Episodes Nearest to March 1, 1854 to June 2, 1854: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. The Anthony Burns Affair
    date March, 1854 to June 2, 1854map FAIRFAX, Virginiatags Slavery

    A Virginia slave named Anthony Burns escaped from his master and made his way to Boston. Under the Fugitive Slave Act, his master had the right to recapture him and the ability to enlist local officials in his efforts. Burns was arrested in May on false burglary charges. Abolitionists tried every legal gambit they knew, but President Pierce and the U.S. attorney were determined to carry out the...

  2. The Arrest of Anthony Burns
    date February 1, 1854 to May 1, 1854map HENRICO, Virginiatags African-Americans, Slavery

    At the beginning of 1854, Anthony Burns was a slave in Richmond, Virginia. He also worked as a deliveryman for a druggist named Mr. Millspaugh. One February day, after a delivery, Anthony secretly boarded a "Baltimore clipper" headed to Boston with the goal of finally attaining his freedom. He spent three grueling weeks balled up in a space hardly big enough for his body, fighting the cold and...

  3. The Sale of James Miles' Library
    date March 8, 1854map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags Arts/Leisure, Education

    One criterion for personal enlightenment in Charleston during the 1850s was the acquisition of a personal library. Such a library could be large-Charlestonians Thomas Smyth and William Gilmore Simms owned 20,000 and 12,000 volumes, respectively, in the 1850s-or much smaller. Regardless, it was important to have the newest book on your shelf, a collection of the classics, or at least a few books...

  4. The Black Warrior Affair Exposes U.S. Tensions with Spain
    date February 28, 1854 to March 16, 1854map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags Diplomacy/International, Economy, Law, Migration/Transportation, Politics

    On March 13, 1854 the Charleston Daily Courier ran a series of correspondences from Havana which reported on the escalating Black Warrior affair. These correspondences explain that on February 28 the ship Black Warrior stopped in Havana on its way from Mobile to New York as it had done numerous times in the past and upon arriving delivered its manifest to customs as was required. The captain listed...

  5. The Kansas-Nebraska Act
    date May 30, 1854map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Slavery

    The U.S. Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act which organized the remaining territories from the Louisiana Purchase into the U.S. territories of Nebraska and Kansas. This legislation was created and passed by proponents of popular sovereignty, who thought that states should have the right to determine whether they would allow slavery. Because every five slaves counted as three votes in determining...

  6. Cholera Epidemic
    date May 26, 1854 to June 3, 1854map DAVIDSON, Tennesseetags Health/Death, Migration/Transportation, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    Nineteen people in Nashville and the surrounding area died of what doctors suspected to be cholera. Most of the deaths occurred near the city limits. The Nashville Union sought to control any possible panic by relaying information of the epidemic with this concluding sentence: This is the whole truth up to this time [original emphasis]. They reassured their readers that once the weather changed...

  7. The Know-Nothing Party Emerges
    date June 3, 1854map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Church/Religious-Activity

    Officially called the American Party, the Know-Nothing political movement was spurred on by the influx of Irish Catholic immigrants into the United States in the 1840s, the greatest period of European migration ever seen so far. In 1854 immigrants formed a higher proportion of the total U.S. population than ever before or since that time. As the Whig Party disintegrated in the 1850s, separatists...

  8. Public Schools Tax
    date February 28, 1854map DAVIDSON, Tennesseetags Economy, Education

    Governor Andrew Johnson's recommendation of a tax to support the creation of public schools in Tennessee was made law. The governor was a strong believer in mass education and forced his unenthusiastic legislature to pass the law. For the first time in its history, Tennessee had fully-operating public schools.<br />In Johnson's first message to the Assembly on December 19, 1853,...

  9. The Great Excursion of 1854
    date June 5, 1854map ROCK ISLAND, Illinoistags Migration/Transportation, Business

    On June 5, 1854, the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad held what would become known as "The Great Excursion of 1854." The two owners, Henry Furnam and Joseph Sheffield, invited many well known and successful politicians, artists, writers, clergy members, and academics, including former President Millard Fillmore, who met in Chicago for the June 5th departure. A New York Times correspondent...

