Early American Literature
Spring 2003
TRANSATLANTIC TIMELINE (1800 – 1865)
This timeline incorporates course readings together with
historical and cultural events in the Americas, Europe and Africa. It derives some material from Peter Bergman,
The Chronological History of the Negro in America (1969).
1800 In Virginia, Gabriel Prosser
organizes, gathers arms, and nearly executes a slave revolt. Over 1,000 slaves gather outside Richmond on
the night of Saturday, August 30, armed with scythes, bayonets, and a few
guns. They plan to storm the city,
seize the arsenals, and kill all whites except Frenchmen, Methodists and
Quakers. Prosser plans to attack other
towns and declare himself king of Virginia.
A storm the previous night made a crucial bridge impassable, and two
slaves betray the planned revolt to Virginia’s governor, who calls out the
militia. More than 30 slaves are
hung. Persistent rumors of slave revolts
spread through Virginia and the Carolinas.
1800-1900 During the 19th century,
approximately 4 million African slaves are brought into Latin America.
1801 The
United States purchases the Louisiana Territory for $15 million, containing
what is now Arkansas, part of Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, part of Minnesota,
Missouri, part of Montana, part of North Dakota, part of Oklahoma, South
Dakota, and part of Wyoming. In
Virginia, another planned slave revolt where the leaders sought to annihilate
whites because “if all white people were destroyed, they would be free”; two
slaves hanged. In Haiti, Toussaint
L’Ouverture becomes ruler of island.
1802 Slave conspiracies reported in
six counties of North Carolina; about 15 slaves executed. In Virginia, suspicions of slave
insurrections plague the state, leading to mail interception, arrests,
floggings, banishments, and hangings.
White men reportedly join a slave conspiracy in Halifax, Virginia.
1803 In Haiti, Napolean sends a
division-size expeditionary force to reconquer the island; it is defeated. Toussaint L’Ouverture is seized at peace
negotiations and sent to France; he dies in a prison in the Alps in 1803. Napolean restores slavery in Martinique and
Guadeloupe. Jean Jacques Dessalines
succeeds Toussaint L’Ouverture and defeats a second French divisional
expeditionary force.
1804 General Thomas Boude purchased
a slave, Stephen Smith, and took him to Pennsylvania and freedom. Smith’s mother escapes and joins them; the
Boudes refuse to surrender her. Incident
often cited as the beginning of the Underground Railroad. In Haiti, independence declared; Dessalines
proclaims himself governor for life; whites either killed or forced to
flee. Dessalines abolishes slavery, but
institutes forced labor.
1805 Reports of slave revolt plots
in the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, and New Orleans.
1806 In Haiti, Dessalines is
assassinated. In Argentina, one of the
five battalions formed to defend Buenos Aires against the British is composed
of blacks.
1807 In the United States, Congress
passes a law prohibiting the importation of slaves after the end of the
year. Fines imposed of $800 for
knowingly buying an illegally imported African, and $20,000 for equipping a
slave ship. The law is widely violated. In Brazil, the first of a series of slave
revolts by African Moslems, continuing until 1835.
1808 The slave population in the
United States reaches the million mark.
Just over 13 percent are free; the rest are slaves. African Americans represent about 19 percent
of the US population.
1809 Washington Irving publishes A
History of New York; succeeds as first professional writer in the United
States only in 1820, with The Sketch Book. In Virginia, Jefferson writes a letter to Abbe Gregoire arguing
that racial segregation is necessary to preserve the “dignity” and “beauty” of
the white race.
1811 In Louisiana, major slave
revolt of over 400 armed slaves in the parishes of St. Charles and St. John the
Baptist. One of the leaders is Charles
Deslondes, a free mulatto from Santo Domingo.
White population flees to New Orleans.
Militia called out; 66 slaves killed and dozens more executed
later. Decapitated slave heads hung at
intervals on the road from New Orleans to St. Charles parish. In Cabarrus County, North Carolina, a
military force is sent to eliminate a Maroon community; several killed.
1812 Before the outbreak of the War
of 1812 in December, Virginia congressman and slaveholder John Randolph warns
on the House floor that slave revolts are far more dangerous than the
British. During the war, African Americans
make up a sixth of seamen in the US Navy.
In New York, the General Conference of the Methodist Church adopts a
resolution that no slave-owner who did not manumit his slaves (if legal in that
state) was eligible to be an elder in any Methodist church.
1814 In the District of Columbia, the British set the
White House afire; African battalions fight at the Battle of New Orleans; the
United States and Britain sign the Treaty of Ghent, ending the war. Treaty calls for restoration of slaves who
took sanctuary with the British forces; in 1826, Great Britain pays $1.2
million compensation for slaves who were not returned.
