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167-630: In the history of the United States , carpetbagger is a largely historical pejorative used by Southerners to describe allegedly opportunistic or disruptive Northerners who came to the Southern states after the American Civil War and were perceived to be exploiting the local populace for their own financial, political, or social gain. The term broadly included both individuals who sought to promote Republican politics (including
334-657: A Northwest Passage to Asia in 1609. New Netherland was established in 1621 by the company to capitalize on the North American fur trade . Growth was slow at first due to mismanagement by the Dutch and Native American conflicts. After the Dutch purchased the island of Manhattan from the Native Americans, the land was named New Amsterdam and became the capital of New Netherland. The town rapidly expanded and in
501-491: A lecture against slavery while dressed as a soldier, after which he plunged a sword into a bible containing a bladder of fake blood ( pokeberry juice) that splattered those nearby. On September 9, 1739, a literate slave named Jemmy led a rebellion against South Carolina slaveholders in an event referred to as the Stono Rebellion (also known as Cato's Conspiracy and Cato's Rebellion.) The runaway slaves involved in
668-524: A Catholic haven in 1632. The economy of these two colonies was built entirely on yeoman farmers and planters. The planters established themselves in the Tidewater region of Virginia, establishing massive plantations with slave labor. In 1670, the Province of Carolina was established, and Charleston became the region's great trading port. While Virginia's economy was also based on tobacco, Carolina
835-457: A Democrat, stated in 1875: If any two hundred Southern men backed by a Federal administration should go to Indianapolis, turn out the Indiana people, take possession of all the seats of power, honor, and profit, denounce the people at large as assassins and barbarians, introduce corruption in all the branches of the public administration, make government a curse instead of a blessing, league with
1002-565: A Republican, but he switched to the Democratic Party at the end of his time as sheriff. Democrats held most of the economic power and cooperating with them could make his future. In 1878, Furbush was elected again to the Arkansas House. His election is notable because he was elected as a black Democrat during a campaign season notorious for white intimidation of black and Republican voters in black-majority eastern Arkansas. He
1169-530: A black minister from New Haven, Connecticut, served as a delegate to South Carolina's 1868 Constitutional Convention. He made eloquent speeches advocating that the plantations be broken up and distributed among the freedmen. They wanted their own land to farm and believed they had already paid for land by their years of uncompensated labor and the trials of slavery. Henry C. Warmoth was the Republican governor of Louisiana from 1868 to 1874. As governor, Warmoth
1336-404: A black-majority population. Following the end of his 1873 legislative term, Furbush was appointed as county sheriff by Republican Governor Elisha Baxter . Furbush twice won re-election as sheriff, serving from 1873 to 1878. During his term, he adopted a policy of "fusion", a post-Reconstruction power-sharing compromise between Populist Democrats and Republicans. Furbush originally was elected as
1503-448: A broad group of tribes. Their most important city was Cahokia , near modern-day St. Louis, Missouri . At its peak in the 12th century, the city had an estimated population of 20,000, larger than the population of London at the time. The entire city was centered around a mound that stood 100 feet (30 m) tall. Cahokia, like many other cities and villages of the time, depended on hunting, foraging, trading, and agriculture, and developed
1670-818: A class system with slaves and human sacrifice that was influenced by societies to the south, like the Mayans . In the Southwest , the Anasazi began constructing stone and adobe pueblos around 900 BCE. These apartment-like structures were often built into cliff faces, as seen in the Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde . Some grew to be the size of cities, with Pueblo Bonito along the Chaco River in New Mexico once consisting of 800 rooms. The indigenous peoples of
1837-548: A concern for Black civil rights. However, James Stewart advocates a more nuanced understanding of the relationship of abolition and anti-slavery prior to the Civil War: While instructive, the distinction [between anti-slavery and abolition] can also be misleading, especially in assessing abolitionism's political impact. For one thing, slaveholders never bothered with such fine points. Many immediate abolitionists showed no less concern than did other white Northerners about
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#17327763860742004-619: A crime, in 1865. This was a direct result of the Union victory in the American Civil War . The central issue of the war was slavery. Historian James M. McPherson in 1964 defined an abolitionist "as one who before the Civil War had agitated for the immediate, unconditional and total abolition of slavery in the United States". He notes that many historians have used a broader definition without his emphasis on immediacy. Thus he does not include opponents of slavery such as Abraham Lincoln or
2171-607: A dominant commercial center in a few short years. While Quakers populated the city, German immigrants began to flood into the Pennsylvanian hills and forests, while the Scots-Irish pushed into the far western frontier. The overwhelmingly rural Southern Colonies contrasted sharply with the New England and Middle Colonies. After Virginia, the second British colony south of New England was Maryland , established as
2338-457: A food source, and later foraging for berries and seeds became an important alternative to hunting. Paleo-Indians in central Mexico were the first in the Americas to farm, around 8,000 BCE. Eventually, the knowledge began to spread northward. By 3,000 BCE, corn was being grown in the valleys of Arizona and New Mexico , followed by primitive irrigation systems and, by 300 BCE, early villages of
2505-569: A free labor system to the region." Carpetbaggers tended to be well educated and middle class in origin. Some had been lawyers, businessmen, and newspaper editors. The majority (including 52 of the 60 who served in Congress during Reconstruction) were veterans of the Union Army. Leading "black carpetbaggers" believed that the interests of capital and labor were identical and that the freedmen were entitled to little more than an "honest chance in
2672-477: A home here, and to become one of our people, than I, but for the adventurer and the office-seeker who comes among us with one dirty shirt and a pair of dirty socks, in an old rusty carpet bag, and before his washing is done becomes a candidate for office, I have no welcome. That was the origin of the term "carpet bag", and out of it grew the well known term "carpet-bag government". In the United Kingdom at
2839-408: A kind of school for to graduate Rascals. Yes if you will give them a few Dollars they will liern you for an accomplished Rascal. This is in reference to the taxes that are rung from the labouring class of people. Without a speedy reformation I will have to resign my post." Albion W. Tourgée , formerly of Ohio and a friend of President James A. Garfield , moved to North Carolina, where he practiced as
3006-526: A large degree of ethnic and religious diversity. At the same time, the Iroquois of New York, strengthened by years of fur trading with Europeans, formed the powerful Iroquois Confederacy. The last colony in this region was Pennsylvania , established in 1681 by William Penn as a home for religious dissenters, including Quakers , Methodists , and the Amish . The capital of the colony, Philadelphia , became
3173-612: A lawyer and was appointed a judge. He once opined that "Jesus Christ was a carpetbagger." Tourgée later wrote A Fool's Errand , a largely autobiographical novel about an idealistic carpetbagger persecuted by the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina. A politician in South Carolina who was called a carpetbagger was Daniel Henry Chamberlain , a New Englander who had served as an officer of a predominantly black regiment of
3340-632: A leader of the Exoduster movement. Blacks from the Deep South migrated to homestead in Kansas in order to escape white supremacist violence and the oppression of segregation. The Dunning school of American historians (1900–1950) espoused White supremacy and viewed "carpetbaggers" unfavorably, arguing that they degraded the political and business culture. The revisionist school in the 1930s called them stooges of Northern business interests. After 1960
3507-493: A political movement is usually dated from 1 January 1831, when Wm. Lloyd Garrison (as he always signed himself) published the first issue of his new weekly newspaper, The Liberator (1831), which appeared without interruption until slavery in the United States was abolished in 1865, when it closed. Abolitionists included those who joined the American Anti-Slavery Society or its auxiliary groups in
