King Charles I of Spain sanctions the direct transport of slaves from Africa to the American colonies. The slave trade is controlled by the Crown, which sells the right to import slaves to entrepreneurs.
The Portuguese begin using African slaves in Brazil. From then until the abolition of slavery in Brazil in 1888, at least 10 million Africans were forcibly brought to the Americas.
For the Atlantic slave trade, captives were purchased from slave dealers in West African regions known as the Slave Coast. Africans were sold into slavery as a result of a defeat in warfare or kidnapping.
The transatlantic slave trade became one of the largest forced migrations in human history. From the early 16th to the late-19th centuries, between 10 and 11 million Africans are taken from their homes and sent to the Americas.
By the 16th Century, Spanish missionaries, such as Antonio Montesino and Bartolome de Las Casas had begun to criticize the practice of slavery.
A Dutch slave trader arrives in Jamestown, Virginia, exchanging the cargo of African slaves for food. The Africans become indentured servants, a legal status similar to poor Englishmen who trade years of labor for passage to America. The racial-based slave system does not develop in the American English colonies until the 1680s.
The Dutch West Indies Co. is formed. According to Dutch law, the children of manumitted slaves are bound to slavery.
Ten slaves were listed in the first census of Jamestown. The first public slave auction of 23 individuals was held in Jamestown square in 1638.
By 1640, the Virginia courts had sentenced at least one black servant to slavery beginning the gradual transition from indentured servanthood to slavery.
Massachusetts colony legalizes slavery.
Virginia colony enacts law to fine those who harbor or assist runaways. Slaves are branded after a second escape attempt.
Barbados is the first British possession to enact restrictive legislation governing slaves. Virginia and Maryland quickly follow suit. Whipping and branding, borrowed from Roman slavery, become standard practice.
Slavery was legalized in Virginia in the 1660s. Between 1700 and 1773, 80,000 or more slaves were imported into the colony.
Virginia passes a slave code declaring that a child born of a slave mother will be held to be a slave, regardless of its father's legal status.
Virginia passes another slave law declaring that "Baptisme doth not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or freedome."
Maryland passes a law that all imported blacks are to be given the status of slaves. Free white women who marry black slaves are to be slaves during the lives of their spouses.
Maryland makes lifelong servitude for African slaves mandatory to prevent them from taking advantage of legal precedents established in England that grant freedom under various circumstances, including conversion to Christianity. Similar laws are passed in New York, New Jersey, the Carolinas, and Virginia.
Virginia passes a slave code establishing compulsory servitude for the life of any slave, establishing slavery as an official institution of the English colonies.
Virginia declares that if an African slave died at the hands of a master who used "extremity of correction" to overcome the slave's "obstinancy," it was not murder.
The King of England charters the Royal African Company to bring the shiploads of slaves into trading centers like Jamestown, Hampton, and Yorktown in Virginia.
Mennonite Quakers sign an anti-slavery resolution in Pennsylvania, which becomes the first formal protest against slavery in the Western Hemisphere.
Slaves charged with crimes in Virginia are tried in special non-jury courts. The purpose is not to guarantee due process, but to set an example speedily. In addition to the customary whipping, punishment includes hanging, burning at the stake, and dismemberment.
Quakers importing slaves are threatened with expulsion from the Society of Friends.
The British Parliament opens the slave trade to all and the number of slaves transported on English ships increases dramatically to an average of 20,000 per year. By the end of the 17th century, England leads the world in the trafficking of slaves.
The opening of the British slave shipping creates what becomes known as the "Triangle Trade." Merchant vessels care New England rum to African slavers, then African slaves on "the middle passage" to the West Indies, and finally, West Indian sugar and molasses to New England for the rum distilleries.
The status of African-Americans is sealed with the passage of Virginia's slave code: "All servants imported and brought into the Country...who were not Christians in their native Country...shall be accounted and be slaves. All Negro, mulatto and Indian slaves within this dominion...shall be held to be real estate."
The Spanish South Sea Company imports more than 4,800 African slaves per year into Spain's New World colonies with investment backing from Great Britain.
A slave named Onesimes, the property of a Puritan leader, develops a cure for the smallpox virus.
The "Junto," a benevolent association founded by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia, opposes slavery.
The Great Awakening begins in Massachusetts. The movement spreads throughout the colonies, releasing religious fervor in both blacks and whites. As a result, many blacks join the Methodist and Baptist Churches.
Three slave revolts occur in South Carolina, resulting in the deaths of 51 whites and many more slaves. One of the revolts, led by the slave, Cato, results in the death of 30 whites.
Virginia passes a law declaring slaves to be "chattel personal in the hands of their owners and possessors for all intents, construction, and purpose whatsoever."
The Quaker's Philadelphia yearly meeting declares that slavery is inconsistent with Christianity. In 1761, slave traders are excluded from the Society of Friends, despite the fact that many Quakers own slaves.
In the Somersett case, Britain's Lord Chief Justice William Murray, rules that "as soon as any slave sets foot in England he becomes free. James Somersett, one of 10,000 black slaves in Britain, had escaped from his master and then was apprehended.
The First Continental Congress agrees to temporary termination of the importation of Africans into the colonies. In fact, this was merely a tactical blow against the British slave trade, not an attack against slavery itself.
The Quakers play a dominant role in the formation of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, the first anti-slavery society in America.
Lord Dunmore, Governor-General of the Colony of Virginia, encourages indentured servants and free blacks to enlist in British service during the Revolutionary War. Most slaves and free blacks who fled to the British continued to be employed as military laborers.
