Click here for Abolitionist Map of
the USA, 1888� - Source, New
Scientist, 1 August 2020, p.14 � Note the Christian symbolism here, too.
See below for
specific named States� and their history
of slavery.
Brazil
Jamaica
UK
USA
2021, Forced labour picking
cotton in Uzbekistan had almost been eradicated. Before 2017 adults and
children were compelled by State law to labour for free picking cotton; child
labour was eliminated from 2017 on. In 2015 some 14% of the cotton-picking
labour force in Uzbekistan hwas forced labour, falling to 4% in 2020 and
reducing further by 2921. The industry has been modernised, with machinery now
doing much of the work. Large Western brands such as Nike and Walmart had
exterted pressure for Uzbek cotton to be boycotted unless responsibly sourced.
2017, The International Labour Organisation estimated
that 40 million people worldwide were currently subjected to modern slavery. Of
these, 25 million were subject to forced labour and 15 million were trapped in
forced marriages.
2007, Mauritania banned slavery (for the third time). At this time there
were an estimated 600,000 slaves in the country. However the first prosecution
for slavery in Mauritania was not brought until April 2011; all five defendants
were acquitted. In 2018 an estimated 4% of the country�s population
remained enslaved.
1981, Mauritania banned slavery. However see 2007.
6 November 1962, In his
first meeting with his cabinet, Saudi Arabia's Prime Minister Faisal (later the
King) announced his plans to abolish slavery within the Kingdom and to have the
government pay owners for the manumission of their slaves.
17 April 1932, In Ethiopia, Emperor Haile Selassie abolished slavery.
1 January 1928, Nearly
250,000 domestic slaves in the British Protectorate of Sierra Leone were freed by
decree of 1927.
22 September 1927. Sierra Leone abolished domestic slavery.
1910, A slave in Nepal cost Indian Rupees
100-200, of UK� 7 � 14 (UK� 630-1,260 in 2020 prices).
31 January 1910. China abolished slavery. In 1906 Chou Fu,
Viceroy at Nanking, called on the Emperor of China to abolish slavery. At that
time all Chinese citizens had tio belong to one of four clsasses. These were 1)
the Bannermen (ruling class, 2) Free Chinese subjects, 3) Outcasts, 4) Slaves;
there were severe penalties for not fulfilling the duties of their class. Fu�s
recommendations were finally accepted in 1910, despite opposition from Manchu
nobles. However the former slaves were still compelled to live in their
,master�s households for the rtest of their lives, although as �free
labourers�.
1907, The Sultan of Zanzibar
abolished slavery altogether (see 5 June 1873), under pressure from the
British.
2 July 1890. In Brussels, an International Convention for
Suppression of the African Slave Trade was signed.
1888,
Charles Martial Allemand Lavigerie (1825-92), Archbishop of Algiers from 1884, founded the
Anti Slavery Society.
7 October 1886, Spain abolished
slavery in Cuba.
1874, Slavery was abolished
in Ghana
5 June 1873, The slave markets
in Zanzibar were closed by Sultan Bargash Sayyid, under pressure from the
British. See 1907.
22 March 1873, Slavery was abolished in Puerto
Rico.
3 June 1870, The USA and Britain signed a Convention agreeing
to suppress the African slave trade.
1 July 1863, Slavery ceased
in the Dutch West Indies.
1860,
Slavery was abolished on Martinique.
1/1852, Colombia abolished slavery.
1848, Slavery was finally
abolished in all French colonies.
1842, Portugal outlawed the
slave trade in Mozambique.
1839, The last slaves were freed
on Mauritius;
landowners received over �2 million compensation for this. Indians were
imported as a replacement labour force.
1836, Slave trade abolished in Angola.
1834, In South Africa, some 35,000 slaves were freed as slavery ended across
the British |Empire. Former slaveowners complained
about inadequate compensation.
15 September 1829, Slavery
was abolished in Mexico.
24 April 1824, The United
Provinces of Central America abolished slavery.
18 August 1823, A slave
rebellion in Guyana. European militia put down the rebellion by 20 August 1763.
1813, Sweden abolished the slave trade.
20 May 1802. The French restored slavery to their colonies.
4 February 1794. France
issued a decree abolishing slavery in its colonies. However Mauritius ignored this decree.
1792, Denmark abolished the slave trade.
