1619 The first record of African slavery in English Colonial Americ

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  The colony of St. Augustine in Florida became the first permanent European settlement in what would become the US, and included an unknown number of African slaves.
  

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  The first record of African slavery in English Colonial America.
  

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  John Punch, a black indentured servant, ran away with two white indentured servants, James Gregory and Victor. After the three were captured, the white men were sentenced to four more years of servitude but Punch was required to serve Virginia planter Hugh Gym for life. It is one of the first cases in which lifetime indentured servitude was based on race.^[1][2]
  

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  John Casor, a black man, became the first legally recognized slave-for-life in the Virginia colony.
  

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  Virginia law defined that children of enslaved mothers followed the status of their mothers and were considered slaves, regardless of their father's status.
  

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  Royal African Company is founded, allowing slaves to be shipped from Africa to the colonies in North America. This company allowed England to enter the slave trade.
  

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  Both free and enslaved African Americans fought in Bacon's Rebellion along with English colonists.
  

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  The Virginia Slave codes defines as slaves all those servants brought into the colony who were not Christian in their original countries, as well as those Indians sold to colonists by other Indians.
  

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  April 6 – The New York Slave Revolt of 1712, one of the first of many such rebellions (see the article).
  

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  September 9 – In the Stono Rebellion, South Carolina slaves gather at theStono River to plan an armed march for freedom.
  

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  Jupiter Hammon has a poem printed, becoming the first published African-American poet.
  

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  March 5 – Crispus Attucks is killed by British soldiers in the Boston Massacre, a precursor to the American Revolution.
  

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  Phillis Wheatley has her book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral published.
  

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  – The first black Baptist congregations are organized in the South: Silver Bluff Baptist Church in South Carolina, and First African Baptist Church nearPetersburg, Virginia.
  

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  April 14 – The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully held in Bondage holds four meetings. Re-formed in 1784 as the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, Benjamin Franklin would later be its president.
  

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  Thousands of enslaved African Americans in the South escape to British orLoyalist lines, as they were promised freedom if they fought with the British. In South Carolina, 25,000 enslaved African Americans, one-quarter of those held, escape to the British.^[3] After the war, many African Americans leave with the British for England; others go with other Loyalists to Canada and settle in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Still others go to Jamaica and theWest Indies.
  
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  Many free blacks in the North fight with the colonists for the rebellion.
  

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  July 8 – The Vermont Republic (a sovereign nation at the time) abolishes slavery, the first future state to do so.
  

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  Pennsylvania becomes the first then-U.S.-state to abolish slavery.
  

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  July 13 – The Northwest Ordinance bans the expansion of slavery into U.S. territories north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River.
  

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  – The First African Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia is organized underAndrew Bryan.
  

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  – Following the Revolution, numerous slaveholders in the Upper South freetheir slaves; the percentage of free blacks rises from less than one to 10 percent. By 1810, 75 percent of all blacks in Delaware are free, and 7.2 percent of blacks in Virginia are free.^[4]
  

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  February – Major Andrew Ellicott hires Benjamin Banneker to assist in a survey of the boundaries of the 100-square-mile (260 km²) federal district that would later become the District of Columbia.
  

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  February 12 – The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 is passed. (See also Fugitive slave laws.)
  

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  March 14 – Eli Whitney is granted a patent on the cotton gin. This enables the widespread cultivation and processing of short-staple cotton, dramatically increasing the need for enslaved labor, and leading to the development of King Cotton in the Deep South. It leads to the forced migration of one million slaves to the area in the antebellum period, mostly by internal slave trade.
  
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  July – Two independent black churches open in Philadelphia: the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, with Absalom Jones, and the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, with Richard Allen, the first church of what would become a new black denomination in 1816.
  

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  first Black Codes enacted.
  

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  August 30 – Gabriel Prosser's attempt to lead a slave rebellion in Richmond, Virginia is suppressed.
  

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  Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves
  

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  January 1 – The importation of slaves into the United States is banned; this is also the earliest day under the United States Constitution that anamendment could be made restricting slavery.
  

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  The first separate black denomination of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) is founded by Richard Allen, who is elected its first bishop.
  
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  The American Colonization Society is begun by Robert Finley, to send free African Americans to what is to become Liberia in Africa.^[5]
  

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  March 6 – The Missouri Compromise allows for the entry as states of Maineand Missouri, and decides which future states slavery would be allowed in.
  
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  The British West Africa Squadron's slave trade suppression activities are assisted by forces from the United States Navy, starting in 1820 with theUSS Cyane. With the Webster–Ashburton Treaty of 1842, the relationship is formalised and they jointly run the Africa Squadron.
  

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  The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church is formed.
  

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  July 14 – Denmark Vesey's slave rebellion in Charleston, South Carolina is suppressed.
  

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  September – David Walker begins publication of the abolitionist pamphletWalker's Appeal.
  

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  October 28 - Josiah Henson, a slave who fled and arrived in Canada, is an author, abolitionist, minister and the inspiration behind the book Uncle Tom's Cabin.^[6]
  

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  William Lloyd Garrison begins publication of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator.
  
