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When Slavery Started.
Slavery in America started in 1619 when the privateer The White Lion brought 20 African slaves ashore in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia. -
When Slaves Mainly Worked
In the 17th and 18th centuries, enslaved Africans worked mainly on the tobacco, rice, and indigo plantations of the southern coast, from the Chesapeake Bay colonies of Maryland and Virginia south to Georgia. -
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Abolishing Slavery
Between 1774 and 1804, all of the northern states abolished slavery. -
Eli Whitney
In 1793, a young Yankee schoolteacher named 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. -
Outlawed Slavery
Though the U.S. Congress outlawed the African slave trade in 1808. -
Restricted Slavery
In 1820, a bitter debate over the federal government’s right to restrict slavery over Missouri’s application for statehood ended in a compromise. -
The Negotiation
In 1850, another tenuous compromise was negotiated to resolve the question of slavery in territories won during the Mexican-American War. -
Dred Scott's Decision
In 1859, two years after the Dred Scott decision, an event occurred that would ignite passions nationwide over the issue of slavery. -
Lincoln Frees the Slaves
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.”