12 August 1791, African
slaves in Santo Domingo, in the west of the island of Hispaniola, rebelled
against plantation owners.
8 March 1790, The Revolutionary French Government, despite its motto of Liberte,
Egalite, Fraternite, voted to keep slavery in its colonies.
1 July 1775, The price of a male slave on the Caribbean sugar plantations
was 40 shillings, up from 30 shillings in 1740.
1770, The King of Dahomey (now Benin) was earning
�250,000 a year from selling other Africans as alaves to European traders.
23 February 1763, Start of
the Berbice Slave uprising in Guyana. At this time there were 3,833
Black slaves in the Berbice River area and only 346 White people, many of them
women and children. The rebellion spread and it took the arrival of European
gunboats on 13 May 1763 to quell the revolt. The Europeans suffered from
dysentery but the Africans were disunited.
1761, Slavery was abolished in the European territory of
Portugal.
1739, The Stono rebellion, slave revolt, in
South Carolina.
29 May 1733, Canadians given the right to have Indians as slaves, and buy and sell
them.
1713, Britain began supplying slaves to Spanish
colonies after Spain signed the Asiento Agreement.
1684, Barbados had 46,000 slaves, up from 6,000 in
1645. Black people now outnumbered Europeans in Barbados by 2 to 1.
1661, Barbados drew up a code formally legalising the
practise of slavery. Slaves were guaranteed one set of new clothes per year,
but were not protected from bring killed or mutilated by their masters.
1658, Slave imports to South
Africa began, as the White settlers needed more labour than could be
supplied by the indigenous inhabitants.
1608, Spain legalised the
slavery of Chilean Indians.
1600, A slave cost 40 Guilders, which is about US$ 4,000 in 2000 prices.
1592, Britain began a regular trade in slaves.
1588, English merchants founded the Guinea Company,
to buy slaves from the Guinea Coast, Africa.
2 June 1537, A Papal Bull issued by Pope Paul III prohibited enslavement of American
Indians, contrary to King Charles V�s policies. Paul
excommunicated Catholic slave traders.
1526, The ruler of the Congo, Mbemba Nzinga,
a convert to Christianity,
complained to the monarch of Portugal that the Portuguese were effectively kidnapping
large numbers of his subjects, to become slaves on the Brazilian sugar
plantations. However the economic of sugar won out, and the number
of sugar
plantations manned by African slaves rose from 5 in 1550 to 350 in
1623.
1517, Spain began a
regular trade in slaves.
27 December 1512. Spain
enacted the Laws of Burgos, giving New World natives legal protection against
abuse but authorising the
slavery of Black people.
4 December 1511, Antonio de Montesinos, a� Spanish
Dominican friar, denounced the cruelty of settlers enslaving indigenous peoples.
1508,The Spanish began enslaving the indigenous people
of Hispaniola.
30 March 1544, Bartolome de las Casas, Spanish campaigner against the abuse of indigenous peoples, was
consecrated as Bishop of Chiapas, Mexico.
30
October 1503, Queen Isabella of Spain banned violence against
indigenous peoples.
1502, The first slaves from Africa were taken to South America, to work the plantations.
457 BCE, Athens possessed some 75,000 to 150,000 slaves (25%
to 35% of the total population). 20,000 of these slaves worked the silver mines
at Laureion.
Brazil slavery
Brazilian annual slave imports (selected years)
|
1853 |
Trade now ceased |
|
1845 |
20,000 |
|
1830 |
32,000 |
|
1829 |
57,100 |
|
1828 |
47,450 |
|
1827 |
28,150 |
|
1612 |
Ca. 10,000, from Angola |
13 May 1888. Slavery was abolished in Brazil
despite heavy opposition from the landowners. Brazil
had agreed to abolish the slave trade, under pressure from Britain, in 1831,
but this trade did not cease completely in Brazil until 1853. In the 1860s
there was pressure to abolish all slavery in Brazil, and in 1871 the Brazilian
parliament passed a law that all children of slave mothers were free. In 1884
Cearas and Amazonas freed their slaves, and in 1885 all Brazilian slaves aged over
65 were freed. Complete emancipation without compensation to landowners was
decreed on 13 May 1888 and about 700,000 slaves valued at �40 million (i.e ca.�57
each, or� about �3,800 in 2000
prices) were freed. Former slaves also often found themselves with no employment. Unlike
in the USA, slaves had often lived in the community.
