Download TimeLine 1830 - 1860

TimeLine 1830 - 1860
1830 Congress passes a Pre-emption Act which grants settlers the right to purchase at $1.25 per acre 160
acres of public land which they have cultivated for at least 12 months, thereby offering "squatters"
some protection against speculators who purchase lands they have already improved.
1830 Jedediah Smith and William Sublette, now partners in the successor to William Ashley's trading
company, lead the first wagon train across the Rocky Mountains at South Pass and on to the Upper
Wind River. The 500-mile journey through Indian country takes about six weeks, proving that even
heavily loaded wagons and livestock -- the prerequisites for settlement -- can travel overland to the
Pacific.
1830 Joseph Smith publishes the Book of Mormon and establishes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints.
1830 The Indian Removal Act, passed with strong support from President Andrew Jackson, authorizes the
federal government to negotiate treaties with eastern tribes exchanging their lands for land in the
West. All costs of migration and financial aid to assist resettlement are provided by the government.
Jackson forces through a treaty for removal of the Choctaw from Mississippi within the year.
1830 Alarmed at the growing number of Americans in Tejas, Mexico imposes sharp limits on further
immigration.
1831 Joseph Smith, suffering persecution in his native New York, leads his followers to Kirtland, Ohio,
where they can build a new Zion.
The Nez Percé send a delegation to St. Louis requesting white teachers for their people, sparking a
missionary movement to the Northwest.
1831 In Cherokee Nation v. State of Georgia, a dispute over Georgia's attempt to extend its jurisdiction over
Cherokee territory, Chief Justice John Marshall denies Indians the right to court protection because
they are not subject to the laws of the Constitution. He describes Indian tribes as "domestic dependent
nations," saying that each is "a distinct political entity...capable of managing its own affairs."
1833 American settlers led by Stephen Austin vote to make Tejas a Mexican state, rather than a dependent
territory, and draft a state constitution based on that of the United States. Austin himself carries the
proposal to Mexico City, where President Santa Anna agrees to repeal the 1830 law limiting American
immigration but refuses to grant statehood.
1833 Samuel Colt develops his revolver.
1833 The Choctaw complete their forced removal to the West under army guard.
1834 William Sublette and Robert Campbell establish Fort Laramie on the North Platte River in Wyoming,
the first permanent trading post in the region and soon to be an important stopping point for pioneers
traveling the Oregon Trail.
1835 The Florida Seminoles reject forced removal to the West and begin a seven-year war of resistance
under Chief Osceola.
1835 The Cherokee finally sign a treaty of removal, giving up their lands in Georgia for territory in presentday Oklahoma.
1835 THE TEXAS WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE (1835-1836)
Mexican President Santa Anna proclaims himself dictator and attempts to disarm the Americans in
Tejas, sending troops to reclaim a cannon that had been given to the settlers for protection against
Indian attacks. When the Americans resist at an engagement near Gonzales on the Guadalupe River,
the Texas War for Independence begins.
1835 Members of Stephen Austin's American colony issue a "Declaration of the People of Texas,"
proclaiming their independence of Santa Anna's government on the grounds that he has violated the
Mexican constitution by proclaiming himself dictator.
1836 Texans vote a Declaration of Independence, appoint an interim government and elect Sam Houston,
former governor of Tennessee, commander-in-chief of the army..
1836 Santa Anna leads a force of 5,000 troops into San Antonio to put down the Texas rebellion. On March
6, in a brutal show of force, the Mexicans overwhelm 187 Texans at the Alamo.
1836 In the fall, Sam Houston is elected the first President of the Republic of Texas, outpolling Stephen
Austin 4-to-1, and Texans vote to seek annexation by the United States.
1837 Congress refuses to annex Texas, bowing to abolitionist opponents who call it a "slavocracy." But
President Andrew Jackson recognizes the Republic of Texas on his last day in office.
1838 General Winfield Scott oversees the forced removal of the Cherokee from Georgia to the Indian
Territory of the West along the "Trail of Tears."
1841
John Sutter buys Fort Ross north of San Francisco, ending Russia's thirty-year presence in California.
Sutter dismantles the settlement and carries it to his newly established Fort Sutter at the junction of the
Sacramento and American Rivers.
1841
John Bidwell organizes the Western Emigration Society and leads the first wagon train of pioneers
across the Rockies, a party of 69 adults and children who divide into two groups after crossing South
Pass. One group heads north into Oregon, while the other, continues west to California, suffering
desperate hardship and near starvation before arriving in Sacramento.
