About Eras
Abolitionism & the Slave Power (1850–1861)
The Haymarket Affair & the Anti-Anarchist Era (1886–1903)
The First Red Scare (1917–1920)
World War II: Japanese Incarceration & the First Smith Act Trials (1941–1945)
McCarthyism (1947–1957)
COINTELPRO (1956–1971)
The Vietnam War Era (1964–1975)
The American Indian Movement & Wounded Knee (1973–1977)
The Reagan Era (1981–1989)
The Anti-Globalization Movement (1999–2001)
The War on Terror (2001–)
The Green Scare (2005–2010)
Occupy Wall Street (2011–2012)
Ferguson & the Movement for Black Lives (2014–2016)
Standing Rock & the #NoDAPL Water Protectors (2016–2017)
J20: The Inauguration Day Prosecutions (2017)
The George Floyd Uprising (2020)
The Stop Cop City Era (2022–)
The Trump-Era Crackdown on Palestine Solidarity (2024–)
Civil Rights & Black Power
About Abolitionism & the Slave Power (1850–1861)
The Fugitive Slave Rescue Trials (1851–1859)
The Christiana Treason Trial (1851)
The Imprisoned Conductors: Torrey, Fairbank & Walker (1844–1864)
John Brown & the Harpers Ferry Prisoners (1859–1860)
ABOLITIONISM & THE SLAVE POWER (1850–1861)
The first Americans imprisoned and executed for defying the federal government's defining institution were enemies of slavery. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 made aiding an escape a federal crime and produced the prosecutions that followed the Christiana Resistance (1851), the Jerry Rescue (1851), and the Oberlin–Wellington Rescue (1858). John Brown was hanged for treason against Virginia after the October 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry, and his captured co-defendants — including John Anthony Copeland Jr. and Shields Green — were executed alongside him.