1815 Lydia Sigourney, one of the
most popular poets of 19th-century America and near-unknown today,
publishes her first work. She publishes
more than 50 books by her death in 1865, inspiring later generations of 19th-century
women who sought economic independence through writing.
1816 In the District of Columbia,
Henry Clay, Francis Scott Key, and John Randolph are in attendance at the
founding of the American Colonization Society, whose purpose is to ship blacks
back to Africa. Clay praises the
society’s aim to “rid our country of a useless and pernicious, if not
dangerous, portion of its population,” the free African Americans. In South Carolina’s marshes, major general
Youngblood conducts a military campaign against armed Maroon communities; he
reports capturing or killing all Maroons.
1817 In Philadelphia, Richard Allen
and James Forten organize a protest meeting at Bethel Church against the
American Colonization Society’s efforts to exile African Americans.
1818 In the Carolinas and Virginia,
Maroon activities lead to increased slave patrols. Maroon attacks on stores reported.
1819 Roger B. Taney, future chief
justice of the US Supreme Court and author of the Dred Scott decision in 1857,
defends Reverend Jacob Gruber, on trial for inciting a slave insurrection. Taney denounces slavery, calling it an evil
that must be eliminated gradually. In
Augusta, Georgia, a slave named Coot is executed for organizing a conspiracy to
burn the city. Fires set by rebellious
slaves are so common that insurance companies in the North commonly refuse to
provide fire insurance in the South.
1820 The Missouri Compromise admits
Missouri as a slave state, but prohibits slavery in future states north of the
36° 30’ line. It includes a fugitive
slave clause.
1821 In Kennett Square,
Pennsylvania, a fugitive slave is discovered by his owner and overseer; the
white townspeople resist their attempt to seize the slave, and kill the owner
and overseer in a fight.
1822 In Charlestown, South Carolina,
a carefully-planned slave revolt led by Denmark Vesey is prevented at the last
moment. Arsenals, guardhouses, and arms
stores were to be taken and all whites killed.
Vesey and 34 revolutionists were executed. Because Vesey was a free black, South Carolina passes laws
restricting the movements, occupations, and education of free blacks. Fearing communication with other black
communities, the state also passes the Negro Seaman Acts, requiring black
sailors to remain in jail for the duration of their ship’s stay in a South
Carolina port. Despite British protests
and a declaration by the US attorney general that the law is illegal, it
remains in force until the Civil War.
In Liberia, the American Colonization Society establishes its first
settlement for ex-slaves.
1823 The Monroe Doctrine proclaims
the primacy of US political interests in the western hemisphere over European
colonial powers.
1825 Josiah Henson, a slave, leads a
party of slaves from Maryland to Ohio; he becomes a leader of a community of
ex-slaves in Ontario. Harriet Beecher
Stowe reputedly uses Henson as a model for Uncle Tom.
1826 In Philadelphia, Elias Boudinot
delivers and publishes An Address to the Whites. Two years later he opens the first Native
American newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix. Boudinot attempts to appease white supremacy.
1827 In Boston, Edgar Allan Poe
publishes his first volume of poetry, Tamerlane. Poe comes to be deeply afflicted by racial
fears of challenge to white supremacy.
In New York, approximately 10,000 slaves freed by statute. In Ohio, that state Presbyterian Synod
declares that slaveholding bars a congregant from communion.
1828 In Vermont, newspaper editor
William Lloyd Garrison begins his antislavery career. In Louisville, Kentucky, white comedian Thomas D. Rice first
performs the character of Jim Crow, based on a stable hand that lived behind
Rice’s theater. This Jim Crow blackface
character becomes the most successful comedy act on US stages.
1829 In Boston, clothing merchant
David Walker publishes major edition of Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of
the World, an early antislavery and pan-Africanist statement; seamen
conceal and distribute the tract in southern ports; reward placed on Walker for
sedition and incitement to rebellion.
William Apess publishes A Son of the Forest, the first Native
American autobiography. In Mexico,
slavery is abolished, but US pressure forces its re-institution in Texas (which
then belonged to Mexico).
1830 In states north of Mason-Dixon
line, slavery has been largely abolished by a combination of legislative,
judicial, and constitutional action.
But about 3,500 slaves remain, two-thirds in New Jersey. The first Free Produce Society is formed to
encourage free labor by pledging not to buy slave-produced goods; such
societies eventually establish stores in major towns throughout the northern
states. In Philadelphia, city leaders urge expulsion of African Americans from
the city and state
1831 Southeastern Indian tribes
begin the Trail of Tears, their expulsion from their homelands. President Andrew Jackson defies Supreme
Court decision against tribal expulsions.
