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1619 BCE
events leading to the Civil War.
English settlers in Virginia purchase 20 Africans from a Dutch ship. The Africans were sold as indentured servants, not slaves. The distinction being an indentured servant may ultimately become free for working for some number of years. It was not long before all Africans arriving were treated as slaves, bought and sold into a lifetime of slavery for them and their descendents. -
Massachusetts Bay Colony legalizes slavery.
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Virginia legalizes slavery.
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Maryland becomes the first colony to enact laws that recognize slavery for life. Under prior English law slaves who became Christians were granted freedom.
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Virginia passes a law revoking the prior English law that allowed for slaves that converted to Christianity to become free.
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The first organized protest against slavery in the new world was drafted by a group of Quakers in Germantown, PA. Known as the Germantown Protest
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In the town of Stono, South Carolina a band of slaves starts an insurrection. Previous runaway slaves had made their way to Florida, where they had been given freedom and land.
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The Pennsylvania Abolition Society is organized to protect the rights of blacks unlawfully held as slaves.
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The colonies declare independence from English rule with the adoption of The Declaration of Independence. Written largely by Thomas Jefferson, the document declares "all men are created equal." Jefferson and many of the signers of the document
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Vermont, an American colony and still not a state, is the first government entity to abolish slavery.
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Pennsylvania became the first state to abolish slavery with a laws calling for gradual abolition.
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Massachusetts abolishes slavery and grants voting rights to blacks and Native Americans.
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At the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, delegates debated whether Congress should halt importation of slaves. South Carolina and Georgia delegates threatened
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Kentucky becomes the fifteenth state and enters the Union as a slave state.
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Tennessee becomes the sixteenth state and enters the Union a slave state.
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Ohio becomes the seventeenth state and enters the Union as a free state based on the terms of the Northwest Ordinance.
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New Jersey's state legislature announces a gradual emancipation act.
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Indiana becomes the nineteenth state and enters the Union as a free state.
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Alabama becomes the twenty second state and enters the Union as a slave state.
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Missouri becomes the twenty fourth state and enters the Union as a slave state.
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The Tariff Act of 1832 reduces duties. The South, still dissatisfied threatens secession. South Carolina's legislature organizes an army and declare the tariffs null and void
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A Compromise Tariff Act is passed as a means of gradually reducing the tariffs of concern in the southern states. Confrontation is averted with this compromise.
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Iowa becomes the twenty ninth state and enters the Union as a free state in 1846.
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Minnesota becomes the thirty second state and enters the Union as a free state in 1858.