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#17327763860743674-405: A principle was far more than just the wish to prevent the expansion of slavery. After 1840, abolitionists rejected this because it let sin continue to exist; they demanded that slavery end everywhere, immediately and completely. John Brown was the only abolitionist to have actually planned a violent insurrection, though David Walker promoted the idea. The abolitionist movement was strengthened by
3841-493: A prominent Bostonian, wrote The Selling of Joseph (1700) in protest of the widening practice of outright slavery as opposed to indentured servitude in the colonies. This is the earliest-recorded anti-slavery tract published in the future United States. Slavery was banned in the colony of Georgia soon after its founding in 1733. The colony's founder, James Edward Oglethorpe , fended off repeated attempts by South Carolina merchants and land speculators to introduce slavery into
4008-730: A sense of protection from their government. Led by Nathaniel Bacon , the unification that occurred between the white lower class and blacks during this rebellion was perceived as dangerous and thus was quashed with the implementation of the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705 . Still, this event introduced the premise that blacks and whites could work together towards the goal of self-liberation, which became increasingly prevalent as abolition gained traction within America. The first statement against slavery in Colonial America
4175-448: A slave. According to historian Steven Pincus , many of the colonial legislatures worked to enact laws that would limit slavery. The Provincial legislature of Massachusetts Bay , as noted by historian Gary B. Nash , approved a law "prohibiting the importation and purchase of slaves by any Massachusetts citizen." The Loyalist governor of Massachusetts , Thomas Hutchinson , vetoed the law, an action that prompted angered reaction from
4342-434: A steady flow of immigrants, especially teenagers who arrived as indentured servants. Over half of all European immigrants to Colonial America arrived as indentured servants . Typically, people would sign a contract agreeing to a set term of labor, usually four to seven years, and in return would receive transport to America and a piece of land at the end of their servitude. In some cases, ships' captains received rewards for
4509-564: The American Colonization Society , where he continued to work as a photographer. He returned to Ohio after 18 months and moved back to Arkansas by 1870. Furbush was elected to two terms in the Arkansas House of Representatives, 1873–74 (from an African-American majority district in the Arkansas Delta, made up of Phillips and Monroe counties.) He served in 1879–80 from the newly established Lee County. In 1873,
4676-609: The American Revolutionary War and was reorganized in 1784, with Benjamin Franklin as its first president. In 1777, independent Vermont , not yet a state, became the first polity in North America to prohibit slavery: slaves were not directly freed, but masters were required to remove slaves from Vermont. The Constitution included several provisions which accommodated slavery, although none used
4843-699: The Atlantic Coast , and by the 1760s, the thirteen British colonies were established. The Southern Colonies built an agricultural system on slave labor , enslaving millions from Africa . After defeating France , the British Parliament imposed a series of taxes; resistance to these taxes, especially the Boston Tea Party in 1773, led to Parliament issuing the Intolerable Acts designed to end self-government. In 1776,
5010-616: The Civil War . The Confederates' defeat in 1865 led to the abolition of slavery . In the subsequent Reconstruction era , the national government emerged much stronger, and gained explicit duty to protect individual rights . White southern Democrats regained their political power in the South in 1877, often using paramilitary suppression of voting and Jim Crow laws to maintain white supremacy , as well as new state constitutions that legalized racial discrimination. The United States became
5177-528: The Delaware River . Over the following seventeen years, 12 more expeditions brought settlers from the Swedish Empire to New Sweden. The colony established 19 permanent settlements along with many farms, extending into modern-day Maryland , Pennsylvania , and New Jersey . It was incorporated into New Netherland in 1655 after a Dutch invasion from the neighboring New Netherland colony during
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5344-551: The First Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance. The Congress called for a boycott of British trade , published a list of rights and grievances , and petitioned the king to rectify those grievances. This appeal had no effect. The Second Continental Congress voted to declare independence on July 2, 1776. The Declaration of Independence presented arguments in favor of the rights of citizens, stating that all men are created equal , supporting
5511-878: The Grand Canyon , and the Great Plains . In 1539, Hernando de Soto extensively explored the Southeast, and a year later Francisco Coronado explored from Arizona to central Kansas in search of gold. Escaped horses from Coronado's party spread over the Great Plains, and the Plains Indians mastered horsemanship within a few generations. Small Spanish settlements eventually grew to become important cities, such as San Antonio , Albuquerque , Tucson , Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The Dutch East India Company sent explorer Henry Hudson to search for
5678-682: The Hohokam . One of the earlier cultures in the present-day United States was the Clovis culture (9,100 to 8,850 BCE), who are primarily identified by the use of fluted spear points called the Clovis point . The Folsom culture was similar, but is marked by the use of the Folsom point . A later migration around 8,000 BCE included Na-Dene -speaking peoples, who reached the Pacific Northwest by 5,000 BCE. From there, they migrated along
5845-738: The Hopewell tradition , a powerful people who traded tools and goods across a wide territory. They continued the Adena tradition of mound-building and pioneered a trading system called the Hopewell Exchange System, which at its greatest extent ran from the present-day Southeast up to the Canadian side of Lake Ontario . By 500 CE, the Hopewellians had been absorbed into the larger Mississippian culture . The Mississippians were
6012-638: The Industrial Revolution , or those simply seeking adventure and opportunity. Between the late 1610s and the Revolution, the British shipped an estimated 50,000 to 120,000 convicts to their American colonies. In some areas, Native Americans taught colonists how to plant and harvest the native crops. In others, they attacked the settlers. Virgin forests provided an ample supply of building material and firewood. Natural inlets and harbors lined
6179-707: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , the United States entered World War II , helping defeat Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in the European theater . In the Pacific War , America defeated Imperial Japan after using nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki . The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as rival superpowers during the Cold War ; the two countries confronted each other indirectly in
6346-522: The Ku Klux Klan . The " Brooks–Baxter War " was a factional dispute, 1872–74 that culminated in an armed confrontation in 1874 between factions of the Arkansas Republican Party over the disputed 1872 election for governor. The victor in the end was the "Minstrel" faction led by carpetbagger Elisha Baxter over the "Brindle Tail" faction led by Joseph Brooks, which included most of the scalawags. The dispute weakened both factions and
6513-642: The Massachusetts courts in freedom suits , spurred on the decision made in the Somerset v. Stewart case, which although not applying the colonies was still received positively by American abolitionists. Boston lawyer Benjamin Kent represented them. In 1766, Kent won a case ( Slew v. Whipple ) to liberate Jenny Slew , a mixed-race woman who had been kidnapped in Massachusetts and then handled as
6680-659: The Ortoiroid culture , successive generations of native migrations arrived replacing or absorbing local populations. By the year 1000 Arawak people had arrived from South America via the Lesser Antilles ; these settlers would become the Taíno encountered by the Spanish in 1493. Upon European contact a native population between 30,000 and 60,000 was likely, led by a single chief called a Cacique . Colonization resulted in
6847-517: The Osage , Kaw , Ponca , and Omaha peoples. The exact date for the settling of Hawaii is disputed but the first settlement most likely took place between 940 and 1130 CE. Around 1200 CE, Tahitian explorers found and began settling the area as well establishing a new caste system. This marked the rise of the Hawaiian civilization, which would be largely separated from the rest of the world until
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7014-597: The Pacific Coast and into the interior and constructed large multi-family dwellings in their villages, which were used only seasonally in the summer to hunt and fish, and in the winter to gather food supplies. Another group, the Oshara tradition people, who lived from 5,500 BCE to 600 CE, were part of the Archaic Southwest . The Adena began constructing large earthwork mounds around 600 BCE. They are