Boston reform writer and novelist Lydia Maria Child leads protests. In Virginia, the Nat Turner rebellion breaks
out. A group of 20-30 slaves massacres
about 50 whites in Southampton County.
Approximately 3,000 armed whites respond to the insurrection and slaughter
unknown hundreds of blacks. The
Confession of Nat Turner, written by Thomas R. Gray, is published in
Baltimore. Stringent enforcement of slave codes, minimization of educational
opportunities, and near-complete suspension of manumission follow the Nat
Turner Revolt. In Cincinnati, an
anti-black riot causes 1,200 African Americans to leave for Canada. In Liberia, the American Colonization
Society has settled 1,420 African Americans, but the ‘repatriation’ movement is
in decline.
1832 In Georgia, Augustus Baldwin
Longstreet publishes short stories of village life. American regionalism begins to create local narrative
traditions. In Connecticut,
schoolteacher Prudence Crandall admits a black schoolgirl to her school in
Canterbury. Townspeople protest, white
students withdraw, the school is vandalized and destroyed, the state
legislature forbids education of blacks, and Crandall becomes a figure of
national controversy.
1833 In Brazil, publication begins
of (short-lived) first Afro-Brazilian newspaper, O Homem de Cor. It leads the Brazilian abolitionist
movement. In Great Britain, the
Parliament passes an act to compensate Caribbean slave-owners with ₤20
million for the abolition of slavery.
House slaves were to continue working as slaves for five years; field
hands for seven.
1834 David Crockett campaigns for
Congress using his ghostwritten populist autobiography, A Narrative of the
Life; he dies two years later at the Alamo.
1835 In Richmond, Virginia, Poe
begins editorship of the Southern Literary Messenger, the only
antebellum literary journal in the Southern states that will be a success. He leaves two years later. In Philadelphia, abolitionist poet and
editor John Greenleaf Whittier escapes a mob of several thousand that lynches
him in effigy and burns Pennsylvania Hall, the newly-inaugurated headquarters
of the antislavery movement. In North
Carolina, a fugitive slave, Harriet Jacobs, goes into hiding in a porch
crawlspace; emerges seven years later in 1842; publishes her narrative, Incidents
in the Life of a Slave Girl, twenty years later. In the District of Columbia, President Andrew Jackson demands
censorship of the US mails to prevent antislavery literature from circulating
“to instigate the slaves to insurrection.”
1836 In South Carolina, Angelina
Grimké, from a family of slave-owners, publishes An Appeal to the Christian
Women of the South demanding that women act against slavery. In Ohio, James G. Birney begins publishing
an antislavery newspaper in Cincinnati; a mob destroys his press, and then
destroys the African American neighborhood of the city. In the District of Columbia, Congress adopts
a gag rule preventing discussion of antislavery petitions. In Boston, a young minister, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, publishes volume of essays, Nature, heavily influenced by
antinomianism.
1837 Emerson lectures at Harvard
that the ‘American scholar’ must be more than a literary scholar and become an
activist in “the age of Revolution.” He
is not invited to lecture again at Harvard for decades. In Alton, Illinois, a mob kills abolitionist
journalist – and American scholar -- Elijah Lovejoy. For the fourth time, the mob destroys his press.
1838 Sarah Grimké publishes Letters
on the Equality of the Sexes. In
Philadelphia, Robert Purvis, a wealthy African American, holds secret meeting
to formalize an organization for the Underground Railroad. Vigilance committees established in the
following years to assist escaping slaves.
1839 James G. Birney organizes the
Liberty Party and in 1840 runs for president on an antislavery platform. Off the coast of Cuba, African slaves led by
Cinque revolt aboard the Amistad, kill the captain, and seize the
Spanish slave ship. They grounded off Long Island, New York, and were taken
into US custody. The 54 Africans were
eventually freed, after trial before the US Supreme Court, and returned to
Africa.
1841 In Massachusetts, Nathaniel
Hawthorne joins the Brook Farm commune, together with Margaret Fuller and
others; leaves after six months; a later novel, The Blithedale Romance
(1852), views the commune dimly. On the
high seas, the slave Madison Washington leads a slave revolt aboard the Creole
and creates an international incident by landing the slaves in freedom in
Nassau, Bermuda. Britain pays $110,000
in 1853 in compensation for freeing the slaves.
