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beginning of Slavery
Slavery in America started in 1619, when the privateer The White Lion brought 20 African slaves ashore in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia. -
First step towards Abolition in The Northern States
Between 1774 and 1804, all of the northern states abolished slavery, but the so-called “peculiar institution” of slavery remained absolutely vital to the South.
Though the U.S. Congress outlawed the African slave trade in 1808, the domestic trade flourished, and the enslaved population in the U.S. nearly tripled over the next 50 years. -
Invention of the Cotton Gin
Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, a simple mechanized device that efficiently removed the seeds. His device was widely copied, and within a few years the South would transition from the large-scale production of tobacco to that of cotton, a switch that reinforced the region’s dependence on slave labor. -
Richmond's Rebellion
led by Gabriel Prosser -
Abolition of Slave Trade
Congress voted end of Slavery but the domestic trade flourished, and the enslaved population in the U.S. nearly tripled over the next 50 years. By 1860 it had reached nearly 4 million, with more than half living in the cotton-producing states of the South. -
Charleston's rebellion
led by Denmark Vesey -
Underground railroad gain its momentum
Free blacks and other antislavery northerners had begun helping enslaved people escape from southern plantations to the North via a loose network of safe houses as early as the 1780s. Conductors like Harriet Tubman guided escapees on their journey North, and “stationmasters” included such prominent figures as Frederick Douglass, Secretary of State William H. Seward and Pennsylvania congressman Thaddeus Stevens. -
Beginning of the Abolitionist movement.
From the 1830s to the 1860s, the movement to abolish slavery in America gained strength, led by free blacks such as Frederick Douglass and white supporters such as William Lloyd Garrison, founder of the radical newspaper The Liberator, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, who published the bestselling antislavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
The revolt that most terrified white slaveholders was that led by Nat Turner in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831. Turner’s group, which eventually numbered around 75 blacks, murdered some 60 whites in two days before armed resistance from local whites and the arrival of state militia forces overwhelmed them. -
Civil War breaks out
A few months after Abraham Lincoln was elected as president, seven southern states seceded to form the Confederate States; four more would follow after the Civil War began.
The central Union war aim at first was not to abolish slavery, but to preserve the United States as a nation.
Abolition became a goal later, due to military necessity, growing anti-slavery sentiment in the North and the self-emancipation of many people who fled enslavement as Union troops swept through the South. -
Abolition of Savery
On September 22, 1862, Lincoln issued a preliminary emancipation proclamation, and on January 1, 1863, he made it official that “slaves within any State, or designated part of a State…in rebellion,…shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” -
End of the Civil War: Abolition of Slavery
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13th Amendment
"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"