1843
THE OREGON TRAIL
Seasoned mountain men Jim Bridger and Louis Vasquez establish Fort Bridger on the Green River to
re-supply migrants traveling the Oregon Trail. The Great Migration, a party of one thousand pioneers,
heads west from Independence, Missouri, on the Oregon Trail, guided by Dr. Marcus Whitman, who is
returning to his mission on the Columbia River. Forming a train of more than one hundred wagons, and
trailing a herd of 5,000 cattle, the pioneers travel along the south bank of the Platte, then cross north to
Fort Laramie in Wyoming. Here they follow the North Platte to the Sweetwater, which leads up into
South Pass. Once through the pass, they cross the Green River Valley to newly established Fort
Bridger, then turn north to Fort Hall on the Snake River, which leads them to Whitman's Mission. Once
in Oregon, they strike out along the Columbia for the fertile lands of the Willamette Valley, the
endpoint to a journey of 2,000 miles. After the mass exodus of 1843, the migration to Oregon becomes
an annual event, with thousands more making the trek every year.
1843
Restored to power in Mexico, President Santa Anna warns that American annexation of Texas will be
considered an act of war.
1844
John C. Calhoun negotiates an annexation treaty between Texas and the United States, but abolitionists
block its ratification by the Senate.
1850
California enters the Union.
With miners flooding the hillsides and devastating the land, California's Indians find themselves
deprived of their traditional food sources and forced by hunger to raid the mining towns and other white
settlements. Miners retaliate by hunting Indians down and brutally abusing them. The California
legislature responds to the situation with an Indenture Act which establishes a form of legal slavery for
the native peoples of the state by allowing whites to declare them vagrant and auction off their services
for up to four months. The law also permits whites to indenture Indian children, with the permission of
a parent or friend, and leads to widespread kidnapping of Indian children, who are then sold as
"apprentices."
1850
Levi Strauss begins manufacturing heavyweight trousers for gold miners, made of the twilled cotton
cloth known as "genes" in France. Strauss had intended to make tents, but finding no market, made a
fortune in pants instead.
1851
The United States and representatives of the Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Arikara, Assiniboin,
Mandan, Gros Ventre and other tribes sign the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, intended to insure peace on
the plains. The treaty comes as increasing numbers of whites -- gold seekers, settlers and traders -make the trek westward, and as Native Americans react to this invasion by attacking wagon trains and,
more often, warring against one another for territorial advantage.
1851
Federal commissioners attempting to halt the brutal treatment of Indians in California negotiate
eighteen treaties with various tribes and village groups, promising them 8.5 million acres of reservation
lands. California politicians succeed in having the treaties secretly rejected by Congress in 1852,
leaving the native peoples of the state homeless within a hostile white society.
1851
John L. Soule, in an editorial in the Terre Haute Express, advises: "Go West, young man, go West." But
New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley gets credit for the line.
1852
Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, galvanizes public opinion against slavery and stiffens its
defenders in the South.
1853
California begins confining its remaining Indian population on harsh military reservations, but the
combination of legal enslavement and near genocide has already made California the site of the worst
slaughter of Native Americans in United States history. As many as 150,000 Indians lived in the state
before 1849; by 1870, fewer than 30,000 will remain.
1853
Mexico agrees to the Gadsden Purchase, selling a strip of land running along Mexico's northern border
between Texas and California for $10 million. Intended as the route for a railroad connecting the
Mississippi to the Pacific, the territory goes undeveloped when the approach of the Civil War causes the
project to be put aside.
1854
After much bitter debate, Congress approves the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which repeals the Missouri
Compromise of 1820 by allowing these two territories to choose between slavery and free soil.
1854
The Republican Party, born out of opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, declares its opposition to
slavery and privilege, and its support for new railroads, free homesteads and the opening of Western
lands by free labor.
1857
In Kansas, pro-slavery forces meeting at Lecompton draft a constitution making the territory a slave
state. They submit to local voters only the question whether they approve a "constitution with slavery."
Free-soil supporters boycott this election, and the "constitution with slavery" is submitted to Congress.
But the free-soilers convince the territory's acting governor to convene a special session of the
legislature, which calls for a second vote on the Lecompton constitution itself. In this referendum,
Kansans reject the pro-slavery constitution by an overwhelming margin.
1858
The first non-stop stage coach from St. Louis arrives in Los Angeles, completing the 2,600 mile trip
across the Southwest in 20 days.
1859
Gold is discovered in Boulder Canyon, Colorado, sparking the Pikes Peak gold rush which brings an
estimated 100,000 fortune-hunters to the Rockies under the banner "Pikes Peak or Bust."
1859
Oregon enters the union as a free state.
1859
Silver is discovered at the Comstock Lode in Nevada, turning nearby Virginia City into a boom town.
1859
During this decade, a tidal wave of 2.5 million immigrants enter the United States, including 66,000
Chinese.