Historical Summary

Slavery in Connecticut began in the early 17th century and played a significant role in the colony's development. The transatlantic slave trade brought enslaved Africans to New England ports, including New London and New Haven. Enslaved individuals worked on farms, in households, and in light industry, providing the labor necessary to fuel Connecticut's economy.

The crops grown with enslaved labor in Connecticut primarily included corn, wheat, and flax, staples of the region's economy. In addition to agriculture, enslaved individuals worked in shipbuilding, ironworks, and other industries tied to the maritime trade.

Connecticut passed a gradual emancipation law in 1784, which aimed to phase out slavery by freeing the children of enslaved mothers once they reached adulthood. However, total abolition was slow, with some enslaved well into the 19th century. After slavery officially ended, systemic racism persisted in Connecticut. Black residents faced discrimination in housing, education, and employment, as well as social exclusion, which mirrored the struggles of African Americans in other Northern states.

During the Jim Crow era, Connecticut practiced de facto segregation, even though it did not implement formal segregation laws like those in the South. Black residents were often relegated to segregated neighborhoods through redlining and denied access to quality schools and jobs. Despite these barriers, Connecticut became a center for Black activism, particularly during the Civil Rights Movement, as individuals and organizations worked to dismantle systemic racism and secure equal rights for African Americans in the state.

Enslavement

History of slavery in Connecticut - Wikipedia

Connecticut in the American Civil War - Wikipedia

Civil War and Reconstruction 1850-1877 | Connecticut History |

Institutional Racism and Racial Terror

Personal Narratives

Life of James Mars, a slave born and sold in Connecticut | Library of Congress

Venture Smith, from Slavery to Freedom | Connecticut History |

Slavery, Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws

SlaveryTimeline_CT-1.pdf (fairfieldhistory.org)

Objects in the Dark, 1638-1775: The Black Codes (hartford-hwp.com)

Connecticut’s Jim Crow Law – The Shoeleather History Project

List of Jim Crow law examples by state - Wikipedia

Black History Timeline

1650 Connecticut legalizes slavery. Rhode Island by this date has large plantations worked by enslaved Africans.

1660 A Connecticut law prohibits African Americans from serving in the militia.

1775 General George Washington reverses his earlier policy of rejecting the services of slaves and free blacks in the army. Five thousand African-Americans serve during the Revolutionary War including two predominantly black units in Massachusetts, one in Conn

1784 Connecticut and Rhode Island adopt gradual emancipation laws.

1798 Venture Smith's A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, A Native of Africa But Resident Above Sixty Years in the United States of America appears as the first slave narrative written by the person in bondage. Earlier narratives were written by

1818 Connecticut disfranchises black voters.

1876 In May, Edward Alexander Bouchet receives a Ph.D. from Yale University. He is the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from an American university and only the sixth American to earn a Ph.D. in physics.

Books

History of Slavery in Connecticut by Bernard Christian Steiner

Connecticut in the American Civil War: Slavery, Sacrifice, and Survival by Matthew Warshauer

The Injustice and Impolicy of the Slave-Trade, and of the Slavery of the Africans: Illustrated in a Sermon by Jonathan Edwards

Five Black Lives: The Autobiographies of Venture Smith, James Mars, William Grimes, The Rev. G. W. Offley, and James L. Smith by Arna Bontemps

Podcasts

Research at the National Archives and Beyond - Slavery, Freedom and Reunion in a Colonial Connecticut Town (google.com)

‎15 Minute History: Episode 105: Slavery and Abolition

Episode 142: Manisha Sinha, A History of Abolition - Ben Franklin's World

Film/Video

African Americans in Connecticut - The Colonial Era to The Civil War 1998

Connecticut Woman Explains Why She’s Suing Harvard For Family Photos | Connecticut Public

The World Is Watching: Woman Suing Harvard for Photos of Enslaved Ancestors Says History Is At Stake

Sites

Middle Passage to New London: A significant stop on the city's Black Heritage Trail | Connecticut Public

Black Heritage Trail - Explore New London

The Yale & Slavery Research Project

New Haven Museum » The Final Sale of Slaves

Witness Stones Shed Light On New Haven's History Of Enslavement Downtown

Genealogical Research

African American Resources for Connecticut • FamilySearch

Materials about the History of Slavery in Connecticut - Resources for studying African-American Heritage at the CT State Library

CT Citizens All Doc2.pdf

Questions for Research and Reflection:

 

Historical Summary

Enslavement

Slavery – Maine: An Encyclopedia

Maine in the American Civil War - Wikipedia

Maine History Online - 1850-1870 The Civil War

Institutional Racism and Racial Terror

Slave Narratives

19th century abolitionist and slave narrative literature in the Maine Women Writers Collection

The story of the Dorchester County slave who escaped to Maine

Slavery, Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws

Black History Timeline

1795 Bowdoin College is founded in Maine. It later becomes a center for Abolitionist activity; Gen. Oliver O. Howard (Howard University) graduated from the college; Harriet Beecher Stowe taught there and began to write Uncle Tom's Cabin while there (in 1850)

1854 James A. Healy is ordained in France as the first black Jesuit priest. He becomes Bishop of Portland, Maine in 1875, a diocese that includes all of Maine and New Hampshire, and holds that post for 25 years.

