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The Massacre at Mystic, or Pequot Massacre, was a brutal attack on a fortified Pequot village on May 26, 1637 -
The Nat Turner Rebellion was a slave revolt led by Nat Turner, a charismatic slave preacher, in Southampton County, Virginia, beginning on August 21, 1831. -
The Dred Scott Decision of 1857 declared that people of African descent, whether enslaved or free, could not be U.S. citizens and thus had no right to sue in federal court. -
The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, declaring that all enslaved people in the Confederate states in rebellion against the Union were to be freed. -
The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the United States, with the sole exception of punishment for a crime. Passed by Congress in January 1865 and ratified by the required number of states in December 1865 -
The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, granted citizenship to all people born or naturalized in the U.S., including formerly enslaved people, and prohibited states from denying any person "life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" or denying any person "equal protection of the laws"