Thousands of blacks respond to the royal offer of freedom for those who fight with the British. After the war, several thousand black Loyalists go to Canada, most settling in Nova Scotia.
In an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, the British king was attacked for his involvement in the slave trade. He was charged with going against human nature by violating the sacred rights of life and liberty. This section was deleted after objections from southern colonies.
Vermont becomes the first U.S. territory to abolish slavery.
An American black battalion of 300 former slaves is formed and compensated on par with their white comrades. They are promised freedom after the war. In August, the battallion kills 1,000 Hessians and later sees action under Colonel Green at Ponts Bridge in New York.
Virginia bans the importing of slaves into the Commonwealth. "Every slave who should be imported should become free."
Pennsylvania passes the Gradual Abolition Act, the first emancipation statute in the United States.
By the Constitution of 1780, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts declares that persons of color descended from African slaves are made citizens of the State.
The Virginia legislature authorizes manumission of slaves as the "peculiar institution" begins to die out in some parts of the South. Approximately 10,000 Virginia slaves will be freed in the next decade because they are too old, ill, or costly to maintain.
The Virginia House of Delegates votes to repeal the voluntary manumission of slaves. The meassure passes by a single vote.
James Madison speaks in the Virginia Legislature in favor of a Jefferson bill for the gradual abolition of slavery. The measure fails.
British abolitionists cleric Thomas Clarkson joins the famous English potter, Josiah Wedgwood and others to form the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade recruits William Wilberforce as its parliamentary spokesman.
British Prime Minister William Pitt agrees to establish a select committee of the Privy Council to investigate the slave trade.
The American Constitutional Convention adopts a "three-fifths rule" as a compromise to settle differences between Northern and Southern states over the counting of slaves for purposes of representation and taxation. Slaves are to be counted as three-fifths of a free man.
French abolitionists, inspired by their British counterparts, founded the Societe des Amis des Noirs (Society of the Friends of Blacks).
The British Parliament passes an act prohibiting British subjects from engaging in the slave trade after March 1, 1808.
Slave trading is declared a felony punishable by exile in a penal colony for all British subjects or foreigners caught trading in British possessions. Britain assumes most of the responsibility for abolishing the transatlantic slave trade.
Portugal accepts 750,000 British pounds to restrict the slave trade in Brazil.
Spain accepts 400,000 British pounds to abandon the slave trade to Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo.
Whites in the newly formed American Colonization Society (ACS) announce their desire to return free blacks to Africa. Black representatives led by Richard Allen reject the idea, arguing that they should not abandon their enslaved fellow blacks.
Holand and France abolish the slave trade.
The American Colonization Society (ACS) establishes a colony in Liberia.
Slave trading is declared by the British Parliament to be tantamount to piracy. Until 1837 slave traders face the penalty of death.
The bloody Nat Turner Rebellion in Virginia prompts and increased repression of slave activities. Small-scale slave resistance, such as breaking tools, running away, learning to read, and sporadic violence, continues to interfere with plantation operations.
Impatience with gradualistic plans to end slavery prompts abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to advocate for immediate liberty for the slaves. Working with former slaves and freeborn blacks, he formes the American Anti-Slavery Society.
African slaves kill some of the crew and seize control of the Spanish schooner Amistad. They are apprehended by a U.S. Navy warship and taken to trial for murder. The case goes to the Supreme Court, argued by former president John Quincy Adams. The Court rules for the Africans and they are transported back to African.
Former slave Frederick Douglass joins with black nationalist Martin Delany to establish an independent black journal, the North Star.
The Fugitive Slave Act increases pessimism among blacks about the possibility of a peaceful end to slavery. Several violent clashes occur when armed black try to protect escaped slaves or sought to free captured slaves.
Black abolitionist like Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Maria Steward are active in advocating for an end to slavery. Tubman and others helped slaves escape through the Underground Railroad.
The infamous Dred Scott ruling by the Supreme Court increases tensions. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney declares that all blacks--slaves as well as free--are not and could never become citizens of the United States. The court also declares the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, thus permiting slavery in all of the country's territories.
The white abolitionist John Brown leads a slave uprising against the U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. The raid is halted by soldiers led by Colonel Robert E. Lee. Brown is tried, found guilty and hanged. On the day of his death he wrote "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood."
After the election of Abraham Lincoln, eleven southern states seceeded from United States, forming the Confederate States of America. Fighting commences on April 12, when Confederate forces attack a Federal military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
Congress gives the president authority to use black troops. The 54th Massachusetts Regiment gaines fame in 1863 when it spearheads an assault on Fort Wagner near Charleston, South Carolina. Of the 600 men who storm Fort Wagner, 116, including Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, are killed.
After a hard-fought Union victory at the Battle of Antietam, President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in the Confederate states free. The Emancipation ensures that Britain and France will not intervene on the side of the Confederacy.
Robert E. Lee's invasion of the North was repulsed at the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, marking the turning point in the war.
The Confederacy collapses after Lee's surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.
On June 19, 1865, 250,000 slaves were freed in Texas as word arrived of the collapse of the Confederacy. This completed the emancipation of nearly four million slaves -- more than 12% of the total population of the United States at that time. Today this day is celebrated as 'Juneteenth' in 14 states in the U.S.
The Freedmen's Bureau assumes responsibility for the welfare of free slaves. A clear national policy regarding the future status of blacks emerges only gradually in the United States.
Brazil frees all slaves.
The Civil Rights Act is passed. The Act declares, "All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin."
There are approximately 27 million slaves in bondage around the world today. You can make a difference. Go to The Amazing Change Web site to find out how you can help.