Lives of Consequence: Blacks in Early Kittery & Berwick in the Massachusetts Province of Maine by Patricia Q. Wall

Maine's Visible Black History: The First Chronicle of Its People by H.H. Price

Podcasts

Past Programs - Maine's Complex Relationship with the Slave Economy & the Global Slave Trade - Maine Historical Society (mainehistory.org)

Slave Voyages in the North: The Maine Connection to the Transatlantic Trade - Slave Voyages in the North: The Maine Connection to the Transatlantic Trade

Maine's Role in the Slave Trade: Research Uncovers Significant Slave Trading in New England

Film/Video

Maine's Complex Relationship with the Slave Economy & the Global Slave Trade

Slavery in York Maine History

Freedom’s Woods: The African American Community of Peterborough in Warren, Maine

Maine History Series - The Civil War (Led by David Cheever)

Plantations

List of plantations in Maine - Wikipedia

Genealogical Research

African American Resources for Maine • FamilySearch

Questions for Research and Reflection:

 

Historical Summary

Enslavement

History of slavery in Massachusetts - Wikipedia

Massachusetts in the American Civil War - Wikipedia

Slavery in Massachusetts (slavenorth.com)

Emancipation in Massachusetts (slavenorth.com)

Institutional Racism and Racial Terror

Personal Narratives

From Bondage to Belonging: The Worcester Slave Narratives by B. Eugene McCarthy

Slavery, Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws

Slavery in Massachusetts (historyofmassachusetts.org)

List of Jim Crow law examples by state - Wikipedia

Black History Timeline

Massachusetts Historical Society: The Case for Ending Slavery (masshist.org)

