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60-571: Originally settled in 1607 by the Plymouth Company , the coastal area between the Merrimack and Kennebec rivers, as well as an irregular parcel of land between the headwaters of the two rivers, became the province of Maine in a 1622 land grant . In 1629, the land was split, creating an area between the Piscataqua and Merrimack rivers which became the province of New Hampshire . It existed through

120-500: A "Person held to Service or Labor." In addition, Article 1, section 9, clause 1 of the Constitution prohibited Congress from abolishing the importation of slaves , but in a compromise, the prohibition could be lifted by Congress in 20 years, and slaves were referred to as "Persons." The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves passed easily in 1807 and took effect on January 1, 1808. However, the ban on importation spurred an expansion in

180-613: A congressional veto over federal policy with regard to slavery and other issues important to the South. As a result of this preoccupation, slave states and free states were often admitted into the Union in opposite pairs to maintain the existing Senate balance between slave and free states. Controversy over whether Missouri should be admitted as a slave state resulted in the Missouri Compromise of 1821, which specified that territory acquired in

240-430: A constitutional convention on March 10, 1864. Arkansas, part of which came under Union control by 1864, adopted an anti-slavery constitution on March 16, 1864. Louisiana – much of which had been under Union control since 1862 – abolished slavery through a new state constitution approved by voters September 5, 1864. The border states of Maryland (November 1, 1864) and Missouri (January 11, 1865) abolished slavery before

300-530: A major investor in the Plymouth Company. When Gilbert left for England on the returning ship, the discouraged colonists followed him, abandoning Popham Colony. Beyond crises of leadership, the colony faced poor relationships with local Native Americans and were unable to trade with nearby tribes. The colony was also burdened with few natural resources to exploit and few skilled workers to take advantage of them. Even their time of arrival, two months later than

360-560: A rapid increase in population in the decades prior to the American Revolution . Organized political and social movements to abolish slavery began in the mid-18th century. The sentiments of the American Revolution and the promise of equality evoked by the Declaration of Independence stood in contrast to the status of most black people, either free or enslaved, in the colonies. Despite this, thousands of black Americans fought for

420-720: A series of land patents made by the kings of England during this era, and included New Somersetshire, Lygonia , and Falmouth . The province was incorporated into the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the 1650s, beginning with the formation of York County, Massachusetts , which extended from the Piscataqua River to just east of the mouth of the Presumpscot River in Casco Bay . Eventually, its territory grew to encompass nearly all of present-day Maine. The large size of

480-532: A slave did not become free by entering a free state and must be returned to their owner. Enforcement of these laws became one of the controversies which arose between slave and free states. Slavery, in what would become the United States, was established as part of European colonization . By the 18th century, slavery was legal throughout the Thirteen Colonies , after which rebel colonies started to abolish

540-595: A state in 1791. Slavery was a divisive issue in the United States. It was a major issue during the writing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, the subject of political crises in the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise of 1850 and was the primary cause of the American Civil War in 1861. Just before the Civil War, there were 19 free states and 15 slave states. The most recent free state, Kansas , had entered

600-695: A state until 1896, as an organized territory , Utah legalized slavery under the 1852 territorial Act in Relation to Service and similar Act for the Relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners . Brigham Young and his group of Mormon pioneers had arrived in Utah in 1847, during the Mexican–American War , when Utah Territory was Mexican territory. They ignored the Mexican ban on slavery. They viewed slavery as consistent with

660-559: A statehood bill to Congress to create a new state from 48 counties in western Virginia. The new state would eventually incorporate 50 counties. The issue of slavery in the new state delayed approval of the bill. In the Senate Charles Sumner objected to the admission of a new slave state, while Benjamin Wade defended statehood as long as a gradual emancipation clause would be included in the new state constitution. Two senators represented

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720-484: The Compromise of 1850 . Three more free states were admitted in the final years before the Civil War, disrupting the balance that the slave states had tried to maintain. The American Civil War (1861–1865) disrupted and eventually ended slavery. Eleven slave states joined the Confederacy , while the border states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri – all slave states – remained in

780-472: The Louisiana Purchase north of latitude 36° 30', which described most of Missouri's southern border, would, except for Missouri, become free states, and territory south of that line would become slave states. As part of the compromise, Maine , on August 19, 1821, was admitted as a free state. The admission of Texas (1845) and the acquisition of the vast new Mexican Cession territories (1848), after

