The Dutch West India Company imports 11 black male slaves into the New Netherlands.
Colonial North America's slave trade begins when the first American slave carrier, Desire, is built and launched in Massachusetts.
John Punch, a runaway black servant, is sentenced to servitude for life. His two white companions are given extended terms of servitude. Punch is the first slave to be sentenced to life.
New Netherlands law forbids residents from harboring or feeding runaway slaves.
The D'Angola marriage is the first recorded marriage between blacks in New Amsterdam.
Massachusetts is the first colony to legalize slavery.
Virginia enacts a law of hereditary slavery meaning that a child born an enslaved mother inherits her slave status.
In Virginia, black slaves and white indentured servants band together to participate in Bacon's Rebellion
The first seperate black church in America is founded in South Carolina.
The American Colonization Society is founded to help free blacks resettle in Africa.
New York City hosts the first National Anti-Slavery Society Convention
Abraham Lincoln is elected to the presidency.
Tennessee is the first of many Southern states to establish an all white, Democratic "Redeemer" government sympathetic to the cause of the former Confederacy and against racial equality.
Democrats win control of both houses of congress for the first time since the Antebellum period.