• 1630 Massachusetts Bay Colony institutes a fugitive law that allowed for runaways to be protected if they ran away due abuse by masters.
• 1634 Africans were imported into colony as slaves
• 1638 John Winthrop notes in his diary that on December 12 the ship Desire brought into Boston the first shipment of slaves from Barbados. The Africans were probably traded for with Native American captives, as this was a common practice in Massachusetts Bay to get rid of troublesome Native Americans.
• 1641 Massachusetts becomes the first colony to legalize slavery. This is done through the passage of the Body of Liberties. Under section 91 it states:
  There shall never be any bond slavery, villeinage, or captivity amongst us unless it be lawful captives taken in just wars, and such strangers as willingly sell themselves or are sold to us. And these shall have all the liberties and Christian usages which the law of God established in Israel concerning such persons cloth morally require. This exempts none from servitude who shall be judged thereto by authority.
  http://www.constitution.org/bcp/mabodlib.htm
  (This became part of the Articles of New England Confederation, with this, this legalizes the slave trade in Massachusetts and eventual the rest of New England.)
• 1670 The Bodies of Liberties was amended to include the enslavement of a slave woman's offspring to be a legal slave. This guarantees that offspring of all slaves were considered as the same legal status as their mother, a slave.
• 1672 The British Parliament charted the Royal African Company (RAC). This company would have a monopoly on the slave trade between Africa and America. All slaves were to be brought to America only through this company.
• 1680 On October 31, the General Court of Massachusetts (which was the governing body of the Colony) passed a law that required all ships that were bringing any cargo of slaves to the colony to obtain permission from the governor. John Usher, and John Saffin, and four others develop and implement a plan to circumvent the Royal African Company's monopoly and import slaves into Massachusetts. They were successful in bring slaves and selling them in 1681.
• 1698 Parliament took away The Royal African Company's monopoly of the slave trade. As a result, the slave trade was open to all corporations willing to pay a duty to the RAC. New England merchants became heavily involved in the slave trade. Because of this action the Triangular trade was born.
  Massachusetts changes its colonial tax code so that the legal status of a slave is considered as property, not as a person.
• 1700 Judge Samuel Sewall publishes a pamphlet entitled The Selling of Joseph, which was the first Anti-slavery article published in New England. Sewall wrote the article, which attacks the idea of slavery and the slave trade, in response to John Saffin, a wealthy merchant, refusal to grant a slave named Adam his freedom. Saffin promised Adam his freedom once he completed a seven year hiring out to another person. A legal case ensued, in which Adam sues for his freedom. Judge Sewall organizes the Boston Committee of 1700; the goal of this anti-slavery society was to have the passage of high duties placed on the importation of slaves.
• 1701 John Saffin writes a response to Sewall‘s The Selling of Joseph, entitled A Brief and Candid Answer to a late Printed Sheet Entitled the Selling of Joseph. In his response, Saffin defends his actions and attacks Sewall's condemnation of slavery.
• 1703 Adam was wins his freedom.
• 1705 Massachusetts enacts a duty of £ 4 on all slaves imported to the colony.
  Massachusetts enacts a law against interracial marriages.
  Judge Sewall responses to John Saffin's 1701 pamphlet by reprinting an English pamphlet from the The Athenian Oracle which condemns the slave trade.
• 1707 Massachusetts imposes a 5 shilling fine on any free blacks that helps any run-away slaves.
  Freed black were allowed to join the militia.
• 1717 Cotton Mather creates a school to educate Indian and slave youths.
• 1722 First smallpox inoculation in America administered in Boston. The idea of inoculation came from Cotton Mather's slave, named Onesimus, who describe how African tribes had used inoculation to treat diseases. The procedure helped save many lives of during the epidemic.
• 1731 George II instructs all royal governors to prohibit the laying of duties on the importation of slaves.
• 1742 On April 15, a divorce was granted to a slave named Boston. He charged that his wife cheated on him with a white man and that she bore his child.
• 1750 Crispus Attucks escapes from slavery.
  Parliament modifies their slave trading policies by allowing any individual to engage in the slave trade by paying a duty to the RAC. This allows more people to be involved in the slave trade. (The duty imposed in 1698 and 1750 went to the RAC, who were responsible for maintaining West African forts and factories. These were the places were slaves would be picked up for shipment to the Americas.)
• 1771 Massachusetts Colonial assembly passes a resolution calling for the end of the importation of African slaves into the colony. Governor Thomas Hutchinson refuses the measure.
• 1773 During the American Revolution, numerous groups of slaves and freeman in Massachusetts petition the colonial legislature and the governor for their freedom. None of the petitions succeeded.
• 1781 On August 22, a court in Great Barrington issued its ruling on the case of Brom and Bett v. Ashley. Brom and Bett were two slaves of John Ashley that sued for their freedom in the spring of 1781. Mum Bett (Elizabeth Freeman) was born a slave in upstate New York in 1742. She was given to John Ashley of Sheffield, MA. She sued for her freedom, after an incident in which Ashley's wife, Annetje, attempted to beat her sister with a shovel. Mum Bett , while trying to block the blow she received serious injuries. That spring Mum Bett asked Theodore Sedgwick, an attorney, to file suit for her freedom.(Borm also joined in suing for his freedom.) Sedgwick argued that slavery was illegal under the new Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, which include a Declaration of Rights that stated: All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness. The jury agreed with this argument and Brom and Bett were issued their freedom.
• 1783 On July 8, slavery was effectively abolished in Massachusetts, with the ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Court in the Commonwealth v. Jennison case. A slave named Quock Walker sued his owner for his freedom. The court ruled that he was free and the Commonwealth brought suit for wrongful imprisonment of Walker by Jennison. The court used the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, that state "all men are born free and equal", as the basis for saying that slavery was abolished under the Massachusetts Constitution, which include the Declaration of Rights.
• 1787 First cotton factory in the United States was established in Beverly, MA.
• 1788 Massachusetts declares the slave trade illegal, after an incident in which 6 freed blacks were kidnapped and sent to Martinique. Governor John Hancock helps secure their release.
• 1805 William Lloyd Garrison was born on Dec. 10 in Newburyport, MA.
• 1829 David Walker's An Appeal to the Colored People of the World was published in Boston.
• 1831 The Liberator began publication in Boston by William Lloyd Garrison.
• 1833 January 21, The American Anti-Slavery Society was founded by William Lloyd Garrison
• 1835 On October 21st, Garrison is attacked by a mob at Faneuil Hall.
  Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society was founded.
• 1836 In the case the Commonwealth v Aves, the court ruled that any slave brought into state boundaries was legally freed.
• 1838 John Quincy Adams introduced 350 antislavery petitions to the House of Representatives. This violated the "gag rule" in which no bills could be introduced to debate the issue of slavery.
• 1841 John Quincy Adams defends the Amistad Africans at the Supreme Court. The courts ruled that they were illegally kidnapped and order them set free.
• 1850 Compromise of 1850 was debated and passed in Congress. This Bill allowed California to enter the Union as a "free" state, prohibited the slave trade in the District of Columbia, established the Utah and New Mexico territories and allowed them to use the idea of popular sovereignty, passed a stronger Fugitive Slave law. In which Southern could recapture runaway slaves in the North, and required Northern to help in their capture.
• 1851 February 15, Shadrach Minkins, a capture runaway under the new F.S.L, was rescued by a group of black abolitionist. This was a major case in how the North would respond to the F.S.L.; Shadrack Minkins was returned to slavery.
  Abolitionist Charles Sumner was elected to the Senate for Massachusetts.
  Thomas Sims, a fugitive slave, was captured in Boston. He was returned to Georgia.
• 1854 Congress debated and enacts the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Senator Sumner calls it the "worst and best bill" ever passed in Congress.
  May 24, the fugitive slave Anthony Burns was arrested in Boston.
  On June 3rd, Anthony Burns was escorted by 2,000 federal troops as over 50,000 Bostonians lined the streets from his jail to Long Wharf. Burns was transported back to Virginia.
• 1855 Citizens of Massachusetts raised money to buy Anthony Burns from his Virginia master.
  Massachusetts enacts "Personal Liberty laws", these called for the prohibition of state officials from assisting in the capture or return of fugitive slaves. These were designed to go against the Fugitive Slave law of 1850.
• 1856 May 19, Senator Charles Sumner was attacked and beaten with a cane on the floor of the Senate. Sumner was attacked by Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina. The attack happened after Sumner delivered his "Crime against Kansas" speech, in which he insulted Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina, who was Brooks's uncle.
• 1860 November 6, Abraham Lincoln is elected 16th President of the United States.
  December 20th, South Carolina becomes the first states to succeed from the Union.
• 1861 April 12, Confederate forces bombard Fort Sumter in Charlestown harbor, South Carolina which is the start of the Civil War.

Sources:

Rodriguez, Junius P. Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, Vol. I, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, California, 2007.

Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts by George Henry Moore

Making Slavery History: Abolitionism and the Politics of Memory in Massachusetts by Margot Minardi

The True History of the Late Division in the Anti-Slavery Societies, Being Part of the Second Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Massachusetts Abolition Society by Massachusetts Abolition Society

Black Walden: Slavery and Its Aftermath in Concord, Massachusetts by Elise Lemire

Ten Hills Farm: The Forgotten History of Slavery in the North by C.S. Manegold

Podcasts

Episode 220: Margaret Ellen Newell, New England Indians, Colonists, and Origins of Slavery - Ben Franklin's World

Short Story Collection 13 by Various - Slavery in Massachusetts

WBJ Podcast: Slavery & the Central Mass. economy | Worcester Business Journal

American Revolution Podcast: Episode 058: Slavery and Liberty

Film/Video

How was Massachusetts involved in the Slave Trade?

