Episodes Nearest to January 1, 1868 to December 31, 1869: 1 through 25 of 25

  1. The Establishment of the First Black Law School
    date January 4, 1869map Washington City, District of Columbiatags African-Americans, Education, Law, Race-Relations

    African Americans never enjoyed exclusive access to law schools, much less to graduate schools in general. At the start of 1869, however, John Mercer Langston and the Trustees of Howard University announced the opening of the very first law school in the United States intended for African Americans and those seeking to provide legal defense for other African Americans. Langston himself was the founding...

  2. Troubles between blacks and police in Princess Anne County
    date January 7, 1869map PRINCESS ANNE, Virginiatags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Economy, Politics, Race-Relations

    One January day, Lieutenant. Rogers of Princess Anne County Sheriff's Department ordered a detachment of twenty men headed by Lieutenant Farragut to serve a warrant to two black men living on the Baxter farm and the one adjacent to it. This detachment was sent because the last deputy that tried to serve was met with resistance. The whole detachment arrived at the farm and proceeded to the house...

  3. Knights of the White Camellia Opposed in Arkansas
    date December 19, 1868map CONWAY, Arkansastags Crime/Violence, Law, Government, Politics

    In December 1868 a report from Little Rock, Arkansas stated that "In the Legislature last night, Mr. Brooks introduced a bill requiring all persons to withdraw from the Knights of the White Camellia...within thirty days, under penalty of heavy fine and imprisonment...". Following this resolution the state declared martial law in Conway County, Arkansas as reported in the New York Times.

    The...

  4. More Funds Needed for the Manual Labor School
    date December 12, 1868map RUTHERFORD, Tennesseetags African-Americans, Agriculture, Economy, Education, Government

    On behalf of the Manual Labor School of the colored citizens in Rutherford, Tennessee, Reverend Daniel Watkins appealed to the public for extra support. The school aimed to enhance the labor skills of newly freed blacks. The state chartered 15,000 towards the school, but still needed more funds. The board of trustees purchased three hundred acres of land with an estimated worth of 2800 in yielded...

  5. Confederate General John C. Breckinridge Provides Insight into Slave Loyalty and Confederate Expatriation
    date January 24, 1869map MUSCOGEE, Georgiatags Reconstruction, Immigration, Politics, John C. Breckinridge, Expatriation

    Dated January 13, 1869, this letter written by ex-Confederate general and former United States Vice-President, John C. Breckinridge, first became public on January 20, 1869, when the newspaper of Columbus, Georgia printed a copy of the message. Four days later, the New York Times made it available to an even wider audience when it republished the article. After the surrender of the Confederacy,...

  6. Planters Miss Black Labor
    date February 1, 1869map BALDWIN, Georgiatags African-Americans, Agriculture, Economy, Race-Relations

    For the white plantation owners of the South, labor had always been a problem. Cotton-picking was back-breaking work. Always in the past, though, slaves had worked the long hours in the sweltering heat. Slavery ended, but the demand for labor did not. Suddenly the planters had the job of enticing labor that had been so simple, if expensive, to secure just years earlier. They began to question just...

  7. Grant County Founded
    date February 4, 1869tags Urban-Life/Boosterism

    Grant County is formed in Arkansas during this year. Grant County is formed from three other counties and they all still remain counties also. There will be 637 miles that encompass this county. This formation shows the westward movement that is occurring during this stage of the south.<br /><br />Mr. FLB Goodwin is from Georgia and he wrote to the Atlanta constitution during this...

  8. The 15th Amendment is passed by Congressional Republicans and then sent to the states.
    date February, 1869map Washington City, District of Columbiatags African-Americans

    Radical Republicans had been in the process of getting another amendment to the Constitution. They desired to take the next step and allow the enfranchisement of African American males throughout the entire United States. They had finally gotten it passed through the House and were ready to send it to the Senate.<br /><br />The Atlanta Constitution runs two articles in its paper in...

