America250 — 250 years since 1776. Explore two and a half centuries of American history. Start the tour

#Slavery

57 entries

People (19)

Senator, Orator, and Champion of American Union

Enslaved man whose lawsuit for freedom produced the Supreme Court's most condemned decision

Inventor of the cotton gin who accidentally expanded slavery and deliberately built American mass production

Franklin Pierce

14th President of the United States, 1853–1857

Frederick Douglass

Abolitionist, orator, and the 19th century's most powerful voice against American slavery

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Author of Uncle Tom's Cabin and the novelist who sharpened the nation's conscience on slavery

Abolitionist, Union spy, and conductor of the Underground Railroad

The Great Compromiser who held the Union together — and delayed its reckoning

15th President of the United States, 1857–1861

Jefferson Davis

President of the Confederate States of America, 1861–1865

Militant abolitionist who brought the war over slavery to a boil

John C. Calhoun

Senator, Vice President, and the intellectual architect of Southern secessionism

Millard Fillmore

13th President of the United States, whose compromise bought a decade and cost a nation

Chief Justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision — the worst ruling in the Court's history

Sojourner Truth

Abolitionist, suffragist, and orator who escaped slavery to become its most forceful living refutation

Stephen A. Douglas

The "Little Giant" Whose Kansas-Nebraska Act Fractured the Union, 1813–1861

Thomas Jefferson

Author of the Declaration of Independence and Third President of the United States

William Lloyd Garrison

Publisher, abolitionist, and the loudest moral voice against American slavery

12th President of the United States, a war hero who died before the crisis could break

Places (4)

The Virginia armory town where John Brown struck the spark that lit the Civil War

The first permanent English settlement in North America, founded 1607 on the Virginia tidewater

Northwest Territory

The Ohio Valley land first organized under the Northwest Ordinance of 1787

Where the Civil War began and where nullification was born

Eras (5)

Age of Exploration and Contact

The 115 years of European arrival that reshaped two continents, 1492–1607

The 28 years that turned a coastal experiment into a continental power, 1800–1828

Jacksonian Democracy

The 20 years of democratic expansion — and brutal exclusion — that remade American politics, 1828–1848

The Antebellum Period

The decades of deepening crisis that made the Civil War inevitable, 1848–1861

The conflict that tore the United States apart and abolished slavery, 1861–1865

Events (13)

American Civil War

The 1861–1865 war over slavery and union that remade the nation

Caribbean barbacoa, enslaved pitmasters, and four regional traditions

Battle of Antietam

The bloodiest single day in American military history, September 17, 1862

Bleeding Kansas

The violent territorial struggle that previewed the Civil War

Compromise of 1850

The last great legislative bargain before the Union broke apart

Election of 1860

The presidential election that dissolved the Union before the winner took office

Freedmen's Bureau

The federal agency that tried — and was not allowed — to secure Black Americans' freedom

John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry

The 1859 assault on a federal arsenal that made civil war feel inevitable to everyone

June 19, 1865 — the day freedom finally arrived in Texas, and the holiday it became

Nat Turner's Rebellion

The 1831 slave rebellion that terrified the South and hardened the institution it challenged

Nullification Crisis

The 1832 standoff between South Carolina and Andrew Jackson that previewed secession

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

The 1848 peace that gave the United States a third of a continent — and intensified the slavery crisis

Uncle Tom's Cabin

The 1852 novel that turned a generation against slavery

Documents (8)

Dred Scott v. Sandford

The 1857 Supreme Court ruling that declared Black Americans had no constitutional rights

Emancipation Proclamation

Lincoln's 1863 executive order that transformed the Civil War into a war for human freedom

Kansas-Nebraska Act

The 1854 law that reopened the slavery debate and shattered American politics

Missouri Compromise

The 1820 deal that delayed the Civil War by 40 years — and guaranteed it would be worse

Northwest Ordinance

The 1787 law that established the framework for American territorial expansion

The Corwin Amendment

The failed amendment that would have protected slavery forever

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

The law that forced the North to enforce slavery — and radicalized it

Thirteenth Amendment

The 1865 constitutional amendment that abolished slavery in the United States

Concepts (6)

The movement to end slavery in America, from moral argument to political force

American Slavery

The institution that built the republic's wealth, defined its politics, and nearly destroyed the nation

The regional rivalry between North and South that drove America toward Civil War

West African foodways, plantation rations, and a cuisine the Great Migration carried north

The Middle Passage

The brutal Atlantic crossing that carried millions into American slavery

Underground Railroad

The secret network of routes and safe houses that carried enslaved people to freedom

Organizations (1)

Garrison's abolitionist weekly, 1831-1865

Technology (1)

The 1793 invention that mechanized cotton — and entrenched slavery

All Tags

Politics 178 Economy 171 Military 129 Reform 121 Civil Rights 118 Law & Justice 116 Presidency 113 Science & Technology 112 Foreign Policy 107 Arts & Culture 103 Race 98 Founding Era 96 Industry 90 Constitution 75 Modern America 67 Protest 66 Cold War 65 Civil War 62 Westward Expansion 61 War 59 Revolution 59 Slavery 57 Media & Press 57 Women 56 Indigenous 51 Diplomacy 47 Immigration 41 Labor 40 Environment 36 Colonial America 34 Congress 33 Religion 33 World War II 32 Supreme Court 32 Disaster 29 Exploration 27 Public Health 25 Progressive Era 25 Abolition 22 Finance 22 Reconstruction 22 Democracy 20 Gilded Age 19 Assassination 15 Education 15 Suffrage 11 World War I 9 Sports 9 Corruption 9 Prohibition 1