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African servants
English settlers in Virginia purchase 20 Africans from a Dutch ship. The Africans were sold as indentured servants, not slaves. The distinction being an indentured servant may ultimately become free for working for some number of years. It was not long before all Africans arriving were treated as slaves, bought and sold into a lifetime of slavery for them and their descendents. -
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Virginia
Virginia passes a law revoking the prior English law that allowed for slaves that converted to Christianity to become free. -
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Quakers in Germantown
The first organized protest against slavery in the new world was drafted by a group of Quakers in Germantown, PA. Known as the Germantown Protest, it argued that Christians should do as they would want to be done to them, that slavery was essentially theft as you were buying something stolen and that adultery is wrong yet slave traders/owners forced adultery on men and women by breaking up marriages when they resold husbands and wives to different owners. How could as Christians, could such acti -
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Insurrection
the town of Stono, South Carolina a band of slaves starts an insurrection. Previous runaway slaves had made their way to Florida, where they had been given freedom and land. The Spanish had issued a proclamation stating that any slave who deserted to St. Augustine, Florida would be given freedom. -
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Colonies declare independence
The colonies declare independence from English rule with the adoption of The Declaration of Independence. Written largely by Thomas Jefferson, the document declares "all men are created equal." Jefferson and many of the signers of the document are slave holders.