Crispus Attucks, an escaped slave, is the first person to die in the American Revolution.
Jean Baptiste Point DuSable decided to build trading post near Lake Michigan, thus becoming the first permanent residdent of the settlement that became Chicago.
Phillis Wheatley publishes first bookof poetry.
Vermont is the first state to abolish slavery.
The Continental Congress forbade slavery in the region northwest of the Ohio River by the Northwest Ordinance
Slaves revolt in Haiti against the French rulers and slave owners.
Benjamin Banneker publishes the first almanac by an African-American.
Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin
Congress passes the first Fugitive Slave Act.
The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church is founded in New York City.
United States purchases Louisiana Territory from France
Congress bans the importation of slaves from Africa.
The Missouri Compromise bans slavery north of the southern boundary of Missouri.
The first African-American theater company in the United States, the African Company, is founded in New York.
In New York, John Brown Russwurm and Samuel Cornish publish the first African American newspaper in the U.S., Freedom's Journal.
1831-1861: Height of activity for the Undergrond Railroad
Slave rebellion of Nat Turner.
Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrisons starts to publish The Liberator, a fiercly anti-slavery newspaper, in Boston.
Henry Blair is the first African American to receive a patent.
Frederick Douglass publishes his autobiography, narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave.
Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery and becomes one of the most effective leaders of the Underground Railroad.
Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin is published
Booker Taliaferro Washington is born.
Dred Scott case declares that African Americans are not citizens o the U.S., and that congress has noo power to restrict slavery in any federal territory.
John Brown and 21 followers capture the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
harriet Wilson publishes Our Nig; Or Sketches from the Life of a Free, the first novel by an African American woman.