1802

Napoleon revokes the emancipation decree act of 1794 and reintroduces slavery to French colonies and sends an army to put down the rebellion in Haiti (Saint Domingue).

1803

South Carolina resumes importation of slaves as cotton becomes profitable and the demand for field hands increases.

Cotton passes tobacco as the leading U.S. export crop.

Renewal of hostilities in Europe increases demand for U.S. commodities and further fuels the demand for slaves.

1804

January 1

Haiti is established as an independent republic.

All slaves are freed and all whites that do not flee are killed. Many of the whites flee to Baltimore.

1807

March 2

Congress bans importation of slaves from Africa to take effect on January 1, 1808.

1808

January 1

United States bans all importation of slaves.

1810

Prussia abolishes serfdom.

France makes tobacco a government monopoly.

1813

Sweden abolishes the slave trade.

1814

Dutch end slave trade.

May 30

Great Britain and France conclude a treaty prohibiting the introduction of slaves into the French colonies by foreigners to take effect immediately and interdicting absolutely the trade to the French themselves after June 1, 1819.

November

Congress of Vienna acknowledges the principal that the slave trade should be abolished as soon as possible but leaves the determine of the time limits to separate negotiations between the Powers.

December 24

Treaty of Ghent ends War of 1812.

United States and Great Britain agree to cooperate in suppressing the slave trade but Yankee Clippers built at Baltimore, Maryland and New Port, Rhode Island out sail the ponderous British man-of-wars assigned to patrol the slave lanes.

The ostensible reason for the war was the impressment of U.S. seamen but the United States was trounced so badly that it dropped its demand for an end to impressment and only asked for a return to the status quo ante bellum.

1815

January

Portuguese subjects are prohibited from prosecuting the slave trade north of the equator, to take effect immediately, and a complete ban on the slave trade to take effect as of January 21, 1823. See 1823.

November 20

Second Peace of Paris reconfirms the France's promise to abolish her slave trade by 1819 and to limit the trade to her own colonies until then.

1820

The Spanish agreed to end the slave trade and England pays Spain an indemnity of £400,000.

March 3

Missouri Compromise accepted by Congress. Missouri is admitted as a slave state in exchange for Maine's admittance as a free state on condition that slavery be abolished in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase.

Liberia is founded by the Washington Colonization Society for the repatriation of U.S. Africans to Africa.

1821

Benjamin Lundy urges abolition of slavery and begins publication of the antislavery newspaper Genius of Universal Emancipation.

William Wilberforce appeals to Thomas Fowell Buxton to undertake an inquiry into slavery in parliament.

1822

Moresby Treaty restricts the Zanzibar slave trade to within limits which exclude Iran and India.

William Wilberforce and Thomas Fowell Buxton establish an antislavery society in London.

June 16

Vasey's slave rebellion fails in South Carolina. Over thirty executions take place and several southern states tighten their slave codes.

1823

Portugal's deadline for ending the slave trade extended to February 1830. England pays a £300,000 compensation to Portugal.

May 5

Thomas Fowell Buxton moved that the House should take into consideration the state of slavery in the British colonies. Buxton and his associates favored the establishment of serfdom for existing slaves and freedom for children after a certain date.

1824

Robert Owen promotes abolition of slavery, women's liberation and free progressive education.

1826

Pennsylvania nullifies Fugitive Slave Act with passage of law making kidnapping a crime. See 1842.

1827

New York abolishes slavery.

1829

September 15

Mexico abolishes slavery.

December 2

President Vicente Guerero exempts Texas Territory from antislavery decree of September 15.

Stephen D. Miller, Governor of South Carolina, tells the legislature that "Slavery is not a national evil; on the contrary, it is a national benefit."

The British Slave Trade Commission takes over the administration of the African island of Fernando Po with Spanish consent.

Sarah and Angelina Grimke leave Charleston for the North. They become Quakers and are active in the antislavery and women's rights movements.

1830

Mexico forbids further colonization of Texas Territory and prohibits further importation of slaves into the Territory.

The schooner Comet is wrecked on a voyage from Alexandria, Va. to New Orleans La. Survivors are taken to the Bahamas where the slaves on board are declared free by the British authorities. The U.S. government registers a protest.

1831

Great Britain and France enter into an agreement for a mutual right of search in certain areas. Most of the other Powers accede.

