Section #3 - Turning Point Events
1787-1829 – Dual Economies
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Dual Economies 1787-1829 | |
| 1789 | George Washington becomes the United States first President. While calling himself an Independent and warning against divisive political parties, he supports a strong central government along the lines of the Federalists and in opposition to those like Jefferson who support greater state sovereignty. Causal Theme: States’ Rights Learn More: Read Chapter 12 in Prelude |
| 1791 | Alexander Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures calls for a diverse industrialized economy. In direct conflict with Jefferson’s vision of an agricultural future driven by yeoman farmers, Hamilton sides with Scottish philosopher Adam Smith in calling for capitalism and the development of domestic manufacturing. This becomes Federalist policy, resulting in government actions that infuriate the South, including increased tariffs and spending on infrastructure. Causal Theme: Sectional Wealth Learn More: Read Chapter 15 in Prelude |
| 1791 | Former slave Toussaint Louverture leads a successful Black revolution in Haiti. Toussaint is manumitted in 1776 at age seventeen and is working as a livestock handler on a plantation when captive Blacks begin a rebellion in the French colony in 1789. He soon joins the revolt, masters guerrilla tactics, aligns with Spain, adopts the surname Louverture (“opening” in French), and succeeds on the battlefield. But when France abolishes slavery in 1794, he abandons Spain. In 1801 he conquers the Spanish stronghold of Santo Domingo and names himself Governor General for Life. He rules for 18 months before he is seized by Napoleon and dies in jail. But his successor, Jean Dessalines, throws the French out and sustains a Black government. Causal Theme: Abolition, Black Experience Learn More: Read Chapter 23 in Prelude |
| 1794 | Reverend Richard Allen founds The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. Allen is born into slavery in Delaware in 1760, before teaching himself to read and write and buying his freedom in 1780. After becoming a lay minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, he finds that Blacks in the congregation are not allowed to be seated among white members, but instead are segregated. This leads him to establish the break-away AME Church at the Mother Bethel site in the city. It fights against slavery and becomes a safe haven for Blacks across the North and eventually in the South. Causal Theme: Black Experience, Abolition Learn More:Read Chapter 11 in Prelude |
| 1794 | Eli Whitney patents a ‘gin that makes producing short-staple cotton profitable. After graduating from Yale in 1792, he settles on the Mulberry Grove cotton plantation in Georgia and seeks a solution to remove unwanted seeds from the desired fiber on short staple crops. By 1793 he applies for a patent on a mechanical device and receive a number in 1794 (although it is 1807 before final approval). But Whitney’s invention accomplishes the task at hand, enabling each of his (en)gins” to process 55 lbs. of clean cotton per day. Adoption follows quickly and it becomes a key factor in the South’s “Cotton as King” economic boom. Causal Theme: Slavery Expansion, Sectional Wealth Learn More: Read Chapter 15 in Prelude |
| 1798 | The Kentucky Resolutions challenge Federal authority to enforce the Alien & Sedition Act. The Kentucky State Legislature passes a Resolution written by Thomas Jefferson arguing that President Adams’ Alien & Sedition Act violates the 10th Amendment limiting Federal authority. Causal Theme: Nullification, Legal Rulings Learn More: Read Chapter 21 in Prelude |
| 1798 | The Territory of Mississippi is officially organized. It will be divided in 1817 into two more Slave States: Mississippi and Alabama. Causal Theme: Slavery Expansion Learn More: Read Chapter 20 in Prelude |
| 1799 | George Washington’s Farewell Address warns against partisan political parties. Washington’s valedictory letter to the nation focuses on the importance of national unity and the threats to it both foreign and domestic. Included in the letter is a prescient warning to beware of political parties which “are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” Causal Theme: Political Upheaval Learn More: Read Chapter 18 in Prelude |
| 1801 | The election of Thomas Jefferson signals a shift in government policies. Jefferson begins the Democrat’s dominance in Washington which extends through the “Virginia Dynasty” of Presidents Madison and Monroe and runs from 1801 to 1825. The Federalist focus on centralized power under Washington and Adams gives way to States’ Rights control, especially over spending. The South’s focus on agricultural growth, accompanied by low tariffs, overshadows the North’s drive for manufacturing and capitalism. Causal Theme: Voting Power, Sectional Wealth Learn More: Read Chapters 21, 27 in Prelude |