Ebony & Ivy: Slavery & the Troubled History of America's Universities (w/ Prof. Craig Steven Wilder)

Northern Slavery in Beverly Massachusetts Black History Ep 7

Slavery in Massachusetts

Plantations

Category:Plantations in Massachusetts - Wikipedia

Genealogical Research

African American Resources for Massachusetts • FamilySearch

Questions for Research and Reflection:

 

Historical Summary

Enslavement

History of New Hampshire - Wikipedia

American Civil War: New Hampshire in the Civil War

Slavery in New Hampshire (slavenorth.com)

Institutional Racism

Slave Narratives

Harriet E. Wilson - Wikipedia

Slavery, Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws

The Racist Roots of New Hampshire's Concealed Carry License Law (ammoland.com)

Black History Timeline

1643 The New England Confederation reaches an agreement that makes the signature of a magistrate sufficient evidence to reenslave a suspected fugitive slave.

1859 Harriett Wilson of Milford, New Hampshire publishes Our Nig; or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, the first novel by an African American woman.

Slavery in New Hampshire: Profitable godliness to racial consciousness

The Slave Trade in New Hampshire

Slavery in New Hempshire

"The Slave Trade in New Hampshire" | American Friends Service Committee

On Nov. 12, 1779, 20 black slaves in Portsmouth sent a petition

Slavery in New Hampshire | History of American Women

The President's Slave Who Found Freedom on New Hampshire's Seacoast | New Hampshire Public Radio (nhpr.org)

Books

Slavery the Underground Railroad in New Hampshire by Michelle Arnosky Sherburne

Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail: A Self-Guided Walking Tour of Portsmouth, New Hampshire by JerriAnne Boggis

New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America by Wendy Warren

Podcasts

In New England, Recognizing A Little-Known History Of Slavery : NPR

Slavery and Its Legacies | a podcast by the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition (yale.edu)

The President's Slave Who Found Freedom on New Hampshire's Seacoast | New Hampshire Public Radio (nhpr.org)

Plantations

Genealogical Research

African American Resources for New Hampshire • FamilySearch

NH History – Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire (blackheritagetrailnh.org)

New Hampshire in the Civil War • FamilySearch

Film/Video

New Hampshire Slave Trade part 1

Questions for Research and Reflection:

 

Historical Summary

Enslavement

History of slavery in New Jersey - Wikipedia

New Jersey in the American Civil War - Wikipedia

Institutional Racism and Racial Terror

Explore The Map | Lynching In America (eji.org)

Personal Narratives

Timelines: Slavery, Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws

When Jim Crow Plagued Jersey (njmonthly.com)

Books

Stories of Slavery in New Jersey by Rick Geffken

The Retreats of Reconstruction: Race, Leisure, and the Politics of Segregation at the New Jersey Shore, 1865-1920 (Reconstructing America by David E. Goldberg

Way Down South Up North by E. Frederic Morrow

Podcasts

New Jersey Apologizes for Slavery : NPR

Film/Video

Revisiting Camden's dark past in the slave trade | Video

Camden introduces markers to remember its part in slave trade (radio.com)

Slavery in New Jersey: The "Free State" That Wasn't

Slave Ships on the Delaware: A Story of Camden, NJ

Slavery & Segregation at the Jersey Bayshore

Plantations

Genealogical Research

African American Resources for New Jersey • FamilySearch

Princeton & Slavery | Home

Questions for Research and Reflection:

 

Historical Summary

Slavery in New York dates back to the 17th century, beginning with the Dutch immigrants to New Amsterdam. The Dutch West India Company brought enslaved Africans to the colony as early as 1626, using them for tasks such as construction, farming, and the building of infrastructure, including the wall that gave Wall Street its name. These enslaved individuals were integral to the colony's economic development, as the Dutch relied heavily on their labor to establish and maintain the growing settlement.

As New Amsterdam became New York under British control in 1664, slavery expanded further. Enslaved people continued to work in a variety of industries, including agriculture, shipping, and skilled trades. While New York's colder climate did not support the large-scale plantation agriculture seen in the South, crops like corn, barley, and wheat were grown using enslaved labor. Enslaved individuals also labored in urban environments, performing domestic work, craftsmanship, and dock labor, making New York City a significant hub of the Northern slave economy.

Although New York began a gradual abolition of slavery in 1799, full emancipation did not take effect until 1827. Following the abolition of slavery, Black New Yorkers faced severe discrimination in housing, employment, and education. New York also had its own "Black Codes," informal laws and practices that restricted the rights of African Americans, mirroring the institutionalized racism seen in other parts of the country.

During the Jim Crow era, New York experienced subtler forms of racial segregation compared to the South, but systemic racism remained pervasive. African Americans in New York often faced de facto segregation, particularly in housing and education, enforced through redlining, restrictive covenants, and discriminatory public policies. Despite these problems, New York became a significant center for Black activism, with the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights Movement helping to challenge systemic racism and redefine the state's cultural and social landscape.

Enslavement

History of slavery in New York (state) - Wikipedia

New York in the American Civil War - Wikipedia

Slavery in New York | Race and Antebellum New York City | Learn about AFS History | Examination Days: The New York African Free School Collection

Slavery in New York (slavenorth.com)

Emancipation in New York (slavenorth.com)

Institutional Racism and Racial Terror

Explore The Map | Lynching In America (eji.org)

Personal Narratives

5 Classic and Heartbreaking Narratives by Enslaved People

Slavery, Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws

New York Slave Laws of the Colonial Period (umkc.edu)

New York slave codes - Wikipedia

Black History Timeline

1603 Mathieu Da Costa, a free black explorer, guides the French through parts of Canada and the Lake Champlain region of what is now New York state.

1613 Jan Rodriquez, a free sailor working for a Dutch fur trading company is assigned to live with and trade among the Native Americans on the island of Manhattan.