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  August – Nat Turner leads the most successful slave rebellion in U.S. history. The rebellion is suppressed, but only after many deaths.
  

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  Sarah Harris Fayerweather, an aspiring teacher, is admitted to Prudence Crandall's all-girl school in Canterbury, Connecticut, resulting in the first racially integrated schoolhouse in the United States.^[7] Her admission led to the school's forcible closure under the Connecticut Black Law of 1833.^[8]
  

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  The American Anti-Slavery Society, an abolitionist society, is founded byWilliam Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass becomes a key leader of the society.
  

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  February - The first Institute of Higher Education for African-Americans is founded. Founded as the African Institute in February 1837 and renamed the Institute of Coloured Youth (ICY) in April 1837 and now known as Cheyney University of Pennsylvania.
  

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  July 2 – Slaves revolt on the La Amistad, resulting in a Supreme Court case (see United States v. The Amistad).
  

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  The Liberty Party breaks away from the American Anti-Slavery Society due to grievances with William Lloyd Garrison's leadership.
  

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  The U.S. Supreme Court rules, in Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), that states do not have to offer aid in the hunting or recapture of slaves, greatly weakening the fugitive slave law of 1793.
  

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  June 1 – Isabella Baumfree, a former slave, changes her name to Sojourner Truth and begins to preach for the abolition of slavery.
  
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  August – Henry Highland Garnet delivers his famous speech Call to Rebellion.
  

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  Frederick Douglass begins publication of the abolitionist newspaper theNorth Star.
  
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  Joseph Jenkins Roberts of Virginia becomes the first president of Liberia.
  

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  Roberts v. Boston seeks to end racial discrimination in Boston public schools.
  
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  Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery to Philadelphia, and begins helping other slaves to escape via the Underground Railroad.
  

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  September 18 – As part of the Compromise of 1850, Congress passes theFugitive Slave Act of 1850 which requires any federal official to arrest anyone suspected of being a runaway slave.
  

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  March 20 – Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is published.
  

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  December – Clotel; or, The President's Daughter is the first novel published by an African-American.
  

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  President Franklin Pierce signs the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and allowed slaves to be brought to the new territories.
  
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  In opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, the Republican Party is formed with an anti-slavery platform.
  

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  John Mercer Langston is one of the first African Americans elected to public office when elected as a town clerk in Ohio.
  

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  May 21 – The Sacking of Lawrence in Bleeding Kansas.
  
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  May 25 – John Brown, whom Abraham Lincoln called a "misguided fanatic", retaliates for Lawrence's sacking in the Pottawatomie Massacre.
  
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  Wilberforce University is founded by collaboration between Methodist Episcopal and African Methodist Episcopal representatives.
  

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  March 6 – In Dred Scott v. Sandford, the Supreme Court upholds slavery. This decision is regarded as a key cause of the American Civil War.
  

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  Harriet E. Wilson writes the autobiographical novel Our Nig.
  
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  In Ableman v. Booth the Supreme Court of the United States holds that state courts cannot issue rulings that contradict the decisions of federal courts, thus upholding the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
  

First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation – President Lincoln meets with his cabinet.

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  April 12 – The American Civil War begins (secessions began in December 1860), and lasts until April 9, 1865. Tens of thousands of enslaved African Americans of all ages escaped to Unionlines for freedom. Contraband camps were set up in some areas, where blacks started learning to read and write. Others traveled with the Union Army. By the end of the war, more than 180,000 African Americans, mostly from the South, fought with the Union Army and Navy as members of the US Colored Troops and sailors.
  
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  May 2 – The first North American military unit with African-American officers is the 1st Louisiana Native Guard of the Confederate Army (disbanded in February 1862).
  
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  August 6 – The first of the Confiscation Acts authorizes the confiscation of any Confederate property, including all slaves who fought or worked for the Confederate military. The second act in mid-1862 extends this.
  

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  March 13 – Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves
  
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  September 22 – Announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation, after theBattle of Antietam, to go into effect January 1, 1863.
  

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  January 1 – The Emancipation Proclamation goes into effect.
  
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  January 31 – U.S. Army commissions the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, a combat unit made up of escaped slaves.
  
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  May 22 – U.S. Army recruits United States Colored Troops. (The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment would be featured in the 1989 filmGlory.)
  
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  July 13-16 – Ethnic Irish immigrants protests against the draft in New York City turn into riots against blacks – the so-called New York Draft Riots.
  
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  July 18 - The Second Battle of Fort Wagner begins when the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, an African-American military unit, led by white Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, attacked a Confederate fort at Morris Island, South Carolina. The attack on Fort Wagner by the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry failed to take the fort and Gould was killed in the battle. However, the fort was abandoned by the Confederates on September 7, 1863, after many could not stand the constant weeks of bombardment and the smell of dead Union black soldiers sickening them.
  

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  April 12 – The Battle of Fort Pillow, which results in controversy about whether a massacre of surrendered African-American troops was conducted or condoned.
  

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  March 3 – Congress passes the bill that forms the Freedman's Bureau.
  