| 1802 | Reverend Absalom Jones heralds the founding of Black churches in America. Jones is born into slavery in Delaware in 1746. He is later taken to Philadelphia where he is allowed to attend the African Free School, learning to read and write. In 1784 he is manumitted before being ordained as a Minister at St. George’s Methodist-Episcopal Church. In 1787 he founds the Free African Society along with Minister Richard Allen and follows in 1794 with the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas. It is the first Black church in the city, dedicated to “throwing off the habit of oppression,” and famous for its sermons against slavery. Causal Theme: Black Experience, Abolition Learn More: Read Chapter 11 in Prelude |
| 1803 | Jefferson competes the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon’s France. While the new President has favored France over England since the Revolutionary War, he joins the rest of the world in fearing the rise of Napoleon. By 1803, however, the First Counsel is focused on recapturing control of Haiti and completing his land wars in Europe. So he sells his stake in North America to the U.S. for $15million. This Louisiana Purchase adds 827,000 square miles and nearly doubles the nation’s landmass, from 29% to 56% of the eventual total. Since the land is west of the Mississippi River, it lacks a defined legal ruling on a boundary line dividing future Slave vs. Free States. Causal Theme: Slavery Expansion, Territorial Constitutions, Legal Rulings Learn More: Read Chapter 24 in Prelude |
| 1803 | Northwest Territorial Governor Harrison supports re-opening slavery in Indiana. A Virginian by birth, Harrison wins initial fame at the 1794 Battle of Fallen Timbers which ends tribal efforts to control Ohio. He enters politics and is elected as the first delegate of the Northwest Territory in Congress. In 1800 he begins a twelve year post as Governor, stationed in Vincennes, Indiana. He builds a plantation-style estate there and, in 1803, lobbies Congress to allow slavery back into Indiana, supposedly to encourage more settlers. Causal Theme: Slavery Expansion, Abolition, Legal Rulings Learn More: Read Chapter 37 in Prelude |
| 1804 | The State of Ohio passes its first set of Black Codes. While slavery is banned in Ohio according to the 1787 Northwest Ordinance, the Legislature passes a series of statutes aimed at harnessing its Free Black population. The 1804 Black Code requires that each Black can show a certificate of freedom upon demand, and that businesses face a fine for hiring any employees without the proof. The 1807 law goes further, and bars Blacks from testifying in court cases against whites. These Ohio codes are picked up and repeated in more states to the west, culminating in actual bans on Black residency, most notably in Oregon. Causal Theme: Racism, Black Experience, Territorial Constitutions, Legal Rulings Learn More: Read Chapter 37 in Prelude |
| 1804 | Vice-President Aaron Burr kills Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a duel. The bitter feud between the two traces to Hamilton’s support for Jefferson over Burr in the tied Presidential race of 1800, and Burr’s public outing of an illicit romantic affair in 1791 with one Maria Reynolds. After Hamilton calls Burr “a dangerous man,” Burr challenges him to a duel. It takes place on July 11 on the New Jersey island of Weehawken, where Hamilton’s son, Philip, died earlier in a duel. Burr’s shot strikes Hamilton with a mortal wound in the abdomen, and he dies on July 12. His death greatly diminishes the Federalist Party policies going forward. Causal Theme: Political Upheaval, Public Violence Learn More: Read Chapter 26 in Prelude |
| 1807 | Aaron Burr is tried for treason over a plot to form his own empire in Mexico permitting slavery. The 1804 duel with Alexander Hamilton ends Burr’s political career, but not his personal ambition. In 1805 he leases 40,000 acres of land in Louisiana with an apparent eye to establishing his own independent nation with slavery included on Spanish land in nearby Mexico. Never proven rumors claim Burr’s intends to capture New Orleans, possibly with British help. But his co-conspirator, Louisiana Territorial Governor, James Wilkinson, backs out, and, when Jefferson learns of the scheme, Burr is arrested and tried for treason. But Chief Justice Marshall rules that the evidence required to prove treason is lacking, Burr is freed before fleeing to England. In 1812 he returns to New York City as a celebrity, marries wealth, and practices law until dying in 1836. Causal Theme: Political Upheaval, Slavery Expansion Learn More: Read Chapter 28 in Prelude |
| 1808 | The ban on international slave trading prompts systematic breeding among southern owners. None other than Thomas Jefferson endorses this practice in an 1820 letter to his friend, Virginia politician John Wayles Eppes, saying: “I consider a woman who brings a child every two years as more profitable than the best man of the farm. What she produces is an addition to the capital, while his labors disappear in mere consumption.” From this time forth, the wealth of the Southern elites will be measured not only in cotton sales, but also in auctioning off their bred slaves to new plantations in the west. Causal Theme: Racism, Black Experience, Slavery Expansion, Sectional Wealth Learn More: Read Chapter 30 in Prelude |
