1787

The ratified U.S. Constitution allows a male slave to count as three-fifths of a man in determining representation in the House of Representatives. The Constitution sets 1808 as the earliest date for the national government to ban the slave trade.

Ottobah Cugoano publishes Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Commerce of the Human Species, the first dedicated abolitionist publication in English by an African.

The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade is founded in London by twelve men, including Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp. At their instigation, the following five years would see a surge in abolitionist activity in Great Britain and around the world.

Northwest Ordinance prohibits slavery in the Northwest Territories, except as criminal punishment, in the Northwest Territory (later Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin). Residents of the territory are required to return fugitive slaves.

Benjamin Franklin becomes Honorary President of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.

The U.S. Constitution is drafted in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Black preacher Richard Allen founds the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Prince Hall founds the first black fraternal organization, the African Mason Lodge, in Boston, Massachusetts. It provides services to the black community and lobbies against slavery and discrimination.

Philadelphia free blacks establish the Free African Society in Philadelphia, the first independent black organization and a mutual aid society.

Rhode Island forbids residents from participating in the slave trade.

Delaware regulates interstate slave trade.

South Carolina ends domestic and international slave trade.

North Carolina levies a prohibitive duty on imported African slaves.

Founding in London of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade.

William Wilberforce becomes the Parliamentary leader and begins a ten-year campaign to abolish Britain’s slave trade