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A Maryland statute attempts to enforce a law that all blacks, even those who are free, would be slaves and all blacks born would be slaves regardless of the status of their mother. A slave rebellion occurs in Gloucester County, Virginia.
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A new Maryland law changed the 1663 law by establishing that children born to free black women and black children of white women would be free.
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Slave codes are passed by South Carolina. The manumission of slaves is prohibited in Virginia.
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A Massachusetts law makes interracial marriage between blacks and whites illegal.
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In a New York slave rebellion, 23 slaves in possession of guns and knives set fire to the home of a slave owner. The slaves killed nine whites and injured six others. The slaves responsible were captured and put on trial. Twenty-one of the slaves were found guilty and executed. The importation of slaves is prohibited in Pennsylvania. Freed blacks are prohibited from owning property in New York.
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The importation of black slaves is permitted by the Georgia trustees. Spanish Florida declares that freedom and land would be given to runaway slaves.
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In mid-August, a Charlestown newspaper announced the Security Act, requiring all white men carry firearms to church.
Early on Sunday the 9th, about 20 slaves gathered near the Stono River, less than twenty miles from Charlestown. The slaves went to a shop that sold arms and ammunition, armed themselves, then killed the two shopkeepers.
Other slaves joined the rebellion. The slaves stopped just before reaching the Edisto River.
By dusk, about 30 were dead and 30 had escaped. -
The act makes it illegal for slaves to gather in groups, earn money, learn to read, and raise food. The act permits owners to kill rebellious slaves.
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Quakers in Pennsylvania prohibit members of the sect from owning slaves.
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Crispus Attucks, a fugitive slave, is the first man, white or black, to be killed in the American Revolution.
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Black men fight for American independence.
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Pennsylvania adopts a law that gradually emancipates slaves that are born after 1780 when they turn twenty-eight. The Massachusetts Constitution is adopted with a freedom clause that is interpreted as abolishing slavery. Delaware prohibits the importation of slaves.
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Connecticut and Rhode Island adopt gradual emancipation laws. North Carolina prohibits the importation of slaves.
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New York adopts a gradual emancipation law, prohibits slave importation, and allows slave owners to free their slaves without posting a bond.
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The Northwest Ordinance prohibits slavery in the Northwest. Later it includes Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
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The U.S. Constitution is adopted and includes the three-fifths clause, which declares that slaves will be counted as three-fifths of a white person for the purpose of congressional representation.
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The first Fugitive Slave Law is passed. It allows slave owners to pursue fugitive slaves across state lines and it becomes a criminal offense to help fugitive slaves.
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The slave trade between the U.S. and other countries is prohibited by Congress.
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New York adopts a gradual emancipation law.
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U.S. citizens are prohibited from exporting slaves.
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The Louisiana territory is purchased from France.
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Ohio enacts black codes in an attempt to deter fugitive slaves from coming to the state. New Jersey adopts a gradual emancipation law.
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The Underground Railroad is established.
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The British Parliament bans the Atlantic slave trade.
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The Atlantic slave trade is banned by the United States.
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Britain, France, and the Netherlands agree to ban the slave trade.
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Spain signs a treaty agreeing to end the slave trade north of the equator and to end it south of the equator in 1820.
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Georgia bans the slave trade.
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Slave trading is declared a capital offense by the United States.
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The Missouri Compromise makes slavery illegal in the Louisiana territory that is north of the Missouri border. Missouri is admitted as a slave state and Maine is admitted as a free state.
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The Underground Railroad operated a vast network of stations (homes) that aided and abetted runaway slaves in their journey to the North and Canada. The most famous Underground Railroad conductor was Harriet Tubman.
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The Virginia legislature debates emancipation. It is the last time abolition is considered by a southern state until the Civil War. A North Carolina law prohibits teaching slaves from learning to read and write.
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Nat Turner%u2019s rebellion occurs in Southampton, Virginia. Turner and six others kill his master's entire family. Then they went house-to-house, killing other whites. They gained the assistance of fifty to sixty slaves who helped kill at least 55 white people.