7181-678: The Powhatan attack of 1622 , King James I revoked the Virginia Company's charter and made Virginia a royal colony. New England was initially settled primarily by Puritans fleeing religious persecution. The Pilgrims sailed for Virginia on the Mayflower in 1620, but were knocked off course by a storm and landed at Plymouth , where they agreed to a social contract of rules in the Mayflower Compact . About half died in
7348-598: The Republican Party ; they called for the immediate end to expansion of slavery before 1861. The religious component of American abolitionism was great. It began with the Quakers , then moved to the other Protestants with the Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century. Many leaders were ministers. Saying slavery was sinful made its evil easy to understand, and tended to arouse fervor for
7515-482: The Second Northern War . Giovanni da Verrazzano landed in North Carolina in 1524, and was the first European to sail into New York Harbor and Narragansett Bay . In the 1540s, French Huguenots settled at Fort Caroline near present-day Jacksonville , Florida. In 1565, Spanish forces led by Pedro Menéndez destroyed the settlement and established the first Spanish settlement in what would become
7682-537: The Stamp Act of 1765 , imposing a tax on the colonies without going through the colonial legislatures. Crying " No taxation without representation ", the colonists refused to pay. The Boston Tea Party in 1773 was a direct action to protest the new tax on tea. Parliament responded the next year with the Intolerable Acts , stripping Massachusetts of its historic right of self-government and putting it under military rule, which sparked outrage and resistance in all thirteen colonies. Patriot leaders from every colony convened
7849-422: The Underground Railroad . This was made illegal by the federal Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 , arguably the most hated and most openly evaded federal legislation in the nation's history. Nevertheless, participants like Harriet Tubman , Henry Highland Garnet , Alexander Crummell , Amos Noë Freeman , and others continued with their work. Abolitionists were particularly active in Ohio , where some worked directly in
8016-487: The United States Colored Troops . He was appointed South Carolina's attorney general from 1868 to 1872 and elected Republican governor from 1874 to 1877. As a result of the national Compromise of 1877 , Chamberlain lost his office. He was narrowly re-elected in a campaign marked by egregious voter fraud and violence against freedmen by Democratic Red Shirts , who succeeded in suppressing the black vote in some majority-black counties. While serving in South Carolina, Chamberlain
8183-455: The United States Constitution did or did not protect slavery. This issue arose in the late 1840s after the publication of The Unconstitutionality of Slavery by Lysander Spooner . The Garrisonians, led by Garrison and Wendell Phillips , publicly burned copies of the Constitution, called it a pact with slavery, and demanded its abolition and replacement. Another camp, led by Lysander Spooner , Gerrit Smith , and eventually Douglass, considered
8350-432: The White League , a white Democratic terrorist organization, conducted an open campaign of violence and intimidation against Republicans, including freedmen, with the goals of regaining Democratic power and white supremacy. They pushed Republicans from political positions, were responsible for the Coushatta Massacre , disrupted Republican organizing, and preceded elections with such intimidation and violence that black voting
8517-402: The arms race , the Space Race , propaganda campaigns, and proxy wars . In the 1960s, in large part due to the civil rights movement , social reforms enforced the constitutional rights of voting and freedom of movement to African Americans. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan 's presidency realigned American politics towards reductions in taxes and regulations. The Cold War ended when the Soviet Union
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#17327763860748684-565: The federal income tax , direct election of Senators, citizenship for many Indigenous people, alcohol prohibition , and women's suffrage . Initially neutral during World War I , the United States declared war on Germany in 1917, joining the successful Allies . After the prosperous Roaring Twenties , the Wall Street Crash of 1929 marked the onset of the decade-long worldwide Great Depression . President Franklin D. Roosevelt 's New Deal programs, including unemployment relief and social security , defined modern American liberalism . Following
8851-428: The international slave trade , but South Carolina reversed its decision. Between the Revolutionary War and 1804, laws, constitutions, or court decisions in each of the Northern states provided for the gradual or immediate abolition of slavery. No Southern state adopted similar policies. In 1807, Congress made the importation of slaves a crime, effective January 1, 1808, which was as soon as Article I, section 9 of
9018-417: The neoabolitionist school emphasized their moral courage. History of the United States The history of the lands that became the United States began with the arrival of the first people in the Americas around 15,000 BC. After European colonization of North America began in the late 15th century, wars and epidemics decimated Indigenous societies. Starting in 1585 , the British colonized
9185-568: The potlatch . In present-day upstate New York , the Iroquois formed a confederacy of tribal peoples in the mid-15th century, consisting of the Oneida , Mohawk , Onondaga , Cayuga , and Seneca . Each tribe had seats in a group of 50 sachem chiefs . It has been suggested that their culture contributed to political thinking during the development of the United States government. The Iroquois were powerful, waging war with many neighboring tribes, and later, Europeans. As their territory expanded, smaller tribes were forced further west, including
9352-426: The transatlantic slave trade . In Colonial America, a few German Quakers issued the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery , which marked the beginning of the American abolitionist movement. Before the Revolutionary War , evangelical colonists were the primary advocates for the opposition to slavery and the slave trade, doing so on the basis of humanitarian ethics. Still, others such as James Oglethorpe ,
9519-521: The upper South , freed slaves, sometimes in their wills. Many noted they had been moved by the revolutionary ideals of the equality of men. The number of free blacks as a proportion of the black population in the upper South increased from less than 1 percent to nearly 10 percent between 1790 and 1810 as a result of these actions. Some slave owners, concerned about the increase in free blacks, which they viewed as destabilizing, freed slaves on condition that they emigrate to Africa . All U.S. states abolished
9686-510: The 1830s and 1840s, as the movement fragmented. The fragmented anti-slavery movement included groups such as the Liberty Party ; the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society ; the American Missionary Association ; and the Church Anti-Slavery Society . Historians traditionally distinguish between moderate anti-slavery reformers or gradualists, who concentrated on stopping the spread of slavery, and radical abolitionists or immediatists, whose demands for unconditional emancipation often merged with
9853-469: The American colonies had a slightly different governmental structure. Typically, a colony was ruled by a governor appointed from London who controlled the executive administration and relied upon a locally elected legislature to vote on taxes and make laws. By the 18th century, the American colonies were growing very rapidly as a result of low death rates along with ample supplies of land and food. The colonies were richer than most parts of Britain, and attracted
10020-719: The Americas . The prevailing theory proposes that people from Eurasia followed game across Beringia , a land bridge that connected Siberia to present-day Alaska during the Ice Age , and then spread southward. This migration may have begun as early as 30,000 years ago and continued to about 10,000 years ago, when the land bridge became submerged by the rising sea level. These early inhabitants, called Paleo-Indians , soon diversified into hundreds of culturally distinct groups. By 10,000 BCE, humans were relatively well-established throughout North America. Originally, Paleo-Indians hunted Ice Age megafauna like mammoths , but as they began to go extinct, people turned instead to bison as
10187-418: The Americas. However, the effects of new Eurasian diseases carried by the colonists, especially smallpox and measles, were much worse for the Native Americans, as they had no immunity to them. They suffered epidemics and died in very large numbers, usually before large-scale European settlement began. Their societies were disrupted by the scale of deaths. Spanish explorers were the first Europeans, after
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#173277638607410354-483: The Awakening added a new emphasis on divine outpourings of the Holy Spirit and conversions that implanted new believers with an intense love for God. Revivals encapsulated those hallmarks and carried the newly created evangelicalism into the early republic, setting the stage for the Second Great Awakening in the late 1790s. In the early stages, evangelicals in the South, such as Methodists and Baptists , preached for religious freedom and abolition of slavery. Each of