1625 The first enslaved Africans arrive in the Dutch Colony of New Amsterdam (now New York City) with the Dutch West India Company. They quickly become the city's first municipal labor force, clearing land of timber, cutting lumber, cultivating crops, and cons

1636 Dutch minister Everadus Bogardus summons a teacher from Holland to Manhattan Island to provide religious training to Dutch and African children. This is the first example of educational efforts in Colonial North America which are directed toward persons o

1645 Dutch colonists transfer some of their landholdings in New Amsterdam to their former enslaved Africans as compensation for their support in battles with Native Americans. A condition of the land transfer, however, is the guarantee of a specified amount of

1650 The Dutch West India Company introduces new rules concerning slavery in New Netherlands. After gaining freedom, former slaves, for example, are required to give fixed amounts of their crops to the company. After the English capture of the colony, greater

1653 Enslaved African and Indian workers bulid wall across Manhattan Island to protect the Dutch colony from British invasion. The site of the wall is now Wall Street.

1682 New York enacts its first slave codes. They restrict the freedom of movement and the ability to trade of all enslaved people in the colony.

1685 New York law forbids enslaved Africans and Native Americans from having meetings or carrying firearms.

1702 The New York Assembly enacts a law which prohibits enslaved Africans from testifying against whites or gathering in groups larger than three on public streets.

1704 French colonist Elias Neau opens a school for enslaved African Americans in New York City.

1711 A public slave market opens in New York City at the east end of Wall Street.

1712 The New York City slave revolt begins on April 6. Nine whites are killed and an unknown number of blacks die in the uprising. Colonial authorities execute 21 slaves and six commit suicide.

1712 New York City enacts an ordinance that prevents free blacks from inheriting land.

1741 During the New York Slave Conspiracy Trials, New York City officials execute 34 people for planning to burn down the town. Thirteen African American men are burned at the stake and another 17 black men, two white men and two white women are hanged. Sevent

1761 Jupiter Hammon, a Long Island enslaved person, publishes a book of poetry. This is believed to be the first volume of poetry written and published by an African American.

1784 The New York African Society, a spiritual and benevolent association, is created by free blacks in New York City.

1785 New York frees all slaves who served in the Revolutionary Army.

1785 The New York Society for the Promoting of the Manumission of Slaves is founded by prominent New Yorkers including John Jay and Alexander Hamilton.

1787 On July 13, Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance, which establishes formal procedures for transforming territories into states. It provides for the eventual establishment of three to five states in the area north of the Ohio River, to be considered equ

1787 The U.S. Constitution is drafted. It provides for the continuation of the slave trade for another 20 years and required states to aid slaveholders in the recovery of fugitive slaves. It also stipulates that a slave counts as three-fifths of a man for purp

1787 Free blacks in New York City found the African Free School, where future leaders Henry Highland Garnett and Alexander Crummell are educated.

1790 Census of 1790 (First Census of the U.S. Population): Total population, 3,929,214, Black Population: 757,208 (19.3%) including 59,150 free African Americans.

1794 New York adopts a gradual emancipation law.

1809 New York recognizes marriage within the African American community.

1812 Two African American regiments are formed in New York to fight in the War of 1812.

1821 New York maintains property qualifications for African American male voters while abolishing the same for white male voters. Missouri disfranchises free black male voters.

1821 Thomas Jennings of New York City became the first African American to receive a patent from the United States government.  His patent came because he developed a process for dry cleaning clothes.

1821 The African Grove Theater Group, the first black acting company, is founded in New York City.

1823 The African Grove Theater performs The Drama of King Shotaway, the first play written by an African American, Wiliam Henry Brown.

1827 Freedom's Journal begins publication on March 16 in New York City as the first African American owned newspaper in the United States. The editors are John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish.

1827 Slavery is officially abolished in New York.

1834 African Free Schools are incorporated into the New York Public School system.

1834 David Ruggles, abolitionist activist, opens the first African American bookstore in the nation, in New York City.

1843 Rev. Henry Highland Garnet delivers his controversial "Address to the Slaves" at the National Negro Convention meeting in Buffalo, New York, which calls for a servile insurrection.

1843 Sojourner Truth and William Wells Brown begin their campaigns against slavery.

1845 William Henry Lane (Master Juba) of New York City is the first acclaimed black dance performer.

1847 Frederick Douglass begins publication of The North Star in Rochester, New York.

1848 On July 19-20, Frederick Douglass is among the handful of men who attend the first Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York.

1850 The American League of Colored Workers, formed in New York City, is the first African American labor union in the United States.

1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes her novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, which becomes a best selling book and a major influence on the Anti-Slavery Movement.

1852 Martin R. Delany publishes The Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States.

1853 Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield (the Black Swan) debuts at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and performs before Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace a year later.

1853 William Wells Brown of Buffalo, New York, becomes the first African American novelist when he publishes Clotel, or the President's Daughter.  The novel is published in England, however and thus he is not considered the first published black novelist in th

1855 Frederick Douglass is nominated by the Liberty Party of New York for the office of secretary of state. He is the first black candidate in any state to be nominated for a statewide office.

1863 The New York City draft riots erupt on July 13 and continue for four days, during which at least 100 of the city's residents are killed. This remains the highest death toll in any urban conflict in the 19th or 20th Centuries.

1877 On June 15, Henry O. Flipper became the first African American to graduate from West Point.

1885 On June 25, African American Priest Samuel David Ferguson is ordained a bishop of the Episcopal Church at a ceremony at Grace Church, New York City.

