18th Century

Massachusetts requires every master who liberates a slave to pay a bond of 50 pounds or more in case the freedman becomes a public charge.

Connecticut assigns the punishment of whipping to any slaves who disturb the peace or assault whites.

Rhode Island makes it illegal for blacks and Indians to walk at night without passes.

The Virginia Slave Code codified the status of slaves, further limited their freedom, and defined some rights of slave owners. It defines all slaves as real estate, acquits masters who kill slaves during punishment, forbids slaves and free colored peoples from physically assaulting white persons, and denies slaves the right to bear arms or move abroad without written permission. It included provisions stating that non-Christians brought to Virginia would be slaves, even if they converted to Christianity. It also allowed slave owners to punish slaves without fear of legal repercussions and specified the rewards for the recapture of runaway slaves.

New York declares that punishment by execution will be applied to certain runaway slaves.

Massachusetts makes marriage and sexual relations between blacks and whites illegal.

Virginia’s House of Burgesses enacts the Virginia Slave Codes regulating the interactions between slaves and citizens of the colony of Virginia. The colonial statute was devised to establish a greater level of control over the rising African slave population of Virginia.

New York declares blacks, Indians, and slaves who kill white people to be subject to the death penalty.

Connecticut requires that Indians, mulattoes, and black servants gain permission from their masters to engage in trade.

The Act of Union between Scotland and England was ratified, and the new British Parliament soon took in its first Scottish Members.

Queen Anne refused to assent to the Scottish Militia Bill, the last time the royal veto was used.

The Southern colonies require militia captains to enlist and train one slave for every white soldier.

Rhode Island requires that slaves be accompanied by their masters when visiting the homes of free persons.

Blacks outnumber whites in South Carolina.

New York forbids blacks, Indians, and mulattoes from walking at night without lighted lanterns.

Pennsylvania prohibits the importation of blacks and Indians.

Rhode Island prohibits the clandestine importation of black and Indian slaves.

African revolt against slavery in New York led to nine white men dead, 70 blacks arrested and jailed. Of the 70 blacks, 27 were put on trial and 21 convicted and executed.

Pennsylvania passes law preventing importation of slaves.

New York declares it illegal for blacks, Indians, and slaves to murder other blacks, Indians, and slaves.

New York forbids freed blacks, Indians, and mulatto slaves from owning real estate and holding property.

In Charleston, South Carolina, slaves are forbidden from hiring themselves out.

The Pennsylvania Assembly passes An Act to prevent the importation of Negroes, arguably the first piece of antislavery legislation in the British Empire.

Birth of Anthony Benezet in St. Quentin, France. Benezet would go on to be one of the most important Quaker abolitionists of the mid-eighteenth century.

Spain awards the British South Sea Company the Asiento de Negros for thirty years – effectively giving Britain control of the Atlantic slave trade. The South Sea Company works with the Royal African Company to transport tens of thousands of enslaved people across the Atlantic in the coming decades.

The Quaker Yearly Meeting in London writes to Friends in Pennsylvania telling them that slave trading ‘is not a Commendable nor allowed Practice’, but little action follows.

The Treaty of Utrecht ended the War of the Spanish Succession.

Queen Anne died and was succeeded by George I of Hanover by the Act of Settlement.

John Hepburn, a Quaker from New Jersey, publishes The American Defence of the Christian Golden Rule, or, An Essay to prove the Unlawfulness of making Slaves of Men. Although it did not circulate widely, it contained almost every argument against slavery used by abolitionists over the coming century.

Rhode Island legalizes slavery.

Maryland declares all slaves entering the province and their descendants to be slaves for life.

New York enacts a fugitive slave law.

French Louisiana prohibits slaves from marrying without the permission of their owners.

The Quaker Yearly Meeting in London again writes to Friends in Pennsylvania telling them that slave trading ‘is not a Commendable nor allowed Practice’. This provokes debate among Friends in Philadelphia.

Increased conflict between British troops and the maroon community in Jamaica leads to the start of the First Maroon War. The maroons – former slaves living in independent communities – would conduct a guerilla war against the British for over a decade.

