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In Jamestown Virginia, twenty people kidnapped from West Africa were sold into slavery.
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The colony of Vermont was the first in North America to outlaw slavery.
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Philadelphia abolitionist Isaac T. Hopper begins establishing the Underground Railroad, a network of anti-slavery activists, to help slaves escape to freedom.
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African slaves continue to be smuggled into the country, but the slave trade is officially banned in the United States.
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The first long-distance route for escaped slaves is established by abolitionists including Levi Coffin of North Carolina.
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Indiana Quakers actively hid and transported slaves to help them escape. Dennis Pennington fought efforts to make Indiana a pro-slavery state.
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Tice Davids swam across the treacherous Ohio River to escape from slavery.
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David Ruggles, a free black man, creates a network in the city that helped more than 6,000 slaves, including Frederick Douglass, escape slavery. Ruggles was assisted by Isaac Hopper.
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Nat Turner, a slave, led a rebellion in Southampton, Virginia that claimed the lives of at least 55 whites and triggered a wave of reprisals against blacks that killed at least 120. Turner was captured and hanged.
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Josiah Henson establishes a settlement in Dawn, British Upper Canada, to take in former slaves to teach them skills and help adapt to life in freedom.
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16-year-old slave Caroline Quarlls crosses the Mississippi River to escape bondage in the free state of Illiniois on Independence Day.
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Underground Railroad activist Thomas Garrett was tried and acquitted for helping slaves escape.
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Ellen Craft pretended to be a white master and her husband William pretended to be a slave. Together, they escaped to the North and became active abolitionists.
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Henry Brown made a dangerous escape North by traveling in a coffin-like box.
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Harriet Tubman escaped once with her brothers, only to return with them and escape again on her own.
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The law meant a crackdown on slaves who had made it to the North.
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The attack on Fort Sumter marked the outbreak of Civil War.
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Abraham Lincoln issued the freeing of all slaves in an executive order January 1, 1863. Congress passed it January 31, 1865.
