History of Slavery in America

Follow the timeline to learn more about the history of slavery in the United States, including the arrival of the first African slaves to America, the federal banishment of slave importation, and the abolishment of slavery in the United States.

1615

1619 The first African slaves arrive in Virginia.

1620

1785

1787 Slavery is made illegal in the Northwest Territory. The U.S Constitution states that Congress may not ban the slave trade until 1808.

1790

1793 Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin greatly increases the demand for slave labor.

1793 A federal fugitive slave law is enacted, providing for the return slaves who had escaped and crossed state lines.

1795

1800

1800 Gabriel Prosser, an enslaved African American blacksmith, organizes a slave revolt intending to march on Richmond,Virginia. The conspiracy is uncovered, and Prosser and a number of the rebels are hanged. Virginia's slave laws are consequently tightened.

1805

1808 Congress bans the importation of slaves from Africa.

1810

1815

1820

1820 The Missouri Compromise bans slavery north of the southern boundary of Missouri.

1822 Denmark Vesey, an enslaved African American carpenter who had purchased his freedom, plans a slave revolt with the intent to lay siege on Charleston, South Carolina. The plot is discovered, and Vesey and 34 coconspirators are hanged.

1831 Nat Turner, an enslaved African American preacher, leads the most significant slave uprising in American history. He and his band of followers launch a short, bloody, rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. The militia quells the rebellion, and Turner is eventually hanged. As a consequence, Virginia institutes much stricter slave laws.

1831 William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing the Liberator, a weekly paper that advocates the complete abolition of slavery. He becomes one of the most famous figures in the abolitionist movement.

1846 The Wilmot Proviso, introduced by Democratic representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, attempts to ban slavery in territory gained in the Mexican War. The proviso is blocked by Southerners, but continues to enflame the debate over slavery.

1849 Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery and becomes one of the most effective and celebrated leaders of theUnderground Railroad.

1850 The continuing debate whether territory gained in the Mexican War should be open to slavery is decided in theCompromise of 1850: California is admitted as a free state, Utah and New Mexico territories are left to be decided by popular sovereignty, and the slave trade in Washington, DC is prohibited. It also establishes a much stricter fugitive slave law than the original, passed in 1793.

1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin is published. It becomes one of the most influential works to stir anti-slavery sentiments.

1854 Congress passes the Kansas-Nebraska Act, establishing the territories of Kansas and Nebraska. The legislation repeals the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and renews tensions between anti- and proslavery factions.

1857 The Dred Scott case holds that Congress does not have the right to ban slavery in states and, furthermore, that slaves are not citizens.

1859 John Brown and 21 followers capture the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Va. (now W. Va.), in an attempt to launch a slave revolt.

1860

1861 The Confederacy is founded when the deep South secedes, and the Civil War begins.

1863 President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring "that all persons held as slaves" within the Confederate state "are, and henceforward shall be free."

1865

1865 The Civil War ends. Lincoln is assassinated. The Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery throughout the United States. On June 19 slavery in the United States effectively ended when 250,000 slaves in Texas finally received the news that the Civil War had ended two months earlier.

1870