Discrimination timeline

  • Massacre at Mystic

    The massacre took place on May 26, 1637 during the Pequot War, when a force from Connecticut Colony under Captain John Mason and their Narragansett and Mohegan allies set fire to the Pequot Fort near the Mystic River. They circled the fort and shot anyone who tried to escape it.
  • The Scalp Act

    Instead, the money was set up as a fund to remove the Indians from the border. On April 8, 1756, Governor Robert Morris enacted the Scalp Act.
  • The 3/5ths Compromise

    The Three-Fifths Compromise stated that for every five slaves in a state, three would be included in the population census. James Wilson and Roger Sherman first introduced the idea of the Three-Fifths Compromise on June 11, 1787.
  • Slave Trade Ends in the United States

    The practice of slavery continued to be legal in much of the U.S. until 1865, of course, and enslaved people continued to be bought and sold within the Southern states, but in January 1808 the legal flow of new Africans into this country stopped forever.
  • Battle of Tippecanoe

    The Battle of Tippecanoe was fought on November 7, 1811, in Battle Ground, Indiana, between American forces led by then Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory and tribal forces associated
  • The Missouri Compromise

    This so-called Missouri Compromise drew a line from east to west along the 36th parallel, dividing the nation into competing halves—half free, half slave. The House passed the compromise bill on March 2, 1820. The next day, pro-slavery advocates in the House moved to reconsider the vote.
  • Indian Removal Act

    The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, authorizing the president to grant lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders. A few tribes went peacefully, but many resisted the relocation
  • Trail of Tears

    The Trail of Tears was the forced displacement of approximately 60,000 people of the "Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850, and the additional thousands of Native Americans within that were ethnically cleansed by the United States governmen
  • Nat Turner Rebellion

    On the evening of August 21–22, 1831, an enslaved preacher and self-styled prophet named Nat Turner launched the most deadly slave revolt in the history of the United States.
  • The Fugitive Slave Act

    Passed on September 18, 1850 by Congress, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was part of the Compromise of 1850. The act required that slaves be returned to their owners, even if they were in a free state. The act also made the federal government responsible for finding, returning, and trying escaped slaves.
  • Dred Scott Decision

    MISSOURI STATE ARCHIVES. Missouri's Dred Scott Case, 1846-1857. In its 1857 decision that stunned the nation, the United States Supreme Court upheld slavery in United States territories, denied the legality of black citizenship in America, and declared the Missouri Compromise to be unconstitutional.
  • Emancipation Proclamation

    declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."
  • 13th Amendment

    The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
  • 14th amendment

    No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws
  • 15th Amendment

    The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government and each state from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." It was ratified on February 3, 1870, as the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments
  • Battle of Little Bighorn

    The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, and commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined .
  • Battle of Wounded Knee

    The Wounded Knee Massacre, also known as the Battle of Wounded Knee was a massacre of nearly three hundred Lakota people by soldiers of the United States Army.
  • Plessy vs. Ferguson

    Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for people of color were equal in quality to those of white people, a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal"