History of the Navajo Long Walk and Dred Scott Case

The Navajos Long Walk

• The U.S. Army concentrated on the Navajo after the threat from the south was removed.
• The Navajo were pastoral people herding sheep in western New Mexico, Colorado, and eastern Arizona and Utah.
• The Army forced them to walk to Bosque Redondo in southeastern New Mexico.
• Approximately 10,000 Navajo were placed on a 40 square mile reservation with Apache tribes, but no sheep.

Dred Scott Decision

• Dred Scott was a slave born in Virginia.
• He was moved to Alabama as a child and later sold to Missouri.
• Dred Scott's owner was an Army doctor.
• Scott acted as his assistant.
• Scott was transferred to free territory.
• Scott's owner and his family moved to Missouri, and Scott sued for his freedom, based on Missouri law that allowed for freedom when carried into free territory
• A Missouri court ruled in Scott's favor, but the Missouri state supreme court reversed it
• Scott, with support from his owner's son, sued in federal court.
• The Supreme Court ruled against Scott, stating he was property, not a person, and couldn't sue.

John Brown's Raid

• John Brown was a reformer who believed violence was necessary to end slavery in the U.S.
• He participated in the Pottawatomie Creek massacre.
• He led a raid on the armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859.

Stephen A. Douglas

• Senator from Illinois, former Secretary of State of Illinois, and a Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.
• Drafted legislation to help the Mormon church acquire land in Illinois.
• Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1845.
• Elected to the Senate in 1847.
• Sponsored the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854.

Abraham Lincoln

• Relativley unknown one-term Congressman from Illinois.
• Elected to the House in 1846.
• A key sponsor of the "Spot Resolution."
• Debated Stephen A. Douglas in the senatorial campaign of 1858.

Texas

• Americans were attracted by land, liberal immigration laws, and policies.
• Many Americans came from the southern states.
• Most were cotton farmers bringing their slaves with them.
• Slavery was illegal under the Mexican constitution.
• Cultural differences led to the Texas Revolution.

Oregon Territory

• The United States and Great Britain jointly occupied the Oregon Territory.
• The U.S. wanted all the territory up to 54 degrees 40 minutes north.
• A treaty extended the border to the Rockies and Puget Sound.
• American fur trappers were in the territory early on.
• Over 5,000 Americans were in the Willamette Valley by 1845.

Utah

• The Mormon Church migrated from New York to Ohio to Missouri to Illinois.
• Religious beliefs made the church unpopular.
• Joseph Smith was assassinated in 1844.
• Brigham Young and the Council of Disciples led the migration to Utah.
• 11,000 people in Utah by 1850.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

• The United States won the war and organized a government.
• Mexico surrendered roughly 1½ of its territory.
• The U.S. paid $15 million to Mexico.
• The U.S. acquired New Mexico west of the Rio Grande, California, Nevada, Utah, parts of Colorado, and Wyoming.

Wilmot Proviso

• Congressman David Wilmot offered a rider to legislation to prohibit the expansion of slavery.
• The rider was never voted on by the House.
• It opposed the expansion of slavery into newly acquired territories.

Zachary Taylor

• Born in Virginia and moved to Louisiana.
• Served in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War, and the Mexican War.
• Elected President in 1848.
• Died in office after 18 months.

Gang System

• Common labor system in the South.
• Laborers worked in the fields, men and women.
• Their tasks included plowing, planting, weeding, harvesting, and fence mending, which varied according to the year and crop.

Task System

• Most frequently seen in the rice-producing areas of the Carolinas and Georgia later Louisiana and Texas.
• Each slave was assigned a specific task to complete each day.
• Once the tasked was completed, the slave could work in their own gardens, fish, and hunt.

The Underground Railroad

• Network of safe houses and people to help enslaved African Americans escape to free states or Canada.
• Harriet Tubman made 13 trips to the South to help over 70 people escape to freedom.
• Escape routes initially led to Florida, but shifted north as Florida became a part of the U.S.

Frederick Douglass

• A prominent abolitionist.
• Believed that women were key to the abolitionist movement.

Adams-Onis Treaty

• Negotiated by John Quincy Adams.
• The U.S. acquired Florida.
• The U.S. renounced claims on Texas from the Louisiana Purchase.
• Stabilized the boundary between the Louisiana Territory and Spanish colonial territory

The Panic of 1837

• Factors included unsound lending, collapse of cotton prices, specie outflow, and restrictive lending.
• Caused bank collapses, farm issues, and unemployment.
• Led to large-scale migration to Texas.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Organized territories out of Indian Territories north of present-day Oklahoma.
• Southerners argued for permitting slavery.
• Senator Stephen A. Douglas proposed popular sovereignty to decide.

Compromise of 1850

• California was admitted as a free state.
• Fugitive Slave Law passed.
• Slave trade outlawed in Washington, DC.
• Utah and New Mexico organized as territories with popular sovereignty.
• Boundary established for Texas.

Nat Turner's Rebellion

• 1831 rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia.
• Led by a charismatic, literate slave preacher, Nat Turner.
• Turner's led to the deaths of at least 50 white people.