Episodes Nearest to October 4, 1850: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. To free, or not to free. James Hamlet returns a free man to his New York home.
    date October 4, 1850map NEW YORK, New Yorktags African-Americans, Law, Slavery

    Maryland resident Mary Brown exercised the law that historian James McPherson described as having given the federal government more power than any law yet sanctioned by congress – the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Brown authorized a federal official to claim one James Hamlet, of Williamsburgh, New York, and return him to her Baltimore home. Despite the differences in her testimony, and Hamlet's...

  2. Enactment of the 1850 Swamp Land Act
    date September 28, 1850map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Agriculture

    On September 28, 1850, Congress passed the Swamp Land Act of 1850. The Swamp Land Act of 1850 was the second piece of legislation passed in regards to the overflowing of Swamp Lands in the South. The first bill was passed on year earlier, in Mississippi. These Act ceded all unusable land due to swamps and flooding to be ceded to the State Governments. The states were then given the rights to sell...

  3. Dueling in Southwestern Virginia
    date September 26, 1850map WYTHE, Virginiatags Crime/Violence

    When James E. Brown of Wytheville County wrote a letter to his daughter Jane, he discussed the latest duel as the topic of choice.< Writing from Cobbler's Spring, Virginia, he said that Mr. Hickman and Mr. Long had entered into a duel. Mr. Hickman was the principle fighter and Mr. Long was his second. Dueling with them was Mr. Naylor, the principle fighter, and Mr. Stephen Taylor, his second....

  4. National Women's Rights Convention: Maria Varney's letter emphasizing natural rights
    date October 20, 1850map FAIRFIELD, Connecticuttags women's rights, Politics

    On October 23, 1850 the first annual National Women’s Rights Convention commenced in Worcester Massachusetts. For two days more then a thousand women and men from eleven different states listened to speakers. The speakers emphasized the right to vote, to own property, to be admitted to higher education and to choose their occupation or profession. Newspaper reporters from all over attended, but...

  5. Colonel Lloyd of Virginia Operates a Plantation in Mississippi
    date October 24, 1850map MADISON, Mississippitags Agriculture, Economy, Migration/Transportation

    In the middle of the nineteenth century, it was very lucrative for rich southerners to invest in the establishment of another slave plantation in a different area, which they would oversee from their current address. Colonel Edward Lloyd of Virginia had one such vision that he would operate a plantation in Mississippi from Virginia, and its sole purpose would be for monetary gain. After deciding...

  6. Boston Abolitionists Rally Against Slave-Catchers in Defiance of Fugitive Slave Act
    date October 25, 1850 to October 31, 1850map SUFFOLK, Massachusettstags African-Americans, Law, Transportation/Migration, Race-Relations, Crime/Violence

    On October 25, 1850, only one month after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, John Knight and Willis Hughes traveled to Boston from Macon, Georgia to retrieve the escaped slaves, William and Ellen Craft. Upon arrival in the city, referred to by Civil War historian James McPherson as the “communications center for abolition,” Knight and Hughes were met with hostility and resistance,...

  7. The California Bill
    date August 30, 1850map PICKENS, South Carolinatags African-Americans, Economy, Government, Law, Politics, Migration/Transportation, Slavery

    Following the death of John C. Calhoun, Congress passed a bill concerning the admission of California as a state. The bill, classified as unfair to the Southern cause by the Keowee Courier, was protested by Southern senators in particular Senator Badger. The Courier reflected on the prudence of how to protect Southern rights within the senate proceedings. Concerns were expressed regarding what the...

  8. Philip Claiborne Gooch drafts a letter to obtain subscribers for his medical journal
    date November 12, 1850map HENRICO, Virginiatags Health/Death

    On November 12, 1850, Dr. Philip Claiborne Gooch (1825 , 1855), celebrated Virginian physician, wrote a letter to mail out to potential subscribers of new medical journal he was founding “The Stethoscope'. His letter proposes that “the subscriber to embark in the responsible undertaking, and will issue the first “The Stethoscope' or “VIRGINIA MEDICAL GAZETTE' on the...

  9. Approximately 300 Irish workers arrive in Chattanooga to work on the Chattanooga and Nashville Railroad
    date August 25, 1850map DAVIDSON, Tennesseetags Migration/Transportation

    On Thursday, August 22, approximately 300 Irish workers arrived in Chattanooga, Tennessee to work on the Chattanooga and Nashville Railroad. Plans for the construction of the Chattanooga and Nashville Railroad began in June of 1845. The railroad was conceived for the purpose of expanding commerce in Chattanooga by reducing the time it took to travel there from Nashville and other major cities, significantly...