The ‘Chesapeake Rebellion’, an uprising of several hundred enslaved people in Virginia, ends with the brutal suppression of the rebels.

From this time onward, England trades aggressively in North American slaves, with New York, Boston and Charleston thriving as home ports for slave vessels.

The Spanish reverse a 1730 decision and declare that slaves fleeing to Florida from Carolina will not be sold or returned.

Slaves aboard the ship of New Hampshire Captain John Major kill both captain and crew, seizing the vessel and its cargo.

The colony of Georgia is granted a charter.

The Molasses Act attempted to stop the triangular trade between the Americas, Europe, and Africa trade fueled by West Indies slave trade requiring more slaves to harvest sugar destined to colonial ports to be converted into rum for shipment to England as a European trade commodity.

In Rhode Island, the Nantucket Quaker Elihu Coleman publishes A testimony against that anti-christian practice of making slaves of men. Although this does not circulate widely, it is nonetheless the first officially sanctioned antislavery text in the Quaker tradition.

A group of at least 150 enslaved Africans on the Danish Caribbean island of St. John take control of the colony’s sugar plantations.

Georgia petitions Britain for the legalization of slavery.

Louis XV, King of France, declares that when an enslaved woman gives birth to the child of a free man, neither mother nor child can be sold. Further, after a certain time, mother and child will be freed.

In Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin publishes All Slave-keepers that keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates, an antislavery tract written by the Pennsylvanian Quaker Benjamin Lay.

Benjamin Lay performs his famous ‘bladder of blood’ protest at the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Quakers in which he likens slave trading to stabbing the Bible. The stunt spatters those present with fake blood (hidden inside a bladder in a hollowed-out Bible, which he stabbed with a sword), and was successful in drawing attention to cruelty of slavery, but Lay was swiftly disowned by the Quakers.

Georgia’s trustees permit the importation of black slaves.

Spanish Florida promises freedom and land to runaway slaves.

In South Carolina, a group of enslaved Africans led by a slave called Jemmy, or Cato, take up arms against their enslavers. They rebel, sack and burn an armory and killing 25 colonists and up to 50 slaves. The colonial militia puts an end to the rebellion before slaves are able to reach freedom in Florida.

The Jamaican maroon communities under Nanny of the Maroons and others sign a peace treaty with the British, ending the First Maroon War. The British recognize the maroons, but the maroons are forced to accept the slavery system on the island.

South Carolina passes the comprehensive “Negro Act,” making it illegal for slaves to move abroad, assemble in groups, raise food, earn money, and learn to read English. Owners are permitted to kill rebellious slaves if necessary.

Georgia and Carolina attempt to invade Florida in retaliation for the territory’s policy toward runaways.

A series of fires in New York City leads to a mass panic among the colonists who come to believe in a conspiracy by enslaved people. Although historians are unsure whether such a conspiracy in fact existed, hundreds of slaves are arrested and, by the late summer, dozens had been convicted and hanged and hundreds transported out of the colony.

Philadelphia Quakers add the question ‘do Friends observe the former advice of our Yearly Meeting, not to Encourage the Importation of Negroes not to buy them after imported’ to the ‘Queries’ which all Quakers in the colony were required to answer.

George II repeals the 1705 Virginia act by which slaves were deemed real estate.

John Woolman addresses his fellow Quakers in Some Consideration of the Keeping of Negroes and exerts great influence in leading the Society of Friends to recognize the evil of slavery. The London Yearly Meeting also issues a statement condemning slavery in its Epistle for the first time.

Pennsylvania Quakers forbid their members from owning slaves or participating in the slave trade.

Publication in Germantown (PA) of Anthony Benezet’s pamphlet, Observations on the Inslaving [sic], Importing and Purchasing of Negroes, the first of many anti-slavery works by the most influential antislavery writer of 18th century America.

New Jersey prohibits the enlistment of slaves in the militia without their master’s permission.

In Jamaica, a large number of enslaved Africans led by Tacky rise up with the intention of creating an independent Black state. The uprising is quickly put down, and Tacky killed, but the event inspires further rebellions across the island. By the end of ‘Tacky’s War’ later in the year, about 60 colonists and 400 slaves had been killed.

Society of Friends the world’s first antislavery organization is established.

King George III marries Sophia Charlotte, the daughter of Duke Charles Louis Frederick of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Queen Charlotte is a direct descendant of the black branch of the Portuguese Royal House.

Peace of Paris ended the Seven Years War. Britain gained Quebec, trans-Appalachian lands, the Florida, French West Indian islands and Senegal.

The Proclamation Line of 1763 was a British-produced boundary marked in the Appalachian Mountains at the Eastern Continental Divide to prohibit the colonists from settling on lands acquired from the French following the French and Indian War.

East India Company victorious at the Battle of Buxar and later granted the right to collect revenue in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa.

The former slave trader John Newton is ordained into the Church of England and publishes An Authentic Narrative of Some Remarkable and Interesting Particulars in which he expresses few reservations about his former career.

The Revenue Act required American merchants to post bonds before loading their cargoes destined to America.

The Stamp Act imposed a revenue stamp on all newspapers, pamphlets, almanacs, legal documents, liquor licenses, college diplomas, playing cards, and even dice.

The Regency Act of 1765 designated Queen Charlotte as Regent until her son, George IV, becomes of age to assume the throne after the death of his father, King George III.

Anthony Benezet publishes A Caution and Warning to Great Britain and her Colonies, in a short representation of the calamitous state of the enslaved Negroes in the British Dominions in Philadelphia.

The Virginia House of Burgess boycotts the British slave trade in protest of the Townsend Acts. Georgia and the Carolinas follow suit.

The Townshend Acts added duties to the importation of paper, lead, painters’ colors, and tea.

Boston Non-Importation Agreement addressed the colonies defiance not to import tea, paper, glass, or painters’ colours, until the acts imposing duties on these articles have been repealed

Granville Sharp published A Representation of the Injustice and Dangerous Tendency of Tolerating Slavery: Or of Admitting the Least Claim of Private Property in the Persons of Men, in England in London, the first major work of antislavery by a British author.

Charleston Non-Importation Agreement encouraged and promoted the use of North American manufactured goods in lieu of imports from Great Britain.

Sons of Liberty formed in New York for fair representation in Parliament.

The first separate black church in America is founded in South Carolina.

Slaves in Massachusetts unsuccessfully petition the government for their freedom.

Phillis Wheatley becomes the first published African-American poet when a London publishing company releases a collection of her verse.

John Bicknell and Thomas Day publish The Dying Negro. The poem drew public attention to the slave trade.

The Tea Act gave the East India Company a trade monopoly on tea imports to American market.

American protesters dumped tea in Boston Harbour -the Boston Tea Party.

Parliament passed Lord North’s East India Company Regulating Act.

Vermont is the first of the thirteen colonies to abolish slavery and enfranchise all adult males.

New York enfranchises all free propertied men regardless of color or prior servitude.

In its newly ratified constitution, the Vermont Republic becomes the first territory that is now part of the United States to outlaw slavery.

Rhode Island forbids the removal of slaves from the state.

Virginia prohibits the importation of slaves.

Delaware makes it illegal to enslave imported Africans.

Pennsylvania begins gradual emancipation.

A freedom clause in the Massachusetts constitution is interpreted as an abolishment of slavery. Massachusetts enfranchises all men regardless of race.

An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery enabled a ruling on the management and treatment of Negroes and mulattoes in Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania General Assembly passes An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, one of the earliest laws enacted by an elected body to abolish slavery.

Gradual Emancipation Act passed in Pennsylvania to appease slave owners in the abolition of slavery.

British general Lord Cornwallis surrendered to Americans at Yorktown.

British forces surrender to American forces at Yorktown, Virginia, effectively ending the American Revolutionary War.

The Articles of Capitulation detailed the surrender, treatment and release of British forces.

The Articles of Confederation united the thirteen colonies.

Luke Collingwood, the master of the slave ship Zong, which was running short of water and provisions, murders 132 enslaved people by throwing them alive into the sea. Collingwood believes that the massacre will allow him to claim their value on the ship’s insurance.

Mum Bett and another Massachusetts slave successfully sue their master for freedom.