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Period: to
18th Century
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1705
The Virginia Slave codes defines as slaves all those servants brought into the colony who were not Christian in their original countries, as well as those American Indians sold to colonists by other Indians. -
1712
The New York Slave Revolt of 1712, one of the first of many such rebellions. -
1739
In the Stono Rebellion, South Carolina slaves gather at the Stono River to plan an armed march for freedom. -
1739
In the Stono Rebellion, South Carolina slaves gather at the Stono River to plan an armed march for freedom. -
1760
Jupiter Hammon has a poem printed, becoming the first published African-American poet. -
1770
Crispus Attucks is killed by British soldiers in the Boston Massacre, a precursor to the American Revolution. -
1773
Phillis Wheatley has her book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral published. -
1774
The first black Baptist congregations are organized in the South: Silver Bluff Baptist Church in South Carolina, and First African Baptist Church near Petersburg, Virginia. -
1775
The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully held in Bondage holds four meetings. It was re-formed in 1784 as the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, and Benjamin Franklin would later be its president. -
1776–1783 American Revolution
Thousands of enslaved African Americans in the South escape to British or Loyalist lines, as they were promised freedom to fight with the British. In South Carolina, 25,000 enslaved African Americans, one-quarter of those held, escape to the British or otherwise leave their plantations.[7] After the war, many African Americans are evacuated with the British for England; more than 3,000 Black Loyalists are transported with other Loyalists to Nova Scotia and New Bruns -
Period: to
American Revoultion
1776–1783 American Revolution -
1777
The Vermont Republic (a sovereign nation at the time) abolishes slavery, the first future state to do so. -
1780
Pennsylvania becomes the first U.S. state to abolish slavery. -
1781
In challenges by Elizabeth Freeman and Quock Walker, two independent county courts in Massachusetts found slavery illegal under state constitution and declared each of them, former slaves, to be free persons. -
1783
1783
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirmed that Massachusetts state constitution had abolished slavery. It ruled that "the granting of rights and privileges [was] wholly incompatible and repugnant to" slavery, in an appeal case arising from the escape of former slave Quock Walker. -
1787
The Northwest Ordinance bans the expansion of slavery into U.S. territories north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River -
1788
The First African Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia is organized under Andrew Bryan. -
Period: to
Manumission of Slaves
1790–1810 Manumission of slaves -
1791
Major Andrew Ellicott hires Benjamin Banneker, an African-American draftsman, to assist in a survey of the boundaries of the 100-square-mile (260 km2) federal district that would later become the District of Columbia. -
1793
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 is passed. (See also Fugitive slave laws.) -
1794
Eli Whitney is granted a patent on the cotton gin. This enables the cultivation and processing of short-staple cotton to be profitable in the uplands and interior areas of the Deep South; as this cotton can be cultivated in a wide area, the change dramatically increases the need for enslaved labor and leads to the development of King Cotton as the chief commodity crop. -
1790-1810; Manumission of Slaves
Following the Revolution, numerous slaveholders in the Upper South free their slaves; the percentage of free blacks rises from less than one to 10 percent. By 1810, 75 percent of all blacks in Delaware are free, and 7.2 percent of blacks in Virginia are free.