1892 On June 15 operatic soprano Sissieretta Jones becomes the first African American to perform at Carnegie Hall.

1892 In October activist Ida B. Wells begins her anti-lynching campaign with the publication of Southern Horrors: Lynch Law and in All Its Phases and a speech in New York City's Lyric Hall

1898 The National Afro-American Council is founded on September 15 in Rochester, New York. The organization elects Bishop Alexander Walters as its first president.

1899 The Afro-American Council designates June 4 as a national day of fasting to protest lynching and massacres.

1901 On October 11, when Bert Williams and George Walker record their music for the Victor Talking Machine Company, they become the first African American recording artists.

1903 W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folks is published on April 27. In it Du Bois rejects the gradualism of Booker T. Washington, calling for agitation on behalf of African American rights.

1904 Dr. Solomon Carter Fuller, who trains at the Royal Psychiatric Hospital at the University of Munich with Dr. Alois Alzheimer, becomes a widely published pioneer in Alzheimers disease research. Fuller also becomes the nations first black psychiatrist.

1905 The Niagara Movement is created on July 11-13, by African American intellectuals and activists, led by W.E.B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter.

1906 On December 4, seven students at Cornell University form Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the first college fraternity for black men.

1909 The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is formed on February 12 in New York City, partly in response to the Springfield Riot.

1909 On April 6, Admiral Robert E. Peary and African American Matthew Henson, accompanied by four Eskimos, become the first men known to have reached the North Pole.

1909 On December 4, the New York Amsterdam News begins publication.

1910 The National Urban League is founded in New York City on September 29. The League is organized to help African Americans secure employment and to adjust to urban life.

1910 The first issue of Crisis, the official publication of the NAACP, appears on November 1. W.E.B. Du Bois is the first editor.

1916 Marcus Garvey founds the New York Division of the Universal Negro Improvement Association with sixteen members. Four years later the UNIA holds its national convention in Harlem. At its height the organization claims nearly two million members.

1917 Nearly 10,000 African Americans and their supporters march down Manhattan's Fifth Avenue on July 28 as part of a silent parade, an NAACP-organized protest against lynchings, race riots, and the denial of rights. This is the first major civil rights demons

1917 In August, A. Philip Randolph and Chandler Owen found The Messenger, a black socialist magazine, in New York City.

1919 Claude McKay publishes "If We Must Die," considered one of the first major examples of Harlem Renaissance writing.

1919 Father Divine founds the Peace Mission Movement at his home in Sayville, New York.

1920 The decade of the 1920s witnesses the Harlem Renaissance, a remarkable period of creativity for black writers, poets, and artists, including among others Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston.

1920 Former heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson opens the Club Deluxe in Harlem. Two years later gangaster Owney Madden buys the club and changes its name to the Cotton Club.

1920 Marcus Garvey leads the first international convention of the Universal Negro Improvement Association which he calls the International Convention of Negro Peoples of the World. The meeting is held at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

1921 Shuffle Along by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake opens on Broadway on May 23. This is the first major play of the Harlem Renaissance.

1921 Harry Pace forms Black Swan Phonograph Corporation, the first African American-owned record company in Harlem. His artists will include Mamie and Bessie Smith.

1921 One of the earliest exhibitions of work by African American artists, including Henry Ossawa Tanner and Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, is held at the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library.

1922 The Harmon Foundation is established in New York City to promote African American participation in the fine arts.

1923 In September, the Cotton Club opens in Harlem.

1923 The National Urban League publishes its first issue of Opportunity, A Journal of Negro Life. The magazine, edited by Charles S. Johnson, quickly becomes a forum for artists and authors of the Harlem Renaissance.

1924 Photographer James Van Der Zee begins his career by capturing images of Marcus Garvey and the UNIA.

1925 The New Negro by Alain Locke is published in New York City.

1926 The Carnegie Corporation purchases Arturo Schomburg's collection of books and artifacts on African American life. The collection becomes the basis for the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City.

1929 Fats Waller's musical, Aint Misbehavin, opens on Broadway.

1931 Walter White is named NAACP executive secretary. Soon afterwards the NAACP mounts a new strategy primarily using lawsuits to end racial discrimination.

1931 William Grant Still becomes the first black symphony composer to have his music performed by a major symphony orchestra when the Rochester, New York, Philharmonic Orchestra presets "The Afro-American Symphony" in concert.

1934 W.E.B. Du Bois resigns from the NAACP in a dispute over the strategy of the organization in its campaign against racial discrimination. Roy Wilkins becomes the new editor of Crisis magazine.

1934 Zora Neale Hurston's first novel, Jonahs Gourd Vine, is published.

1934 After operating under a number of names, the Apollo Theater opens under its current name in Harlem.

1935 On March 20, the Harlem Race Riot, a one day riot erupts leaving two people dead.

1935 On December 24, Mary McLeod Bethune calls together the leaders of 28 national womens organizations to found the National Council of Negro Women in New York City.

1938 On June 22, Joe Louis beats Max Schmeling in a rematch of his 1936 defeat by the German boxer.

1938 Jacob Lawrence holds his first solo exhibition at the Harlem YMCA and completes his Toussaint L'Overture series.

1939 Bill Bojangles Robinson organizes the Black Actors Guild.

1939 Jane M. Bolin becomes the first African American woman judge in the United States when she is appointed to the domestic relations court of New York City.

1940 Richard Wright publishes his first novel, Native Son.

1940 Dr. Charles R. Drew presents his thesis, Banked Blood at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. The thesis includes his research which discovers that plasma can replace whole blood transfusions.

