Oregon Trail

The Oregon Trail is a 2,000 mile route for large wagons. The trail began by fur trappers and traders from 1811 to 1840. The only way you could pass was by foot or on a horse. By the 1846-1869 the trail was used by about 400,000 settlers, ranchers, farmers, miners, and businessmen and their families. William Clark founded the path but it wasn’t discovered until 1859 that they could actually walk the path that connected the Missouri River to the Columbia River. The West part of the trail connected the states Idaho and Oregon. The route was very dangerous but the deaths aren’t precise. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Trail) There is a chart here that states the Causes and estimated deaths during this trail.
Disease 6,000 12,500
Indian attack 3,000 4,500
Freezing 300 500
Run overs 200 500
Drowning 200 500
Shootings 200 500
Miscellaneous 200 500
Scurvy 300 500
Totals: 9,400-21,000
The Miscellaneous deaths were by homicides, lightning, childbirth, stampedes, snake bites, floods and trees. Drowning was the popular way of all the deaths when they got impatient, young, pushy men. Graves were usually in the middle of the trail and ran over by the livestock coming through. The Battle of the Alamo started from February 23 to March 6. It was a major event for Texas. The General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna made an assault on the mission around San Antonio. And all were killed except for two. On February 23 about 1,500 troops marched to San Antonio to gain back Texas. On March 6 the Mexican army went on to the Alamo. Approximately 182-257 Texans were dead but 400-600 Mexicans were killed and wounded. The Alamo is a very popular tourist site in Texas. By January Texas started to question Neili’s Garrison. Governor Smith claimed the Alamo had been abandoned and this was the truth of the matter. Bowie rode into the Alamo area and he was very impressed by what he saw. Houston had asked for permission to abandon the post but Smith said NO! Every man in the Alamo was lying dead. There were 189 defenders but with research it totaled about 257. Even though Santa Anna won his soldiers paid a huge price. The fugitive slave laws were passed by the U.S Congress in 1793 and 1850. It helped to return slaves who escape from a state. It stated that and slave that runs away will be returned to their owner if they have proof. In 1785 King Rufus came up with a resolution to resolve the issues. It was the first attempt to include the law. Soon after a Personal Liberty law was passed which started soon after the Slave Trade abolition. In 1783 Massachusetts abolished slavery but the government still required to catch slaves. They got even more worried about the slaves escaping so they passed another law which was the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and they placed King’s words in this law. They stated that slavery would be permitted south of Ohio River under the Southwest Ordinance of 1790. It wasn’t a threat to the slaves not even a little. The Nebraska-Kansas act was when they open new lands for settlement. The act was designed by the Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas in Illinois. The purpose of this act is to open thousands of new farms and make possible for the Midwestern Transcontinental Railroad. The results were that pro and anti-slavery elements flooded Kansas with a goal of voting slavery up and down which lead soon to a bloody civil war. The new Republican Party created an act that aimed to stop the expansion of slavery and soon emerged through the political party in the north. They soon elected the first president Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Tens of millions of acres became available with excellent farmlands it help made it necessary to create a territorial infrastructure to allow settlement. The railroad became very eager to start operations especially since the farmers were their main customers. The Railroad proposal was debated in all the subsequent sessions. Utah and New Mexico territory was organized without restrictions on slavery and the supporters of Douglas argued that the compromise was already superseded. On January 16 Dixon surprised Douglas by introducing an amendment that would repeal the section of the Missouri Compromise which prohibited slavery. Douglas attempted to make his way through the Missouri Compromise but it wasn’t very successful. Slavery was prohibited under the Mexican law also it was prohibited in Nebraska under the Missouri Compromise. The Manifest Destiny was a belief that was held by Americans in the 19th century which was made for the US to expand across the continent. Everyone had a destiny even the slaves. The phrase had several meanings it just depends on the person who is stating their destiny. The Democrats used the phrase for the expansion beyond the Louisiana Territory. Andrew Jackson was the first to speak about expanding the area for freedom, but he wasn’t the only President to have a say so about the principle. In 1845 O’Sullivan wrote an essay which he used the phrase “Manifest Destiny”. In this article he wanted the U.S to annex the Republic of Texas. With O’Sullivan using that phrase it started to get a lot of attention. He soon used the phrase again in a newspaper article and it became very influential to everyone. The first theme was later known as the American Exceptionalism which traced to the Puritan’s heritage.

Abolitionism was a word used to express a movement to end slavery whether it was formal or informal. In Western Europe and America it was a very historical movement to end slave trade and set slaves free. In 1772 a slave in England helped launch the movement in Britain to abolish slavery. The Revolutionary France started to abolish slavery in 1794, but it was soon restored by Napoleon. Britain banned the importing of African slaves in 1807 and then the U.S followed in 1865. It started the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 it was abolished in 1865 after the Civil war. Africa slaves was not bought or sold in London but was brought by masters in many other areas. They was considered foreigner but not English subjects. A slave named James Somersett escaped and his master had his captured and put in prison on a ship, in which Somersett was supposed to go to Jamaica and get resold into slavery. He had five people on his side during his court date. Slavery started not to exist in the English Common Law. John C. Calhoun was a leader in American politics and a theorist from South Carolina. He was the seventh Vice President of the U.S and the 16th U.S Secretary of State, 10th U.S Secretary of War, and also the U.S Senator from South Carolina. Calhoun reorganized and modernized the war as the Secretary. He made a Bonus Bill for the public works. Building a stronger nation that would fight in the wars to come. Calhoun died 11 years before the start of the next war which was the American Civil War but he was a major inspiration.
The Mountain Meadows massacre was a series of attacks on the Baker-Fancher emigrant wagon train in Utah. The attacks started on September 11 in 1857. The wagons contained several families from Arkansas in which they were headed to California which required to passes through the Utah territory. After they captured the wagons they buried them and left them for wild animals and climate. Many were auctioned off. The Baker-Fancher party groups were mainly from Marion, Crawford, Carroll, and Johnson counties in Arkansas. These groups were wealthy and planned to stock up supplies in Salt Lake City. The party reached with about 120 members. The Bake-Fancher party chose to leave Salt Lake City and take the Old Spanish Trail which went through Utah territory.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin is also known as “Life among the Lowly”. It was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe and published in 1852. The novel helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War in which Will Kaufman stated. Stowe was a teacher at the Hartford Female Academy and she was an active abolitionist. She was a character in Uncle Tom which was a suffering black slave. Uncle Tom’s cabin was a best seller in the 19th century and the 2nd best-selling book of the century. It was credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in 1850s. Three years after it was published it was known as the most popular novel of our day. The novel was selling 300,000 copies in the U.S and one billion was sold in Great Britain. The book and play inspired and helped popularize a lot of stereotypes about black people. They stereotyped all kinds of African Americans. It appeared as a 40 week series in the National Era. Abraham Lincoln greeted Stowe in 1862 as the women who wrote a book and the war great. John Brown was an American abolitionist who used violent actions to fight slavery in Kansas. He was the leader of the battles known as the Battle of Black Jack and the Battle of Osawatomie. They killed five pro slavery supporters in Pottawatomie. In 1859 Brown started a raid and was unsuccesful which ended with his capture at Harpers Ferry. John Brown founded a group that helped prevent the slaves from being captured. He founded the League of Gileadities which contained 10 times the number of whites. He was convited and sentenced to death WORKS CITED www.wikipedia.com www.google.com/images
www.asun.edu

Cited: www.wikipedia.com www.google.com/images www.asun.edu