Created in partnership with The Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State
The British Atlantic Slave Trade flourished during the 18th century with the rise of sugar, tobacco, and rice. These cash crops increased demand for enslaved African labor in the Americas. Slavery has been part of the history of the United States since the 17th century. During the colonial era, many laws preserved and reinforced the institution of chattel slavery, where enslaved people were treated as private property. This timeline explores legal and social events that impacted individuals, enslaved and free, from the founding of the nation to the Civil War.
Boston Massacre
Violence erupted in Boston between an unruly crowd of American colonists and British soldiers after tension over acts the British Parliament implemented in the colonies. On March 5, Crispus Attucks, believed to be formerly enslaved, became a martyr for the patriots' cause. Ten other colonists were injured or killed during the Boston Massacre. The incident was depicted by Paul Revere the patriotic silversmith, in his famous copperplate engraving.
Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral
Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was the first book published by an African American woman. Born in Africa and captured by slave traders, Wheatley ended up in Boston, Massachusetts, where she learned to read and write.
Lord Dunmore's Proclamation
In 1775, John Murray, fourth Earl of Dunmore and the last Royal Governor of Virginia declared, "all indented servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to Rebels,) free, that are able and willing to bear arms, they joining His Majesty’s Troops…" This decree allowed free and escaped Africans to join the British in the American Revolution.
Continental Army
George Washington initially opposed allowing free or enslaved Africans to fight in the Revolutionary War. He changed his mind when the British began offering freedom to those enslaved who fought against their patriot owners. Ultimately, Washington saw an estimated 5,000 black soldiers—free and enslaved—fight for the colonies.
Declaration of Independence
In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote a rough draft of the Declaration of Independence which included a section about slavery. The final draft, which included dozens of changes, no longer included the following text "...he [King George] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere…"
Vermont Abolishes Slavery
Vermont's legislators banned slavery in July 1777, however, there were still many laws and restrictions placed on free blacks within the colony.
Gradual Emancipation Laws
Over the next few decades, many states enacted gradual emancipation laws: Pennsylvania 1780, Massachusetts and New Hampshire 1783, Connecticut and Rhode Island 1784, New York 1799, and New Jersey 1804. The laws varied by state and often restricted the lives of those they freed.
Brom and Bett v. Ashley
Brom and Elizabeth Mum Bett were enslaved in Massachusetts and sued for their freedom under the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780. They won, becoming the first enslaved people to win their freedom under the constitution.
Virginia
The state of Virginia passed legislation permitting slaveowners to free enslaved people without a special act from the governor and General Assembly. To ensure owners were not using manumission as a way to save themselves the expense of caring for enslaved people, the state required those freed who could not provide for themselves “shall respectively be supported and maintained by the person so liberating them, or by his or her estate”.
From this moment forward, if George Washington had the financial ability he legally could have freed the enslaved people he owned.
End of the American Revolution
The New York Manumission Society
John Jay founded The New York Society for the Manumission of Slaves. In 1785, he expressed his views, writing, “I wish to see all unjust and all unnecessary discriminations everywhere abolished, and that the time may soon come when all our inhabitants of every colour and denomination shall be free and equal partakers of our political liberty.”
Washington's Changing Views
Throughout the 1780s and 1790s, Washington stated privately that he no longer wanted to be a slaveowner, that he did not want to buy and sell slaves or separate enslaved families, and that he supported a plan for gradual abolition in the United States. Yet, Washington did not always act on his antislavery principles. He avoided the issue publicly, believing that bitter debates over slavery could tear apart the fragile nation.
I never mean (unless some particular circumstance should compel me to it) to possess another slave by purchase: it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by the legislature by which slavery in the Country may be abolished by slow, sure, & imperceptible degrees.
George Washington, 1786
Northwest Ordinance
The Confederation Congress approved the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 and two years later, the first United States Congress renewed it. It stated “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted: Provided, always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid.”
