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1830-1839 |
Political and
Social History |
Literature |
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1830 |
Mexico blocks further U.S. colonists
U. S. population: 12,866,020
28 May. President Andrew Jackson signs the
Indian Removal Act authorizing the move of of several tribes to Western
lands.
The Republicans nominate Henry Clay for
president.
15 September. The Choctaws sign a treaty
exchanging 8 million acres of land east of the Mississippi for land in
Oklahoma.
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Godey's Lady's Book
(1830-98)
Birth of
Emily Dickinson (d. 1886)
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1831 |
Former president John Quincy Adams takes a
seat in the House of Representatives.
Nat Turner leads slave uprising in which 70
whites are killed; 100 blacks are killed in a search for Turner. Thomas Gray
records the Confessions of
Nat Turner in early November.
Black Hawk of the Sauk and Fox tribes agrees
to move west of Mississippi.
Alexis
de Tocqueville and his friend Gustave de Beaumont spend nine months
touring America. The book that de Tocqueville writes after this trip,
Democracy in
America, will be published in 1835.
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Rebecca
Harding Davis born.
Poe
publishes "Israfel" in Poems by Edgar A. Poe
James Kirke Paulding's The Lion of the West
features a character, Nimrod Wildfire, based on Davy Crockett (1786-1836).
The Liberator (abolitionist paper,
1831-65). In its first issue, William Lloyd Garrison writes, "On this
subject [slavery] I do not wish to think, or speak, or write with
moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire, to give a moderate
alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the
ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into
which it has fallen; but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the
present. I am in earnest--I will not equivocate--I will not excuse--I will
not retreat a single inch--AND I WILL BE HEARD."
Spirit of the Times (1831-58), which
publishes stories and sketches of the
Southwestern humorists.
The
New-England Magazine (1831-1835)
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1832 |
Andrew Jackson re-elected president
Seminole chiefs cede Florida to the U.S. and
agree to move west of the Mississippi
The Oregon Trail becomes a main route for
settlers
New England Anti-Slavery Society founded
6 April-2 August.
Black Hawk War
(Columbia
Encyclopedia entry)
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Louisa
May Alcott born on her father's 33rd birthday.
Hawthorne, "Roger Malvin's Burial"
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1833 |
Americans in Texas territory vote to separate
Texas from Mexico.
Britain prohibits slavery in her colonies.
Oberlin College opens, the first
co-educational college and the first to admit blacks.
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William
Apess, "An Indian's Looking-Glass for the White Man"
Knickerbocker Magazine (1833-65)
founded by
Charles
Fenno Hoffman (1806-1884)
Child, Appeal in Favor of that Class of
Americans Called Africans
Black Hawk or Makataimeshekiakiak, selections from
Autobiography (Surrender
Speech of 1832 also available online)
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1834 |
Senate opposes Jackson over his removal of
funds to topple the Bank of the United States
Cyrus McCormick patents the horse-drawn grain
reaper
Anti-Catholic protestors burn the
Ursuline convent in
Somerville, Massachusetts.
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Southern Literary Messenger (1834-64) |
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1835 |
National debt is paid off.
Mob in Charleston, S.C. burns abolitionist
literature, and abolitionist writers are expelled from Southern states.
Alexis de Tocqueville publishes Democracy
in America in France.
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Samuel L.
Clemens (Mark Twain) born in Florida, Missouri. (d. 1910)
Harriet
Jacobs goes into hiding to escape Dr. Norcom (Dr. Flint in Incidents);
she will remain in hiding until her 1842 escape to New York.
Poe
appointed editor of the Southern Literary Messenger
William Gilmore Simms, The Yemassee
(story of Indian warfare in Georgia)
Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, Georgia
Scenes
Crockett almanacs (1835-56)
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1836 |
Beginning on February 23, Santa Anna leads
3,000 men in a siege
of the Alamo, killing all 187 Texans
inside on March 6; on March 27, his troops kill 300 soldiers defending
Goliad.(To see the Alamo today, visit the
Alamo cam)
21 April. Texans capture Santa Anna at the
Battle of San Jacinto.
Settlers led by Dr. Marcus Whitman reach Walla
Walla in present-day Washington.
Massachusetts Supreme Court rules that any
slave brought within its borders by a master is free.
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Cooper,The
Last of the Mohicans
Graham's Magazine
Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Nature
Transcendental Club (1836-c.1844)
Bret
Harte born
Elizabeth Peabody edits
Bronson
Alcott's Record of a School and Conversations with Children on
the Gospels.(1826-58)
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1837 |
Martin Van Buren elected president
Financial Panic of 1837
Education reform by Horace Mann, Calvin Stowe,
Mary Lyon, and others
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Ralph Waldo
Emerson, "An Oration" (revised in 1841 as "The American Scholar")
Birth of
William
Dean Howells in Ohio. (d. 1920)
Birth of Edward Eggleston.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Twice-Told Tales (including "My Kinsman,
Major Molineux"
United States Magazine and Democratic
Review (1837-49)
Burton's Gentleman's Magazine (1837-40)
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1838 |
Removal of
15,000-17,000 Cherokee Indians from Georgia on the
"Trail of Tears" results in 4,000
deaths
Republic of Texas withdraws its offer of
annexation with the U. S.
Underground Railroad organized.
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William Ellery Channing, Self Culture
(promotes "doctrine of self-improvement" as an alternative to strict
Calvinism)
Ralph Waldo
Emerson,
"An Address . . . " (revised in 1841 as "The Divinity School Address")
Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America
(first American edition)
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1839 |
 Spanish
slave ship Amistad, carrying 53 slaves, is taken over in a mutiny by their
leader, Cinque; before the Supreme Court, John Quincy Adams argues their
right to be freed (Link to NEH-supported
Amistad site
at Mystic Seaport)
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Poe,
"The Fall of the House of Usher" in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine;
edits the magazine until 1840.
Poe, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque
Caroline Kirkland, A New Home--Who'll Follow?
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