1842 | Political Events
Political Events
Serbia's young prince Michael III Obrenovic leaves the country in August under pressure from opponents who resent his heavy taxation and internal reforms (see 1839). They elect Aleksandr Karageorgevic, 36, to succeed Michael, and he begins a reign that will continue until 1858.
Spain has another republican revolt (see 1841). Prime Minister Baldomero Espartero suppresses it with the same severity he showed last year (see 1843).
Portuguese strongman António Bernardo da Costa Cabral restores the nation's charter and begins an ultraconservative rule that will continue until 1846.
Napoleonic War general Rowland Hill, 1st Viscount Hill (of Hawkestone and Hardwicke), dies at Hardwicke Grange, Shropshire, December 10 at age 70, having been made viscount shortly before his death.
British forces in Afghanistan leave Kabul January 6 under pressure from Pashtun tribesmen who have promised them safe conduct back to India (see 1841). Lord Auckland has 4,500 Anglo-Indian troops under his command and is accompanied by 10,000 camp followers, but from January 6 to 13 Akbar Khan and his Ghilzai tribesmen use long-barreled rifles (jezails) to massacre all but 121 of Auckland's men at Jugdulluck (Gandamack) on the Kabul-Jellalabad road in the Khyber Pass, slaughtering the camp followers and perhaps 15,000 camels. Akbar's father, Dost Mohammed, regains the throne that he held from 1835 to 1839 and will keep until his death in 1863; a punitive force from India under General Sir George Pollock, 56, forces the Khyber Pass (the first army in history to do so), relieves the siege of Jellalabad April 16, and reoccupies Kabul in September, burning the Great Bazaar in retribution, but the emirs of Sind have shown hostility toward the British, and London gives Scottish soldier General Sir Charles (James) Napier, 58, complete civil and military authority to deal with them rather than leaving that authority to the resident governor (see 1843). The British and their sepoy troops withdraw from the exposed position in October on orders from London.
A British expeditionary force of 16 warships carrying 4,000 troops and 540 guns arrives off the coast of China, leases more ships from Jardine, Matheson & Company at Hong Kong, moves up the coast with Jardine opium chests, and occupies Shanghai June 19 (see 1841). The Treaty of Nanjing ends the Opium War that began in 1839; signed August 29 aboard H.M.S. Cornwallis moored in the Yangzi (Yangtse) River, it obliges China to bear the cost of the opium destroyed at Guangzhou (Canton) in 1839 and Britain's expense in prosecuting the war by paying the equivalent of £21 million, forbids her to impose any tariff above 5 percent, forces her to open her markets to foreign trade, legalizes the opium trade, and makes the country vulnerable to wholesale exploitation by the Western powers. China cedes Hong Kong to Britain (see 1841; 1860); Xiaman (Amoy), Guangzhou (Canton), Fuzhou (Foochow), Ningbo (Ningpo), and Shanghai are set apart as cities in which foreigners receive special privileges, including immunity from Chinese law, and in which foreigners may conduct trade under consular supervision. Traffic in opium continues without restraint (see Shanghai, 1843; Taiping Rebellion, 1850; Second Opium War, 1856).
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in its January term that parties to civil litigation in a federal court will use general common law rather than the law existing in the states in which the dispute arose. Justice Joseph Story's opinion in Swift v. Tyson expands federal court jurisdiction and will stand for 96 years (see Erie Railroad v. Tompkins, 1938).
Rhode Island's new People's Party adopts a new constitution, holds elections, and installs Thomas W. Dorr as governor May 3 (see 1841). The preexisting government refuses to recognize him, conservative elements in the state declare martial law, and although Dorr takes over the northwestern part of the state he fails to seize a state arsenal, will be tried for treason, and will be sentenced in 1844 to life imprisonment, although he will be released in 1845 (see Supreme Court decision, 1849).
The Webster-Ashburton Treaty signed August 9 by U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster and Alexander Baring, Baron Ashburton, now 68, finalizes the Maine-Canadian border, but the boundary of the Oregon Territory remains in dispute (see 1845).
A new civil war begins in South America as Peru remains locked in the war that began last year. Uruguay's exiled former president Manuel Oribe, now 46, gains support from the Argentine dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas in an effort to subjugate Uruguay, whose first president José Fructuoso Rivera, now 52, has just completed a second term in office (see 1843).
Former United Provinces of Central America president Francisco Morazán attempts to restore the federation (see 1840); he defeats the forces of Costa Rican dictator Braulio Carillo, but is betrayed, captured, and executed by a firing squad at San José, Costa Rica, September 15 at age 49.
Former Chilean dictator Bernardo O'Higgins dies in Peru sometime in October at age 65 (approximate).