840-508: The Mexican–American War , created further north–south conflict. Although the settled portion of Texas was an area rich in cotton plantations and dependent on slave labor, the territory acquired in the Mountain West did not seem hospitable to cotton or slavery. As part of the Compromise of 1850 , California was admitted as a free state without a slave state being admitted; California's admission also meant there would be no slave state on

900-712: The Patriot cause for a combination of reasons. Thousands also joined the British, encouraged by offers of freedom such as the Philipsburg Proclamation . In the 1770s, enslaved black people throughout New England began sending petitions to northern legislatures demanding freedom. 5 Northern states adopted policies to at least gradually abolish slavery : Pennsylvania in 1780, New Hampshire and Massachusetts in 1783, and Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1784. The Republic of Vermont had limited slavery in 1777, while it

960-624: The Senate , where each state was represented by two senators. With an equal number of slave states and free states, the Senate was equally divided on issues important to the South . As the population of the free states began to outstrip the population of the slave states, leading to control of the House of Representatives by free states, the Senate became the preoccupation of slave-state politicians interested in maintaining

1020-647: The U.S. Constitution was ratified, had prohibited slavery in the federal Northwest Territory . The southern boundary of the territory was the Ohio River , which was regarded as a westward extension of the Mason-Dixon line . The territory was generally settled by New Englanders and American Revolutionary War veterans granted land there. The 6 states created from the territory were all free states: Ohio (1803), Indiana (1816), Illinois (1818), Michigan (1837), Wisconsin (1848), and Minnesota (1858). By 1815,

1080-498: The Virginia Company of Plymouth , was a company chartered by King James in 1606 along with the Virginia Company of London with responsibility for colonizing the east coast of America between latitudes 38° and 45° N . The Plymouth Company was funded by wealthy investors from Plymouth, Bristol, and Exeter such as Sir John Popham and Sir Ferdinando Gorges . Competition between the two branches with overlapping territory

1140-517: The domestic slave trade , which remained legal until slavery was banned entirely in 1865 by the 13th Amendment . In the late 1850s, an unsuccessful campaign was launched by several southern states to resume the international slave trade, to restock their slave populations, but this met with strong opposition. However, there was a large natural increase in the slave population throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries, while some illegal smuggling of African slaves continued via Spanish Cuba . One of

1200-629: The patent ) agreed to finance the settlers’ trip in return for repayment of their expenses plus interest out of the profits made. The Plymouth Company established the one-year Popham Colony in present-day Maine in 1607, the northern answer to Jamestown Colony . Two ships, the Gift of God and Mary and John , arrived in August 1607 with around 100 settlers. The colony was led by George Popham, nephew of Sir John Popham, and Raleigh Gilbert, nephew of Sir Walter Raleigh . Popham Colony fared better than Jamestown in

1260-524: The 1840 census (see Slavery in the United States#Abolitionism in the North ). In the South, Kentucky was created as a slave state from Virginia (1792), and Tennessee was created as a slave state from North Carolina (1796). By 1804, before the creation of new states from the federal western territories, the number of slave and free states was 8 each. By the time of Missouri Compromise of 1820,

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1320-408: The 1850s, culminating in numerous skirmishes and devastation on both sides of the question. Nevertheless, the North prevented Kansas Territory from becoming a slave state, and when Southern members of Congress departed en masse in early 1861, Kansas was immediately admitted to the Union as a free state. When the admission of Minnesota proceeded unimpeded in 1858, the balance in the Senate ended; this

1380-606: The Council for New England. The Popham Colony was abandoned in 1608. In 1620, after years of disuse, the Plymouth Company was revived and reorganized as the Plymouth Council for New England with a new charter, the New England Charter of 1620. The Plymouth Company had 40 patentees at that point, and established the Council for New England to oversee their efforts, but it stopped operating in 1624. The Council for New England

1440-703: The District of Maine from the rest of the Commonwealth. The following month, on July 19, voters in the district approved statehood by 17,091 to 7,132. The results of the election were presented to the Massachusetts Governor's Council on August 24, 1819. The Maine Constitution was unanimously approved by the 210 delegates to the Maine Constitutional Convention in October 1819. On February 25, 1820,

