Episodes Nearest to January 18, 1853: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. Meeting of the American Colonization Society
    date January 18, 1853map Washington City, District of Columbiatags African-Americans, Race-Relations

    During its thirty-sixth annual meeting on January 18, 1853, the American Colonization Society delivered its annual report at the “Four and a-half street (Presbyterian) church.' The gathering was opened with prayers and it was announced that, “a general review of our operations the past year is calculated to produce the conviction that the Society is growing in usefulness with every...

  2. Edward Everett Extolls Civilizing Liberia
    date January 18, 1853map Washington City, District of Columbiatags African-Americans, Migration/Transportation, Slavery, Race-Relations

    At the thirty-sixth annual meeting of the American Colonization Society (ACS), the main concern for US Secretary of State Edward Everett was whether it was possible to maintain a civilization in Africa and whether or not the ACS was successful in attempting it. In his speech, Everett discussed the reasons for the ACS, such as stopping the slave trade, and discusses their inspirations which include...

  3. The Launch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
    date January 10, 1853map BALTIMORE, Marylandtags Migration/Transportation

    On July 4, 1828, Baltimore first began its construction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. On January 10, 1853, the city finally celebrated the opening of the line. The occasion called for two special train cars carrying the Legislatures of Maryland and Virginia, the city council of Baltimore, the press, and other influential citizens of the area approximately 500 people altogether on an inaugural...

  4. Twelve Years a Slave
    date January 2, 1853 to January 4, 1853map Washington City, District of Columbiatags African-Americans, Agriculture, Crime/Violence, Law, Migration/Transportation, Race-Relations, Slavery

    The memoirs of Solomon Northup vividly portrayed the descent of a former New York freedman into the harsh system of slavery faced by many African Americans living in the antebellum South. Few people probably recalled January 4, 1853, as a significant day in the history of the United States. However, on this day a very important meeting was being held in the small town of Marksville, Louisiana, and...

  5. Calvin H. Wiley Serves as North Carolina's First State Superintendent of Common Schools
    date January 1, 1853map WAKE, North Carolinatags Education

    While serving as North Carolina's first State Superintendent of Common Schools, Calvin H. Wiley revolutionized the educational system. The Common School System, as North Carolina's first statewide publicly supported education system, sought to educate all white boys living within the state. In his first address to the residents of North Carolina, he appealed to them and tried to convince...

  6. The Tobacco Trade in Virginia
    date January 1, 1853map RICHMOND, Virginiatags Economy

    As an appointed Commission Merchant of Virginia, William Brown was responsible for reporting on many markets. However, in 1850's Virginia, there was really only one market that was truly booming, and that was tobacco. His analysis of the Virginia tobacco trade was the most important aspect of his job, as the economic prosperity of Virginia walked hand in hand with the fortunes of the tobacco...

  7. North Carolina Slave Uprising Plot
    date December 23, 1852 to December 24, 1852map HALIFAX, North Carolinatags Crime/Violence, Slavery

    Around the time Christmas 1852, a furor erupted in a rural county of North Carolina over the uncovering of the alleged plot of 17 slaves to murder their master's overseer and ignite a larger slave rebellion. Josiah Collins, the slaves' master, promptly removed the culprits from his plantation, effectively “selling them down the river.' However, word of the averted insurrection...

  8. Forced Immigration
    date February 23, 1853map ORANGE, Floridatags Immigration, Native-Americans

    The increasing immigration of America by Europeans forced the nation to begin expanding the land it needed. The idea of Manifest Destiny was prevalent throughout the citizens of the US, and each wanted his/her piece of land so they could start living out their lives. Florida was one the most lush and fertile areas in the country, and was prime location for more settlers who wanted to acquire property...

  9. Jefferson Davis Named As Pierce's Secretary of War
    date March 4, 1853 to March 7, 1853map Washington City, District of Columbiatags War

    Jefferson Davis accepted his post as Franklin Pierce's Secretary of War. Born in Kentucky and living in Mississippi for much of his life, Jefferson Davis developed a strong conviction that the Constitution protected the practice of slavery and was an advocate of states' rights. As part of Pierce's administration, he encouraged and induced Pierce to favor the interests and views of southerners...

  10. Farming Tips from a Farmer
    date November 18, 1852map ROANOKE, Virginiatags Agriculture, Slavery

    "Give the boys tools of the best kind and where practicable, let them be adopted in size to their strength and capacity for handling them." This was just one of the many tips presented in a farming advice column in the Roanoke Beacon on November 18, 1852. The newspaper contained many other written editorials that expressed people's opinions. The advice in this column, however, was...

  11. Marriage in the Church
    date October 26, 1852map DINWIDDIE, Virginiatags Church/Religious-Activity

    On October 26, 1852 William T. Walker and Susan Josephine Sampson were married in a small church in Petersburg, Virginia. The announcement of their marriage described the beauty and elegance of the event. Many people were present and most of these were family and friends who lived in the nearby area. It is interesting to note, however, that Bible verses were listed on the announcement and the...

  12. A Family of Slaves Torn Apart?
    date April 13, 1853map AUGUSTA, Virginiatags African-Americans, Slavery

    One of the horrors associated with the institution of slavery was that it constantly tore families apart because slaveholders would sell off members of black families to different and often distant locations. While this was a common occurrence, the benevolence of a significant portion of slaveholders who tried to keep slave families together is often ignored. The sale of a family of slaves by a...

  13. William Rufus King Dies
    date April 18, 1853map BLOUNT, Alabamatags Health/Death

    Former Alabama Senator William Rufus King was inaugurated as the Vice President of Franklin Pierce on March 24, 1853 in Cuba, where he had gone supposedly to recover his failing health. However, his presence in Cuba gained additional meaning as a secret document that came to be known as the Ostend Manifesto was leaked in the later years of the Pierce administration. The President had sent diplomats...

