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Dates |
Event |
Group affected |
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Jump to: 1840
1850 1860 1870
1880 1890 1900
1910 1920 1930
1940 1950 1960
1970 1980 1990
2001 |
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1786 |
The U.S. establishes
first Native American reservation and policy of dealing with each
tribe as an independent nation. |
Native American |
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1790 |
The federal government
requires two years of residency for naturalization |
All Groups |
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1808 |
Congress bans importation
of slaves. |
African American |
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1816 |
The American Colonization
Society formsassists in repatriating free African Americans
to a Liberian colony on the west coast of Africa. |
African American |
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1819 |
Congress establishes
reporting on immigration. |
All Groups |
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1820 |
The Compromise of
1820 admits Maine as a free state, Missouri as a slave state and
prohibits slavery in territories north of Missouri. |
African American |
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1830 |
Congress passes the
Removal Act, forcing Native Americans to settle in Indian Territory
west of the Mississippi River. |
Native American |
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1838 |
Cherokee Indians forced
on thousand-mile march to the established Indian Territory. Approximately
4,000 Cherokees die on this Trail of Tears. |
Native American |
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1845 |
Potato crop fails
in Ireland sparking the Potato Famine which kills one million
and prompts almost 500,000 to immigrate to America over the next
five years. |
Irish |
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1848 |
The Mexican-American
War ends: U.S. acquires additional territory and people under
its jurisdiction. |
Mexican |
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1849 |
The California Gold
Rush sparks first mass immigration from China. |
Chinese |
|
1850 |
The Compromise of
1850 includes the Fugitive Slave Act, a law designed to assist
in the recovery of runaway slaves by increasing federal officers
and denying fugitive slaves a right to a jury trial. |
African American |
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1857 |
Supreme Courts
Dred Scott Decision declares blacks are not U.S. citizens; rules
1820 Missouri Compromises ban on slavery in the territories
unconstitutional. |
African American |
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1860 |
Polands religious
and economic conditions prompt immigration of approximately two
million Poles by 1914. |
Polish & Russian |
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1861 |
Abraham Lincoln takes
the presidential oath of office. The Southern Confederacy ratifies
a new Constitution and elects Jefferson Davis as the first Confederate
president. The Civil War begins with Confederate soldiers firing
upon Fort Sumter. |
African American |
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1862 |
The American Homestead
Act allows any male over the age of 21 and the head of a family
to claim up to 160 acres of land and improve it within five years
or to purchase the land at a small fee.
|
Scandinavian |
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The Union Army permits
black men to enlist as laborers, cooks, teamsters, and servants. |
African American |
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1863 |
The Emancipation Proclamation
abolishes slavery and permits African-American men to join the
Union Army. |
African American |
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1864 |
Congress legalizes
the importation of contract laborers.
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Thousands of Navajo
Indians endure the Long Walk, a three-hundred mile
forced march from a Southwest Indian territory to Fort Sumner,
New Mexico. |
Native American |
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1868 |
The 14th Amendment
of the Constitution endows African Americans with citizenship.
|
African American |
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A clause in the 14th
Amendment excluding Indians not taxed prevents Native-American
men from receiving the right to vote.
|
Native American |
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Japanese laborers
arrive in Hawaii to work in sugar cane fields. |
Japanese |
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1870 |
The 15th Amendment
of the Constitution provides African-American males with the right
to vote. |
African American |
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1876 |
California Senate
committee investigates the social, moral, and political
effect of Chinese immigration. |
Chinese |
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1877 |
United States Congress
investigates the criminal influence of Chinese immigrants. |
Chinese |
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1880 |
Italys troubled
economy, crop failures, and political climate begin the start
of mass immigration with nearly four million Italian immigrants
arriving in the United States. |
Italian |
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1881 |
The assassination
of Czar Alexander II in 1881 prompts civil unrest and economic
instability throughout Russia. |
Polish & Russian |
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1882 |
Russias May
Laws severely restrict the ability of Jewish citizens to live
and work in Russia. The countrys instability prompts more
than three million Russians to immigrate to the United States
over three decades.
|
Polish & Russian |
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The Chinese Exclusion
Act of 1882 suspends immigration of Chinese laborers under penalty
of imprisonment and deportation. |
Chinese |
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1885 |
Congress bans
the admission of contract laborers. |
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1887 |
The Dawes Act dissolves
many Indian reservations in United States. |
Native American |
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1889 |
Unoccupied lands in
Oklahoma are made available to white settlers. |
Native American |
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1896 |
The Supreme Court
rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that separate but equal
accommodations for African Americans and whites are Constitutional.
This decision allows for legalized segregation. |
African American |
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1898 |
The Spanish-American
War begins with a naval blockade of Cuba and attacks on the island.