1500-565: The District of Maine to manage its northernmost counties, bounded on the west by the Piscataqua River and on the east by the Saint Croix River. By 1820, the District had been further subdivided with the creation of Hancock , Kennebec , Oxford , Penobscot , Somerset , and Washington counties. A movement for Maine statehood began as early as 1785, and in the following years, several conventions were held to effect this. Starting in 1792, five popular votes were taken but all failed to reach

1560-571: The General Court passed a follow-up measure officially accepting the fact of Maine's imminent statehood. At the time of Maine’s request for statehood, there were an equal number of free and slave states . Pro- slavery members of the United States Congress saw the admission of another free state, Maine, as a threat to the balance between slave and free states. They would support statehood for Maine only if Missouri Territory , where slavery

1620-655: The Mormon view on Black people. On June 19, 1862, fulfilling a part of his 1860 campaign platform, President Lincoln signed the law ending slavery in Utah Territory and all other territories. While California's state constitution outlawed slavery, the 1850 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians allowed the indenture of Native Californians. This law provided for apprenticing or indenturing Indian children to Whites, and also punished vagrant Indians by hiring them out to

1680-754: The Pacific coast. To avoid creating a free state majority in the Senate, California agreed to send one pro-slavery and one anti-slavery senator to Congress. The difficulty of identifying territory that could be organized into additional slave states stalled the process of opening the western territories to settlement. Slave-state politicians made efforts to annex Cuba (see: Lopez Expedition and Ostend Manifesto , 1852) and Nicaragua (see: Filibuster War , 1856–57), with intentions to create new slave states. Parts of Northern Mexico were also coveted, with Senator Albert Brown declaring "I want Tamaulipas , Potosi , and one or two other Mexican States ; and I want them all for

1740-540: The U.S. Congress. By the time the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863, Tennessee was already under Union control. Accordingly, the Proclamation applied only in the 10 remaining Confederate states. During the war, abolition of slavery was required by President Abraham Lincoln for readmission of Confederate states. The U.S. Congress , after the departure of the powerful Southern contingent in 1861,

1800-609: The Union after its own years-long bloody fight over slavery. During the war, slavery was abolished in some of the slave states, and the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution , ratified in December 1865, abolished slavery throughout the United States, except as punishment for a crime. Slavery was established as a legal institution in each of the Thirteen Colonies , starting from 1619 on wards with

1860-510: The Union, although Kentucky and Missouri also had competing Confederate state governments. In 1863 western Virginia, much of which had remained loyal to the Union, was admitted as the new state of West Virginia with a commitment to gradual emancipation. The following year Nevada , a free state in the West, was also admitted. During the Civil War, a Unionist government in Wheeling, Virginia , presented

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1920-459: The Unionist Virginia government, John S. Carlile and Waitman T. Willey . Senator Carlile objected that Congress had no right to impose emancipation on West Virginia , while Willey proposed a compromise amendment to the state constitution for gradual abolition. Sumner attempted to add his own amendment to the bill, which was defeated, and the statehood bill passed both houses of Congress with

1980-613: The West Virginia legislature completely abolished slavery, and also ratified the 13th Amendment on February 3, 1865. In the District of Columbia , formed with land from two slave states, Maryland and Virginia, the trade was abolished by the Compromise of 1850 . So as to avoid losing the profitable slave-trading businesses in Alexandria (one was Franklin and Armfield ), Alexandria County, D.C., requested that it be returned to Virginia, where

2040-902: The addition of what became known as the Willey Amendment. President Lincoln signed the bill on December 31, 1862. Voters in western Virginia approved the Willey Amendment on March 26, 1863. President Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, which exempted from emancipation the border states (four slave states loyal to the Union ) as well as some territories occupied by Union forces within Confederate states. Two additional counties were added to West Virginia in late 1863, Berkeley and Jefferson . The slaves in Berkeley were also under exemption but not those in Jefferson County. As of

2100-650: The arrival of "twenty and odd" enslaved Africans in Virginia . Although indigenous peoples were also sold into slavery, the vast majority of the enslaved population consisted of Africans brought to the Americas via the Atlantic slave trade . Due to a lower prevalence of tropical diseases and better treatment , the enslaved population in the colonies had a higher life expectancy than in the West Indies and South America, leading to

2160-427: The census of 1860, the 49 exempted counties held some 6000 slaves over 21 years of age who would not have been emancipated, about 40% of the total slave population. The terms of the Willey Amendment only freed children, at birth or as they came of age, and prohibited the importation of slaves. West Virginia became the 35th state on June 20, 1863, and the last slave state admitted to the Union. Eighteen months later,