27 September 1871, Brazil passed a law that children of slave
mothers must serve their mother�s master from age 8 to 21 without pay, but then
became free citizens.
1853, Slave trading had ceased
in Brazil, but slavery� continued.
1845, Britain passed the Aberdeen Act, decreeing that any
Brazilian ship found to be carrying slaves would be treated as a pirate ship.
1826, The UK persuaded Brazil to
promise to abolish alvery within 3 years. However this promise was not kept,
instead imports of saves to Brazil rose, see table above.
20 November 1695, Zumbi dos Palmares, Brazilian of Congolese origin died. He was a
leader of African resistance against Brazilian slavery.
1630, The Repiublic of Palmares was founded
in N E Brazil by escaped slaves. It was about the size of modern-day Portugal. See
Brazil, 1988.
1573, Slavery was legalised in Brazil.
7 June 1494, The Treaty
of Tordesillas was signed. In 1493, Pope Alexander VI had set a line at 100
leagues west of the Cape Verde islands from north to south Pole; Spain had the
rights to colonise west of this line, Portugal to the east. The 1494 Treaty
moved this line a further 270 leagues to the west. This resulted in Portugal
having possession of both Brazil and Africa; in turn this greatly facilitated
the expansion of the slave trade, providing cheap labour for the sugar
plantations.
Jamaica slavery
9 April 1839, The liberation
of slaves in Jamaica was posing severe problems for the landowners, many of
whom had treated their slaves brutally.
1838, In Jamaica, Jamaican Governor Sir Lionel Smith read out the proclamation
ending slavery on the island.
1 January 1832, Order was
restored in Jamaica after the �Baptist War� (�Black Family War�). Trouble broke
out on 27 December 1831 after Black slaves there believed their order for
freedom had arrived from Britain but was being withheld by the landowners on
Jamaica. 50,000 slaves rebelled, doing extensive damage to property and killing
15 White people. Harsh punishment was inflicted with some 1,000 Black slaves
flogged and 100 shot or hung.
1789, Jamaica had 211,000 slaves, up from 40,000 in 1689,
1739,
Slave
revolt in Jamaica.
1690, There were now 40,000 slaves in Jamaica.
UK slavery
26 September 1846, Thomas Clarkson, British anti-slavery
campaigner, died (born 28 March 1760).
1 August 1834, Slavery was abolished in all British colonies.
�20 million was paid as compensation to former slave owners.� This was a victory for the Anti-Slavery League, formed in 1823,
and their Parliamentary leader, Thomas Fowell Buxton. It also completed the
work of William
Wilberforce; his anti-slavery Bill, to abolish the slave trade,
incepted in 1789, was passed in 1807. This move gave impetus to the
anti-slavery campaign in the USA.
In South Africa,
35,000 slaves were freed as slavery ended throughout the British Empire. In Barbados
the slaves continued to work for their former masters but now as hired
servants.
In Jamaica, slave owners were compensated at �19 per slave.
However the market rate for a slave then was �35
(�2,000 at 2000 prices). Most of this money in fact went to
the plantation creditors, as the plantations were in debt, heavily mortgaged,
and in places declining in fertility through overwork. Additionally the UK Government now moved
from a Protectionist to a Free Trade stance, eliminiating heavy duties
against non-UK-colonial sugar,and sugar prices fell by half.
23 August 1833. London
abolished slavery throughout the British Empire. The trade in slaves in Britain had been illegal
since 1807. Other European countries
slowly followed suit; France continued with the trade till 1819. Spain abolished it in 1820,
getting �400,000 compensation from Britain. Portugal abolished the slave trade
in 1830, and was paid �300,000 by
Britain. Boer farmers in South Africa, facing a loss of this free labour, moved
northwards to land outside British control. The Boers were aggrieved that
whilst British slave owners in the West Indies received full compensation for
the loss of their slaves, Dutch Boer
farmers received only one fifth compensation.� Every slave in the British Empire was now
nominally free, although
to offset the sudden shortage of labour, field slaves were �apprenticed� to
their masters till 1840, and domestic slaves till 1838.
3 August 1833, State funeral of William
Wilberforce in Westminster Abbey.
29 July 1833, William Wilberforce, who had played a large role in abolishing the
slave trade in 1807 and of abolishing slavery in the British Empire in 1833,
died.
