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1852

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s influential abolitionist novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published.

1851

Sojourner Truth gives her famous Ain’t I a Woman speech at the Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.

1850

Approximately 300 Seminoles and blacks in Texas head to Mexico, where enslavement is prohibited.

1849

Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery. She becomes a major conductor on the Underground Railroad, as well as an advocate for Women’s Rights.

1846

War with Mexico adds significant western territory to the United States and opens a new arena in the fight to check the spread of slavery.

1843

In reaction to the decision in Prigg v. Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, and Ohio pass personal liberty laws.

1842

In the case of Prigg v. Pennsylvania, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the 1793 Fugitive Slave law is constitutional, while state personal liberty laws make unconstitutional demands on slave owners. Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave law is declared the federal government’s responsibility, not the states.

1841

The U.S. Supreme Court declares that the mutinous Africans from the slave ship Amistad are now free.

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