Timeline of Slavery in the US
Get an overview of slavery in the United States with our timeline.
1619 First African slaves arrive in Jamestown on the Dutch ship White Lion

1654 John Casor becomes the first legally recognized slave in the United States

1705 Virginia declares all negro, mulatto and Indian slaves should be held as real estate

1774 Rhode Island bans the importation of slaves

1775 The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage (aka Pennsylvania Society) forms

1783 Slavery ends in Massachusetts

1793 An Act Against Slavery prohibits slavery in Upper Canada

1800 A slave named Gabriel leads a rebellion in Virginia

1807 British Parliament makes the slave trade illegal

1808 United States bans importation of slaves

1816 American Colonization Society is established in Washington, DC

1822 Denmark Vesey is hanged for planning a slave rebellion in Charleston, SC

1831 Nat Turner leads a slave rebellion in Southampton County, Va.

1831 William Lloyd Garrison founds the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator

1833 Slavery Abolition Act abolishes slavery in most of the British Empire

1845 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave is published

1847 Liberia, an African colony of freed slaves, declares itself an independent state

1848 Connecticut abolishes slavery

1848 Slavery is abolished in French colonies

1850 Fugitive slave laws require runaway slaves in free states to be returned to their owners

1852 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is published

1857 New Hampshire abolishes slavery

1857 US Supreme Court rules that Dred Scott can’t sue for his freedom

1859 John Brown raids Harpers Ferry, WV

1863 Emancipation Proclamation takes effect

1865 13th Amendment prohibits slavery in the United States

1866 Final issue of The Liberator is published