| 1813 | The “Great Triumphrate” begin their dominance over the U.S. Congress. As of 1813, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun and Daniel Webster are all beginning their careers with seats in the U.S. House. For the next four decades, each will voice the will of their geographical constituencies: Webster in the East; Calhoun the South; and Clay the West. They will oversee the westward expansion of the population and of slavery, and come together in search of policies and compromises to protect sectional wealth, build the nation, and keep the Union together. Causal Theme: Sectional Wealth, Slavery Expansion, Manifest Destiny Learn More: Read Chapter 32 in Prelude |
| 1813 | James Forten protests a Pennsylvania bill discriminating against Black emigrants. Born free in Philadelphia, Forten fights in the Revolutionary War at fourteen before serving as an apprentice to a sail maker. By 1810 he invents new sails and assorted tools that increase the speed and maneuverability of masted ships, and becomes wealthy in the process. He then throws himself into achieving civil rights, and, in an 1813 pamphlet, Letters of a Man or Color, opposes discriminatory regulations directed at Blacks in Pennsylvania. Later he supports a campaign against recolonizing Blacks in Africa and helps abolitionist Lloyd Garrison launch The Liberator. Causal Theme: Black Experience, Racism, Abolition Learn More: Read Chapter 37 in Prelude |
| 1814 | The New England states threaten secession at the Hartford Convention. Federalist opposition to the War of 1812 grows as the British burn Washington, invade Massachusetts, and blockade ports in the northeast, paralyzing commerce. Feeling abandoned by President Madison, Federalist Governors of five New England states (Mass, CN, RI, NH and VT) assemble in Harford, Connecticut, in December 1814, to discuss protest strategies. Secession is debated, but rejected in favors of a call for Constitutional Amendments strengthening state’s control over its commerce and militias. Causal Theme: Nullification, Sectional Wealth, States’ Rights, Political Upheaval Learn More: Read Chapter 34 in Prelude |
| 1815 | Paul Cuffee transports 38 African-Americans to a new home in Sierra Leone. Like his contemporary James Forten, Cuffee is born free and participates as a teenager in the Revolutionary War, in his case using skills as a sailor to run goods past the British blockade and into Nantucket. After the war, he opens a successful shipping company along the Atlantic coast and begins to build his own fleet. His Quaker heritage finds him supporting charitable initiatives such as building a Friends Meeting House in Westport, MA, along with the first integrated school. He believes that the best hope for fellow Blacks lies in returning to their homelands in Africa and he devotes much of his fortune to the cause before dying in 1817. Causal Theme: Black Experience Learn More: Read Chapter 37 in Prelude |
| 1816 | Clergyman Robert Finley founds the American Colonization Society to return Blacks to Africa. Paul Cuffee’s exploratory trips to Sierra Leone prompt Presbyterian Minister Robert Finley to establish the ACS with backing from men like Henry Clay, Charles Mercer, John Randolph and Bushrod Washington. At first the plan is limited to Free Blacks only, but it is later extended to include those enslaved. Funding was to come from memberships and donations from churches across America. But the enterprise is opposed from within the Black community as well as from Abolitionists. It ends in failure with only about 12,000 emigres ever reaching Liberia. Causal Theme: Black Experience Learn More: Read Chapter 31 in Prelude |
| 1819 | The Tallmadge Amendments signals Northern opposition to the extension of slavery in the west. In 1812, Louisiana becomes the first state within the Louisiana Purchase Territory to join the Union, and it encourages those in the Missouri to follow – which it does in an 1819 application. House debate on the admission proceeds calmly until freshman James Tallmadge of Pennsylvania, an outspoken critic of slavery, offers an amendment supporting the bill “Provided the further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude be prohibited, except for the punishment of crimes…and that all children born within the said State after the admission thereof into the Union, shall be free at the age of twenty-five years.” After the House supports the amendment 87-76 along sectional, not party lines, the South is panicked, with Jefferson likening the alarm to “a fire bell in the night.” Causal Theme: Slavery Expansion, Voting Power, States’ Rights, Territorial Constitutions, Abolition Learn More: Read Chapter 42 in Prelude |
