

  5. Amherst County Citizens Petition for a Railroad
    date 1850 to 1851map AMHERST, Virginiatags Economy, Government, Law, Migration/Transportation, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    According to W.W. Scott's History of Orange County, the period of time between 1848 and 1860 was relatively serene and well-organized in that particular area of central Virginia. Following the United States' triumphant victory in the Mexican War of 1848, one of Virginia's sons and a decorated hero from the war, General Zachary Taylor, was elected President. The era that began...

  6. The Virginia Census of 1850
    date 1850map KANAWHA, Virginiatags African-Americans, Government, Race-Relations

    The composition and make-up of Virginia was complicated and had changed since the last census, so the editors of the Martinsburg Gazette, Norman Miller and George A. Porterfield, published the 1850 census of Virginia in March 1851. It showed the free white, free colored, slave, and total population in each county of the Commonwealth Virginia. As the census broke down the Virginia population...

  7. Furman Promises Appropriate Education for Women
    date August, 1850map ANDERSON, South Carolinatags Arts/Leisure, Church/Religious-Activity, Education, Women

    Reverend James C. Furman delivered a speech for opening convocation on the anniversary of Johnson Female Seminary in August of 1850. He addressed the crowd of students with the words, "women's sphere lies within the limits of private life. Home is the true scene of her influence." He stressed the meaning of women as mothers, mistresses, advisors, physicians, judges, and educators. ...

  8. An advertisement for a runaway slave appears in The Republican Banner
    date August 3, 1850map DAVIDSON, Tennesseetags Slavery

    On August 3, 1850 a notice appeared in The Republican Banner for a runaway slave. A slave boy named Tom who “in appearance resembles an Indian' had run away from a Dr. Waters. (The Republican Banner, August 3, 1850) The note suggests that Tom would not be intellectually capable of escaping all the way to freedom without needing the assistance of Whites, and thus Dr. Waters published this...