  9. Governor Clayton declares martial law in large parts of Arkansas
    date November 4, 1868map PULASKI, Arkansastags Crime/Violence, Race-Relations

    During the summer and fall of 1868, white unrest grew in most of the southern states due to the newly created state governments enacted under the radical Reconstruction Acts. Resentful of Republican control and the extension of rights to blacks, white southerners further turned to violence to impose their will. In Arkansas, racial violence continued to escalate as whites attempted to keep blacks...

  10. Election Day riot in Savannah
    date November 3, 1868map CHATHAM, Georgiatags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Race-Relations

    Racial tensions in Savannah came to a head on November 3, the day of the presidential election. Both the Charleston Mercury and Atlanta Constitution contained similar accounts of the event. Allegedly, a large group of black people moved to the voting booths and proceeded to block the entrance of whites to the polls. During the afternoon, a group of men from the central railroad came to vote and...

  11. New Orleans Race Riots
    date October 24, 1868 to October 28, 1868map ORLEANS, Louisianatags African-Americans, Crime/Violence, Race-Relations

    Tensions between White Democratic clubs and Black Republican clubs in the parishes of Orleans, Jefferson and St. Bernard and heightened fear from whites of a black uprising led to violence days before the 1868 elections. The conflict erupted when a white democratic procession opened fire on a black procession on the streets of the city. Violence escalated when blacks went home to gather weapons...

  12. The Murder of Senator Benjamin Franklin Randolph
    date October 17, 1868map ORANGEBURG, South Carolinatags hate, Reconstruction, Crime, Politics

    Benjamin Franklin Randolph was born a freeman in Kentucky in 1820.  He graduated from Oberlin College and became an ordained minister.  After college, he joined the U.S. Colored Troops and served as a chaplain.  B.F. Randolph found himself in South Carolina after the war, where he became a prominent participant in local politics.  In 1868, Randolph was elected to the Senate for the Orangeburg...

  13. Hesper Affair
    date October 8, 1868 to October 15, 1868map SHELBY, Tennesseetags Crime/Violence, Migration/Transportation

    With the increase in racial violence in Arkansas, Governor Powell Clayton sought to create a secret militia aimed at preventing white supremacy movements in the form of organizations like the Ku Klux Klan. The majority of white citizens in Arkansas despised the Governor's enforcement officials. To outfit his militia Clayton ordered 4,000 muskets which were shipped to Memphis, Tennessee. However,...

  14. Amnesty and Pardon for former Confederates
    date July 4, 1868 to December 25, 1868map Washington City, District of Columbiatags War

    On July 4th, 1868, President Johnson gave amnesty to approximately 300 Southerners still under the edict of rebellion, except for several top Confederate officials. On Christmas 1868, he pardoned the rest, including Breckenridge, Slidell, and Thompson. This was significant because Johnson had just been impeached (in March) and though he hoped he would receive the Democratic nomination at the Democratic...

  15. Freedmen Massacred at Opelousas
    date September 28, 1868 to September 29, 1868map ST LANDRY, Louisianatags Politics, Race-Relations, Crime/Violence, African-Americans

    The Opelousas massacre occurred in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, on September 28, 1868. It centered around Emerson Bentley, a white editor for a local newspaper called The Landry Progress and an influential schoolteacher who promoted the education of black children. Bentley wrote an article that local members of the Seymour Knights, a branch unit of the white supremacist group The Knights...

  16. African American Religious Services
    date September 18, 1868map PAGE, Virginiatags African-Americans, Church/Religious-Activity, Race-Relations

    In one edition of the Page Valley Courier Newspaper a reader asserts that The African Baptist Church is larger than any other Baptist church other than on in England. The same gentleman informed the newspaper that he recently attended there sitting by the right side of Chief Justice Chase and ex-Governor Wise, when two hundred persons were baptized. Their evening prayer meeting is attended...