  10. Digging up the Past
    date February 23, 1854map JEFFERSON, Mississippitags Church/Religious-Activity, Health/Death

    Susan Sillers Darden, a white woman living in the Mississippi Delta region during the mid-nineteenth century, left behind a lengthy diary that covers many of the day-to-day occurrences and various happenings of her neighborhood. In an 1854 entry, Darden recounted a particularly unusual event: the exhumation of two corpses. Darden wrote that the remains of Rodney King and Mrs. Ogle were unearthed...

  11. Mississippi Railroad Development
    date June 15, 1854map MARSHALL, Mississippitags Agriculture, Economy, Migration/Transportation

    In 1854, the central portion of Mississippi was still rural, and the road systems were

    definitely sparse. The Mississippi Central Rail-Road Company convened at their annual meeting

    to discuss the undertaking of a plan to connect central Mississippi with its neighbor to the north,

    Tennessee.

    These entrepreneurs and capitalists had a vision for the city of Holly Springs,

    Mississippi,...

  12. Indians and Kansas-Nebraska
    date February 15, 1854map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Race-Relations

    On Capitol Hill, Sen. Houston spoke in opposition to the passage of the Nebraska Bill on the grounds of violation of Indian treaties. The National Intelligencer wrote that he reminded his fellow senators that the good faith of this Government was pledged on more than one occasion to the Indian tribes that the lands included in the contemplated Territories should be perpetually reserved for their...

  13. Economic Sociology of Enslavement
    date 1854map ORLEANS, Louisianatags Economy, Race-Relations, Slavery

    Henry Hughes published Treatise on Sociology: Theoretical and Practical at the age of 25 while living in New Orleans. His book argued that slavery was such a positive influence on dealings between masters and slaves that it should govern social relations throughout the United States, not just the South. African-Americans were not slaves, but rather warrantees. Hughes wrote: Property in men, is...

  14. Capitalist Enslavement
    date 1854map DAVIDSON, Tennesseetags Economy, Race-Relations, Slavery

    George Fitzhugh, a native of Brentsville, Virginia, published Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society. He looked upon Africans and African-Americans as children, uniquely suited to slavery. Just as children cannot be governed by mere law ? because they are so much under the influence of impulse, passion and appetite, the negro individual had to be treated as a grown up child ? The...

  15. The Need for Railroads in Norfolk
    date 1854map NORFOLK CITY, Virginiatags Agriculture, Economy, Migration/Transportation, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    Railroads were an essential component to economic growth and stability during the mid-nineteenth century. One letter, written by An Eastern Virginian to The Lynchburg Virginian in 1854, stressed the vital need to fix the railways running between Norfolk and the Valley of Ohio. Though transporting goods to the Valley of Ohio was possible, the route was extremely difficult due to the railway's...

  16. The Last Frontier:  The Adirondack Mountains in the Nineteenth Century
    date 1854map NEW YORK, New Yorktags Urban Society, Arts/Leisure

    The loss of untouched and pristine nature began in nineteenth century America in the age growing urbanization and industrialization, yet a few places remained, allowing Americans to discover themselves in nature.  An 1854 illustration in Richards’ American Scenery:  Illustrated called “Lake in the Adirondacks, New York” revealed that these places did still exist in the nineteenth...

  17. Refuge in Religion: The Story of the Baptist Minister Noah Davis
    date 1854map BALTIMORE, Maryland, FREDERICK, Virginia, PROVIDENCE, Rhode Islandtags Slavery, Religion, African-Americans

    Noah Davis sat puzzled, he contemplated his next move. He had already purchased six of his children back from various slave owners, through hard work and many favors gained from people he discovered on his travels. His life defined turmoil. Noah Davis worked against the clock to purchase his seventh and final child, his daughter who was born into bondage. Noah Davis was already well versed in the...