1940 The NAACP Legal Defense Fund is established in New York City.

1942 Hugh Mulzac becomes the first African American captain in the American Merchant Marine.

1944 Frederick Douglass Patterson establishes the United Negro College Fund on April 25 to help support black colleges and black students. The fund is incorporated in New York.

1944 Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York, is elected to Congress from Harlem in November.

1945 Nat King Cole becomes the first African American to have a radio variety show. The show airs on NBC.

1947 On April 10, Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers becomes the first African American to play major league baseball in the 20th Century.

1947 The NAACP petition on racism, An Appeal to the World, is presented to the United Nations.

1947 John Hope Franklin's From Slavery to Freedom is published. The work will become the most popular textbook on African American history published in the 20th Century.

1948 Timmie Rogers, comedian, dancer, and singer, launches the first all-black variety show, Sugar Hill Times, on CBS Television.

1950 On May 1, Gwendolyn Brooks of Chicago becomes the first African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize. She wins the prize in Poetry.

1950 Juanita Hall became the first African American to win a Tony award. She was honored for her role in the Broadway play, South Pacific.

1952 Ralph Ellison publishes Invisible Man.

1953 On December 31, Hulan Jack becomes the first African American borough president of Manhattan. At the time he is the highest ranking black elected official in the nation.

1953 James Baldwin publishes his first novel, the semi-autobiographical Go Tell It On The Mountain.

1953 Ralph Bunche becomes the first African American president of the American Political Science Association.

1954 Malcolm X becomes Minister of the Nation of Islam's Harlem Temple 7.

1955 On January 7 Marian Anderson becomes the first African American to perform with the New York Metropolitan Opera

1956 On November 11, Nat King Cole becomes the first African American to host a prime time variety show on national television. He appears on NBC.

1956 Harry Belafonte's "Calypso," released by RCA Records, is the first album in history to sell more than one million copies.

1957 Perry H. Young becomes the first black pilot for a commercial passenger airline (New York Airways).  The following year, 1958, Ruth Carol Taylor becomes the first commercial passenger airline flight attendant (Mohawk Airlines).

1958 The Alvin Ailey Dance Theater is formed in New York.

1958 Louis E. Lomax becomes the first African American newscaster for a major network station. He is hired by WNTA-TV in New York City.

1958 Althea Gibson becomes the first African American woman to win the U.S. Open tennis championship in Forest Hills.

1959 Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun" opens in New York on March 11 with Sidney Poitier in the starring role. It is the first play by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway.

1959 Ella Fitzgerald and William "Count" Basie become the first African American performers to win Grammy awards.

1962 Ernie Davis, a running back at Syracuse University, becomes the first African American athlete to receive college football's Heisman Trophy.

1964 On March 12, Malcolm X announces his break with the Nation of Islam and his founding of the Muslim Mosque in Harlem. On June 28 he founds the Organization of Afro-American Unity in New York City.

1965 Malcolm X is assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, New York on February 21.

1965 Alex Haley publishes The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

1966 On January 25th Constance Baker Motley is appointed by President Lyndon Baines Johnson to the Federal Bench in New York City. She becomes the first African American woman elevated to a Federal judgeship.

1967 On April 4, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers the speech, "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church, New York City.  It is his first public criticism of the Vietnam War.

1968 Arthur Ashe becomes the first African American to win the Men's Singles competition in the U.S. Open.

1968 In November Shirley Chisholm of New York is the first black woman elected to the U.S. Congress.

1969 The Ford Foundation gives one million dollars to Morgan State University, Howard University, and Yale University to help prepare faculty members to teach courses in African American studies.

1969 On May 5, Moneta Sleet, Jr. of Ebony magazine, becomes the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize in Photography.

1969 Jimi Hendrix headlines the Woodstock Musical Festival near Bethel, New York between August 15 and August 18. Over 500,000 people attend what is to that point the largest musical concert in history.

1970 On February 18, Bobby Seale and six other six defendants (popularly known as the Chicago Seven) are acquitted of the charge of conspiring to disrupt the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

1970 The first issue of Essence magazine appears in May.

1970 The first issue of Black Enterprise magazine appears in August.

1970 On October 12, Charles Gordone becomes the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize in Drama for his play, "No Place to Be Somebody."

1971 On September 9, nearly 1,200 inmates seize control of half of the New York State Prison at Attica in what will be known as the Attica Prison Riot. Four days later 29 inmates and ten hostages are killed when state troopers and correctional officers suppres

1971 Leroy Satchel Paige becomes the first former Negro Leagues baseball player inducted int the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, New York.

1971 Beverly Johnson is the first black woman to appear on the cover of a major fashion magazine (Glamour).

1972 Over the summer New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm makes an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. She is the first African American to campaign for the nomination.

1973 The National Black Feminist Organization is established by Eleanor Holmes Norton.

1974 The largest single gift to date from a black organization is the $132,000 given by the Links, Inc., to the United Negro College Fund on July 1.

1975 John Hope Franklin is the first African American elected president of the Organization of American Historians (OAH).  Four years later he will be the fiirst African American elected president of the American Historical Association (AHA).

1976 Texas Congresswoman Barbara Jordan becomes the first African American woman to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention which meets that year in New York City.

1979 The Sugar Hill Gang records "Rappers Delight" in Harlem.

1979 Franklin Thomas is named president of the Ford Foundation.

1982 Bryant Gumbel is named anchor of The Today Show, becoming the first African American to hold the post on a major network.

1983 Alice Walker's The Color Purple wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

1984 Russell Simmons forms Def Jam Records in Harlem.

1986 Spike Lee releases his first feature film, She's Gotta Have It, initiating a new wave of interest in black films and African American filmmakers.

