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Significant Events in African American Civil Rights
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First African slaves arrive in America
The first African slaves arrive in Virginia a Dutch ship carrying African slaves docked at Point Comfort the Dutch traded 20 African slaves for food and supplies. -
slave-for-life
John Casor, a black man, became the first legally-recognized slave-for-life in the Virginia colony. -
enslaved children
Virginia law defined that children of enslaved mothers followed the status of their mothers and were considered slaves, regardless of their father's status. -
Bacons Rebellion
Both free and enslaved African Americans fought in Bacon's Rebellion along with English colonists. -
Earliest known black poet
Lucy Terry, an enslaved person in 1746, becomes the earliest known black American poet when she writes about the last American Indian attack on her village of Deerfield, Massachusetts. Her poem, Bar's Fight, is not published until 1855. -
Slavery is made illegal
Slavery is made illegal in the Northwest Territory. The U.S Constitution states that Congress may not ban the slave trade until 1808.Slaves did most of the work where they lived. Most of them worked in mines or on plantations, while some became servants. Some people thought that slavery was wrong, while the majority of people thought that slavery was acceptable. Few slaves could marry, have a family, testify in court, or own property legally. Some slaves were able to make money to free themselve -
slave labor
cotton gin Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin greatly increases the demand for slave labor. -
Slave ban
Congress ban the importation of slaves from africa -
slavery ban
the missouri comprise bans slavery north of the boundary of missouri -
slave uprise
Nat Turner, an enslaved African-American preacher, leads the most significant slave uprising in American history. He and his band of followers launch a short, bloody, rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. The militia quells the rebellion, and Turner is eventually hanged. As a consequence, Virginia institutes much stricter slave laws. -
underground rail road leaders
Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery and becomes one of the most effective and celebrated leaders of the Underground Railroad. -
unfair trials
A young black boy, Emmett Till, is brutally murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. Two white men charged with the crime are acquitted by an all-white jury. They later boast about committing the murder. The public outrage generated by the case helps spur the civil rights movement