  14. Temperance Convention in Mississippi
    date May 4, 1853 to May 5, 1853map JEFFERSON, Mississippitags Church/Religious-Activity, Crime/Violence, Health/Death

    The Temperance Convention in Jackson, Mississippi of 1853 denounced alcohol as “the root, the fountain, the parent of every other evil, vice, crime, or disease.' The Convention viewed the consumption of alcohol as a social evil that was even responsible for “the crimes committed by [the] slave population,' declaring that, “colored people are everywhere diseased, polluted and...

  15. Cotton Planters' Convention in Alabama
    date May 15, 1853 to May 17, 1853map JEFFERSON, Mississippitags Agriculture, Slavery

    The Cotton Planters' Convention of 1853 featured a three-day gathering of 160 planters from all over the South. Conventions similar to this one span 1850s. In many ways, the 1853 Convention was typical of its type, beginning with registration of arrivals and election of officers and including agricultural presentations and speeches appealing to Southern nationalism. <br /><br />George...

  16. The Tragedy of Slave Trade
    date September, 1852map POLK, Tennesseetags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Health/Death, Slavery, Women

    It was a grave tragedy. An enslaved African American woman of Polk County, Tennessee put an end to the lives of her children and then took her own life one September night in 1852. Authorities confirmed that the woman killed all four of her children by slitting their throats while they slept. After the gruesome deed had been carried out, she too ended her life in the same manner. When questioned...

  17. Vardy McBee
    date September, 1852map GREENVILLE, South Carolinatags Vardry McBee, De Bows Review, Railroad

    Vardry McBee is a Greenville, South Carolina celebrity; with everything from streets, buildings, and residence halls erected in his name, there is no doubt McBee had an impact on Greenville, SC. McBee’s name does not have the same resonance outside of this South Carolina city today, although in 1852 McBee gained national recognition in the southern agricultural magazine De Bows Review....

  18. Memphis Convention of Southern States
    date June 6, 1853 to June 9, 1853map SHELBY, Tennesseetags Agriculture, Economy, Education

    The Convention meeting in Memphis elected William Causby Dawson, a senator from Georgia, to preside over its proceedings. It addressed issues relevant and common to the southern states, including the construction of a railway from the Mississippi river to the Pacific Ocean, opening up commerce with the valley of the Amazon, the importance of the cotton interest a subject of instructions in foreign...

  19. Rumors of Slave Insurrections in New Orleans
    date June 13, 1853map JEFFERSON, Floridatags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Race-Relations

    Rumors of an intended slave insurrection alarmed whites living in New Orleans as well as throughout the South as the news of the supposed insurrection travel through newspapers published around the country. On the night of June 13, a free black man reported to the local police about a plot for insurrection in New Orleans. Soon after, James Dyson, white man who was a teacher of a school for free...

  20. The Hypocritical Admirers of Harriet Beecher Stowe
    date June 18, 1853map WAKE, North Carolinatags African-Americans, Migration/Transportation, Race-Relations, Slavery

    Editors of the Raleigh Register reprinted stanzas of a poem published in New York that criticized what Raleigh's editors considered the hypocritical nature of aristocratic British support for Uncle Tom's Cabin in 1853. They applauded the satiric criticism as the severest and most truthful against Stowe and her British supporters. The poem was written as if by a British...

  21. Announcement of North Carolina's First State Fair
    date June 29, 1853map WAKE, North Carolinatags Agriculture, Arts/Leisure

    On June 29, 1853, the Raleigh Register published an announcement stating, “We are pleased to learn that the first annual State Fair will be held in the city of Raleigh on the 18th of October next. We would particularly call this matter to the attention of our Farmers, Miners, Manufacturers and Mechanics.' The event was organized following the recommendations made at the Cotton Planters'...

  22. Southern disdain for Stowe's A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin
    date July 1, 1853map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags African-Americans, Arts/Leisure, Church/Religious-Activity, Education, Race-Relations, Slavery

    In 1853 Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the companion to her famous novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, and she titled it A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. Her purpose in writing the book was to explain why she thought that whites were still unwilling to take pity on slaves. While Stowe claimed that she understood that slaves were more than property, she postulated that other whites still saw slaves as sub-human....

  23. Temperance Movement Debated in Tennessee
    date July 1, 1853map DAVIDSON, Tennesseetags Arts/Leisure, Church/Religious-Activity, Crime/Violence

    The fate of alcohol was uncertain during mid-nineteenth Century. Alcohol had many opponents. Protestants thought it was a great evil. Many Southern whites were afraid of keeping alcohol legal for fear that it could cause great damage if slaves gained access to it. Tennessee was very involved in the temperance movement although it had not completely banned alcohol like Maine. However, in 1853,...

  24. Seminole Chief Billy Bowlegs and His Tribe Refuses to Leave Florida
    date January, 1853 to 1853map ALACHUA, Floridatags Migration/Transportation, Race-Relations

    In 1832, the Seminole tribe in Florida entered into a treaty with the state agreeing to emigrate west of the Mississippi within three years or extend the period by which they were permitted to remain within the state. However, the Chief, “Billy Bowlegs,' and his tribe had refused to vacate the land on which they lived. In response, the Florida Legislature had authorized the raising of two...

  25. Sorghum Arrives in America
    date July 2, 1853map DAVIDSON, Tennesseetags Agriculture, Economy, Migration/Transportation

    Sorghum, a grass that grows in the tropical regions of the world, made its grand entrance to the South via Georgia and South Carolina in 1853. Sorghum competed with sugar in the market for sweet-tasting plants. Sugar could come from a variety of plants from several different countries such as Italy, China, and Brazil whereas sorghum mainly came from Africa. The South might have needed sugar for...