1615 


1619 

The first African slaves arrive in Virginia. 


1620


1785 


1787 

Slavery is made illegal in the Northwest Territory. The U.S Constitution states that Congress 
may not ban the slave trade until 1808. 


1790 


1793 

Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin greatly increases the demand for slave labor. 


1793 

A federal fugitive slave law is enacted, providing for the return slaves who had escaped and 
crossed state lines. 


1795


1800 


1800 

Gabriel Prosser, an enslaved African American blacksmith, organizes a slave revolt intending 
to march on Richmond, Virginia. The conspiracy is uncovered, and Prosser and a number of the 
rebels are hanged. Virginia's slave laws are consequently tightened. 


1805 


1808 

Congress bans the importation of slaves from Africa. 


1810


1815


1820 


1820 

The Missouri Compromise bans slavery north of the southern boundary of Missouri. 


1822 

Denmark Vesey, an enslaved African American carpenter who had purchased his freedom, 
plans a slave revolt with the intent to lay siege on Charleston, South Carolina. The plot is 
discovered, and Vesey and 34 coconspirators are hanged. 


1831 

Nat Turner, an enslaved African American preacher, leads the most significant slave uprising 
in American history. He and his band of followers launch a short, bloody, rebellion in Southampton 
County, Virginia. The militia quells the rebellion, and Turner is eventually hanged. As a 
consequence, Virginia institutes much stricter slave laws. 


1831 

William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing the Liberator, a weekly paper that advocates the 
complete abolition of slavery. He becomes one of the most famous figures in the abolitionist 
movement. 


1846 

The Wilmot Proviso, introduced by Democratic representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, 
attempts to ban slavery in territory gained in the Mexican War. The proviso is blocked by 
Southerners, but continues to enflame the debate over slavery. 


1849 

Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery and becomes one of the most effective and celebrated 
leaders of the Underground Railroad. 


1850 

The continuing debate whether territory gained in the Mexican War should be open to slavery 
is decided in the Compromise of 1850: California is admitted as a free state, Utah and New Mexico 
territories are left to be decided by popular sovereignty, and the slave trade in Washington, DC is 
prohibited. It also establishes a much stricter fugitive slave law than the original, passed in 1793. 


1852 

Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin is published. It becomes one of the most 
influential works to stir anti-slavery sentiments. 


1854 

Congress passes the Kansas-Nebraska Act, establishing the territories of Kansas and 
Nebraska. The legislation repeals the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and renews tensions between 
anti- and proslavery factions. 


1857 

The Dred Scott case holds that Congress does not have the right to ban slavery in states 
and, furthermore, that slaves are not citizens. 


1859 

John Brown and 21 followers capture the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Va. (now W. Va.), 
in an attempt to launch a slave revolt. 


1860 


1861 

The Confederacy is founded when the deep South secedes, and the Civil War begins. 


1863 

President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring "that all persons held as 
slaves" within the Confederate state "are, and henceforward shall be free." 


1865 

The Civil War ends. Lincoln is assassinated. The Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery 
throughout the United States. On June 19 slavery in the United States effectively ended when 
250,000 slaves in Texas finally received the news that the Civil War had ended two months earlier. 


1870





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