Nat Turner leads slave revolt in Virginia. Fifty seven whites including children are murdered. When questioned about killing children Turner says "Kill them all. Nits breed lice." Turner is captured by the Army in August, tried and hanged.

December 27

Samuel Sharp's rebellion in Jamaica results in the hanging of Sharp and the flogging of other slaves involved.

The Liberator begins publication in Boston. William Lloyd Garrison advocates emancipation of the slaves. Slaves comprise nearly a third of the U.S. population.

1832

The New England Anti-Slavery is founded at Boston.

The African face musical Jim Crow debuts at the City Theater on Jefferson Street in Louisville, Kentucky. The cast gets 20 encores.

1833

Kentucky bans importation of slaves. See 1850.

Great Britain and France enter into a new agreement for a mutual right of search within certain areas.

David Lee Child writes An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans and advocates education of Africans.

Prudence Crandall, Canterbury, Connecticut school mistress is imprisoned for violating a special act of the legislature directing her to not admit African girls to her school.

The Female Anti-Slavery Society is founded at Boston by Lucretia Coffin Mott and others.

August 23

Slavery abolished in the British colonies as of August 1, 1834.

December 4

The American Anti-Slavery Society is founded at Philadelphia by James Mott and others.

1834 August 1

35,000 slaves freed in South Africa as slavery ends in British Empire.

1836

December 10

A royal decree forbids the export of slaves from and Portuguese possession.

1837

Congress enacts a gag law to suppress debate on the slavery issue.

December 7

Elijah Paris Lovejoy, editor of the abolitionist Alton Observer, is shot dead by pro slavery partisans.

1838 May 17

A Philadelphia mob burns Pennsylvania Hall as Irish immigrants and other working people fear that freed slaves will take their jobs as the Underground Railroad goes into operation.

1839

Theodore Dwight Weld, evangelist-abolitionist, publishes American Slavery as It Is.

Henry Clay delivers a conciliatory address against militant abolitionism.

1840

The World's Anti-Slavery Convention opens in London. William Garrison refuses to attend protesting the exclusion of women. The U.S. antislavery movement has split into factions over Garrison's advocate of women's rights including the right to participate in the antislavery movement. See 1848.

1842

Ashburton Treaty provides for joint American and British maintenance of squadrons on the west coast of Africa.

The blockading cruisers had a pecuniary interest in capturing the slavers on the high seas instead of interdicting the traffic. Ships captured on the high seas can be sold for prize money. Prize money is divided among the officers and crew.

The result of the blockade was a 300 % increase in slaves shipped with two thirds being murdered at sea and a deterioration in the conditions of current slaves as the work load was increased to compensate for the decrease in supplies of new slaves.

March 1

U.S. Supreme Court rules in, Prigg v. Pennsylvania that the owner of a fugitive slave may recover him under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793. The 1826 Pennsylvania law is overturned but state authorities are under no obligation to assist in recovery of a slave.

March 22

Joshua R. Giddings, Congressman from Ohio, resigns his seat after being censored by the House for introducing antislavery resolutions. Giddings is reelected and back in his seat May 8.

1843

India abolishes slavery.

1845

The Methodist Episcopal Church in America splits into northern and southern conferences after Georgia Bishop James O. Andrews resists an order to give up his slaves or resign his Bishopric.

Zanzibar abolishes the slave trade.

1847

July 26

Liberia is proclaimed an independent republic. Liberia was colonized by U.S. freedmen and is the first African colony to gain independence.

1848

Illinois abolishes slavery.

France abolishes slavery in it's West Indies colonies. About 74,000 slaves freed on Martinique alone.

Dred Scott sues in U.S. Supreme Court for his freedom.

The first Women's Rights Convention is held at Seneca Falls, N.Y., under leadership of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Coffin Mott.

1849

Harriet Tubman escapes to the north and becomes a conductor on the underground railroad.

1850

Slave trade banned in District of Columbia.

Kentucky repeals ban on importation of slaves.

The first national women's rights convention is organized by Lucy Stone and held in Worchester Massachusetts

September 18

A new Fugitive Slave Act strengthens the 1793 act by substituting federal jurisdiction for state jurisdiction.

October 21

The Chicago City Council moves to not sustain the new act.

