Historical Research Library

Discover the people, events, and key documents that shaped the Founding Era. 

Singers and dancers focused on Chris Jackson playing George Washington

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“Washington Reviewing the Western Army at Fort Cumberland, Maryland,” attributed to Frederick Kemmelmeyer, 1795 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Whiskey Rebellion, 1794

Pennsylvania farmers violently resisted a federal whiskey tax—illustrating the tensions between frontiersmen and the new government’s authority

Event
PetitionforFree

The Petition of the People of Colour of the State [of South Carolina],” April 30, 1794

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries a very small percentage of the Black population in South Carolina was not enslaved. They could not vote, did not have access to the same legal rights as White people, and were subject to special taxes, among other abuses. This petition sought to address and have rescinded one of those abuses, a poll tax aimed at free Black people. 

Supporting Document
A New Display of the United States, by Amos Doolittle, 1799 (Library of Congress)

Presidential Election of 1800

A fierce contest between John Adams, Charles Pinckney, Thomas Jefferson, and Aaron Burr that was marked by party polarization and scandal—testing the peaceful transfer of power

Event
Samuel Adams, from "An Impartial History of the War in America," 1780 (The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History)

Samuel Adams

One of the first Americans to challenge British rule and resist their policies in the 1760s and 1770s

Person
John Adams, by John Trumbull, 1793 (National Portrait Gallery)

John Adams

A leading proponent of independence, a congressman, a diplomat, and the second President of the United States

Person
Detail of Richard Allen, "From the plantation to the Senate," lithograph by Gaylord Watson, 1883 (Library of Congress)

Richard Allen

Prominent Philadelphia advocate for abolition and civil rights and founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church

Person
Benjamin Banneker, from the title page of "Benjamin Bannaker's [sic] Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Almanac, for the Year of Our Lord 1795" (Maryland Historical Society)

Benjamin Banneker

Scientist, mathematician, and author who challenged racial prejudices

Person
CuffeeBust2

Paul Cuffe

Black and Wampanoag businessman and shipbuilder who advocated for abolition, civil rights, and African colonization

Person
Benjamin Franklin, ca. 1789 (The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History)

Benjamin Franklin

A polymath and statesman who was a leading figure in science, literature, diplomacy, and governance

Person
Portrait of Prince Hall from the Grand Logde of British Culumbia and Yuko, (Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Prince Hall

Founder of the first African American Masonic lodge, in Boston, and advocate for abolition and civil rights

Person
Alexander Hamilton, John Trumbull Copy after: Giuseppe Ceracchi 1806, National Portrait Gallery

Alexander Hamilton

A poor immigrant from the Caribbean who became a key figure in the Revolution and in establishing the US government

Person
Anthony Ramos as Philip Hamilton. Photograph by Josh Lehrer.

Philip Hamilton

Eldest son of Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton who died in a duel defending his father’s honor

Person