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At Jamestown, Virginia, approximately 20 captive Africans are sold into slavery in the British North American colonies.
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Massachusetts is the first colony to legalize slavery.
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Virginia enacts a law of hereditary slavery meaning that a child born to an enslaved mother inherits her slave status.
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In Virginia, black slaves and black and white indentured servants band together to participate in Bacon's Rebellion.
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Rice cultivation is introduced into Carolina. Slave importation increases dramatically.
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The Virginia Slave Code codifies slave status, declaring all non-Christian servants entering the colony to be slaves. It defines all slaves as real estate, acquits masters who kill slaves during punishment, forbids slaves and free colored peoples from physically assaulting white persons, and denies slaves the right to bear arms or move abroad without written permission.
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An alleged slave revolt in New York City leads to violent outbreaks. Nine whites are killed and eighteen slaves are executed.
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The Spanish reverse a 1730 decision and declare that slaves fleeing to Florida from Carolina will not be sold or returned.
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Slaves in Stono, South Carolina, rebel, sacking and burning an armory and killing whites. The colonial militia puts an end to the rebellion before slaves are able to reach freedom in Florida.
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The first separate black church in America is founded in South Carolina.
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In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers, forbids its members from holding slaves; the same year the declaration of independence is signed
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Mum Bett and another Massachusetts slave successfully sue their master for freedom.
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The Northwest Ordinance forbids slavery, except as criminal punishment, in the Northwest Territory (later Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin). Residents of the territory are required to return fugitive slaves.
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The U.S. Constitution is officially adopted by the new nation when New Hampshire becomes the ninth state to ratify it. The document includes a fugitive slave clause and the "three-fifths" clause by which each slave is considered three-fifths of a person for the purposes of congressional representation and tax apportionment.
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Eli Whitney patents the cotton gin, making cotton production more profitable. The market value of slaves increases as a result.
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In Pennsylvania the Underground Railroad is officially established.
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The American Colonization Society is founded to help free blacks resettle in Africa.
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The Missouri Compromise forbids slavery in the Louisiana territory north of Missouri's Southern border. Under its terms, Maine is admitted to the Union as a free state and Missouri as a slave state.
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In Boston, Massachusetts, David Walker publishes his widely read vociferous condemnation of slavery, AN APPEAL TO THE COLORED CITIZENS OF THE WORLD.
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Nat Turner, an enslaved Baptist preacher believing himself divinely inspired, leads a violent rebellion in Southampton, Virginia. At least 57 whites are killed.
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New York City hosts the first National Anti-Slavery Society Convention.
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In the case of Prigg v. Pennsylvania, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the 1793 Fugitive Slave law is constitutional, while state personal liberty laws make unconstitutional demands on slave owners. Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave law is declared the federal government's responsibility, not the states'.
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Anti-slavery groups organize the Free Soil Party, a group opposed to the westward expansion of slavery from which the Republican Party will later be born.
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The Compromise of 1850 admits California to the Union as a free state, allows the slave states of New Mexico and Utah to be decided by popular sovereignty, and bans slave trade in D.C.
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The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dred Scott v. Sanford denies citizenship to all slaves, ex-slaves, and descendants of slaves and denies Congress the right to prohibit slavery in the territories.
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Abraham Lincoln is elected to the presidency.
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Congress abolishes slavery in Washington, D.C., and the territories.
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Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in areas of rebellion.
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The thirteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolishes slavery throughout the country.
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Two African Americans sit in the Massachusetts Legislature. It is the first time black representatives have participated in this branch of American government.
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Congress overrides Presidential vetoes to pass the first, second, and third Reconstruction Acts, ushering in the period known as "Radical Reconstruction," during which the governments of all Southern States, except Tennessee, are declared invalid and the states are broken up into military districts overseen by federal troops.
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Tennessee is the first of many Southern states to establish an all white, Democratic "Redeemer" government sympathetic to the cause of the former Confederacy and against racial equality.
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The Ku Klux Klan Act is passed, giving the federal government the right to mete out punishment where civil rights laws are not upheld and to use military force against anti-civil rights conspiracies.
