The Peak of Slavery Rights

The Peak of Slavery Rights

On January 24, 1848 gold had been discovered in the Sacramento Valley in California by a man named Henry William Bigle. He had documented in a small note book saying, this day some kind of mettle... that looks like goald. (Created Equal, 2010, p. 312). Soon after the discovery of gold many immigrants from all over came to Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1849 and soon gained the name the Forty-Niners because of the year the immigrants had gone to go search for gold themselves which was in 1849. Many different cultures from Gold Rush years were bunched together and people from different countries began to acknowledge the Mexican culture.

California had become part of the U.S. after the U.S.-Mexican War. In 1848 a Treaty of Peace Limits, and Settlements had ended the Mexican-American War (Deer, 2005), which helped the U.S. obtain about 530,000 square miles of land that went from northwest Texas to California. This was called he Mexican Cession, this land became home to over 13,000 Spanish speakers and 100,000 Indians (Created Equal, 2010,p. 312). With all of this happening slavery had tensions bearing high making civil war a possible threat that resulted in the Compromise of 1850.

Compromise of 1850

The Compromise of 1850 was brought up in an attempt to sooth a conflict between the North and South about keeping slavery in California. This Compromise could interrupt balance between free and slave states in the U.S. Senate (Primary Documents in American History). Senator Henry Clay had tried putting some resolutions on the table to fix the problem and avoid any more conflict with the North and South because if not they would have been major fighting going on civilly. In the beginning the bill had been in the air until Calhoun had tried attacking that the North should not have to limit their slavery, Webster had made a speech trying to make his abolitionist supporters extremely upset, Senator William H. Seward of New York had opposed the bill and gained a reputation for radicalism by claiming that a higher law than the Constitution was meant to check slavery (Compromise to Slavery Authors).

In a book called The Slave Catchers: Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law 1850-1860 is describes the arguments that had risen to make this bill into a working law. The law was meant to protect and give the free slaves the same rights as a common white man at the time.

Conflicts

Problems had risen in 1850 as a result of many new revolutionary things such as: railroads, better farm equipment, factorie, etc. that led to vast changes to regional economies. Slavery had still done some shaping to the South which was still causing problems but this time it was causing problem to Native Americans. It caused conflict because of social disruption. With that as an issue the country was still fighting about keeping slavery.

Change for the Native Americans

Indians were forced to move from, present day, Oklahoma. there were five tribes that had to move, they were known as the Five Southern Tribes, the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and Seminole. After they had moved they created a capital and named it Talequah. They flourished from there and had even created a new newspaper called The Advocate (Created Equal, 2010, p. 314). In 1850 the United States had made treaties to come to agreements with the Indians.

The treaties Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 and Treaty of Fort Atkinson were meant to give back to the tribes after the European Americans had taken over whatever land they were forced out of because of construction of railroads and forts. The European American people would give back things such as beef, bacon, thread, knives, etc. But that wouldnt be sufficient enough to the Indian tribes as they wanted nothing more but for the white people to finally choose a settlement and to stop going on to the little they had left of their home lands but little they know was that they would be overwhelmed with the rising technology weaponry, and huge numbers of people moving to the west.

The battle for land in the Southwest

The U.S. had gained land which resulted in a problem arising with legal and political conflicts with people living in the territory in which the United States had gotten and apparently in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, they didnt just get California they also got (present day) New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and western Colorado. Later they made a purchase called the Gadsden Purchase, this purchase had gotten the United States 55,000 acres of land which was found south of the Gila River which (Created Equal, 2010, p. 314). Meanwhile in Texas European Americans began fighting with Tejanos over political and economical supremacy. People brought in their slaves claiming that slaves were a crucial part in economical and commercial growth.

During the 1850, many things like commercial farming made a big impact in Texas but the Tejano culture remained dominate in the culture, language, and diet. Soon after California authorities had tried to kill Joaquin Murrieta who was like a modern day Robin Hood. He had provided for the lower Class in the Rio Grande Valley by taking from the upper social class but the Authorities had had enough and brought out todays Texas Rangers to finally end the dispute with Murrieta and Juan Cortina but as they tried ending the dispute a war began , this war was called the Cortinas War. The war had begun when Juan Cortina would plan attacks on wealthy European Americans. After the war he became a hero to all Tejanos who could have been striped off all their rights and freedoms.

Division in the Midwest, Southern Economics, and Norths Free Labor Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 9and most of Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin had made this thing called the Yankee strip (named after the European settlers that first migrated over to that region). Swiss, Germans, and Belgians had decided to live in the Wisconsin and Minnesota area. In the lower southern Midwest of Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana there was still some ties to slavery.

Works Cited

• Anderson, Andy. Excerpts from the Texas Slave Narratives . Digital History, 20 June 2003,
• www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=3658.
• Authors, History.com. Compromise of 1850. History.com, A&E Television Networks, 27 Oct. 2009,
• www.history.com/topics/abolitionist-movement/compromise-of-1850.
• Created Equal- Wood, Peter H., et al. The Crisis over Slavery. Created Equal, by Jacqueline Jones, Brief Third Edition ed., Combined Volume, Pearson Education, 2010, pp. 312“335.
• Deer, Michael. Monuments, Manifest Destiny, and Mexico. National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and
• Records Administration, 2005, www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2005/summer/mexico-1.html.
• Primary Documents in American History. Web Guides, Victor, 2017, www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/compromise1850.html. 

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