15^th Century

Slavery, dating back to antiquity, comes under European control due to economic expansion westward

1440

First large-scale enslavement of African peoples by western Europeans

16^th-19^th Centuries

Transatlantic slave trade disperses millions of slaves to European colonies in the New World

1619

First Africans arrive in Jamestown, Virginia, initially identified as indentured servants

1641

Massachusetts Bay Colony sanctions enslavement of African workers; status of white indentured remains the same

1660

Maryland and Virginia legalize slavery of Africans; status of children to be determined by status of the mother

1739

Stono Rebellion; South Carolina Sea Island slaves rebel and attempt to reach Florida; over one hundred killed

1745-97

Olaudah Equiano; former slave who wrote his autobiography, entitled Life, totally by himself, thus dispelling myth that blacks could not represent themselves by themselves

1753-84

Phillis Wheatley; former slave; first African American to publish a book; most noted for her poetry about being Negro, a former slave, and a woman

1755

All thirteen colonies legally recognize chattel slavery

1770’s

Slave labor becomes vital to Southern economy due to plantations system of growing rice, tobacco, sugar, and indigo; Northern economy grows toward development of small farms and industry

1775

Prince Hall and fourteen other free blacks initiated into British Army Lodge Masonic Order, stationed at Boston Harbor, first African American Masonic Order

1776

Declaration of Independence signed

1786

One of the earliest organized slave escapes documented when Quakers aid runaways from Virginia

1787

US Constitution drafted; forbids Congress from interfering with slave trade before 1808; enslaved persons counted as three-fifths of a person in census

1787

Prince Hall receives charter for African Lodge No.1; African Masonic Lodges later named after their founder, Prince Hall

1793

Invention of cotton gin ensures importance of slavery to Southern economy

1793

First Fugitive Slave Law passed

1793

Canada’s only antislavery law passed

1801

First Caucasian Masonic Lodge established in Charleston, South Carolina

1803

Haiti achieves independence from France; abolishes slavery

1816

British abandon Fort Gadson in Florida; Seminole Indians and fugitive slaves take it over and rename it Fort Negro; Andrew Jackson is dispensed by the government to take it again, thus beginning the Seminole Wars

1817

Andrew Jackson takes command of federal troops engaging in war against Seminoles and African American runaways in Florida

1822

Denmark Vesey, a free black in Charleston, organizes plan to free slaves; he is betrayed by a slave who told his master about the plot; Vesey and thirty-four slaves are executed

1822

Eighteen slaves from the Ibo tribe link arms and wade into Dunbar Creek saying “Water brought us and water’s gonna take us away.”  Site now called Ibo Landing, located on St. Simons Island, Georgia; their actions are now celebrated in Negro spiritual, “Oh, Freedom”

1829

David Walker publishes his “Appeal,” which is smuggled aboard ships heading to the South and passed around Southern cities; in it Walker calls for violent resistance to slavery

1829

Isabella Van Wagener changes her name to Sojourner Truth, becomes an abolitionist, and starts preaching in the North

1830’s

Rise in popularity of the railroad train lends name and image to movement of escaping slaves

1831

Nat Turner, slave and preacher, leads seventy-five slaves in revolt to take Virginia armory; he is later captured and killed

1831

William Lloyd Garrison begins publication of abolitionist newspaper The Liberator

1833

British Emancipation Act; all slavery abolished in British Empire, including Canada

1838

Black abolitionist Robert Purvis becomes chairman of the General

1839

Spanish ship Amistad taken over by illegally enslaved Africans who mutinied; trying to return to Africa, they end up off Long Island coast; Spaniards go to court to get Africans back; enslaved Africans were members of Mende Poro secret society; John Quincy Adams defends Africans before the Supreme Court, who ruled in 1840 that a slave who escapes illegal bondage is free; Amistad Africans return to Africa

1839-1911

Harriet Powers; sewed her Bible quilts (Smithsonian quilt dates to 1886, Boston Fine Arts Quilt around 1895)

1847

First Prince Hall Masonic Lodge established in Hamilton, Ontario

1847-63

Frederick Douglass, U.S. abolitionist and escaped slave, publishes newspaper, the North Star

1848

First Women’s Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, New York; abolitionists Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Frederick Douglass attend; women’s rights and abolitionist movements join forces

1849

Harriet Tubman, escaped slave, leads over three hundred slaves to freedom via Underground Railroad over a period of several years

1850

Second Fugitive Slave Law passed

1851

Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which reveals the harshness of slavery and stimulates abolitionist sentiments

1851

Sojourner Truth gives “Ain’t I a Woman” speech at women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio, protesting both racial and gender stereotyping

1856

Henry “Box” Brown mails himself in wooden crate from Richmond, Virginia, to Philadelphia to the Anti-Slavery Society to attain freedom; he succeeds

1857

Dred Scott Case; Supreme Court rules against Dred Scot, who filed suit claiming freedom when his owner took him to the free state of Illinois but then sent Scott back to Missouri, a slave state

1858

On Jekyll Island, Georgia, slave ship Wanderer arrives carrying what may have been the last cargo of slaves to America

1859

John Brown, U.S. abolitionist, raids arsenal at Harper’s Ferry to attain guns to lead slave insurrection; captured and hanged later that year

1861

Outbreak of Civil War with the firing on Fort Sumter, South Carolina

1862

Penn School on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, founded; one of the first Southern schools for newly freed slaves; Laura Towne and Ellen Murray were founders; Charlotte Forten became the first black teacher in 1863

1863

Abraham Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation

1863

African American Masonic members compose 54^th Massachusetts Brigade stationed in Charelston, South Carolina, across the street from the Citadel

1865

End of Civil War with the surrender of Confederate forces

1865

Thirteenth amendment to Constitution prohibits slavery in the United States

1872

William Still, free black in Philadelphia and most famous conductor, writes his book The Underground Railroad; he interviewed every runaway sent to him and chronicled their stories in this book