10521-493: The Bridge Street African Methodist Episcopal Church , and lived on Duffield Street. His fellow Duffield Street residents Thomas and Harriet Truesdell were leading members of the abolitionist movement. Mr. Truesdell was a founding member of the Providence Anti-slavery Society before moving to Brooklyn in 1838. Harriet Truesdell was also very active in the movement, organizing an anti-slavery convention in Pennsylvania Hall (Philadelphia) . Another prominent Brooklyn-based abolitionist
10688-648: The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1780). The Quaker Quarterly Meeting of Chester, Pennsylvania , made its first protest in 1711. Within a few decades the entire slave trade was under attack, being opposed by such Quaker leaders as William Burling, Benjamin Lay , Ralph Sandiford, William Southby, John Woolman , and Anthony Benezet . Benezet was particularly influential, inspiring a later generation of notable anti-slavery activists, including Granville Sharp , John Wesley , Thomas Clarkson , Olaudah Equiano , Benjamin Franklin , Benjamin Rush , Absalom Jones , and Bishop Richard Allen , among others. Samuel Sewall ,
10855-431: The Constitution allowed. A small but dedicated group, under leaders such as William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass , agitated for abolition in the mid-19th century. John Brown became an advocate and militia leader in attempting to end slavery by force of arms. In the Civil War, immediate emancipation became a war goal for the Union in 1861 and was fully achieved in 1865. American abolitionism began well before
11022-416: The Constitution to be an anti-slavery document. Using an argument based upon Natural Law and a form of social contract theory, they said that slavery fell outside the Constitution's scope of legitimate authority and therefore should be abolished. Another split in the abolitionist movement was along class lines. The artisan republicanism of Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright stood in stark contrast to
11189-496: The New World, settled the strip of land along the east coast in the 1600s. The first British colony in North America was established at Roanoke by Walter Raleigh in 1585, but failed. It would be twenty years before another attempt. The early British colonies were established by private groups seeking profit, and were marked by starvation, disease, and Native American attacks. Many immigrants were people seeking religious freedom or escaping political oppression, peasants displaced by
11356-445: The New World. Captain John Smith held the fledgling Jamestown together in the first year, and the colony descended into anarchy and nearly failed when he returned to England two years later. John Rolfe began experimenting with tobacco from the West Indies in 1612, and by 1614 the first shipment arrived in London. It became Virginia's chief source of revenue within a decade. In 1624, after years of disease and Indian attacks, including
11523-472: The Norse Vinland sagas . The strongest archaeological evidence of the existence of Norse settlements in America is located in Canada; there is significant scholarly debate as to whether Norse explorers also made landfall in New England . Europeans brought horses, cattle, and hogs to the Americas and took back maize, turkeys, tomatoes, potatoes, tobacco, beans, and squash to Europe. Many explorers and early settlers died after being exposed to new diseases in
11690-401: The Norse, to reach the present-day United States, after the voyages of Christopher Columbus (beginning in 1492) established possessions in the Caribbean , including the modern-day U.S. territories of Puerto Rico , and parts of the U.S. Virgin Islands . Juan Ponce de León landed in Florida in 1513. Spanish expeditions quickly reached the Appalachian Mountains , the Mississippi River ,
11857-484: The North. In 1835 alone, abolitionists mailed over a million pieces of anti-slavery literature to the South, giving rise to the gag rules in Congress, after the theft of mail from the Charleston, South Carolina , post office, and much back-and-forth about whether postmasters were required to deliver this mail. According to the Postmaster General , they were not. Under the Constitution, the importation of enslaved persons could not be prohibited until 1808 (20 years). As
12024-478: The Pacific Northwest were likely the most affluent Native Americans. Many distinct cultural groups and political entities developed there, but they all shared certain beliefs, traditions, and practices, such as the centrality of salmon as a resource and spiritual symbol. Permanent villages began to develop in this region as early as 1,000 BCE, and these communities celebrated by the gift-giving feast of
12191-689: The Republican Party-led Reconstruction. White Southerners commonly denounced carpetbaggers collectively during the post-war years, fearing they would loot and plunder the defeated South and be allied politically with the Radical Republicans . Sixty men from the North, including educated free blacks and slaves who had escaped to the North and returned South after the war, were elected from the South as Republicans to Congress. The majority of Republican governors in
12358-421: The Republican party, "carpetbaggers" were recent arrivals in the region from the North, and freedmen were freed slaves. Most of the 430 Republican newspapers in the South were edited by scalawags and 20 percent were edited by carpetbaggers. White businessmen generally boycotted Republican papers, which survived through government patronage. Historian Eric Foner argues: ...most carpetbaggers probably combine
12525-721: The South (1884). On November 6, 1875, Hiram Revels , a Mississippi Republican and the first African American U.S. Senator, wrote a letter to U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant that was widely reprinted. Revels denounced Ames and Northerners for manipulating the Black vote for personal benefit, and for keeping alive wartime hatreds: Since reconstruction, the masses of my people have been, as it were, enslaved in mind by unprincipled adventurers, who, caring nothing for country, were willing to stoop to anything no matter how infamous, to secure power to themselves, and perpetuate it...My people have been told by these schemers, when men have been placed on
12692-509: The South did so to participate in the profitable business of rebuilding railroads and various other forms of infrastructure that had been destroyed during the war. During the time most blacks were enslaved, many were prohibited from being educated and attaining literacy. Southern states had no public school systems, and upper-class white Southerners either sent their children to private schools (including in England) or hired private tutors. After
12859-466: The South during Reconstruction were from the North. Since the end of the Reconstruction era, the term has been used to denote people who move into a new area for purely economic or political reasons despite not having ties to that place. The term carpetbagger, used exclusively as a pejorative term, originated from the carpet bag , a form of cheap luggage, made from carpet fabric, which many of
13026-431: The South in raising cotton." Foner notes that "joined with the quest for profit, however, was a reforming spirit, a vision of themselves as agents of sectional reconciliation and the South's "economic regeneration." Accustomed to viewing Southerners—black and white—as devoid of economic initiative, the "Puritan work ethic", and self-discipline, they believed that only "Northern capital and energy" could bring "the blessings of
13193-484: The South to teach the freedmen; some were sponsored by northern churches. Some were abolitionists who sought to continue the struggle for racial equality; they often became agents of the federal Freedmen's Bureau , which started operations in 1865 to assist the vast numbers of recently emancipated slaves. The bureau established schools in rural areas of the South for the purpose of educating the mostly illiterate Black and Poor White population. Other Northerners who moved to
13360-506: The South's railroads (by mileage); 19% of the directors were from the North. By 1890, they controlled 88% of the mileage; 47% of the directors were from the North. Union General Adelbert Ames , a native of Maine, was appointed military governor and later was elected as Republican governor of Mississippi during the Reconstruction era . Ames tried unsuccessfully to ensure equal rights for black Mississippians. His political battles with
13527-501: The South, members of the abolitionist movement or other people opposing slavery were often targets of lynch mob violence before the American Civil War . Numerous known abolitionists lived, worked, and worshipped in downtown Brooklyn , from Henry Ward Beecher , who auctioned slaves into freedom from the pulpit of Plymouth Church, to Nathaniel Eggleston, a leader of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society , who also preached at
13694-595: The Southerners and African Americans ripped apart his party. The "Black and Tan" (biracial) constitutional convention in Mississippi in 1868 included 30 white Southerners, 17 Southern freedmen and 24 non-southerners, nearly all of whom were veterans of the Union Army. They included four men who had lived in the South before the war, two of whom had served in the Confederate States Army . Among