| 1820 | Henry Clay’s 1820 Missouri Compromise averts a North-South crisis over slavery. The conflict over Missouri traces to the fact that the bulk of its land lies north of the Ohio River, which, according to the Northwest Ordinance, should make it a Free State. But southerners argue that no such boundary has been set within the Louisiana Purchase and that the settlers favor slavery. To resolve the conflict, House Speaker Henry Clay gains passage of a compromise bill in which Missouri is admitted as a Slave State and the state of Maine is created as an offsetting Free State. Most importantly, it establishes a boundary line across the entire Louisiana Purchase land at 36’30” separating Free States from Slave States. Causal Theme: Slavery Expansion, States’ Rights, Territorial Constitutions, Abolition, Legal Rulings Learn More: Read Chapter 42 in Prelude |
| 1821 | Benjamin Lundy’s paper, The Genius of Universal Emancipation, energizes abolitionists. Quaker Lundy encounters slavery as an apprentice saddler living in Wheeling, Virginia, and dedicates his life to opposing it. In 1821 he abandons his saddlery business, founds his abolitionist newspaper in Ohio, and begins lecturing against slavery. Like other abolitionists, he is harassed and assaulted by his fellow Northerners, but perseveres. He finds a protégé in Lloyd Garrison and backs his Liberator publication in 1831. He visits Haiti, supports colonization, meets JQ Adams and denounces the Texas Annexation before dying at fifty in 1839. Causal Theme: Abolition, Slavery Expansion Learn More: Read Chapter 44 in Prelude |
| 1821 | Mexico gains its independence from Spain in the Treaty of Cordoba. After ten years of warfare begun in 1810 by Catholic priest Father Hidalgo, Spain surrenders to next generation rebels led by Augustin de Iturbide and Vicente Guerrero. While political turmoil becomes the norm in the new nation, it does abolish slavery in 1829. Causal Theme: Abolition Learn More: Read Chapter 33 in Prelude |
| 1823 | Mexico makes Empresario land grants to Moses Austin in the Tejas Province. In exchange for the grant totaling 1.5 million acres, Mose’s son, Stephen, agrees to settle 300 Catholic families (“The Old Three Hundred”) on the sparsely populated land in order to prevent intrusions by Commanche tribes. On average, families are allowed 5,000 acres at a price of 12.5 cents per acre, and they are expected to become Mexican citizens. Despite the recent ban on slavery, Austin negotiates an exception with President Iturbide, and by 1825, the population includes 1347 whites and 443 enslaved Blacks. Causal Theme: Slavery Expansion, Manifest Destiny Learn More: Read Chapter 75 in Prelude |
| 1825 | Revival meetings toward the end of the Second Great Awakening fuel social reform movements. Led by men like Charles Grandison Finney, a religious upheaval sweeps the nation, changing the relationship between the clergy and the congregation, and opening a path to salvation to all persons, not simply the Calvinist’s Elect. Evangelical preachers come down from the pulpit to hold open air revivalist meetings, with spontaneous conversions to Christianity and pledges to join social reform missions in favor of temperance, child labor, prison reform and abolishing slavery. Causal Theme: Second Awakening, Abolition Learn More: Read Chapter 53 in Prelude |
| 1826 | Quaker Levi Coffin leads early development of the Underground Railroad. From the late 18th century forward, those enslaved in the South have followed various escape routes to freedom in the North. Led initially by men like abolitionist Levi Coffin, the formal system known as the Underground Railroad is created. It begins with setting up locations, largely individual homes, to act as Stations, along the route – and then recruiting Conductors who accompany groups of runaways to safety. This was a perilous enterprise, but one that grew over time, eventually with support from Black heroes like Harriet Tubman and William Sills. While only 100,000 or so escaped over the railroad, it became an important symbol of resistance. Causal Theme: Abolition, Second Awakening Learn More: Read Chapter 162 in Prelude |
| 1828 | The so-called “Tariff of Abominations” outrages the South’s cotton producers. In a bill laced with Machiavellian political intrigue, Congress increases tariff rates from 22.3% to 35.0%. This jump is met by strong support from the Free States, especially in New England, who view it as protection for their manufactures, and intense opposition from the Slave States, who see it as an assault on their cotton sales and profits. In response, Vice-President John C. Calhoun threatens secession, a move that alienates him from President Jackson. Causal Theme: Sectional Wealth, Nullification Learn More: Read Chapter 57 in Prelude |
| 1829 | Black activist David Walker issues his “Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World.” Walker is born free in Delaware before moving to Boston where he opens a clothing shop, joins Prince Hall’s African Grand Lodge #459, and becomes a leading spokesman for emancipation. In his self-published 76 page Appeal pamphlet, he recounts the horrors of slavery, pleads with white Christians for mercy and freedom, and ends with a dire prediction: “I tell you Americans! That unless you speedily alter your course, you and your Country are gone!!!!!! For God Almighty will tear up the very face of the earth!!!” Unfortunately Walker dies within a year of tuberculous. Causal Theme: Black Experience, Racism, Abolition Learn More: Read Chapter 58 in Prelude |