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The chronology below highlights some key milestones both in the expansion of slavery in the United States, and in the various forms of opposition and resistance to slavery. Links included here highlight digital resources and related research guides for further exploration.
1688 | Germantown protest against slavery |
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1775 | First meeting in Philadelphia of Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully held in Bondage (aka the Pennsylvania Abolition Society) |
1788 | Ratification of U.S. Constitution |
1800 | Gabriel’s Rebellion of the enslaved, Virginia, August |
1803 | Louisiana Purchase |
1808 | Abolition of the (international) slave trade |
1820 | Missouri Compromise (prohibits slavery north of 36°30´) |
1822 | Denmark Vesey Revolt of the enslaved, South Carolina, June |
1831 |
Founding of The Liberator newspaper demanding immediate, unconditional, uncompensated, and universal emancipation, Boston, January Nat Turner’s Rebellion of the enslaved, Virginia, August |
1832 - 1833 | Nullification Crisis |
1833 | Founding of the biracial American Anti-Slavery Society, Philadelphia |
1834 | Emancipation in the British West Indies |
1836 - 1844 | Gag rule prohibiting any discussion of the antislavery petitions then flooding into Congress |
1846 - 1848 | Mexican War, ends in the addition to the territory of the United States of the land that later became the states west of Louisiana |
1850 | Fugitive Slave Law, part of the Compromise of 1850 |
1851 | In Christiana, Pennsylvania, a group of escapees and supporters fight back against slavecatchers, and a slavecatcher is killed. |
1852 | Publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. |
1854 | Kansas-Nebraska Act is passed by Congress (effectively repeals the Missouri Compromise restriction on slavery’s expansion) |
1854 - 1856 | Violent skirmishes between pro- and anti-slavery migrants to Kansas Territory |
1856 | Pro-slavery U.S. Representative from South Carolina Preston Brooks surprises an unarmed anti-slavery U.S. Senator from Massachusetts Charles Sumner in the Senate chamber and beats him unconscious with a heavy cane. |
1857 | U.S. Supreme Court issues its decision in the Dred Scott case, maintaining that slaveholders may enjoy the protections of their human property anywhere in the Union, also that Black Americans are not U.S. citizens, and that they have no rights that White Americans are bound to respect. |
1859 | Abolitionist John Brown leads a biracial assault on the U.S. Armory at Harper’s Ferry, October 16. The raid fails and Brown is executed December 2. |
1860 | Abraham Lincoln, Republican candidate, wins the U.S. Presidential election. South Carolina secedes from the Union the next month, followed by ten other slaveholding states which form the Confederate States of America. |
1861 | Civil War breaks out between the Confederate States and the United States of America, April. |
1863 | President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, January, which frees all those enslaved in parts of the Confederacy not under the control of Union forces, and which allows for enlistment of Black Americans as soldiers in the Union Army. |
1864 | A presidential election is held while the Civil War raged. Abraham Lincoln is re-elected. |
1865 |
Abraham Lincoln is fatally shot about six weeks after his inauguration. Vice-President Andrew Johnson becomes President (April) The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, virtually abolishing slavery in the United States (December) |