13861-560: The U.S. House of Representatives, serving from 1883 to 1885. He died in Vicksburg, Mississippi 16 days after he left Congress. The next Republican congressman from the state was not elected until 80 years later in 1964: Prentiss Walker of Mize, Mississippi, who served a single term from 1965 to 1967. Corruption was a charge made by Democrats in North Carolina against the Republicans, notes the historian Paul Escott, "because its truth
14028-641: The Underground Railroad. Since only the Ohio River separated free Ohio from slave Kentucky, it was a popular destination for fugitive slaves. Supporters helped them there, in many cases to cross Lake Erie by boat, into Canada. The Western Reserve area of northeast Ohio was "probably the most intensely antislavery section of the country." The Oberlin-Wellington Rescue got national publicity. Abolitionist John Brown grew up in Hudson, Ohio . In
14195-467: The United States declared its independence . Led by General George Washington , it won the Revolutionary War in 1783. The Constitution was adopted in 1789, and a Bill of Rights was added in 1791 to guarantee inalienable rights . Washington, the first president , and his adviser Alexander Hamilton created a strong central government. The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 doubled the size of
14362-515: The United States was founded as a nation. In 1652, Rhode Island made it illegal for any person, black or white, to be "bound" longer than ten years. The law, however, was widely ignored, and Rhode Island became involved in the slave trade in 1700. The first act of resistance against an upper-class white colonial government from slaves can be seen in Bacon's Rebellion in 1676. Occurring in Virginia,
14529-748: The United States — St. Augustine . Most French lived in Quebec and Acadia (modern Canada), but far-reaching trade relationships with Native Americans throughout the Great Lakes and Midwest spread their influence. French colonists in small villages along the Mississippi and Illinois rivers lived in farming communities that served as a grain source for Gulf Coast settlements. The French established plantations in Louisiana along with settling New Orleans , Mobile and Biloxi . The English, drawn in by Francis Drake 's raids on Spanish treasure ships leaving
14696-638: The United States, abolitionism , the movement that sought to end slavery in the country , was active from the colonial era until the American Civil War , the end of which brought about the abolition of American slavery, except as punishment for a crime , through the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (ratified 1865). The anti-slavery movement originated during the Age of Enlightenment , focused on ending
14863-545: The activities of free African Americans, especially in the Black church , who argued that the old Biblical justifications for slavery contradicted the New Testament . African-American activists and their writings were rarely heard outside the Black community. However, they were tremendously influential on a few sympathetic white people, most prominently the first white activist to reach prominence, Wm. Lloyd Garrison , who
15030-569: The arrival of the British 600 years later. Europeans under the British explorer James Cook arrived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1778, and within five years of contact, European military technology would help Kamehameha I conquer most of the island group, and eventually unify the islands for the first time, establishing the Hawaiian Kingdom . The island of Puerto Rico has been settled for at least 4,000 years. Starting with
15197-572: The backcountry suffered. Escott claimed "Some money went to very worthy causes—the 1869 legislature, for example, passed a school law that began the rebuilding and expansion of the state's public schools. But far too much was wrongly or unwisely spent" to aid the Republican Party leadership. A Republican county commissioner in Alamance eloquently denounced the situation: "Men are placed in power who instead of carrying out their duties...form
15364-491: The benefit of the mother country in a policy known as mercantilism . Colonial America was defined by a severe labor shortage that used forms of unfree labor , such as slavery and indentured servitude. The British colonies were also marked by a policy of avoiding strict enforcement of parliamentary laws, known as salutary neglect . This permitted the development of an American spirit distinct from that of its European founders. The French and Indian War (1754–1763), part of
15531-525: The bitterness of the past, and inculcate a hatred between the races, in order that they may aggrandize themselves by office, and its emoluments, to control my people, the effect of which is to degrade them. Elza Jeffords , a lawyer from Portsmouth, Ohio who fought with the Army of the Tennessee , remained in Mississippi after the conclusion of the Civil War. He was the last Republican to represent that state in
15698-428: The case of Commonwealth v. Nathaniel Jennison , reaffirmed the case of Brom and Bett v. Ashley , which held that even slaves were people who had a constitutional right to liberty. This gave freedom to slaves, effectively abolishing slavery. States with a greater economic interest in slaves, such as New York and New Jersey, passed gradual emancipation laws. While some of these laws were gradual, these states enacted
15865-461: The cause. The debate about slavery was often based on what the Bible said or did not say about it. John Brown , who had studied the Bible for the ministry, proclaimed that he was "an instrument of God". As such, abolitionism in the United States was identified by historians as an expression of moralism , it often operated in tandem with another social reform effort, the temperance movement . Slavery
16032-519: The children of slave women were born slaves ( partus sequitur ventrem ). By the 1770s African slaves comprised a fifth of the American population. The question of independence from Britain did not arise as long as the colonies needed British military support against the French and Spanish powers. Those threats were gone by 1765. However, London continued to regard the American colonies as existing for
16199-683: The coast, providing easy ports for essential trade with Europe. Settlements remained close to the coast due to this as well as Native American resistance and the Appalachian Mountains in the interior. The first successful English colony, Jamestown , was established by the Virginia Company in 1607 on the James River in Virginia . The colonists were preoccupied with the search for gold and were ill-equipped for life in
16366-618: The colonies, as reflected in the Albany Congress and symbolized by Benjamin Franklin 's call for the colonies to " Join, or Die ." King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763 , to organize the new North American empire and protect the Native Americans from colonial expansion west of the Appalachian Mountains. Strains developed in the relations between the colonists and the Crown. The British Parliament passed
16533-503: The colony of Providence Plantations , later Rhode Island , on the basis of freedom of religion. Other colonists established settlements in the Connecticut River Valley, and on the coasts of present-day New Hampshire and Maine . Native American attacks continued, with the most significant occurring in the 1637 Pequot War and the 1675 King Philip's War . New England became a center of commerce and industry due to
16700-472: The colony. His motivations included tactical defense against Spanish collusion with runaway slaves, and prevention of Georgia's largely reformed criminal population from replicating South Carolina's planter class structure. In 1739, he wrote to the Georgia Trustees urging them to hold firm: If we allow slaves we act against the very principles by which we associated together, which was to relieve
16867-608: The commissioners, county judges and sheriffs. George Thompson Ruby , an African American from New York City, who grew up in Portland, Maine, worked as a teacher in New Orleans from 1864 until 1866 when he migrated to Texas. There he was assigned to Galveston, Texas as an agent and teacher for the Freedmen's Bureau . Active in the Republican Party and elected as a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1868–1869, Ruby
17034-483: The country. Encouraged by available, inexpensive land and the notion of manifest destiny , the country expanded to the Pacific Coast . The resulting expansion of slavery was increasingly controversial, and fueled political and constitutional battles. After the election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860 , the southern states seceded from the Union to form the pro-slavery Confederate States of America , and started
17201-402: The decimation of the local inhabitants due to the harsh Encomienda system and epidemics caused by Old World diseases. Puerto Rico would remain a part of Spain until American annexation in 1898. The earliest recorded European mention of America is in a treatise by the medieval chronicler Adam of Bremen , circa 1075, where it is referred to as Vinland . It is also extensively referred to in
17368-424: The delivery of poor migrants, and so extravagant promises and kidnapping were common. The first African slaves arrived in 1619. Initially regarded as indentured servants who could buy their freedom, the institution of slavery began to harden and the involuntary servitude became lifelong as the demand for labor on tobacco and rice plantations grew in the 1660s. Slavery became identified with brown skin color, and
