Episodes Nearest to January 1, 1856 to December 31, 1856: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. Reports of Runaway Slaves
    date July 2, 1856map HENRICO, Virginiatags Crime/Violence, Slavery

    The Fugitive Slave Act passed by Congress as part of the Compromise of 1850. The Act pleased southerners not only because it allowed slave owners to retrieve their property from anywhere in the country, but it gave other people the power to retrieve them as well. In fact, if officials did not turn in fugitive slaves, they could be fined 1,000. This measure of the act served to directly overturn...

  2. Norfolk's New Water System
    date 1856map NORFOLK CITY, Virginiatags Health/Death, Economy, Government, Urban-Life/Boosterism

    In 1856, the city of Norfolk, Virginia asked Wade Burnett, a civil engineer, to construct a plan that would improve the city's water supply system. In his report, Burnett noted the improvements that an efficient water system could have in the community. The townspeople of Norfolk would benefit in many aspects of life- domestic use, manufactures, extinguishment of fires, shipping, public baths,...

  3. Sons of Temperance: Young Southern Men and the Temperance Movement
    date 1856map ALBEMARLE, Virginiatags Church/Religious-Activity, Education

    Temperance reforms in the nineteenth century were not widely known for their success in the South. In fact, Delaware was the only slaveholding state to enact prohibition laws in the 1850s. However, temperance reform victories can be seen on a smaller, yet equally effective, scale throughout the southern United States, especially among young men. The Southern temperance movement was driven...

  4. This is an example of the types of encounters within the Third Seminole War or Billy Bowlegs War
    date 1856map HILLSBOROUGH, Floridatags Seminole Revolt

    Indian Revolt

    Over the course of time as White colonists kept pushing their culture onto the Indians a lack of patients was stirring amongst the tribes. Seminoles in Florida had been involved in long lasting wars with the government and had quickly resolved to violence. A total of three Seminole wars were ignited and the last of which ended in 1858. This third Seminole war or Billy Bowlegs...

  5. Journey in the Seaboard Slave States
    date 1856map RICHMOND, Virginiatags Slavery, Slave Trade, Slave States

    "Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils," Olmstead quoted this from Benjamin Franklin. In 1856, an Englishman, Frederick Law Olmstead, wrote A journey in the seaboard slave states. It is about his long journey in the seaboard slave states of Virginia, North...

  6. Mob Violence in Missouri
    date July 1, 1856map ANDREW, Missouritags Crime/Violence, Slavery, War

    The fight over whether Kansas should be a slave or a free state raged throughout the summer of 1856 in Kansas, Missouri and other surrounding areas. The Free State militia won ground in the ongoing battle by seizing the town of Franklin, a pro slavery stronghold in August, but the Pro-Slavery men would not capitulate and they proved victorious in many clashes as well. Skirmishes continued through...

  7. Reverend Tyng Speaks Out Against Southern Hostility
    date June 29, 1856map PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvaniatags Church/Religious-Activity, Slavery

    Preaching to his Philadelphia congregation, Reverend Dudley A. Tyng spoke out against the violent acts committed by Southerners in attempts to have Kansas admitted to the Union as a slave state.  “The blood of a Senator has stained the floor of the Senate Chamber,” said Tyng in his June 29, 1856, sermon, and “the blood of her citizens has been poured out like water on the virgin soil of Kansas,...

  8. The New Kansas Bill
    date July 10, 1856 to July 11, 1856map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Slavery

    In July of 1856 the Senate labored over the span of two days to come to an accord regarding the issue of slavery in Kansas. On the morning of the 11th, the Committee on Territories adopted the new Kansas bill, first introduced by Senator Toombs of Georgia. This new bill declared Kansas a slave state and was passed by a vote of thirty three to twelve. The bill only needed approval by the House...

  9. Smilin' Schuyler Rails Against The Laws of Kansas
    date June 21, 1856map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Politics, Anti-slavery

    In 1850, the Midwest remained largely undeveloped and in the eyes of many New Englanders it seemed a very profitable proposition. By 1854, the territories were created by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which left these states with the ability to decide if the slave trade would be legal in their territories. Many Anti-Nebraskans, such as Indiana Representative Schuyler Colfax, remained dedicated to the...

  10. The Arrest of a Slave
    date August 10, 1856map HENRICO, Virginiatags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Slavery

    On August 10th a slave named Henderson, the human property of Edward Gresham, was arrested and caged. Police officers caught Henderson in an illegal assembly of eleven other blacks, trespassing over private property and carrying fire arms. Henderson probably faced punishment by the law following his arrest, and then subsequently by his master once released from confinement. Slave rebellions generally...

  11. Terrible Storm in Louisiana Kills Hundreds
    date August 10, 1856 to August 12, 1856map ORLEANS, Louisianatags Health/Death

    Last Island, Louisiana was a popular vacation spot for wealthy families in the nineteenth century. The island, located in the Gulf of Mexico, served as an ideal summer getaway because of its full exposure to southern breezes and desirable climate. Last Island was relatively small, measuring twenty five miles long and three fourths of a mile wide. The island's attractive qualities, namely...

  12. Blockade of Missouri River
    date August 12, 1856map MERCER, Missouritags Crime/Violence, Slavery, War

    In the summer of 1856 tensions ran high between pro slavery and free soil groups in the territory of Kansas and thus trickled into the nearby, slave state Missouri. Although allowing Kansas to be a slave state would have violated the Missouri Compromise established in 1820, pro slavery forces fought to add yet another state to “their' side. Free soil groups vehemently opposed instituting...

