Sources

William Wells Brown’s Clotel is published in London by an African-American.

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

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

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

Anti-slavery groups organize the Free Soil Party.

Pennsylvania passes a personal liberty law.

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.

Texas enters the Union as a slave state.

Connecticut passes a personal liberty law.

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

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.