17535-493: The desire for personal gain with a commitment to taking part in an effort "to substitute the civilization of freedom for that of slavery"...Carpetbaggers generally supported measures aimed at democratizing and modernizing the South – civil rights legislation, aid to economic development, the establishment of public school systems. Beginning in 1862, Northern abolitionists moved to areas in the South that had fallen under Union control. Schoolteachers and religious missionaries went to
17702-470: The disposal of the blacks, and that this foul and unnatural crime of holding men in bondage will finally be rooted out from our land." In the 1830s there was a progressive shift in thinking in the North. Mainstream opinion changed from gradual emancipation and resettlement of freed blacks in Africa, sometimes a condition of their manumission , to immediatism: freeing all the slaves immediately and sorting out
17869-707: The distresses. Whereas, now we should occasion the misery of thousands in Africa, by setting men upon using arts to buy and bring into perpetual slavery the poor people who now live there free. In 1737, Quaker abolitionist Benjamin Lay published All Slave-Keepers That Keep the Innocent in Bondage: Apostates , which was printed by his friend, Benjamin Franklin. The following year, during the 1738 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in Burlington, New Jersey , Lay gave
18036-524: The earliest known people to have been Mound Builders , however, there are mounds in the United States that predate this culture. Watson Brake is an 11-mound complex in Louisiana that dates to 3,500 BCE, and nearby Poverty Point , built by the Poverty Point culture , is an earthwork complex that dates to 1,700 BCE. These mounds likely served a religious purpose. The Adenans were absorbed into
18203-612: The end of the 20 years approached, an Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves sailed through Congress with little opposition. President Jefferson signed it, and it went effect on January 1, 1808. In 1820, the Act to Protect the Commerce of the United States and Punish the Crime of Piracy was passed. This law made importing slaves into the United States a death penalty offense . The Confederate States of America continued this prohibition with
18370-489: The end of the 20th century, carpetbagger developed another meaning, referring to people who joined a mutual organization , such as a building society , in order to force it to demutualize , that is, to convert into a joint stock company , seeking personal financial gain by that means. The Republican Party in the South comprised three groups after the Civil War, and white Democratic Southerners referred to two in derogatory terms. Scalawags were white Southerners who supported
18537-663: The entire Republican Party, enabling the sweeping Democratic victory in the 1874 state elections. William Hines Furbush , born a mixed-race slave in Carroll County, Kentucky in 1839 received part of his education in Ohio. He migrated to Helena, Arkansas in 1862. After returning to Ohio in February 1865, he joined the Forty-second Colored Infantry. After the war, Furbush migrated to Liberia through
18704-755: The fate of the nation's "precious legacies of freedom". Immediatism became most difficult to distinguish from broader anti-Southern opinions once ordinary citizens began articulating these intertwining beliefs. Nearly all Northern politicians, such as Abraham Lincoln , rejected the "immediate emancipation" called for by the abolitionists, seeing it as "extreme". Indeed, many Northern leaders, including Lincoln, Stephen Douglas (the Democratic nominee in 1860), John C. Frémont (the Republican nominee in 1856), and Ulysses S. Grant married into slave-owning Southern families without any moral qualms. Anti-slavery as
18871-452: The first abolition laws in the entire " New World ". In the State of New York, the enslaved population was transformed into indentured servants before being granted full emancipation in 1827. In other states, abolitionist legislation provided freedom only for the children of the enslaved. In New Jersey, slavery was not fully prohibited until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment . All of
19038-514: The first winter. Like Jamestown, Plymouth suffered from disease and starvation, but local Wampanoag Indians taught the colonists how to farm maize. Plymouth was followed by the Puritans and Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. They maintained a charter for self-government separate from England, and elected founder John Winthrop as governor. Roger Williams opposed Winthrop's treatment of Native Americans and religious intolerance, and established
19205-532: The first, if not the very first, in the State to denounce the hordes of greedy office-seekers who came from the North in the rear of the army in the closing days of the [U.S. Civil] War", in the June 1867 stump speech that he delivered across Tennessee in support of the re-election of the disabled Tennessee Governor William G. Brownlow : No one more gladly welcomes the Northern man who comes in all sincerity to make
19372-457: The formulation of abolitionist ideology in the United States. The federal government prohibited the transatlantic slave trade in 1808, prohibited the slave trade in the District of Columbia in 1850, outlawed slavery in the District of Columbia in 1862, and, with the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution , made slavery unconstitutional altogether, except as punishment for
19539-524: The founder of the colony of Georgia , also retained political motivations for the removal of slavery. Prohibiting slavery through the 1735 Georgia Experiment in part to prevent Spanish partnership with Georgia's runaway slaves, Oglethorpe eventually revoked the act in 1750 after the Spanish's defeat in the Battle of Bloody Marsh eight years prior. During the Revolutionary era, all states abolished
19706-580: The founders of the Republican party in Mississippi. They were prominent in the politics of the state until 1875, but nearly all left Mississippi in 1875 to 1876 under pressure from the Red Shirts and White Liners . These white paramilitary organizations , described as "the military arm of the Democratic Party", worked openly to violently overthrow Republican rule, using intimidation and assassination to turn Republicans out of office and suppress freedmen's voting. Mississippi Representative Wiley P. Harris ,
19873-403: The general public. American abolitionists were cheered by the decision in Somerset v Stewart (1772), which prohibited slavery in the United Kingdom, though not in its colonies. In 1774, the influential Fairfax Resolves called for an end to the "wicked, cruel and unnatural" Atlantic slave trade . One of the first articles advocating the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery
20040-588: The larger Seven Years' War , was a watershed event in the political development of the colonies. The influence of the French and Native Americans, the main rivals of the British Crown in the colonies and Canada, was significantly reduced and the territory of the Thirteen Colonies expanded into New France in Canada and Louisiana . The war effort also resulted in greater political integration of
20207-483: The legislature's "depraved villains, who take bribes every day"; one local Republican officeholder complained, "I deeply regret the course of some of our friends in the Legislature as well as out of it in regard to financial matters, it is very embarrassing indeed." Escott notes that extravagance and corruption increased taxes and the costs of government in a state that had always favored low expenditure. The context
20374-438: The main responsibility for the issue of $ 28 million in state bonds for railroads and the accompanying corruption. This sum, enormous for the time, aroused great concern." Foner says Littlefield disbursed $ 200,000 (bribes) to win support in the legislature for state money for his railroads, and Democrats as well as Republicans were guilty of taking the bribes and making the decisions on the railroad. North Carolina Democrats condemned
20541-489: The mid-1600s it became an important trading center. Despite being Calvinists and building the Reformed Church in America , the Dutch were tolerant of other religions and cultures and traded with the Iroquois to the north. The colony served as a barrier to British expansion from New England , and as a result a series of wars were fought. The colony was taken over by Britain as New York in 1664 and its capital
20708-708: The more prominent were Gen. Beroth B. Eggleston , a native of New York; Col. A.T. Morgan, of the Second Wisconsin Volunteers; Gen. W.S. Barry, former commander of a Colored regiment raised in Kentucky; an Illinois general and lawyer who graduated from Knox College; Maj. W.H. Gibbs, of the Fifteenth Illinois infantry; Judge W. B. Cunningham, of Pennsylvania; and Cap. E.J. Castello, of the Seventh Missouri infantry. They were among
20875-479: The most ignorant class of society to make war on the enlightened, intelligent, and virtuous, what kind of social relations would such a state of things beget. Albert T. Morgan , the Republican sheriff of Yazoo, Mississippi, received a brief flurry of national attention when insurgent white Democrats took over the county government and forced him to flee. He later wrote Yazoo; Or, on the Picket Line of Freedom in