  13. Sumner-Brooks Affair
    date May 22, 1856map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Kansas-Nebraska Act, Abolitionism, Sumner, Brooks, Violence

    Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner sat as his desk in the nearly empty Chamber of the United States Senate on May 22, 1856. He had recently given a speech called “The Crime Against Kansas” on abolishing slavery in the United States. The speech described atrocities occurring in Kansas at the time. There pro-slavery border ruffians from Missouri crossed into Kansas and attacked anti-slavery...

  14. Bleeding Congress
    date May 19, 1856 to May 22, 1856map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Abolitionism, Bleeding Kansas, Brooks-Sumner Fight, Violence

     

     

    Tensions on Capitol Hill had been rising for years as Southern and Northern politicians continued their debates with one another over the slavery issue. By the 1850s there was a full out war of words in both chambers of Congress as each side was becoming increasingly uncompromising in their cause. These tensions had been creeping across the country at an extremely fast rate throughout...

  15. Man Arrested for Spreading Abolitionist Material
    date August 15, 1856map LOWNDES, Mississippitags Slavery

    On August 14th, 1856 a man was arrested on the charges of disseminating incendiary material. The man, John Duberry, was caught distributing the speeches of Senators Sumner and Seward amongst slaves in Columbus, Mississippi. For committing a “crime' such as this, Duberry could have received a sentence of ten years in jail. Unfortunately though, the newspaper did not print a follow up...

  16. Nicaraguan Affairs
    date May 19, 1856map HENRICO, Virginiatags Diplomacy/International, Migration/Transportation

    On Monday May 19, 1856, the headline story of the Daily Dispatch was entitled "Nicaraguan Affairs," a topic that was prevalent among many of the newspaper's articles that month. This particular article discussed how Central America would potentially provide the United States with routes of passage for naval ships. These naval transit routes, specifically a possible Nicaraguan canal, would better...

  17. The Assault of Charles Sumner
    date May 1, 1856 to June 6, 1856map WAKE, North Carolinatags Crime/Violence, Politics, Slavery

    The "chastisement of Senator Sumner" by Senator Brooks in the United States Senate came under heavy criticism in both the Northern and Southern United States. While the Northern reaction was a more conciliatory tone towards Sumner and one that called for the punishment of Brooks, the Southern reaction was that it was a ploy by Northern abolitionists to further the fight to end their way of life,...

  18. Millard Filmore, American Party Candidate for President
    date May, 1856map WASHINGTON, Virginiatags Politics

    Throughout the month of May 1856, the Abingdon Virginian newspaper printed the name of the town's choice for president in the upcoming presidential election. Their choice for president was Millard Fillmore of New York, and for vice president Andrew U. Donelson of Tennessee, nominated by the American Party. There was no further explanation for this information, but rather an announcement...

  19. Disaster on the Carolina Railroad
    date May, 1856map NELSON, Virginiatags Economy, Migration/Transportation, Science/Technology

    On May 19, 1856, C.M. Siller wrote a letter to his friend J.L. Twyman, a resident of Buchanan County, Virginia. From his room at the Washington Hotel in Lynchburg, Virginia, Siller described the details of his train ride to Anderson, South Carolina two weeks earlier. His three-page letter discussed in great depth the landscape of the various towns he saw, as well as the agricultural production of...

  20. The Brewing Political Atmosphere of the 1850s
    date May, 1856map HENRICO, Virginiatags Politics, Slavery, War

    In the weeks leading to the United States presidential election of 1856, the future of the union seemed to hinge on the issue of slavery. The Richmond Whig and Public Advertiser, a semi-weekly newspaper that was distributed throughout Richmond during the 1850s, published a series of articles expressing the southern Democrats' staunch opposition to federal interference in slavery. The...

  21. Farm for Sale
    date May 16, 1856map KING WILLIAM, Virginiatags Agriculture, Economy

    On May 16, 1856, John Cooke posted an advertisement in the Richmond Whig and Public Advertiser to sell his farm in King William County, Virginia. His farm was a desirable property, as it lay alongside the Mattapony River, only one mile from the county court house. Cooke stressed the fact that along this steamboats river ran straight to Norfolk, Virginia, optimal for farmers who wanted...

  22. Southern Interpretation of Increasing Sectionalism
    date August 19, 1856map HENRICO, Virginiatags Slavery

    In an article written on August 19, 1856, The Daily Dispatch commented on the growing sectionalism between the North and the South in the United States. In a then recent speech by a Missouri Senator it was stated that “there existed more comity between any two foreign nations now on the face of the earth than there exists on the part of the Northern States towards the South (The Daily Dispatch,...

  23. The Third Seminole War
    date August 21, 1856map ALACHUA, Floridatags Crime/Violence, Race-Relations, War

    The Seminole Wars were bitter fights between the white settlers of Florida and the Seminole Indians, a tribe founded in the 1700s after tribes migrated further south. The First Seminole War began in 1817 when Andrew invaded Eastern Florida, backed by the U.S. Army. While the first war only lasted a year, the Second Seminole War began in 1821 and did not end 1842, although no peace treaty was ever...

  24. Student Withdraws After Beating Slave Girl
    date May 3, 1856map ALBEMARLE, Virginiatags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Race-Relations, Slavery

    In May 1856, students and faculty at the University of Virginia were consumed by the news that the faculty board forced a student to withdraw after beating a slave child. The removal of a student from the Academical Village over a slave whipping was difficult for many to believe since whipping was a common disciplinary action for misbehaving servants. Confusion mixed with curiosity...

  25. Border Ruffians Leave For Kansas
    date May 3, 1856map JACKSON, Missouritags Migration/Transportation, Politics, Slavery

    On May 3, 1856 a group of settlers left Westport, Missouri for the Territory of Kansas. Led by Major Buford, the diverse group consisted of pro-slavery activists of all stripes. They came from several Southern states, including Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Leaving to much fanfare, the settlers departed after a reception at the Farmer's Hotel in Westport. There, Major Buford,...