1842 William Wells Brown, an escaped
slave and steamboat pilot, ferries 69 fugitive slaves across Lake Erie to
Canada. Brown becomes the first African
American novelist, publishing Clotel in 1853.
1844 Birney’s second presidential
candidacy with the Liberty Party draws enough votes from Henry Clay to enable
Polk to become president. In Florida, Jonathan Walker, a white man, is captured
sailing from Pensacola for the Bahamas with seven fugitive slaves. Walker is imprisoned, sentenced to the pillory,
and branded on the hand with the letters SS for ‘slave stealer’. John Greenleaf Whittier honors him with a
tribute poem.
1845-49 Irish Potato
Famines send waves of emigrants to the United States.
1845 Texas annexed. Frederick Douglass publishes first edition
of his slave autobiography, Narrative of the Life. In New Orleans, Louisiana, the first
anthology of African American poety, Les Cenelles, is published in
French.
1846 The United States invades
Mexico at Battle of Palo Alto to begin war, protecting slavery interests. Northern politicians and then little-known
Abraham Lincoln decry the war. US annexes current-day Arizona and New
Mexico. The Wilmot Proviso, which
would have prohibited slavery in the new territories, is defeated. Herman Melville, a young sailor imprisoned
for mutiny, publishes his quasi-autobiographical adventure tale, Typee,
and condemns European imperialism in the Pacific islands.
1847 In Mexico, US forces capture
Mexico City. George Copway, an Ojibwa
missionary and writer, publishes his autobiography, the Life, History and
Travels. Melville again condemns
Euro-American imperialism and missionaries in his next novel, Omoo. In Rochester, New York, Frederick Douglass
begins publishing his abolitionist newspaper, North Star.
1848 The United States gains
present-day California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Arizona, Colorado, New
Mexico, and Wyoming as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In Massachusetts, Henry David Thoreau spends
a night in prison for refusing to pay a war-tax; he memorializes the experience
in “Resistance to Civil Government.” In
New York, the Women’s Rights Convention convenes in Seneca Falls; Elizabeth
Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass among attendees; national press pillories
the convention. In California, gold
discovered at Sutter’s Mill.
1849 Harriet
Tubman escapes slavery via the Underground Railroad.
1850 Compromise of 1850 provides (a)
California becomes 31st state admitted to the Union and a free
state, (b) land won from Mexico would be organized without provisions re slavery,
(c) Texas to receive compensation for ceding land to New Mexico, (d) a
stringent Fugitive Slave Act to be enacted, and (e) slave trade in District of
Columbia to be abolished. Kansas and
Nebraska territories organized.
Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act over strenuous abolitionist
protest. Hawthorne publishes The Scarlet
Letter. At this date, an estimated
one-half of US seamen are African Americans.
1852 Uncle Tom’s Cabin
published serially, it becomes the most successful novel of the 19th
century, and Harriet Beecher Stowe states that “the hand of God” wrote her
antislavery novel. She also advocates
that blacks return to Africa.
Commenting on the dominance of the literary marketplace by female
writers, Hawthorne decries “that damn mob of scribbling women.”
1853 Chief Seattle (Duwamish)
delivers a speech recorded by a white observer, part of an emergent tradition
of whites transcribing, recording, translating, and altering Native American
oral literature.
1854 The Republican Party is founded
to oppose the Kansas-Nebraska Act’s opening of the West to slavery.
1855 On Long Island, New York, “Walt
Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos” self-publishes first edition
of Leaves of Grass; John Greenleaf Whittier throws the book into the fire
because of its homosexual imagery. In
Boston, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow publishes The Song of Hiawatha, a
recombinatory retelling of Native American religious stories; it becomes
America’s best-known and most-translated epic poem. Melville publishes “Benito Cereno,” a story of revolt on a slave
ship.
1856 In Ohio, Margaret Garner, an
escaped slave, tries to kill her children to prevent them from being returned
to slavery. She manages to kill one
child. This incident becomes the basis
for Toni Morrison’s Beloved.
1857 In the Dred Scott
decision, US Supreme Court chief justice Roger B. Taney holds that blacks are
not citizens and Congress had no authority to exclude slavery from any
territory, thus invalidating the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
1859 John Brown attacks the Federal
arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and the United States public confronts the
inevitability of armed conflict over slavery.
Emerson, Thoreau, Whittier and many writers demand Brown be spared; he
hangs.
1860 Abraham Lincoln elected
president. South Carolina secedes in
December, before Lincoln enters office.
1861-65 The US Civil War. Emily Dickinson’s period of greatest poetic
productivity, 1861-1863.