2220-455: The cold winter of 1607, and their president, George Popham, was the only colonist who died. Fifty colonists returned to England that December. Leadership fell to second-in-command Raleigh Gilbert for six months, until a supply ship in autumn 1608 brought news that he had inherited a title and land in England following his brother's death. The ship also brought news about the death of Sir John Popham,

2280-562: The county led to its division in 1760 through the creation of Cumberland and Lincoln counties. The northeastern portion of present-day Maine was first sparsely occupied by Maliseet Indians and French settlers from Acadia . The lands between the Kennebec and Saint Croix rivers were granted to the Duke of York in 1664, who had them administered as Cornwall County , part of his proprietary Province of New York . In 1688, these lands (along with

2340-494: The dividing line between the slave and free states was called the Mason-Dixon line (between Maryland and Pennsylvania), with its westward extension being the Ohio River . The 1787 Constitutional Convention debated slavery, and for a time slavery was a major impediment to passage of the new constitution . As a compromise, slavery was acknowledged but never mentioned explicitly in the Constitution. The Fugitive Slave Clause , Article 4, section 2, clause 3, for example, refers to

2400-508: The highest bidder at a public auction if the Indian could not provide sufficient bond or bail. The new settlers took 10,000 to 27,000 California Native Americans as forced laborers, including 4,000 to 7,000 children. In April 1863, after the declaration of the Emancipation Proclamation , the California legislature abolished all forms of legal indenture and apprenticeship for Native Americans. At

2460-505: The importation of slaves. In 1863, voters approved the Willey Amendment, which provided for gradual abolition of slavery, with the last enslaved people scheduled to be freed in 1884. On February 3, 1865, the state legislature approved immediate abolition. The Restored Government of Virginia – the Unionist government that governed the limited territory then under Union control that had not left to form West Virginia – voted to end slavery at

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2520-411: The momentum for antislavery reform appeared to run out of steam, with half the states having already abolished slavery ( Northeast ), prohibited it from the start ( Midwest ), or committed to eliminating it, and half committed to continuing the institution indefinitely ( South ). The potential for political conflict over slavery at the federal level made politicians concerned about the balance of power in

2580-718: The necessary majorities. During the War of 1812 , British and Canadian forces occupied a large portion of Maine including everything from the Penobscot River east to the New Brunswick border with the goal of annexing them to Canada as the Colony of New Ireland . A weak response by Massachusetts to this occupation and possible British annexation contributed to increased calls in the district for statehood. The Massachusetts General Court passed enabling legislation on June 19, 1819, separating

2640-494: The other compromises of the Constitution was the creation of the Three-Fifths Clause by which slave states acquired increased representation in the House of Representatives and Electoral College equivalent to 60% of their disenfranchised slave populations. Slave states had wanted 100% of their slaves to be counted, whereas Northern states argued that none should be. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, passed just before

2700-549: The practice. Pennsylvania abolished slavery in 1780, and about half of the states had abolished slavery by the end of the Revolutionary War or in the first decades of the new country, although this did not always mean that existing slaves became free. Vermont — having declared its independence from Britain in 1777 and thus not being one of the Thirteen Colonies — banned slavery in the same year, before being admitted as

2760-580: The rest of New York) were subsumed into the Dominion of New England . English and French claims in western Maine would be contested, at times violently, until the British conquest of New France in the French and Indian War . With the creation of the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1692, the entirety of what is now Maine became part of that province. When Massachusetts adopted its state constitution in 1780, it created

2820-591: The same reason – for the plantation and spreading of slavery". In 1854, the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was superseded by the Kansas–Nebraska Act , which allowed white male settlers in the new territories to determine, by vote ( popular sovereignty ), whether they would allow slavery within each territory. The result was that pro- and anti-slavery elements flooded into Kansas with the goal of voting slavery up or down, leading to bloody fighting . An effort

2880-508: The settlers of Jamestown, gave them less time to prepare for the harsh Maine winter. Unlike Jamestown, colonists abandoned Popham Colony before they found a resource or product to profit from. They did, however, produce the first ship built by English colonists in the Americas, the Virginia of Sagadahoc . Despite failing to establish a permanent settlement, the knowledge of local peoples and geography proved useful for future colonial endeavors under