Anti-Slavery Medallions
British potter Josiah Wedgwood first produced this medallion in 1787. Conceived as an abolitionist society’s symbol, these medallions found universal appeal as a humanitarian symbol calling for the end of the African Slave Trade. Wedgwood sent several to Benjamin Franklin who distributed them. Franklin wrote of the medallions, “I am persuaded it may have an Effect equal to that of the best written Pamphlet.”
US Constitution Ratified
In 1787, George Washington presided over 55 delegates from 12 states (Rhode Island did not attend) at the Constitutional Convention. One of the key delegates, today known as the "father of the Constitution," was James Madison. While the word slave or slavery could not be found within the Constitution, there were three compromises that directly dealt with the institution of slavery: enumeration, slave trade, and fugitive slaves.
Article I, Section 2, the Three-Fifths Compromise, counted one enslaved person equal to three-fifths of a free person in determining a state's population. This was significant in establishing taxes, seats within the House of Representatives, and the Electoral College, which elects the president. "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.
Article I, Section 9, the Slave Trade Clause, prevented Congress from ending the United States' involvement in the Atlantic Slave Trade for 20 years. "The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person."
Article IV, Section 2, the Fugitive Slave Clause, required those "held to Service or Labour", meaning apprentices, indentured servants, and enslaved people, had to be returned to their state if they were found to have run away. "No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due."
George Washington Inaugurated
The Civil War did not end slavery in the United States. Ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution officially abolished slavery, it took another one hundred years for the Civil Rights Acts to be enacted, and entrenched racism is still visible today.
Suggested Readings
Baptist, Edward. The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. New York: Basic Books, 2014.
Beckert, Seven. Empire of Cotton: A Global History. Penguin Random House, 2015.
Berlin, Ira and Ronald Hoffman, editors. Slavery and Freedom in the Age of the American Revolution. Charlottesville: The University of Virginia Press, 1983.
Hammond, John and Matthew Mason. Contesting Slavery: The Politics of Bondage and Freedom in the New American Nation. Charlottesville: The University of Virginia Press, 2011.
Horn, James, Jan Lewis, and Peter Onuf, editors. The Revolution of 1800: Democracy, Race, and the New Republic. Charlottesville: The University of Virginia Press, 2002.
Library of Congress. “A chronology of key events in the history of African American military service.” www.loc.gov/collections/gladstone-african-american-military-collection/articles-and-essays/timeline/
Mason, Matthew. Slavery and Politics in the Early American Republic. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2006.
Monticello. “Thomas Jefferson: Liberty & Slavery.” www.monticello.org/slavery-at-monticello/liberty-slavery/
Montpelier. “The Mere Distinction of Colour.” www.montpelier.org/resources/mere-distinction-of-colour
Montpelier. “Slavery, the Constitution, and a Lasting Legacy.” www.montpelier.org/learn/slavery-constitution-lasting-legacy
National Geographic. “A History of Slavery in the United States.” www.nationalgeographic.org/interactive/slavery-united-states/
National Park Service. “African Americans In The Revolutionary Period.” www.nps.gov/revwar/about_the_revolution/african_americans.html
The New York History Blog. “Black Americans in the Revolutionary War.” newyorkhistoryblog.org/2014/03/black-americans-in-the-revolutionary-war/
Oakes, James. Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012.
Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives. “The Interim Federal Capital in Philadelphia.” history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1700s/The-interim-federal-capital-in-Philadelphia/
Palliser, Jerome. “The Hidden Life of Crispus Attucks.” Journal of the American Revolution. March 5, 2014. allthingsliberty.com/2014/03/the-hidden-life-of-crispus-attucks/.
Rosenthal, Caitlin. Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018.
Thompson, Mary. “The Only Unavoidable Subject of Regret” George Washington, Slavery, and the Enslaved Community at Mount Vernon. Charlottesville: The University of Virginia Press, 2019.
Slavery in the United States Timeline researched and written by Jeanette Patrick, George Washington's Mount Vernon