21042-478: The newcomers carried. The term came to be associated with opportunism and exploitation by outsiders. It is now used in the United States to refer to a parachute candidate , that is, an outsider who runs for public office in an area without having lived there for more than a short time, or without having other significant community ties. According to a 1912 book by Oliver Temple Perry, Tennessee Secretary of State and Radical Republican Andrew J. Fletcher "was one of
21209-543: The organization of Wesleyan Methodist Connection by Orange Scott in 1843, and the formation of the Free Methodist Church by Benjamin Titus Roberts in 1860 (which is reflected in the name of Church). The True Wesleyan a periodical founded by Orange Scott and Jotham Horton was used to disseminate abolitionist views. The Methodist and Quaker branches of Christianity played an integral part in
21376-491: The other states north of Maryland began gradual abolition of slavery between 1781 and 1804, based on the Pennsylvania model and by 1804, all the Northern states had passed laws to gradually or immediately abolish it. Some slaves continued in involuntary, unpaid "indentured servitude" for two more decades, and others were moved south and sold to new owners in slave states . Some individual slaveholders, particularly in
21543-492: The perspective of the slave, recognizing their agency and subsequent humanity as cause for self-liberation. Slave revolts following the Stono Rebellion were a present mode of abolition undertaken by slaves and were an indicator of black agency that brewed beneath the surface of the abolitionist movement for decades and eventually sprouted later on through figures such as Frederick Douglass, an escaped black freeman who
21710-517: The politics of prominent elite abolitionists such as industrialist Arthur Tappan and his evangelist brother Lewis . While the former pair opposed slavery on a basis of solidarity of "wage slaves" with "chattel slaves", the Whiggish Tappans strongly rejected this view, opposing the characterization of Northern workers as "slaves" in any sense. (Lott, 129–130) Many American abolitionists took an active role in opposing slavery by supporting
21877-504: The poor, mountainous soil making agriculture difficult. Rivers were harnessed to power grain mills and sawmills, and the numerous harbors facilitated trade. Tight-knit villages developed around these industrial centers, and Boston became one of America's most important ports. In the 1660s, the Middle Colonies of New York , New Jersey , and Delaware were established in the former Dutch New Netherland, and were characterized by
22044-469: The problems later. This change was in many cases sudden, a consequence of the individual's coming in direct contact with the horrors of American slavery, or hearing of them from a credible source. As it was put by Amos Adams Lawrence , who witnessed the capture and return to slavery of Anthony Burns , "we went to bed one night old-fashioned, conservative, Compromise Union Whigs and waked up stark mad Abolitionists." The American beginning of abolitionism as
22211-553: The race of life." Many Northern and Southern Republicans shared a modernizing vision of upgrading the Southern economy and society, one that would replace the inefficient Southern plantation regime with railroads, factories, and more efficient farming. They actively promoted public schooling and created numerous colleges and universities. The Northerners were especially successful in taking control of Southern railroads, aided by state legislatures. In 1870, Northerners controlled 21% of
22378-534: The rebellion saw European indentured servants and African people (of indentured, enslaved , and free negroes ) band together against William Berkeley because of his refusal to fully remove Native American tribes in the region. At the time, Native Americans in the region were hosting raids against lower-class settlers encroaching on their land after the Third Powhatan War (1644–1646), which left many white and black indentured servants and slaves without
22545-502: The revolt intended to reach Spanish-controlled Florida to attain freedom, but their plans were thwarted by white colonists in Charlestown, South Carolina. The event resulted in 25 colonists and 35 to 50 African slaves killed, as well as the implementation of the 1740 Negro Act to prevent another slave uprising. In her book, "The Slave's Cause" by Manisha Sinha, Sinha considers the Stono Rebellion to be an important act of abolition from
22712-536: The right of African Americans to vote and hold office) and individuals who saw business and political opportunities because of the chaotic state of the local economies following the war. In practice, the term carpetbagger often was applied to any Northerners who were present in the South during the Reconstruction Era (1865–1877). The word is closely associated with scalawag , a similarly pejorative word used to describe native white Southerners who supported
22879-492: The rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness , and demanding the consent of the governed . The Founding Fathers were guided by the ideology of republicanism , rejecting the monarchism of Great Britain. The Declaration of Independence was signed by members of the Congress on July 4. This date has since been commemorated as Independence Day . Abolitionism in the United States In
23046-871: The rising tide of equality. Chamberlain was said to justify white supremacy by arguing that, in evolutionary terms, the Negro obviously belonged to an inferior social order. Charles Woodward Stearns , also from Massachusetts, wrote an account of his experience in South Carolina: The Black Man of the South, and the Rebels: Or, the Characteristics of the Former and the Recent Outrages of the Latter (1873). Francis Lewis Cardozo ,
23213-433: The sentence of death and prohibited the import of slaves. In 1830, most Americans were, at least in principle, opposed to slavery. However, opponents of slavery deliberated on how to end the institution, as well as what would become of the slaves once they were free. As put in The Philanthropist : "If the chain of slavery can be broken, ... we may cherish the hope ... that proper means will be devised for
23380-546: The slaves of masters who failed to register them with the state, along with the "future children" of enslaved mothers. Those enslaved in Pennsylvania before the 1780 law went into effect were not freed until 1847. Massachusetts took a much more radical position. In 1780, during the Revolution, Massachusetts ratified its constitution and included within it a clause that declared all men equal. Based upon this clause, several freedom suits were filed by enslaved African Americans living in Massachusetts. In 1783, its Supreme Court, in
23547-421: The state government from 1867 to January 1874. Only one state official and one justice of the state supreme court were Northerners. About 13% to 21% of district court judges were Northerners, along with about 10% of the delegates who wrote the Reconstruction constitution of 1869. Of the 142 men who served in the 12th Legislature, some 12 to 29 were from the North. At the county level, Northerners made up about 10% of
23714-516: The state passed a civil rights law. Furbush and three other black leaders, including the bill's primary sponsor, state senator Richard A. Dawson , sued a barkeeper in Little Rock, Arkansas for refusing to serve their group. The suit resulted in the only successful Reconstruction prosecution under the state's civil rights law. In the legislature, Furbush worked to create Lee County, Arkansasfrom portions of Phillips County, Crittenden County, Monroe County, and St. Francis County in eastern Arkansas, which had
23881-580: The ticket who were notoriously corrupt and dishonest, that they must vote for them; that the salvation of the party depended upon it; that the man who scratched a ticket was not a Republican. This is only one of the many means these unprincipled demagogues have devised to perpetuate the intellectual bondage of my people...The bitterness and hate created by the late civil strife has, in my opinion, been obliterated in this state, except perhaps in some localities, and would have long since been entirely obliterated, were it not for some unprincipled men who would keep alive
24048-399: The transatlantic slave trade by 1798. South Carolina , which had abolished the slave trade in 1787, reversed that decision in 1803. In the American South , freedom suits were rejected by the courts, which held that the rights in the state constitutions did not apply to African Americans . The formation of Christian denominations that heralded abolitionism as a moral issue occurred, such as
24215-598: The war, hundreds of Northern white women moved South, many to teach the newly freed African-American children. They joined like-minded Southerners, most of which were employed by the Methodist and Baptist Churches, who spent much of their time teaching and preaching to slave and freedpeople congregations both before and after the Civil War. Carpetbaggers also established banks and retail businesses. Most were former Union soldiers eager to invest their savings and energy in this promising new frontier, and civilians lured south by press reports of "the fabulous sums of money to be made in
24382-445: The word. Passed unanimously by the Congress of the Confederation in 1787, the Northwest Ordinance forbade slavery in the Northwest Territory , a vast area (the future Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin) in which slavery had been legal, but population was sparse. The first state to begin a gradual abolition of slavery was Pennsylvania, in 1780. All importation of slaves was prohibited, but none were freed at first, only
