DNR - Time Line of Slavery, Resistance and Freedom (1501

1501	Spanish settlers bring the first enslaved Africans to the Americas at Santo Domingo.
1562	The British join the slave trade.
1581	Spanish settlers bring enslaved Africans to St. Augustine, Florida.
1619	The British bring enslaved Africans to Jamestown.
1638	New England slave trade begins.
1662	Virginia law establishes that children of black mothers who were enslaved are automatically enslaved and free only if their mothers are legally free.
1712	Slaves in New York City revolt; the revolt is put down by the militia.
1736-1808	Hundreds of Africans and African Americans escape slavery in Colonial Virginia.
1739	Two white people and 40 African Americans are killed during the Stono Rebellion in South Carolina.
1775	The first American abolitionist society is founded in Philadelphia.
1775-1783	American Revolution
1775	Lord Dunmore's proclamation offers freedom to slaves who join the British cause.
1776	A draft of the Declaration of Independence blames King George III for the slave trade, and calls it "a cruel war against human nature." Northern and Southern slaveholding delegates object to its inclusion, and it is removed. On July 1, the Declaration of Independence declares "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
1787	The Northwest Ordinance becomes law on July 13. Article VI restricts slavery in the territory northwest of the Ohio River to punishment for convicted crimes, but it also says that any person escaping into the territory, whose labor someone else legally claims, can be turned over to the person claiming their labor.
1787	The U.S.Constitution is adopted on September 17. It declares that an enslaved person equals three-fifths of a white person. Article IV provides that people held in slavery in one state who escape into another cannot be released from slavery because of a law in the state to which they escape. People who are captured must be delivered to the person claiming their service or labor.
1791	The Bill of Rights is adopted. It says nothing about slavery. The Fifth Amendment guarantees that no person can "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Enslaved people are understood to be property, and those who claim ownership also claim an absolute right to take their slaves with them into free states or territories. Formerly enslaved and free Africans and people of color in Saint Dominque (later Haiti) overthrow French slavery.
1793	The Fugitive Slave Act states that any Federal district or circuit judge or any state magistrate is authorized to decide finally and without a jury trial the status of an alleged fugitive.
1800	Gabriel Prosser leads a plan for enslaved people in Virginia to revolt. Estimates of the number of men and women involved range from 1,000 to several thousand. Informers reveal the plan and flooding prevents action by the enslaved people.
1801	Toussaint L' Ouverture takes San Domingo, now the Domincan Republic, from the Spanish and abolishes slavery.
1802	The French capture Toussaint L' Ouverture.
1804	New York and Vermont extend the right of trial by jury to fugitives and provide them with attorneys.
1807	Transatlantic slave trade is abolished by the British Parliament. The United States importing enslaved people takes effect the following year.
1811	Led by Charles Deslondes, who was formerly enslaved in Saint Dominque, an estimated 500 enslaved people in two parishes near New Orleans revolt. Sixty-six enslaved people and two white people are killed. This is the largest revolt of enslaved people in the United States.
1814	In Jefferson County, Tennessee, Charles Osborn begins working to abolish slavery.
1820	The Missouri Compromise prohibits slavery in some states west of the Mississippi River.
1822	Denmark Vesey, Gullah Jack Pritchard and Monday Gell plan an insurrection near Charleston, South Carolina. It is estimated that thousands of men and women are involved. An enslaved man, George Wilson, reveals the plans, and they are thwarted.
1824	Indiana passes a personal liberty law that contradicts the Northwest Ordinance. The law hampers officials seeking to return fugitives to slavery. It provides a jury trial for fugitives who appeal an original decision against them.
1828	Connecticut passes a personal liberty law.
1830s	Free Blacks begin to purchase property in Calvin Township in Michigan in search of agricultural opportunities.
1831	Lucy and Thorton Blackburn escape enslavement in Louisville, Kentucky. In Southampton County, Virginia, Nat Turner and six men attack and kill male and female plantation owners and enslavers in an attempt to overthrow slavery.
1832	Women form the Logan Female Anti-slavery Society in Lenawee County, Michigan.
1833	African American residents of Detroit collectively oppose the Kentuckians who claim to own Lucy and Thorton Blackburn and return them to slavery. They help the Blackburns escape to Canada. Great Britain abolishes slavery and provides for the emancipation of enslaved people in the British West Indies, to take effect in August 1834. The Abolition of Slavery Act declares that the former enslaved people must serve a period of apprenticeship before receiving full emancipation and compensates "the persons hitherto entitled to the services of such slaves."
1834	Antislavery activists Elizabeth and Thomas Chandler, Chandler's father, Daniel Smith, and Laura and Charles Haviland withdraw from the Quaker church in Lenawee County, Michigan, because parishioners there refused a more active and immediate role in ending slavery.
1836	The first meeting of the Michigan State Anti-Slavery Society is held at the First Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor on November 10-11. Willis and Elsie Hamilton return to Lenawee County to rent land from the Havilands around this time. They had escaped slavery in Tennessee.

Share this link: