CHRONOLOGY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN SLAVERY, 1400-1865 |
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| 1400s | Portugese sailors begin shipping Africans to Europe to be slaves. |
| 1500s | First slave ships from Africa arrive in the New World. |
| 1600s | Slave trade is expanded to North America, to supply the British and French colonies of New England and New France. |
| 1619 | First African slaves reach Virginia. |
| 1628 | First record of a slave arriving directly from Africa to New France. |
| 1689 | Louis XIV, the French king, gives French colonists permission to keep slaves, a practice forbidden in France itself. |
| 1760 | British conquer New France. As part of the war settlement, the British agree that the status of slaves will not be changed. |
| 1772 | Slaves in England are given their freedom, although it is still legal for the English to take part in the international slave trade. |
| 1775 | American Revolution begins when the thirteen American colonies rise up against Britain. The British promise freedom to any American slaves who fight on the English side. Loyalists move to Canada with their slaves. |
| 1787 | American Constitution declares that slaves that escape to a free state must be returned to their masters. |
| 1793 | First Fugitive Slave Act is passed by the U.S. Congress, making it a crime for anyone in the United States to help runaway slaves or prevent their arrest. The Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe, passes an act saying that any slave who reaches Upper Canada will become free. |
| 1800s | Underground railroad is first organized. |
| 1807 | British Parliament bans all trading and shipping of African slaves. The United States makes it illegal to bring more slaves in from outside the country although slaves can still be traded within the slave-owning states. |
| 1812 | The War of 1812 breaks out when the United States declares war on Britain and attacks Canada. Again, the British offer land and freedom to American blacks who fight on their side. |
| 1819 | Canadians deny the American government’s request for cooperation in returning slaves who escaped to Canada, and for permission to pursue escaped slaves into Canadian territory. |
| 1820 | Under the Missouri Compromise, Missouri enter the Union as a slave holding state and Maine enters as a free state, keeping the number of free and slave holding states even. |
| 1826 | Canada formally refuses to return runaway slaves to the United States. |
| 1833 | British Parliament passes the Abolition Act, abolishing slavery throughout the British Empire. |
| 1850 | The Compromise of 1850 attempts to resolve a furious debate over whether slavery should be allowed in Texas, California, Utah, and New Mexico. The passage of the second Fugitive Slave Act is part of the compromise. |
| 1852 | Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriot Beecher Stowe is published. |
| 1859 | A group of black and white abolitionist, led by John Brown, raid a government arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, for guns and ammunition to raid surrounding plantations and free slaves, John Brown is hanged for treason, conspiracy, and murder. |
| 1860 | Abraham Lincoln, leader of the Republican Party, is elected president of the United States. Seven of the southern states break away from the Union to form their own country. |
| 1861 | Confederate forces attack Fort Sumter in South Carolina and the American Civil War begins. |
| 1862 | President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, abolishing slavery in the rebel southern states as of January 1, 1863. |
| 1865 | The South surrenders to the North and the slaves are freed. Lincoln is fatally shot by John Wilkes Booth. The 13th Amendment is added to the American Constitution outlawing slavery |