October 30

A mass meeting in New York resolves that the act should be sustained.

The first person arrested under the act is New York freedman James Hamlet. He is arrested by a deputy U.S. Marshal as a fugitive from Baltimore. The arrest arouses so much public indignation that Hamlet is redeemed and freed.

1851

February 15

Boston Africans defy the Fugitive Slave Act and rescue the fugitive Shadrach from jail.

February 18

President Fillmore calls upon Massachusetts citizens and officials to execute the law.

October 1

New York abolitionists free a fugitive slave at Syracuse N.Y.

1852

The Sand River Convention signed by Great Britain and the Boers in South Africa contained a clause forbidding slavery.

1854

Wisconsin Supreme Court rules Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is unconstitutional.

February 28

Republican party organized at Ripon, Wisconsin by former Whigs and disaffected Democrats opposed to the extension of slavery.

May 26

A Boston mob attacks a federal courthouse in an attempt to rescue the fugitive slave Anthony Burns. Federal troops are called in to escort Burns to the Boston docks for extradition to the South.

1856

James H. Adams, governor of South Carolina, urges repeal of the 1807 law against trading in slaves.

Free soil leaders are indicted for treason by The Kansas Territorial Legislature. Pitched battles between free-soilers and pro slavery proponents result.

May

The United States recognizes William Walker's government in Nicaraguan. Walker plans a military empire based on slavery and a transisthmus canal.

May 20

Charles Sumner, U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, Calls the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 a "swindle."

May 21

Pro slavery forces led by a U.S. Marshal attack Lawrence Kansas.

May 22

Preston Smith Brooks, U.S. Representative from South Carolina assaults Sumner in the Senate chamber with a walking cane. Massachusetts reelects Sumner the following year even thought he was beaten so badly he will not be able to resume his duties for 3 years.

May 24

John Brown and six followers butcher five men at Pottawatomie Creek by hacking them to death in reprisal for Lawrence, Kansas. The resulting was leaves 200 dead.

July

William Walker is elected President of Nicaragua.

1857

March 6

Dred Scott decision rules Missouri Compromise of 1820 unconstitutional.

Penal Servitude Act Of 1857 abolishes transportation of females.

1858

A fugitive slave is rescued by Oberlin College students and a professor in Ohio. The fugitive is sent to safety in Canada.

Czar Aleksandr begins emancipation of Russia's serfs.

December

The Wanderer lands at Jekyll Island, Georgia with about 300 slaves on board.

1859

Georgia prohibits the post-mortum manumission of slaves by last will and testament. The state legislature votes to permit free Africans to be sold into slavery if they have been indicted as vagrants.

Kansas Territory adopts the Wyandotte Constitution and bans slavery.

March 7

U.S. Supreme Court upholds the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (Ableman v. Booth) reversing the Wisconsin court decision of 1854

October 16

John Brown raids Harper's Ferry.

October 18

John Brown is captured by Colonel Robert E. Lee and a detachment of U.S. Marines.

December 2

John Brown is hanged for treason.

1860

Elizabeth Cady Stanton urges woman suffrage in an address to a joint session of the New York State Legislature.

Lincoln elected president.

December 20

South Carolina adopts an Ordinance of Secession to take effect on December 24.

1861

Czar Aleksandr completes the emancipation of Russian serfs begun in 1858.

New Jersey has 18 persons legally classified as slaves, apprentices for life.

January 9

Mississippi secedes.

January 10

Florida secedes.

January 11

Alabama secedes.

January 19

Georgia secedes.

January 26

Louisiana secedes.

February 1

Texas secedes. Ratified by popular vote February 23.

April 17

Virginia secedes.

May 6

Arkansas secedes.

May 7

Tennessee secedes.

May 20

North Carolina secedes.

February 4

Delegates from six Southern States meet at Montgomery, Alabama and form a provisional government, the Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis is named provisional president. The Confederate Constitution forbids importation of slaves; Section 7-1.

April 12

War Between the States begins with bombardment of Fort Sumpter in Charleston harbor. Abner Doubleday, who was erroneously credited with the invention of baseball by the Spalding Commission, is Major Anderson's artillery officer at Fort Sumpter.

1862

April 16

Slavery abolished in the District of Columbia.