  10. 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. ...

  11. 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...

  12. Miners' and Manufacturers' Convention Held in Richmond, Virginia
    date December 5, 1850 to December 6, 1850map HENRICO, Virginiatags Agriculture

    On December 5th and 6th, 1850, local agrarian worker and miners convened in Richmond, Virginia by the order of Virginia Delegates, to publish a memorandum to Congress. The purpose of the memorandum was to report to Congress on the state of the Virginia economy. There were many workers from the Atlantic regions of the United States present at the conference from a variety of industries, including...

  13. James Cody Sues John Baily Over Slander Regarding Illegal Trade
    date December 11, 1850map BRYAN, Georgiatags African-Americans, Agriculture, Economy, Law, Slavery

    James Cody of Bryan County, Georgia prided himself in having a good reputation as a respectable Southern man. When his neighbor John Baily accused him of buying rice from a slave without written permission from the slave's owner, he was extremely offended. He considered these accusations to be false and demanded to meet John Baily in court to settle this slanderous dispute. Cody felt that Baily's...

  14. Harriet Tubman makes her first trip to escort slaves to freedom
    date December, 1850map BALTIMORE, Marylandtags Migration/Transportation, Slavery

    In December of 1850, Harriet Tubman, escaped slave from Dorchester County, Maryland made her first attempt at freeing enslaved blacks in the South. Tubman had just recently escaped from the Slave state of Maryland to being a free person of Color in Philadelphia, in 1849. Tubman became involved very quickly with abolitionist movements and began to save her money in hopes of returning to purchase...

  15. Steamboating on the Cumberland
    date July 6, 1850map DAVIDSON, Tennesseetags African-Americans, Economy, Migration/Transportation, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    As both a cotton and tobacco dealer, and a forwarding and commission merchant, A. Hamilton ran a regular advertisement for his services in The Nashville Daily Union. In the advertisement he ran on Saturday, July 6, 1850, Hamilton reassured his former patrons that he planned to remain in the business of buying and selling cotton. Hamilton thanked the public for the business they provided him in that...

  16. Fugitive Law approved in Indiana
    date January 4, 1851map HENRICO, Virginiatags African-Americans, Race-Relations, Slavery

    Governor Wright's approval of this law showed the strong support which both he and state of Indiana had for the Union. In his message on Jan 4th, 1851 he eloquently summed up his feelings on the matter, “There is no safety for property or life except in the absolute supremacy of the law: no higher duty of the citizen than to maintain by word and deed, that supremacy, as we value the heritage,...

  17. 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...

  18. 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,...

  19. 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...

  20. 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...

  21. 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...

  22. Hydraulic Mining in California
    date 1850map EL DORADO, Californiatags hydraulic mining, gold fever, Agriculture

    Gold fever broke out in the nation, and thousands of immigrants came to California joining in the greatest mass migration in America history in 1849. Many Americans traveled to California by sea, and they arrived at the southern tip of South America in the summer of 1849.  The route posed a great risk of disease, but that could not stop gold seekers' ambition. At the beginning of 1849, San Francisco...

  23. In this episode, a historical essay titled The Underground Railroad by Levi Coffin is described. Coffin was an active abolitionist who dedicated nearly 20 years to helping slaves escape to freedom. In his essay, he details his experience.
    date 1850map WAYNE, Indianatags Abolition, Slavery

    The Underground Railroad, a network of secret routes and safe houses, was established to lead slaves to freedom in Canada. In order to be successful, slaves needed the shelter, food, and safety of various abolitionists who were sympathetic to their cause. For the slaves, the long journey was anything but easy, but those who helped them along the way faced their own challenges. In his 1850 essay...

  24. The People of Appomattox County
    date June 30, 1850map APPOMATTOX, Virginiatags Agriculture, Economy, Race-Relations

    The 1850 census of Appomattox County revealed the social order of this western Virginia county and determined that although most Virginians were proponents of slavery, very few residents of Appomattox County actually owned slaves. Compiled by Stuart McD. Farrar, the census polled residents of the county on June 30, 1850 and organized the data by household. Each household was numbered and every...

  25. Arrival of Fugitive Slave Henry Long
    date January 14, 1851map HENRICO, Virginiatags African-Americans, Race-Relations, Slavery

    Henry Long ran away from his Master in Richmond, Virginia and was eventually caught in New York City. Judge Judson of New York City ordered Long to be brought back to Virginia. Much commotion was caused on the trip back to Virginia because of the fear of an uprising of blacks. Long was guarded by as many as 200 police officers at one time when stepping on to a ferry leaving New York. Long would...