The rebellion ended when the militia came out; during the pursuit, some slaves were captured and about 15 hanged. Turner escaped and hid out for about six weeks until captured. Imprisoned, he was sentenced to execution on 5 November 1831. -
The American Anti-Slavery Society is founded by William Lloyd Garrison and others.
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North and South Carolina request that other states control abolition activities.
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Alabama, Georgia, and Virginia request that other states control abolition activities.
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Pennsylvania and Mississippi take away the right of blacks to vote.
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Slaves aboard the ship Amistad rebel, killing the captain and cook. After the ship arrives off the coast of Long Island, the slaves seek their freedom in court.
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The Supreme Court rules that the slaves aboard the Amistad are free.
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Frederick Douglass, the well-known African American abolitionist, gave a lecture at the Anti-Slavery Convention in Lowell, Massachusetts.
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Slavery is prohibited in Oregon. Free blacks are denied citizenships in North Carolina.
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Frederick Douglass%u2019 autobiography, "The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass", is published.
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An amendment to a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives during the Mexican War, providing $2 million to negotiate a territorial settlement with Mexico. David Wilmot of Pennsylvania introduced an amendment to the bill stipulating that none of the territory acquired in the Mexican War should be open to slavery. The amended bill was passed in the House, but the Senate adjourned without voting on it.
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California is admitted as a free state. As a compromise, the slave states Utah and New Mexico are admitted without restrictions, but the slave trade is banned in D.C. The second Fugitive Slave Law is passed. It is enforced by the federal government.
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The result of the Fugitive Slave Act was that any federal marshal or other official who did not arrest an alleged runaway slave liable to a fine of $1,000. Law-enforcement officials everywhere in the United States had a duty to arrest anyone suspected of being a fugitive slave on no more evidence than a claimant's sworn testimony of ownership. The suspected slave could not ask for a jury trial or testify on his or her own behalf.
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"Uncle Tom%u2019s Cabin", written by abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, is published.
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The Missouri Compromise is repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allows popular sovereignty to determine the status of Kansas and Nebraska.
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The Dred Scott decision denies citizenship to all slaves, ex-slaves, and slave descendants.
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Dred Scott v. Sandford was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants%u2014whether or not they were slaves%u2014could never be citizens of the United States, and that the United States Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories.
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The Raid on Harpers Ferry was an attempt by abolitionist John Brown to start an armed slave revolt by seizing a United States Arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Brown's raid was defeated by a detachment of U.S. Marines led by Colonel Robert E. Lee, later a Confederate general during the Civil War.
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John Brown leads an unsuccessful raid on the Federal arsenal in Harper%u2019s Ferry, Virginia. Brown was wounded and quickly captured, and moved to Charlestown, Virginia, where he was tried and convicted of treason. John Brown was hanged on 2 December 1859.
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John Brown was hanged in Harper's Ferry, Virginia on 2 December 1859.
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Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth President of the United States.
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The first shots are fired at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.
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South Carolina secedes from the Union. Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina follow.
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Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, designating that "all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free."
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The Fugitive Slave Law is repealed. Slavery is abolished in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri.
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The soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia surrender at Appomattox, Virginia, effectively ending the War.
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On 14 April 1865, Lincoln was assassinated while attending a play at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C.
Actor John Wilkes Booth shot him in the back of the head before jumping onto the stage and escaping to Maryland. Lincoln died on 15 April.
On 26 April, Booth was found hiding in a barn which was set on fire. He was then shot and killed. Eight conspirators were punished for their roles. -
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On 26 April, Booth was found hiding in a barn in Virginia, which was set on fire. He was then shot and killed.
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Major General Gordon Granger, commanding troops in Galveston, Texas, proclaims that "the people are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation by the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free."
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Dr. King was shot in Memphis, Tennessee.
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A New York slave code attempts to deter slaves from escaping to Canada, by declaring that slaves that were caught 40 miles north of Albany would be executed based upon the oath of two credible witnesses. Blacks outnumbered whites by 10,500 to 6,250 in South Carolina. Slavery is legalized in Rhode Island.
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