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Slaves in Jamestown
The first slaves were introduced by Dutch traders to America in 1619. These slaves were first brought to Jamestown, Virginia. -
Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was an Act of the United States Congress to give effect to the Fugitive Slave Clause of the U.S. Constitution which guaranteed a right of a slaveholder to recover an escaped slave. -
Slave Trade Abolished
U.S. Congress passed the law in March, which gave all slave traders nine months to close down their operations in the United States. This was an attempt to stop slave trade, but operation still remained afterwards. -
Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise was a United States federal statute devised by Henry Clay. It regulated slavery in the country's western territories by prohibiting the practice in the former Louisiana Territory north of the parallel 36°30′ north, except within the boundaries of the proposed state of Missouri. -
Wilmot Proviso
The Wilmot Proviso was designed to eliminate slavery within the land acquired as a result of the Mexican War. Soon after the war began, President James K. Polk sought the appropriation of $2 million as part of a bill to negotiate the terms of a treaty. -
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
Following increased pressure from Southern politicians, Congress passed a revised Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. Part of Henry Clay's famed Compromise of 1850, a group of bills that helped quiet early calls for Southern secession, this new law forcibly compelled citizens to assist in the capture of runaway slaves. -
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850, which defused a four-year political confrontation between slave and free states regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican–American War. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly, is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War" according to many, and helped define the cruelties of slavery. -
Bleeding Kansas
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas or the Border War was a series of violent political confrontations in the United States involving anti-slavery "Free-Staters" and pro-slavery "Border Ruffian" elements in Kansas between 1854 and 1861. -
Kansas-Nebraska Act
It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´. -
Dred Scott vs Sanford Supreme Court Case
Chief Justice Roger B. Taney's decision favored that the Africans themselves would "have no rights," and remain slaves. -
John Brown's Raid on Harper's Ferry
John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry was an effort by white abolitionist John Brown to initiate an armed slave revolt in 1859 by taking over a United States arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia.
