1823 (place)

"...We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintain it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States. ...

United States President James Monroe, in his December 2 State of the Union address

Born in 1823:

• German mathematician Ferdinand Eisenstein.
• German (Jewish) mathematician Leopold Kronecker.
• French mathematician Guillaume Jules Hoüel.
• Russian physicist August Yulevich Davidov.
• English naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace.
• Italian mathematician Enrico Betti.
• Scottish sculptor George Mossman.
• German philologist Max Müller.
• Irish-born American photography pioneer Matthew Brady.
• French composer Édouard Lalo.
• American paleontologist Joseph Leidy.
• French painter Sophia Anderson.
• American politican Schuyler Colfax.
• Kentucky militia leader and Confederate general Simon Bolivar Buckner.
• American diarist of the Civil War Mary Boykin Miller (Chesnut).
• Georgia (and later Confederate) politician Benjamin Harvey Hill.
• American painter Charles Wilson Knapp.
• English pottery manufacturer John Aynsley.
• Union general John Pope.
• American zoologist Spencer Fullerton Baird.
• Japanese painter Kunisada Utagawa II.
• Chinese statesman Li Hongzhang.
• Chinese painter Xugu.
• Chinese painter Ren Xiong.
• Sudeten-born Austrian political reformer Hans Kudlich, participant in 1848 Vienna uprising.
• African-American businessman, lawyer, and abolitionist Mifflin Gibbs.
• American-born Canadian educator and journalist Mary Ann Shadd Cary.
• English politician and author Charles Buxton.

Died in 1823:

• English author Ann Radcliffe.
• French statesman and engineer Lazare Nicolas Marguérite Carnot.
• English mathematician and engineer Charles Hutton.
• English physician Edward Jenner, inventor of the first smallpox vaccine.
• Dutch born English economist David Ricardo.
• French painter Pierre-Paul Prud'hon.
• Louis Nicholas Davout, one of Napoleon's marshals.
• Spanish general and rebel leader Rafael del Riego y Nuñez.
• Japanese poet Ota Nampo, beter known as Shokusanjin.
• Chinese mathematician Dong Youcheng.
• Slave rebel leader Quamina and British missionary Reverend John Smith, see below.
• British military engineer and geodesist William Lambton, midway through surveying his 'Great Arc' control network through India. His assistant George Everest takes over the job.
• Pope Pius VII. Cardinal Annibale Della Genga is elected to replace him, taking the title Leo XII.
• Zalim Singh Ji I, Dewan of Kota.
• Osei Bonsu, king of Ghana. Osei Yaw Akoto succeeds him.

Events of 1823:

• Clement Clarke Moore's Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas creates our moden perception of Santa Claus as a fat 'jolly old elf' wearing a red suit.
• Gioachhino Rossini's opera Semiramide premeires.
• Carl Maria von Weber's opera Euryanthe premeires.
• The Royal Astronomical Society awards Charles Babbage a gold medal for his 'difference engine'.
• Sir Walter Scott's novels Quentin Durward and Peveril Of The Peak are published.
• James Fenimore Cooper's novels The Pioneers (the first of his Leather-stocking Tales featuring Natty Bumppo) and The Pilot (the first American sea novel) are published.
• Mexican emperor Agustin de Iturbide permits Americans to settle in Texas. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna's insurrection makes gains, and Santa Anna proposes a republic with his Plan of Casa Mata. His support crumbling, Iturbide undissolves the Mexican Constituent Congress on March 4, then abdicates on March 19 and flees to Italy. Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Costa Rica are allowed to break away from Mexico (which holds onto Chiapas), forming the United States of Central America. Reconvened, the Constituent Congress annuls the Texas colonization law but grandfathers the earlier grants to Steven Austin.
• The United States stops the interdiction of slave ships off West Africa.
• The first contingent of freed blacks leaves the United States for Liberia.
• Oneida Indians are expelled from New York; they settle near present-day Green Bay, Wisconsin.
• Mexico enacts a treaty with the Navajo and breaks it three months later.
• William Wilberforce and other British abolitionists form an Anti-Slavery Society in Great Britain. American abolitionists found an American counterpart. Thomas Fowell Buxton brings before Parliament a proposal to gradually abolish slavery in British colonies.
• (East Coast Demerara Rebellion) News comes to Guyana ("Demerara") of Buxton's proposal. Governor John Murray attempts to suppress this news, which turns into a rumor among Guyana slaves of impending emancipation. When freedom is not forthcoming, they assume that local slavemasters are suppressing the order. On August 17, slaves at Success plantation The revolt spreads to over 60 plantations, involving 10-12000 slaves, making it the largest slave revolt in modern history. But it is crushed the same night. Quamina is shot by slavecatchers and his corpse is publicly hanged. John Smith is assumed to have had knowledge of the revolt, is arrested and sentenced to death, but he dies of pneumonia before news of the sentence reaches his jailers.
• Lord Byron founds his own partisan brigade to fight the Turks for Greek independence. The Turks fail to take Missolonghi and lose the initiative in the war, but Greek Commanders take the opportunity to fight amongst themselves.
• At the previous year's Congress of Verona, France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia decided that a liberal democracy was not for Spain, and authorizes the French to rescue Ferdinand VII from his arrest at Cadiz. The French quickly take Madrid and the The Spanish army is defeated at the Battle of Trocadero on August 31, and Ferdinand then revokes Spain's constitution and orders bloody reprisals.
• When the British envoy to America suggests that Great Britain and The United States make a joint statement against the French intervention in Spain, John Quincy Adams convinces President James Monroe that any American statement would carry more weight if made independently. With the Russians eyeing California and the French eyeing Mexico, Adams begins to develop a policy stating essentially 'Stay out of American affairs and we'll stay out of European affairs', the first public expression of which comes during Monroe's December address to Congress (along with hand-wringing over Spain).
• In Portugal, João VI's brother Miguel joins a revolt (the 'Vilafrancada') of absolutists led by the Count of Amarante. Across the Atlantic, João's son Pedro I is receiving opposition from Brazilian-born politicians who think Pedro's regime isn't Brazilian enough. Portugese constitutionalists beg Pedro to return to Portugal, but he demurs. João revokes most of the constitution and appoints Miguel to generalissimo (commanding the Portugese military).
• The Treaty of Erzurum ends the war between the Ottoman Empire and Iran, restoring the status quo ante.
• Chile abolishes slavery.

1822 - 1823 - 1824

How they Were Made - 19th Century

Thanks to liveforever for pointing out typos and suggesting Max Müller.