  17. Jeannie Coues: Describes Friendly Fire Casualties
    date April 16, 1869map BEAUFORT, North Carolinatags friendly fire, prison

    In February of 1869, Jane Augusta McKinney Coues and her husband, Dr. Elliot Coues were stationed at Fort Macon, a small island fort off the coast of Beaufort, North Carolina. Dr. Coues was a well known surgeon and naturalist, and was stationed at the fort to serve the troops that occupied it; Jane lived with him at the Fort. During her stay there she kept in close contact with her sister in the...

  18. Removing the Middle Man
    date September, 1868map ORLEANS, Louisianatags commodities, Chicago Grain Corner

    The late 19th century was a period of rating, standardization and putting a price on previously unvalued commodities. From people, crops, and even time a need for equality and standardization in the commodities market and in every day life was answered.  Commodities markets began to crop up around the country and laws are put on books to both protect and hold farmers to higher standards.  Prior...

  19. Georgia Democrats in state House of Representatives move to expel blacks from the State Legislature
    date September 5, 1868 to September 9, 1868map FULTON, Georgiatags African-Americans, Race-Relations

    Democrats in the Georgia legislature moved in the first week of September, 1868, to expel black members of the legislature on the grounds that the new state constitution did not guarantee them the right to hold office. On September 5, 1868, Representative R.W Phillips made a speech calling upon all white men to expel blacks. He further condemned the government for giving what he referred to as...

  20. Use of Southern Railroads after the Civil War
    date May 15, 1868 to 1868map ALBEMARLE, Virginiatags Economy, Migration/Transportation, Women

    Lucy Brown left on a long trip, so long that the sheer volume of her own and her daughter's luggage precluded her from stopping to visit her sister on her return. Mrs. Brown wrote her sister a short letter explaining why she could not stop and visit, and that she would be away from her native Charlottesville until the end of June. When she wrote the letter, Mrs. Brown was traveling through Lynchburg....

  21. Reverend Jackson Proscribes Church Code for Moral Conduct
    date April 27, 1869map ST LOUIS, Missouritags Church/Religious-Activity, Women

    Reverend J. Edward Jackson woke up tired on the morning of April 27, 1869. He had been traveling the country for eight years preaching in Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and South Carolina. Evangelicalism stressed the importance in traveling from place to place to spread the good news of the Bible. That morning he gave a sermon on heavenly mindedness at the Church of the...

  22. The Letter Begging for Peace
    date August 26, 1868map MARION, Texastags Murder, Freed Slaves, Hate Crimes

    Around one o' clock Friday morning Albert Browning, "a freedman and quiet inoffensive citizen of the city," lay resting peacefully in his home with his wife and little children. For unknown reasons a number of white men grabbed him and led him just a few feet outside of his home. They tied the terrified man's hands behind his back, went into his home, and began robbing him of his money,...

  23. Photographs as Reflection: The Wedding of Rails, Reflection of Westward Optimism Date:
    date May 10, 1869map BOX ELDER, Utahtags Western Expansion, Railroad, Migration/Transportation

    When looking at photographs from the 19th century, few examples viewed can portray the overall mentality of the people. Photography at the time was a new, relatively expensive invention, and thus photographs tended to have much more significance and meaning to the photographer and subjects than they do today. Photographs carried some of the emotional value previously given to painting,...

  24. Rapid development of railways and canals in America.
    date May 10, 1869map BOX ELDER, Utahtags Railroad, canals

    Before the development of an interstate freeway system in the mid-twentieth century, most of the transportation systems in the US consisted of railways and canals.  “Canal fever” spread through the states from the early 1820s because of the development of flatboats and steamboats but faced a decline after 1880. A statistic conducted in 1840 showed that “between 1810 and 1840 canal mileage...

  25. America's Need for a Second Transcontinental Railway
    date May 18, 1869map CHARLESTON, South Carolinatags Economy, Migration/Transportation, Politics, Science/Technology

    On Tuesday, May 18, 1869 an editorial appeared in the Charleston Courier titled "The Pacific Railway and a Southern Route" in which the author made the argument that the nation needed a southern transcontinental rail route. The first Transcontinental Railway had only been completed a few days earlier but already there were calls from southerners for a route that was more suited to their needs. A...