24549-412: The world's leading industrial power in the 20th century, largely due to entrepreneurship, industrialization , and the arrival of millions of immigrant workers and farmers . A national railroad network was completed, and large-scale mines and factories were established. Dissatisfaction with corruption, inefficiency, and traditional politics stimulated the Progressive movement , leading to reforms including
24716-461: Was Rev. Joshua Leavitt , trained as a lawyer at Yale, who stopped practicing law in order to attend Yale Divinity School , and subsequently edited the abolitionist newspaper The Emancipator and campaigned against slavery, as well as advocating other social reforms. In 1841, Leavitt published The Financial Power of Slavery , which argued that the South was draining the national economy due to its reliance on enslaved workers. In 2007, Duffield Street
24883-580: Was a popular orator and essayist for the abolitionist cause. The struggle between Georgia and South Carolina led to the first debates in Parliament over the issue of slavery, occurring between 1740 and 1742. Rhode Island Quakers, associated with Moses Brown , were among the first in America to free slaves. Benjamin Rush was another leader, as were many Quakers. John Woolman gave up most of his business in 1756 to devote himself to campaigning against slavery along with other Quakers. Between 1764 and 1774, seventeen enslaved African Americans appeared before
25050-400: Was a prominent Republican U.S. Senator. His 1872 reelection campaign in Alabama opened him to allegations of "political betrayal of colleagues; manipulation of Federal patronage; embezzlement of public funds; purchase of votes; and intimidation of voters by the presence of Federal troops." He was a major speculator in a distressed financial paper. Tunis Campbell , a black New York businessman,
25217-420: Was a strong supporter of Negro rights. Some historians of the early 1800s, who belonged to the Dunning School that believed that the Reconstruction era was fatally flawed, claimed that Chamberlain later was influenced by Social Darwinism to become a white supremacist. They also wrote that he supported states' rights and laissez-faire in the economy. They portrayed "liberty" in 1896 as the right to rise above
25384-402: Was also attacked, to a lesser degree, as harmful on economic grounds. Evidence was that the South, with many enslaved African Americans on plantations , was definitely poorer than the North, which had few. The institution remained solid in the South, and that region's customs and social beliefs evolved into a strident defense of slavery in response to the rise of a growing anti-slavery stance in
25551-419: Was apparent." The historians Eric Foner and W.E.B. Du Bois have noted that Democrats as well as Republicans received bribes and participated in decisions about the railroads. General Milton S. Littlefield was dubbed the "Prince of Carpetbaggers", and bought votes in the legislature "to support grandiose and fraudulent railroad schemes". Escott concludes that some Democrats were involved, but Republicans "bore
25718-406: Was dissolved in 1991 , leaving the United States as the world's sole superpower. Foreign policy after the Cold War has often focused on many conflicts in the Middle East , especially after the September 11 attacks . In the 21st century, the country was negatively affected by the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic . It is not definitively known how or when Native Americans first settled
25885-467: Was given the name Abolitionist Place , and the Truesdells' home at 227 Duffield received landmark status in 2021. Abolitionists nationwide were outraged by the murder of white abolitionist and journalist Elijah Parish Lovejoy by a proslavery mob in Alton, Illinois on 7 November 1837. Six months later, Pennsylvania Hall , an abolitionist venue in Philadelphia , was burnt to the ground by another proslavery mob on May 17, 1838. Both events contributed to
26052-441: Was hired in 1863 by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton to help former slaves in Port Royal, South Carolina. When the Civil War ended, Campbell was assigned to the Sea Islands of Georgia, where he engaged in an apparently successful land reform program for the benefit of the freedmen. He eventually became vice-chair of the Georgia Republican Party, a state senator and the head of an African-American militia which he hoped to use against
26219-410: Was its most effective propagandist. Garrison's efforts to recruit eloquent spokesmen led to the discovery of ex-slave Frederick Douglass , who eventually became a prominent activist in his own right. Eventually, Douglass would publish his own widely distributed abolitionist newspaper, North Star . In the early 1850s, the American abolitionist movement split into two camps over the question of whether
26386-412: Was later elected as a Texas state senator and had wide influence. He supported construction of railroads to support Galveston business. He was instrumental in organizing African-American dockworkers into the Labor Union of Colored Men, to gain them jobs at the docks after 1870. When Democrats regained control of the state government in 1874, Ruby returned to New Orleans, working in journalism. He also became
26553-494: Was more diversified, exporting rice, indigo, and lumber as well. In 1712, it was divided in two, creating North and South Carolina . The Georgia Colony was established by James Oglethorpe in 1732 as a border to Spanish Florida and a reform colony for former prisoners and the poor. Religiosity expanded greatly after the First Great Awakening , a religious revival in the 1740s led by preachers such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield . American Evangelicals affected by
26720-413: Was plagued by accusations of corruption, which continued to be a matter of controversy long after his death. He was accused of using his position as governor to trade in state bonds for his personal benefit. In addition, the newspaper company which he owned received a contract from the state government. Warmoth supported the franchise for freedmen. Warmoth struggled to lead the state during the years when
26887-515: Was renamed New York City. In the early years of the Swedish Empire , Swedish, Dutch, and German stockholders formed the New Sweden Company to trade furs and tobacco in North America. The company's first expedition was led by Peter Minuit , who had been governor of New Netherland from 1626 to 1631, and landed in Delaware Bay in March 1638. The settlers founded Fort Christina at the site of modern-day Wilmington, Delaware , and made treaties with Indigenous peoples for land ownership on both sides of
27054-417: Was sharply reduced. Warmoth stayed in Louisiana after Reconstruction, as white Democrats regained political control of the state. He died in 1931 at age 89. George Luke Smith , a New Hampshire native, served briefly in the U.S. House from Louisiana's 4th congressional district but was unseated in 1874 by the Democrat William M. Levy . He then left Shreveport for Hot Springs, Arkansas. George E. Spencer
27221-461: Was that a planter elite kept taxes low because it benefited them. They used their money toward private ends rather than public investment. None of the states had established public school systems before the Reconstruction state legislatures created them, and they had systematically underinvested in infrastructure such as roads and railroads. Planters whose properties occupied prime riverfront locations relied on river transportation, but smaller farmers in
27388-462: Was the first-known black Democrat elected to the Arkansas General Assembly. In March 1879, Furbush left Arkansas for Colorado. He returned to Arkansas in 1888, setting up practice as a lawyer. In 1889, he co-founded the African American newspaper National Democrat. He left the state in the 1890s after it disenfranchised black voters. Furbush died in Indiana in 1902 at a veterans' home. Carpetbaggers were least numerous in Texas. Republicans controlled
27555-429: Was to stop slavery within the Quaker community, where 70% of Quakers owned slaves between 1681 and 1705. It acknowledged the universal rights of all people. While the Quaker establishment did not take action at that time, the unusually early, clear, and forceful argument in the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery initiated the spirit that finally led to the end of slavery in the Society of Friends (1776) and in
27722-419: Was written by Thomas Paine . Titled "African Slavery in America", it appeared on 8 March 1775 in the Postscript to the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser . The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage (Pennsylvania Abolition Society) was the first American abolition society, formed 14 April 1775, in Philadelphia, primarily by Quakers. The society suspended operations during
27889-402: Was written in 1688 by the Religious Society of Friends . On 18 February 1688, Francis Daniel Pastorius , the brothers Derick and Abraham op den Graeff and Gerrit Hendricksz of Germantown, Pennsylvania , drafted the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery , a two-page condemnation of slavery, and sent it to the governing bodies of their Quaker church. The intention of the document
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