September 22

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln issues an Emancipation Proclamation which declares that "persons held as slaves" within areas in "rebellion against the United States" will be free on and after January 1, 1863. Slaves in areas controlled by U.S. forces are not freed.

November

The First Regiment of South Carolina volunteers is organized. This is the first regiment of (U.S. Colored Troops?).

1865

War Between the States ends.

Ratification of thirteenth amendment forbidding slavery. A person can, theoretically, still be sold into slavery in the United States as the thirteenth amendment allows slavery as a punishment for crime. See 1926

1868

Ratification of fourteenth amendment defining citizenship. Despite the plain unequivocal language, the U.S. Supreme Court in it's infinite wisdom ruled in Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94, 1884, that despite the universal grant of citizenship the term "all persons" somehow did not encompass Indians.

1870

The Spanish legislature enacts the Moret Law freeing slaves in Cuba as they reach 60 years of age. Children not yet born are free at birth but are to be kept at the expense of their parent's masters until 18 years of age and are to be employed until 18 as apprentices in work suitable to their age.

June 3

A U.S.-British convention for the suppression of the African slave trade is concluded.

1871

Brazil frees the children of slaves. The Rio Banco Law

1873 June 5

Zanzibar's public slave markets are closed under pressure from the British to prohibit the export of slaves. See 1897.

1876

Zanzibar signs treaty denying slaves access to the coast port.

1884

November

Representatives of fourteen nations, including the United States, meet in Berlin to carve up Africa. They agree to suppress slavery and promote the tenets of Western civilization. The Berlin Act is signed in February of 1885. See 1889.

1885

Brazil frees all slaves over 60.

1888

May 13

Approximately 700,000 slaves are freed in Brazil.

1889

The signatories of the Berlin Act meet in Brussels at the instance of Queen Victoria with the declared objective of putting an end to the crimes and devastation engendered by the traffic in African slaves.

1892

May

Arab slave holders in the Belgian Congo rebel.

November 22

Arab slave holders defeated by Belgian forces.

December 5

Forced labor by Congo natives is disguised as taxes to be paid in labor.

1897

Zanzabar abolishes slavery.

1901

William Cadbury (Cadbury Chocolates) visits Trinidad and is informed that the cocoa workers on Sao Thome and Principe Islands are for all practical purposes slaves.

1902

William Cadbury sees an advertisement for the sale of a Sao Thome cocoa plantation where the workers are listed as assets at so much a head.

1903

William Cadbury visits Lisbon to investigate alleged slavery in the Portuguese African cocoa islands Sao Thome and Principe. The Portuguese authorities inform Cadbury that his suspicions are unfounded and invite him to see for himself.

1905

Joseph Burtt, English Quaker, spends 6 months on Sao Thome and Principe at the suggestion of William Cadbury and observes that nearly half of the workers on one cocoa plantation died within one year of arrival.

1909

William Cadbury publishes Labor in Portuguese West Africa and persuades two other Quaker cocoa and chocolate firms, Fry and Rowntree, to boycott Portuguese cocoa.

1910

China abolishes slavery.

1919

The Convention of St. Germain-en-Laye.

1926

The Slavery Convention.

1930

The Forced Labor Convention.

1932

The League of Nations Second Slavery Committee.

1935

The Permanent Advisory Committee of Seven Experts on Slavery.

1936

Ibn Sa'ud, King of Saudi Arabia, issues a decree regulation the condition of slaves and providing for manumission under conditions. Importation of slaves by sea is forbidden and provisions are made for the licensing of slave traders.

March 8

Slavery is reported in Liberia by a U.S.-League of Nations commission.

1941

November 11

The United States cruiser Omaha and the destroyer Somers seize the German blockade runner Odenwald and bring her into San Juan, Puerto Rico on the preposterous charge that she had been engaged in the African slave trade.

1942

Ethiopia abolishes slavery.

1946

Paris brothels are closed by La Loi Marthe Richard. Mile. Richard is named for a member of the French Assembly who has campaigned against enslavement of women in houses of prostitution. Prostitution is not outlawed, just the slavery of working in a house. The deminondaines are free to work the streets. Medical examinations were also discontinued.

1949

The assembly of the United Nations requested the Economic and Social council of the United Nations to study slavery. The council appointed an ad hoc committee of four experts to study slavery.

1962

November

Saudi Arabia abolishes slavery.