Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) fugitive slave laws, in U.S. history, the federal acts of 1793 and 1850 providing for the return between states of escaped black slaves. Similar laws existing in both North and South in colonial days ...

(Encyclopedia) Brooke, Sir James, 1803–68, rajah of Sarawak on Borneo, b. India, of English parents. After active service in Burma (1825–26), he retired (1830) from the army of the East India Company. He sailed ...

(Encyclopedia) Jackson, Claiborne Fox, 1806–62, governor of Missouri, b. Fleming co., Ky. In 1822 he moved to Missouri, where he practiced law. Speaker of the state legislature (1844–46), he later was a leader o...

(Encyclopedia) Wright, Elizur ĭlīˈzər [key], 1804–85, American actuary and antislavery leader, b. near Canaan, Conn., grad. Yale, 1826. He taught (1829–33) mathematics at Western Reserve College. In 1833 he ...

(Encyclopedia) Berdyaev, Nicholas bĕrdyīˈəf [key], 1874–1948, Russian theologian and religious philosopher, b. Kiev. After an early period as a Marxist, Berdyaev became prominent in a brilliant circle of Russi...

(Encyclopedia) Tubman, William Vacanarat Shadrach, 1895–1971, president of Liberia (1944–71). As a young man he was a lawyer, a collector of internal revenue, a teacher, and an officer of the Liberian militia. H...

(Encyclopedia) Wilson, Henry, 1812–75, American politician, Vice President of the United States (1873–75), b. Farmington, N.H. At 21 he legally changed his name from Jeremiah Jones Colbath, and as Henry Wilson h...

(Encyclopedia) Gwin, William McKendree, 1805–85, American politician, b. Sumner co., Tenn. He received (1828) a degree in medicine from Transylvania Univ. and practiced in Clinton, Miss., until 1833. He represente...

(Encyclopedia) Channing, William Ellery, 1780–1842, American Unitarian minister and author, b. Newport, R.I. At 23 he was ordained minister of the Federal St. Congregational Church in Boston, where he served until...

(Encyclopedia) Martineau, Harriet märˈtĭnō [key], 1802–76, English author. A journalist rather than a writer of literature, she was an enormously popular author. Her success is the more remarkable since she wa...