Episodes Around: 18520428

  1. U.S. Marshall Protected by Fugitive Slave Act
    date October 1, 1851 to June 21, 1852map ONONDAGA, New Yorktags Crime/Violence, Economy, Law, Slavery, Urban Life/Boosterism, Slavery

    In 1851, United States Deputy Marshall Henry W. Allen arrested freed slave William Henry in Syracuse, New York. Allen claimed Henry was a fugitive slave from Missouri. Though Henry was temporarily aided in escaping by local abolitionists, Marshall Allen and police arrested William Henry. This arrest happened in a brutal manner and William Henry was "excessively bruized in the struggle and was taken...

  2. Proposing Marriage Under Slavery
    date 1852map CHOWAN, North Carolinatags African-Americans, Race-Relations, Slavery, Women

    Even the romantic lives of slaves fell under the authority of white masters. Slaves, being the property of their masters, couldn't just freely marry at their heart's desire. There was a standard protocol. In his biographical narrative, Allen Parker recounted how the process would likely unfold on a plantation in Chowan County, North Carolina. If a male slave wanted to marry a woman from...

  3. North Carolina General Assembly of 1852
    date March, 1852 to December, 1852map MECKLENBURG, North Carolinatags Migration/Transportation

    Following the Democratic sweep of the North Carolina governorship and both houses of the state legislature in 1850, the majority Democratic General Assembly convened in 1852 to begin enacting its insurgent, reformist platform. Similar to the reformist laws passed in Louisiana, North Carolina appointed a Superintendent of Public Schools. The General Assembly also passed laws guaranteeing the equitable...

  4. Crop Variation
    date April, 1852map JEFFERSON, Floridatags Agriculture

    It was the middle of April and the time for planting crops in the Western Florida county of Leon. At Chemonnie Plantation, except for a small piece of ground near the southwest edge of the plantation, the crop was all planted. The crop referred to by John Evans, the plantation overseer, in his bi-monthly letter to the plantation owner George Noble Jones was the king-cotton. Having addressed the...

  5. Albert Brown Defends the Homestead Bill
    date April 28, 1852map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Agriculture, Law, Migration/Transportation, Race-Relations

    Before Congress ratified it, the Homestead Bill was a hotly contested piece of legislation. The Homestead Act eventually gave approximately 160 acres of undeveloped land in the west to any man of twenty one years, on the condition that he must build a house of 12 x 14 feet and live on the property for five years. This would not be a problem for people to fulfill who are coming looking for a life...