11 June 1825, William Wilberforce made his last speech in the House of Commons.
25 March 1807. The UK Parliament
passed the Bill for the abolition of the Slave Trade. This was the
culmination of a 20-year campaign by William
Wilberforce, the 47 year old MP for Yorkshire who took up the
anti-slavery cause in 1787. Wilberforce moved the first anti-slavery Bill
in May 1789, but was then defeated by the interests of landed gentry and the
sugar cane industry.
13 September 1806, English statesman
Charles
James Fox was taken ill and died at his London home, just as he was
about to introduce a Bill to abolish slavery.
25 October 1800, Lord Macaulay, English Liberal MP, member of the Supreme Council
of India 1834-38 and campaigner for the abolition of slavery, was born.
12 May 1789, William Wilberforce made his first speech with the House of Commons.
22 August 1788, The
British settlement of Sierra Leone
was founded, for the purpose of providing a home for freed slaves and homeless
Africans from England.
9 May 1788, British Parliament passed a motion for the
abolition of the slave trade.
30 October 1787, William Wilberforce first met with the London Committee for the
Abolition of the Slave Trade.
22 May 1787, The London Committee for the Abolition of the Slave
Trade was founded by Thomas Clarkson.
29 November 1781, The slave
ship Zong sighted land in the West
Indies (see 6 September 1781). Collingwood, the ship�s Master, told his
officers there was insufficient water for them and all the slaves on board.
Dysentery had also plagued the ship on its voyage from Liverpool, killing 60
slaves and 7 crew. Collingwood said if the slaves died of thirst
the ship�s owners would bear the loss but if they were thrown overboard the
loss would be covered� under insurance as
a legal jettison. The weakest 132 slaves were picked out; 54 were thrown
overboard that day, 42 the next day, and a further 26 were handcuffed and
thrown overboard a few days later. A further ten jumped overboard before they
were thrown. On 22 December 1781 the Zong docked at Kingston, Jamaica; the
remaining slaves were sold and Collingwood returned to England, and claimed �30
each (�2,200 in 2000 prices)
for the 132 �jettisoned� slaves. The insurers refused to pay, and the first
trial ruled in favour of Collingwood, saying �it was the same as if
horses had been thrown overboard�. The insurers appealed to the Court of
Exchequer and Lord
Mansfield, judge, ruled otherwise. He said that although the law
supported Collingwood, a higher principle applied; distinguishing between �law�
and justice� he ruled in this �shocking case� against Collingwood. Mansfield�s
ruling was the first in an English Court
that a slave was not simply merchandise.
6 September 1781, The slave
ship Zong left Liverpool, with Luke
Collingwood as its Master, with 400 slaves and 17 crew, see 29
November 1781.
1775, The price of an African slave in the British colonies in
the Caribbean was now �40, up from �30 in 1748. Demand for sugar in
Europe was rising.
22 June 1772, In
Britain, Lord
Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice, ruled that an escaped slave was free
as soon as they set foot on English or Welsh soil.
28 March 1760, Thomas Clarkson,
British anti-slavery campaigner, was born (died 26 September 1846).
24 August 1759. William Wilberforce,
anti-slavery campaigner, was born in Hull, the son of a merchant. He was the
third of four children.
1727, In England, the Quakers demanded the abolition of slavery.
1676, Dutch traders bought slaves in Angola for
30 Florins (�15?) and sold them in the Americas for Florins 300 � 500 each. The
Dutch traded some 15,000 slaves per year this way.
27 September 1672, In Britain, The Royal African
Company was granted a monopoly of the African slave trade. A healthy slave
could be bought in America for under �20 (approximately �2,000
in 2000 prices), but the trade was still very
profitable.
From Dictionary
of the Bible, Dr William Smith, 1863, John Murray, London,
300 BCE, Nicanor, Greece, a surplus of
slaves on sale, price �2 15 shillings, or �161 (2000 prices)
400 BCE, Price of slave in
Palestine, 30 shekels (same price at time of Exodus bein written), or �3 8
shillings (1863), or �193 |(2000 prices).
400 BCE, Price of slave in Greece,
1.25 Minas, or �5 1 shillings and 6 d (1863), or �297 |(2000 prices).
�Occasionally, slaves would be sold at as high a
price as a talent (�243 15 shillings)� (ibid p.1332), or �14,260 (2000 prices)
���������
USA slavery
10 March 1913, Harriet Tubman, who
led many US slaves to freedom in the 1850s, died in Auburn, New York.
