History: American Civil War for Kids

Back to History for Kids The American Civil War was fought between southern and northern states of the United States. The southern states didn't want to be part of the United States any more and decided to make their own country. However, the northern states wanted to stay one country. The South (Confederacy) When the southern states decided to break away, or secede, they made their own country called the Confederate States of America, or the Confederacy. The North (Union) The North consisted of the remaining 25 states which were located in the north. Why did the Southern states want to leave? The Southern states were worried that as the United States expanded, they would gain less power. Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln was the president of the United States during the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln The Fighting The Civil War was the deadliest war in American history. Recommended books and references: The American Civil War : An Overview by Carin T.

The Civil War . The War The Civil War was fought in 10,000 places, from Valverde, New Mexico, and Tullahoma, Tennessee, to St. Albans, Vermont, and Fernandina on the Florida coast. More than 3 million Americans fought in it, and over 600,000 men, 2 percent of the population, died in it. American homes became headquarters, American churches and schoolhouses sheltered the dying, and huge foraging armies swept across American farms and burned American towns. Americans slaughtered one another wholesale, right here in America in their own cornfields and peach orchards, along familiar roads and by waters with old American names. In two days at Shiloh, on the banks of the Tennessee River, more American men fell than in all the previous American wars combined. The Civil War has been given many names: the War Between the States, the War Against Northern Aggression, the Second American Revolution, the Lost Cause, the War of the Rebellion, the Brothers’ War, the Late Unpleasantness.

Slavery in America - Black History Slavery in Plantations and Cities Slavery and the Presidency In the 17th and 18th centuries, enslaved Africans worked mainly on the tobacco, rice and indigo plantations of the southern coast, from the Chesapeake Bay colonies of Maryland and Virginia south to Georgia. Before the rise of the American Revolution, the first debates to abolish slavery emerged. Did you know? But after the end of the American Revolutionary War, slavery was maintained in the new states. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, European and American slave merchants purchased enslaved Africans who were transported to the Americas and forced into slavery in the American colonies and exploited to work in the production of crops such as tobacco, wheat, indigo, rice, sugar, and cotton. By the mid-19th century, America’s westward expansion and the abolition movement provoked a great debate over slavery that would tear the nation apart in the bloody Civil War. Cotton Gin But in 1793, a U.S. Though the U.S. Slave Rebellions

The Civil War - September 17, 1787 When the delegates to what would become the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia in 1787, they had the task of creating a new framework of government which would be workable, reflected American republican ideals, and would be acceptable to the majority of constituencies. One major compromise was the counting of slaves as 3/5 of a person for purposes of allocating representation. Another compromise was the continuance of the slave trade for the next 20 years. March 6, 1820 - December 31, 1820 The first in a series of crises regarding the extension of slavery ended in 1820 with the Missouri Compromise, which admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state in an attempt to maintain the balance of slave and free states. August 21, 1831 - August 22, 1831 September 20, 1850 - December 31, 1850 The Compromise of 1850 was a group of five congressional bills that dealt with the expansion of slavery into the land gained from the Mexican War. March 20, 1852

Pathways to Freedom | About the Underground Railroad What is slavery? Slavery is a system of labor in which people are forced to work for someone else without pay and without the freedom to leave if they want to. Slaves have to work and live as their masters tell them to. Have other countries ever had slavery? « back to Slavery and Free Blacks Websites for Kids Civil War Websites for Kids The Civil War for Kids » This is a website made for kids by kids of Mrs. Huber's class at Pocantico Hills School in Sleepy Hollow, New York. It contains cool graphs, pictures, and other items that help explain the American Civil War. Kids Konnect » This site contains fun articles on Civil War subjects like photography and women during the Civil War. BrainPop for Kids » A website that features fun and informative animated movies about the American Civil War. Civil War Websites for Kids The Civil War for Kids » This is a website made for kids by kids of Mrs. Kids Konnect » This site contains fun articles on Civil War subjects like photography and women during the Civil War. BrainPop for Kids » A website that features fun and informative animated movies about the American Civil War.

Slavery in America Stories from Slavery Read the stories of the slaves and the slave masters and how they shaped 19th century society Slaves in the New World Nobody knows the name of the small Dutch warship that sailed into Point Comfort the summer of 1609 carrying “20 and odd Negroes”. According to a letter written by John Rolfe, the twenty Africans (no one knows their names or where they came from–those details were not important back then) were sold to a Jamestown merchant marking the beginning of a long and dark chapter in American history. Slave ships were built to be light and fast. By 1609, the sale of African slaves to the America’s was 100 years old. Historians are not sure if this first cargo of Africans were seen as true slaves by the Jamestown colonists or more like indentured servants who served for a period of time under a contract and then were freed. By the end of the 17th century things began to change for the worse for African-Americans.