The four-month conflict ends with Cubas independence and
the U.S. acquisition of Puerto Rico and Guam. |
Cuban & Puerto
Rican |
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1900 |
Congress establishes
a civil government in Puerto Rico and the Jones Act grants U.S.
citizenship to island inhabitants. U.S. citizens can travel freely
between the mainland and the island without a passport. |
Cuban & Puerto
Rican |
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1907 |
The United States
and Japan form a Gentlemans Agreement in which
Japan ends issuance of passports to laborers and the U.S. agrees
not to prohibit Japanese immigration. |
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1911 |
The Dillingham Commission
identifies Mexican laborers as the best solution to the Southwest
labor shortage. Mexicans are exempted from immigrant head
taxes set in 1903 and 1907. |
Mexican |
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1913 |
Californias
Alien Land Law rules that aliens ineligible to citizenship
were ineligible to own agricultural property. |
Japanese |
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1917 |
The U.S.
enters World War I and anti-German sentiment swells at home. The
names of schools, foods, streets, towns, and even some families,
are changed to sound less Germanic. |
German |
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1922 |
The Supreme Court
rules in Ozawa v. United States that first-generation Japanese
are ineligible for citizenship and cannot apply for naturalization. |
Japanese |
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1924 |
Immigration Act of
1924 establishes fixed quotas of national origin and eliminates
Far East immigration.
|
Japanese |
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President Calvin Coolidge
signs a bill granting Native Americans full citizenship. |
Native American |
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1929 |
Congress makes
annual immigration quotas permanent. |
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1941 |
Japans surprise
attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii galvanizes Americas war effort.
More than 1,000 Japanese-American community leaders are incarcerated
because of national security.
|
Japanese |
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President Roosevelt
signs Executive Order 8802, forbidding discrimination in federal
hiring, job-training programs, and defense industries. The newly
created Fair Employment Practices Commission investigates discrimination
against black employees. |
African American |
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1942 |
President Franklin
Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, authorizing the building
of relocation camps for Japanese Americans living
along the Pacific Coast.
|
Japanese |
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Congress allows for
importation of agricultural workers from within North, Central,
and South America. The Bracero Program allows Mexican laborers
to work in the U.S. |
Mexican |
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1943 |
The Magnuson Act of
1943 repeals the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, establishes quotas
for Chinese immigrants, and makes them eligible for U.S. citizenship. |
Chinese |
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1945 |
The War Bride Act
and the G.I. Fiancées Act allows immigration of foreign-born
wives, fiancé(e)s, husbands, and children of U.S. armed
forces personnel. |
Chinese |
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1948 |
The Supreme Court
rules that Californias Alien Land Laws prohibiting the ownership
of agricultural property violates the Constitutions 14th
Amendment.
|
Japanese |
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The United States
admits persons fleeing persecution in their native lands; allowing
205,000 refugees to enter within two years. |
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1950 |
Bureau of Indian Affairs
terminates federal services for Native Americans in lieu of state
supervision. |
Native American |
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1952 |
The Immigration
and Nationality Act allows individuals of all races to be eligible
for naturalization. The act also reaffirms national origins quota
system, limits immigration from the Eastern Hemisphere while leaving
the Western Hemisphere unrestricted, establishes preferences for
skilled workers and relatives of U.S. citizens and permanent resident
aliens; and tightens security and screening standards and procedures.
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The Bureau of Indian
Affairs begins selling 1.6 million acres of Native American land
to developers. |
Native American |
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1953 |
Congress amends
the 1948 refugee policy to allow for the admission of 200,000
more refugees. |
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1954 |
The Supreme Court
rules in Brown v. Topeka Board of Education that separate
but equal educational facilities are unconstitutional. |
African American |
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1959 |
Fidel Castros
Cuban revolution prompts mass exodus of more than 200,000 people
within three years. |
Cuban & Puerto
Rican |
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1961 |
The Cuban Refugee
Program handles influx of immigrants to Miami with 300,000 immigrants
relocated across the U.S. during the next two decades. |
Cuban & Puerto
Rican |
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1964 |
The Civil Rights Acts
ensures voting rights and prohibits housing discrimination. |
African American |
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1965 |
The Immigration Act
of 1965 abolishes quota system in favor of quota systems with
20,000 immigrants per country limits. Preference is given to immediate
families of immigrants and skilled workers.
|
Chinese |
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Freedom flight
airlifts begin for Cuban refugees assisting more than 260,000
people over the next eight years.
|
Cuban & Puerto
Rican |
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The Bracero Program
ends after temporarily employing almost 4.5 million Mexican nationals. |
Mexican |
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1966 |
The Cuban Refugee
Act permits more than 400,000 people to enter the United States. |
Cuban & Puerto
Rican |
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1980 |
The Refugee Act
redefines criteria and procedures for admitting refugees. |
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1986 |
The Immigration
Reform and Control Act (IRCA) legalizes illegal aliens residing
in the U.S. unlawfully since 1982. |
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1988 |
The Civil Liberties
Act provides compensation of $20,000 and a presidential apology
to all Japanese-American survivors of the World War II internment
camps. |
Japanese |
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2001 |
A memorial honoring
Japanese-American veterans and detainees opens on the edge of
the Capitol grounds in Washington, D.C. |
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