22 February 1901, Laura Matilda Towne, US educator and
abolitionist who founded the first freedmen's schools for the education of
newly freed slaves, died aged 75.
24 May 1879, William Lloyd Harrison, American campaigner for abolition of slavery and for women�s
suffrage, died in New York.
28 December 1874, Gerritt Smith, US anti-slavery campaigner,
died in New York City (born 6 March 1797 in Utica, New York)
18 December 1865. Slavery was officially abolished in the USA with the ratification of the 13th Amendment, signed on 1
February 1865. See 16 June 1858. The slave trade to the United States had been prohibited in 1807
but slavery continued in the southern States as the cotton trade grew. The
publication of Harriet
Beecher�s Uncle Tom�s Cabin in 1852 convinced many of the
evils of slavery but Northerners were still reluctant to back a full
abolitionist policy. But they did not wish to se slavery spread from the South
either and this led to the American
Civil War of 1861-65 after the election of Abraham Lincoln as President.
Slaves were freed in areas joining the Northern side and in all areas after the
13th Amendment was passed.
3 March 1865. The USA
established the Bureau of Freed Slaves,
offering them education, medical care, and financial assistance.
27 May 1864, Joshua Giddings, prominent US anti-slavery
campaigner, died (born 6 October 1795).
1 January 1863, US President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing
slaves
19 June 1862, Slavery was abolished in the US
Territories.
16 April 1862, The District of Columbia, USA,
abolished slavery by Act of Congress.
See USA for American Civil War 1861-65
11 February 1861, The USA unanimously passed a resolution
guaranteeing non-interference with slavery in any State
2 December 1859, John Brown, American
anti-slavery campaigner, was hanged for treason at Charlestown, West
Virginia. In 1856 Brown and his sons murdered five pro-slavery
settlers in a raid on Kansas. He wanted to found a republic in the Appalachians
for runaway slaves and abolitionists. On 16 October 1859 Brown and 21 armed men attacked
Harpers Ferry, seized the federal arsenal and occupied the town. Federal troops
under General
Lee recaptured the town; wounding Brown and killing 10 of his men.
In the north of the USA Brown was hailed as a martyr but the south saw
him as a traitor.
16 October 1859, John Brown, American
slavery abolitionist, with 21 followers, seized the US armoury at
Harper�s Ferry.� He was later hanged for
this, see 2 December 1859.
7 March 1859, The USA�s Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was upheld by the
Supreme Court in the case of Ableman v. Booth, which reversed the Wisconsin
Court ruling of 1854.
1857, North Carolina farmer Hinton Rowan Helper, aged 28, published The
Impending Crisis of the South, and How to Meet it. He demonstrated that slavery
was uneconomical, and in fact damasged the livelihood of small farmers who did
not own slaves. He was pariased in the North, but vilified in the
South.
25 November 1857, Anti-slavery campaigner James Birney
died in Perth Amboy, New Jersey (born in Danville, Kentucky 4 February 1792).
6 March 1857, The United States Supreme Court, in the Dredd Scott Decision,
decreed seven to two that 1) it was unconstitutional for Congress to outlaw
slavery in the United States, and 2) that no slave could claim US citizenship.
Dredd Scott,
now aged 62, was a slave �owned� by Elizabeth Blow of Missouri (a slave State),
who was subsequently sold to John Emerson, an army surgeon who took Scott
to the free State of Illinois, and later to Wisconsin Territory, where slavery
was outlawed by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. In 1838 Emerson took Scott
back to Missouri. Scott was in fact set free by his Abolitionist
�owners�. The Dredd Scott Decision
only served to inflame the slave/Abolitionist dispute further and probably
hastened on the US
Civil War.
24 May 1856, Slavery
Abolitionist John
Brown led a raid on pro-slavery men at Pottawaomie Creek,Kansas.
21 May 1856, The town of Lawrence, Kansas, was sacked by a pro-slavery mob
who wanted to pack the Kansas Legislature with pro-slavers, inspired by
Stephen A
Douglas.
1854, Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the
1850 Federal Act of 18 September 1850 was unconstitutional, and freed a man
convicted of assisting a runaway slave.
26 May 1854, A Boston mob attacked a Federal courthouse in a vain
attempt to prevent the return of fugitive slave Anthony
Burns. Federal troops were called in to escort him to Boston Docks in
order to return him to his Southern owner; outraged citizens staged a silent
protest along the street.
