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The first African American indentured servants arrive in the American colonies.
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Eli Whitney’s cotton gin increased the need for slaves.
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Congress bans importation of new slaves
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Approximately 75,000 slaves escape to the North using the Underground Railroad.
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Ex-slave Frederick Douglass publishes the anti-slavery newspaper called the North Star.
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Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery and becomes an influential leader of the Underground Railroad.
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Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act, which enforces runaway slaves to be returned to their owners.
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The Dred Scott v. Sanford case: congress does not have the right to ban slavery in the states, and slaves are not citizens.
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The Civil War occurs, between the North and the South, for various amounts of reasons, the main being slavery.
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Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation states that all slaves in “rebellious territories” are free.
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Abraham Lincoln is elected president, saying that he will abolish slavery, the south is angered.
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The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting slavery, is ratified. Reconstruction begins.
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The “Black Codes” are passed by the former Confederate States. Congress passes the Civil Rights Act, giving citizenship to African Americans, and granting them equal rights to whites.The Ku Klux Klan is formed in Tennessee.
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The 14th Amendment is ratified, giving citizenship to freed slaves.
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The 15th Amendment is ratified, giving African Americans the right to vote.
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Thousands of African Americans move out of the South to escape persecution.