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  December 18 – The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitutionabolishes slavery in the U.S.
  
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  Shaw Institute is founded in Raleigh, North Carolina, as the first black college in the South.
  
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  Atlanta College is founded.
  
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  Every southern state passes Black Codes that restrict the freedmen, who were emancipated but not yet full citizens.
  

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  April 9 – The Civil Rights Act of 1866 is passed by Congress over Johnson's presidential veto. All persons born in the United States are now citizens.
  
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  The Ku Klux Klan is formed in Pulaski, Tennessee, made up of white Confederate veterans; it becomes a paramilitary insurgent group to enforce white supremacy.
  
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  July – New Orleans white citizens riot against blacks.
  
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  September 21 – The U.S. Army regiment of Buffalo Soldiers (African Americans) is formed.
  
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  The Second Freedmen's Bureau Act would have provided longer enforcement of rights for freedmen, but it is vetoed by President Andrew Johnson.
  

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  February 14 - Augusta Institute, now known as Morehouse College, is founded in the basement of Springfield Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia.^[9]
  
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  March 2 – Howard University is founded in Washington, D.C.
  

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  April 1 – Hampton Institute is founded in Hampton, Virginia.
  
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  July 9 – The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution's Section 1 requires due process and equal protection.
  
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  Through 1877, whites attack black and white Republicans to suppress voting. Every election cycle is accompanied by violence, increasing in the 1870s.
  
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  Elizabeth Keckly publishes Behind the Scenes (or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House).
  

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  February 3 – The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitutionguarantees the right of male citizens of the United States to vote regardless of race, color or previous condition of servitude.
  
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  February 25 – Hiram Rhodes Revels becomes the first black member of theSenate (see African Americans in the United States Congress).
  
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  Christian Methodist Episcopal Church founded.
  

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  October 10 – Octavius Catto, a civil rights activist, is murdered during harassment of blacks on Election Day in Philadelphia.
  
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  US Civil Rights Act of 1871 passed, also known as the Klan Act.
  

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  December 11 – P. B. S. Pinchback is sworn in as the first black member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
  
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  Disputed gubernatorial election in Louisiana cause political violence for more than two years. Both Republican and Democratic governors hold inaugurations and certify local officials.
  

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  April 14 – In the Slaughter-House Cases the Supreme Court votes 5–4 for a narrow reading of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court also discusses dual citizenship: State citizens and U.S. citizens.
  
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  Easter, the Colfax Massacre – More than 100 blacks in the Red River area of Louisiana are killed when attacked by white militia after defending Republicans in local office – continuing controversy from gubernatorial election.
  
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  Coushatta Massacre – Republican officeholders are run out of town and murdered by white militia before leaving the state – four of six were relatives of a Louisiana state senator, a northerner who had settled in the South, married into a local family and established a plantation. Five to twenty black witnesses are also killed.
  

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  Founding of paramilitary groups that act as the "military arm of the Democratic Party": the White League in Louisiana and the Red Shirts in Mississippi, and North and South Carolina. They terrorize blacks and Republicans, turning them out of office, killing some, disrupting rallies, and suppressing voting.
  
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  September – In New Orleans, continuing political violence erupts related to the still-contested gubernatorial election of 1872. Thousands of the White League armed militia march into New Orleans, then the seat of government, where they outnumber the integrated city police and black state militia forces. They defeat Republican forces and demand that Gov. Kellogg leave office. The Democratic candidate McEnery is installed and White Leaguers occupy the capitol, state house and arsenal. This was called the "Battle of Liberty Place". The White League and McEnery withdraw after three days in advance of federal troops arriving to reinforce the Republican state government.
  

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  March 1 – Civil Rights Act of 1875 signed.
  
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  The Mississippi Plan to intimidate blacks and suppress black voter registration and voting.
  

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  July 8 – The Hamburg Massacre occurs when local people riot against African Americans who were trying to celebrate the Fourth of July.
  
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  varied – White Democrats regain power in many southern state legislatures and pass the first Jim Crow laws.
  

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  With the Compromise of 1877, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes withdraws federal troops from the South in exchange for being elected President of the United States, causing the collapse of the last three remaining Republican state governments. The compromise formally ends the Reconstruction era of the United States.
  

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  spring – Thousands of African Americans refuse to live under segregation in the South and migrate to Kansas. They become known as Exodusters.
  

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  In Strauder v. West Virginia, the Supreme Court rules that African Americans could not be excluded from juries.
  
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  During the 1880s, African Americans in the South reach a peak of numbers in being elected and holding local offices, even while white Democrats are working to assert control at state level.
  

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  April 11 – Spelman Seminary is founded as the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary.
  
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  July 4 – Booker T. Washington opens the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Tuskegee, Alabama.
  

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  A biracial populist coalition achieves power in Virginia (briefly). The legislature founds the first public college for African Americans, Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute, as well as the first mental hospital for African Americans, both near Petersburg, Virginia. The hospital was established in December 1869, at Howard's Grove Hospital, a former Confederate unit, but is moved to a new campus in 1882.