2940-535: The slave trade was legal; this took place in 1847. Slavery in the District of Columbia remained legal until 1862, when, over strong opposition from slaveholding residents, Congress passed the DC Compensated Emancipation Act . Many former slaveholders in the District refused to obey the new law which required Congress to pass supplemental legislation in 1862 that allowed enslaved people to file petitions for their own freedom. Although it did not become

3000-597: The start of the Civil War, there were 34 states in the United States, 15 of which were slave states. Eleven of these slave states, after conventions devoted to the topic, issued declarations of secession from the United States, created the Confederate States of America , and were represented in the Confederate Congress . The slave states that stayed in the Union – Maryland, Missouri, Delaware, and Kentucky (called border states ) – retained their representatives in

3060-409: The war's end. The Union-occupied state of Tennessee abolished slavery by popular vote on a constitutional amendment that took effect February 22, 1865. However, slavery legally persisted in Delaware, Kentucky, and (to a very limited extent, due to a trade ban but continued gradual abolition) New Jersey, until the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery throughout

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3120-460: Was compounded by the subsequent admission of Oregon as a free state in 1859. The following table shows the balance between slave and free states that began in 1812. The Statehood columns provide the year the state either ratified the U.S. Constitution or was admitted to the Union . The date ranges in the Abolition column for Free States indicate when gradual abolition laws were adopted and when slavery finally ended, except for states where slavery

3180-425: Was considered by the slave states to be politically imperative that the number of free states not exceed the number of slave states, so new states were admitted in slave–free pairs. There were, nonetheless, some slaves in most free states up to the 1840 census, and the Fugitive Slave Clause of the U.S. Constitution , as implemented by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 , provided that

3240-681: Was generally abolitionist: In a plan endorsed by Abraham Lincoln, slavery in the District of Columbia , which the Southern contingent had protected, was abolished in 1862. In Southern states, freedom for slaves typically followed the Union army's gaining control of an area. The Emancipation Proclamation declared all enslaved people in areas then under Confederate control free, but, in practice, freedom required either slaves reaching Union lines or Union forces reaching their area. As Union forces advanced from January 1, 1863, to June 19, 1865 , slaves were freed. West Virginia did not abolish slavery in its first proposed constitution of 1861, though it did ban

3300-499: Was initiated to organize Kansas for admission as a slave state, paired with Minnesota , but the admission of Kansas as a slave state was blocked because its proposed pro-slavery constitution (the Lecompton Constitution ) had not been approved in an honest election. Anti-slavery proponents during the " Bleeding Kansas " period of the later 1850s were called Free-Staters and Free-Soilers , and fought against pro-slavery Border Ruffians from Missouri. The animosity escalated throughout

3360-657: Was intended to motivate efficient settlement, but only the Virginia Company succeeded in establishing a permanent colony. The Virginia Company emerged at a time when European empires chartered corporations for their imperial efforts. The English East India Company and Dutch East India Company had both recently received royal charters by their governments. The Virginia Company represented a new strategy that relied less on protected trade and ports: settler colonialism . Many of these early colonists sought to establish lasting communities with political institutions, as developed in Jamestown. The merchants (with George Popham named in

3420-412: Was legal, would be admitted to the Union as a slave state. Maine became the nation's 23rd state on March 15, 1820, following the Missouri Compromise , which allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave-holding state and Maine as a free state. 45°30′N 69°00′W  /  45.5°N 69°W  / 45.5; -69 Plymouth Company The Plymouth Company , officially known as

3480-441: Was not dissolved until 1635 and issued several patents after 1624, including one to John Mason for New Hampshire and to New Plymouth Colony with the Bradford patent of 1630. Slave states and free states In the United States before 1865, a slave state was a state in which slavery and the internal or domestic slave trade were legal, while a free state was one in which they were prohibited. Between 1812 and 1850, it

3540-404: Was outlawed in a specific year. From 1812 through 1850, maintaining the balance of free and slave state votes in the Senate was considered of paramount importance if the Union were to be preserved, and states were typically admitted in pairs: California was admitted as a free state in 1850 without an accompanying slave state, though certain concessions were made to the slave states as part of

3600-454: Was still independent before it joined the United States as the 14th state in 1791. These state jurisdictions thus enacted the first abolition laws in the Atlantic World . By 1804 (including New York (1799) and New Jersey (1804)), all of the Northern states had abolished slavery or set measures in place to gradually abolish it, although there were still hundreds of ex-slaves working without pay as indentured servants in Northern states as late as

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