15 February 1851, The issue of escaped slaves was brought
into prominence in the USA when a group of Black protestors liberated a runaway
slave, Shadrach,
from Boston jail. A similar incident occurred on 1 October 1851 at Syracuse,
New York.
1850, Indigenous New Mexican
peoples were being sold as slaves; a boy sold for US$ 100 (about the proice of a horse), but
a girl fetched twice as much. Adult men were considered potentially
more rebellious.
18 September 1850, US Congress passed a new Fugitive Slave Act reinforcing the
provisions of the 1793 Act, by substituting Federal for State jurisdiction.
New York freedman James Hamlet was arrested in New York as a
fugitive from Baltimore, the first arrest under the new Act, but public
indignation secured his release. Chicago City Council, 21 October 1850, stated
it would not uphold the new Act; however New York, 30 October 1850, said it
would enforce it.
1849, Maryland slave Maurice Tubman escaped, aged 29, to the North and began a
career as �conductor� on the Underground Railway, which had begun in 1838.
Tubman made 19 trips, freeing over 100 slaves, including her elderly parents
which she brought to the North in 1857.
22 March 1842, US Congressman Joshua R Giddings from Ohio
resigned his seat after being censured for
introducing anti-slavery legislation. He was back in
post by 8 May 1842.
1 March 1842, The US Supreme Court ruled, in Prigg v.Pennsylvania, that
under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, the owner of a fugitive slave was
entitled to forcibly capture and recover them.
9 March 1841. The rebel slaves who seized their Spanish ship, the Amistad,
on route between 2 Cuban ports in 1840, killed the captain and most of the
52-strong crew, and sailed it to Connecticut were freed by the US Supreme Court
this day. The Spanish authorities had demanded the slaves be extradited to
Spain. The slaves then planned to raise money to return to Africa.
1840, The World Anti-Slavery Conference
opened in London, UK. However Boston Abolitionist William
Garrison refused to attend in protest at the exclusion of women, an
issue which had split the movement.
1839, Ohio evangelist Theodore Wright, 35, issued an Abolitionist tract.
22 August 1839, Benjamin Lundy, US anti-slavery campaigner,
died (born 4 January 1789).
1838, The Underground Railway, organised by
US Abolitionists, began to take southern slaves to freedom in Canada.
However slaving interests in Phialdelphia played on the
frars of Irish immigfants and other workers that freed slaves might take their
jobs
17 May 1838, A mob burnt down
Pennsylvania Hall in an effort th thwart anti-sl;avery meetings.
1837, US Congress enacted a gag law tro suppress
debate on the slavery issue.
8 December 1837, Boston abolitionist Wendel
Philips, 26, attended a meeting where the incident of 7 November 1837
was compared to the patriots pf the Boston Tea Party.
7 November 1837, Prominent anti-slavery campaigner and newspaper owner of The
Observer, EP Lovejoy, was killed by� a
mob in Alton, Illinois, USA. Anti-Abolitionists attacked the press premises of Elijah Paris Lovejoy,
newspaper editor, who was seting up a newspaper to replace the Abolitionist
Alton Obesrver. In a hoot-out, Lovejoy was killed.
26 May 1836, US Congress ruled it had no authority over the
slavery laws of individual States.
4 July 1835, Slave revolts in the southern USA, however their
prospective leader, John A Murrel, had already been arrested, and
the revolts were contained by force and petered out.
1834, Unskilled White US unskilled workers protested
against Abolition because
they feared their jobs would be lost to Black freed men.
10/1834, In Philadelphia, Anti-Abolitionists destroyed
the homes of 40 Black people.
1833, The Female Anti-Slavery Society was founded in Philadelphia, led by Lucretia Coffin
Mott, aged 40, wife of James Mott.
4 December 1833, The American Anti-Slavery Society was founded at
Philadelphia by Abolitinists including James Mott.
1832, The New England Anti-Slavery
Society was founded in Boston, USA.
25 January 1832, The State of Virginia rejected the abolition of slavery.
11 November 1831, Nat Turner, rebel slave, was hanged in Jerusalem, Virginia.
Turner, 31-year-old and a convincing orator, became convinced that God had
chosen him to lead slaves out of bondage. With 5 others he rose up, killed his
master Joseph
Turner and family on 21 August 1831, and led a growing band of rebel
slaves who marched on Jerusalem, and by 23 August 1931 had slaughtered 57 White
people. A local militia then hunted down Nat Turner,�
crushing the revolt in the next 24 hours. Nat Turner was captured in
October 1831, and 16 others were hanged with him.