  18. Baptists Educating Women for the Sake of Men
    date August 11, 1854map WASHINGTON, Virginiatags Church/Religious-Activity, Education, Women

    When the Holston Baptist Association convened in 1854, the reverends of the association discussed the education of women. While 38 churches in attendance wanted to sustain denominational schools already in place, Reverend N. Baldwin, representing Abingdon, Virginia had a different suggestion. Baldwin's address began by accusing Europeans of being destroyers of Christian values. He argued that...

  19. Cholera Epidemic in New Orleans
    date November 29, 1853 to December 2, 1853map ORLEANS, Louisianatags African-Americans, Health/Death, Education, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    New Orleans was hit very hard by infectious disease in 1853. Not only did the city have to contend with an outbreak of yellow fever, but cholera broke out as well. Most likely, the appalling sanitation system in New Orleans contributed to it. While cholera only took the lives of 129 people in late 1853 (as opposed to the near 8,000 who died from yellow fever) it still caused serious alarm. Most...

  20. Military and Social Subordination
    date November 23, 1853map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags Church/Religious-Activity, Education, Politics, Slavery, War

    Richard Yeadon was a man who rarely minced words. In speaking to the Calliopean and Polytechnic Societies at the Citadel Academy in Charleston in 1853, Yeadon took the opportunity to address the audience on what would happen if higher institutions in South Carolina did not maintain strict discipline among their pupils.

    Stemming from God, Order is the great law of nature, whereas Insubordination...

  21. Texas Medical Association Founded
    date November 14, 1853 to November 28, 1853map TRAVIS, Texas, HARRIS, Texastags Crime/Violence, Health/Death, Economy, Education

    The formation of the Texas Medical Association was in response to a lack of good health in Texas and also to a growing number of quack physicians in the state. Yellow fever and malaria greatly afflicted coastal Texas, especially Galveston, in the 1840s and 1850s. The mortality rates were so bad that nearly fifty percent of children were dying before they reached adulthood on the coastline of Texas....

  22. Farm Fair in Norfolk
    date November 15, 1853 to November 18, 1853map NORFOLK CITY, Virginiatags Agriculture

    Agricultural fairs were a serious business in the Tidewater area of Virginia in 1853. Because Norfolk was a populous city and a major harbor, it was an ideal spot to hold a fair. Many shipments of exotic merchandise could be sold at the fair and many people who were not from the Tidewater area could arrive by ship to attend the fair. The fair was run by the state of Virginia's agricultural...

  23. A Slanderous Newspaper
    date September 27, 1854map HINDS, Mississippitags Politics

    In the nineteenth century, politicians and political parties owned the newspapers, and

    utilized them for their own personal agendas. Newspapers played an important role in the

    advertisement and propaganda leading up to an election, no matter its size. Politicians were

    scared of the newspapers and what they could do to their chances of election, if the opposing

    party...

  24. The Joint-Worm Convention
    date July, 1854 to 1854map FAUQUIER, Virginiatags Agriculture, Economy

    To the residents of Fauquier County, and those living in many parts of Virginia, agriculture was a way of life. And if that livelihood was threatened, the residents knew that they would have to work together to protect it. As the New York Times reported on July 21, 1854, farmers held a convention in Warrenton, Va, entitled The Joint-Worm Convention, in an effort to stop the destruction...

  25. Twelve Days to Live: A Fearful Yellow Fever Epidemic
    date October 14, 1853 to October 26, 1853map EAST FELICIANA, Louisianatags Health/Death

    In 1853, B. W. Hatch wrote a letter to W. W. Cook of Mississippi telling him of a yellow fever epidemic that was causing fear and panic throughout the Clinton community. The population dropped from between 1,500 to 2,000 people to 250, some of whom died and some of whom had fled to the country. At the time of the letter, 46 people were receiving treatment, five of whom had been diagnosed in the...