The Underground Railroad: Crash Course Black American History #15

Escape was one of the many ways that enslaved people resisted their captivity in the system of American slavery. The Underground Railroad was not literally a railroad. It was a network of people, routes, and safe houses that helped people escape from slavery in the south to freedom in the north. Today we’ll talk about

War & Expansion: Crash Course US History #17

In which John Green teaches you about the Mexican-American War in the late 1840s, and the expansion of the United States into the western end of North America. In this episode of Crash Course, US territory finally reaches from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific Ocean. After Oregon was secured from the UK and the

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793: Crash Course Black American History #10

One of the ways that the US Constitution baked the institution of slavery into the very core of the new United States was through the fugitive slave clause. The clause required that people who escaped slavery be returned to their enslavers. In parts of the US that didn’t want slavery, the clause sometimes went unenforced.