Timeline December 1816

Events in December 1816 3

• 1816 Spa Fields riots Mass unemployment meeting in London turns to disorder A large open-air meeting at Spa Fields in London, called to petition the Prince Regent over unemployment and high food prices worsened by the year's poor harvest, broke down when a radical faction tried to incite an armed uprising and looted gunsmiths' shops. The unrest heightened government fears of revolutionary conspiracy and led to a renewed crackdown on radical meetings.
• 1816 Indiana admitted as a US state Nineteenth state joins the United States Indiana was admitted to the Union as the nineteenth state, completing its transition from a federal territory. Its admission reflected the rapid westward settlement of the Old Northwest in the years after the War of 1812.
• 1816 American Colonization Society founded Washington group formed to resettle free Black Americans in Africa A group of politicians and clergymen, including Henry Clay and Francis Scott Key, founded the American Colonization Society in Washington, D.C. to promote the emigration of free African Americans to a colony in West Africa, a project that led to the founding of Liberia in 1822.