21 August 1831. The radical
Black preacher Nat
Turner led a band of slaves from some large plantations, killing 57
Whites. Nat
Turner was caught, and hanged on 11 November 1831.Extra security was
imposed, with some slaves manacled at night.
1 January 1831, The first
issue of the anti-slavery newspaper The
Liberator was published. It had been started by William Lloyd Garrison, from
Massachusetts.
1820, The USA declared the slave trade to be piracy, punishable
by death. Slavery still existed in the Southern States, but its continuation
depended on the �breeding� of existing slaves.
6 February 1820. The ship Mayflower
of Liberia left New York for Liberia
with 86 free Black people aboard.
1818, The USA forbade the import
of slaves.
7 April 1817. Some 200 slaves
in Maryland rioted, attacking Whites.
28 December 1816. The
Presbyterian clergyman Robert Finley established the American
Colonisation Society, whose aim was to
recolonise American Black slaves in Africa.
10 January 1811. A Black
uprising in New Orleans was brutally put down. 66 Black people were either
killed in the fighting or executed afterwards, and their heads strung up along
the road to the plantation where the uprising began.
1 January 1808, The USA passed a law banning the import of
slaves, but this was widely ignored.
2 March 1807, US Congress banned the import of slaves to America, effective from 1 January 1808,
�but
this was widely ignored.
10 December 1805, William Garrison, US anti-slavery campaigner,
was born (died 24 May 1879).
1804, Slavery was now abolished in the US States of
Connecticut, Massachuisetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode
Island and Vermont.
1800, The US forbade slave trading
by any foreigner in its territory.
1800, See Clothing
and Cosmetics for the huge increase in slaves on US cotton plantations
around this time as the US cotton growing industry took off.
2 October 1800, Nat Turner, US slave who led a
briefly-succesful slave revolt, was born in Southampton County, Virginia (died
1831).
30 August 1800, Gabriel Prosser, a deeply religioius Black
slave, mmounted a rebellion in Henrico County, Voirginia, USA, with some 1,000
fellow slaves and planned a march on Richmond township. However their plans
were disrupted by heavy rain that washed out roads and bridhges, and disperrsed
hos army. Governor
James Monroe o9 Voirginia (1758-1831) ordered out 600 militia and
arrested the rebel slaves, all of who wer tried and then hanged in 9/1900.
6 March 1797, Gerritt Smith, US anti-slavery campaigner, was
born in Utica, New York (died 28 December 1874 in New York City)
6 October 1795, Joshua Giddings, prominent US anti-slavery
campaigner, was born (died 27 May 1864).
22 March 1794, The USA forbade its
citizens from trading
slaves with foreign nations.
12 February 1793, The US enacted the
first of the Fugitive Slave Laws, authorising judges, without a jury trial, to
decide the status of a fugitive slave and return him to his �owner�.
These laws were in fact so harsh they helped the Abolitionist�s cause.
3 January 1793, Lucretia Mott, US campaigner
against slavery, was born (died 11 November 1880).
4 February 1792, Anti-slavery campaigner James Birney was born in
Danville, Kentucky (died in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, 25 November 1857).
11 February 1790, The Quakers
(Society of Friends) sent a petition to US Congress calling for the
emancipation of slaves.
4 January 1789, Benjamin Lundy, US anti-slavery
campaigner, was born (died 22 August 1839).
1786,
The State of New
Jersey outlawed slavery.
1785,
The State of New
York abolished slavery
8 July 1777, Vermont became the first US State to adopt a constitution banning slavery.
1775, The Pennsylvania Society for promoting
the Abolition of Slavery was formed. Benjamin Franklin was one of the founding
members.
14 April 1775. Benjamin Franklin and Dr Benjamin Rush formed the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes
Unlawfully Held In Bondage � the first colonial anti-slavery group.
13 June 1774, Rhode Island became the first US State to ban the importation of
slaves, and to free those already
in the State.
1712, Pennsylvania prohibited the import of slaves.
1688, The first recorded slavery abolitionist meeting took place in
Germantown, Pennsylvania, where the
Quakers declared that enslavement was a sin.