1987 Rita Dove wins the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

1987 On August 6, Reginald Lewis orchestrates the leveraged buyout of Beatrice Foods to become the first African American CEO of a billion dollar corporation.

1987 On October 28, Brigadier General Fred A. Gordon is appointed Commandant of the Cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

1987 August Wilson's play, Fences, wins a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award.

1989 Bill White becomes the first African American league president when he is chosen to head Major League Baseball's National League.

1989 Mahlon Martin becomes the first African American to head the Rockefeller Foundation.

1990 August Wilson wins a Pulitzer Prize for the play The Piano Lesson.

1991 Julie Dash releases Daughters of the Dust, the first feature film by an African American woman.

1992 William "Bill" Pinkney becomes the first African American and only the fourth American to singlehandedly navigate a sailboat around the world.

1996 On April 9, George Walker becomes the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Music. The winning composition, "Lilies for Soprano or Tenor and Orchestra," is based on a poem by Walt Whitman.

1997 Wynton Marsalis's "Blood on the Fields" becomes the first jazz composition to win a Pulitzer Prize in Music.

1999 On September 10, Serena Williams wins the U.S. Open Womens Singles Tennis Championship in Flushing Meadows, the first African American woman to do so since Althea Gibson's win in

1999 Maurice Ashley becomes the world's first black chess grandmasters, the game's highest rank.

2008 On March 17, David A. Paterson, is sworn in as Governor of New York upon the resignation of the prior governor, Elliott Spitzer.  Paterson is the first legally blind American Governor, the first black Governor of New York State, and only the fourth black

Books

A Hudson Valley Reckoning: Discovering the Forgotten History of Slaveholding in My Dutch American Family by Debra Bruno

Spaces of Enslavement: A History of Slavery and Resistance in Dutch New York by Andrea C Mosterman

In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863 by Leslie M. Harris

Slavery in New York by Ira Berlin

Somewhat More Independent: The End Of Slavery In New York City, 1770 1810 by Shane White

In Defiance: Runaways from Slavery in New York's Hudson River Valley, 1735-1831 by Ashley Hurlburt-Biagini

New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan by Jill Lepore

Podcasts

New York Colony - Enslaved people podcast

HSoftheNYCourts Podcast - The Evolution of Slavery, Abolition in NY, and the NY Courts: The Lemmon Slave Case — Podcast #4

Slavery and Resistance in New York Podcast - New York Almanack

Film/Video

New York's History of Slavery

New York City Slave Market (Wall Street)

Slavery In New York

Slavery and New York - The Untold Story by Kevin Harris

Sites to Visit

Underground Railroad

Genealogical Research

New Amsterdam's "Little Africa" - NYC's Early African American Settlements - Research Guides at New York Public Library Research Centers

African American Resources for New York • FamilySearch

New York Slave Records By State blackwallstreet.org

Slavers of New York – The Decolonial Atlas

Research Sites

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture | The New York Public Library

New Amsterdam History Center - New Amsterdam History Center

The Slavers of NY (@slaversofny) • Instagram photos and videos

Slavery in the Colonial North - Historic Hudson Valley

Black History Month In New York State Parks | New York State Parks and Historic Sites Blog

Questions for Research and Reflection:

 

Historical Summary

Enslavement

History of slavery in Pennsylvania - Wikipedia

Pennsylvania in the American Civil War - Wikipedia

Slavery in Pennsylvania (slavenorth.com)

Emancipation in Pennsylvania (slavenorth.com)

Institutional Racism and Racial Terror

Racism in Pennsylvania (slavenorth.com)

Explore The Map | Lynching In America (eji.org)

Personal Narratives

William Parker Recalls How He Escaped Slavery - The Atlantic

The Slave Narrative and the Stamp Act, or Letters from Two American Farmers in Pennsylvania on JSTOR

Slavery, Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws

Pennsylvania Legislation Relating to Slavery (gettysburg.edu)

Jim Crow Laws: Oregon and Pennsylvania | AmericansAll

Black History Timelines

1688 Quakers in Germantown, Pennsylvania denounce slavery in the first recorded formal protest in North America against the enslavement of Africans.

1696 Quaker religious leaders warn that members who own slaves may be expelled from the denomination.

1711 Great Britain's Queen Anne overrules a Pennsylvania colonial law prohibiting slavery.

1750 Anthony Benezet persuades fellow Philadelphia Quakers to open the first free school for black children in the colonies.

1758 A school for free black children is opened in Philadelphia.

1775 The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully held in Bondage holds the first of four meetings in Philadelphia on April 14. This is the first abolitionist meeting in North America. In

1784 the organization becomes the Pennsylvania Abolition Societ

1776 A passage in the Declaration of Independence authored by Thomas Jefferson at the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia, condemned the slave trade.  The controversial passage is removed from the Declaration due to pressure from the southern colonies

1780 Pennsylvania adopts first gradual emancipation law. All children of enslaved people born after Nov. 1, 1780 will be free on their 28th birthday.

1787 Richard Allen and Absalom Jones form the Free African Society in Philadelphia.

1792 Benjamin Banneker's Almanac is published in Philadelphia. It is the first book of science published by an African American.

1793 The United States Congress enacts the first Fugitive Slave Law. Providing assistance to fugitive slaves is now a criminal offense.

1794 Mother Bethel AME Church is established in Philadelphia by Richard Allen.

1796 On August 23, The African Methodist Episcopal Church is organized in Philadelphia.

1800 The United States Congress rejects 85 to 1 an antislavery petition offered by free Philadelphia African Americans.

1810 The African Insurance Company of Philadephia is the first black-owned insurance company in the United States.

1815 Richard Allen officially creates the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first wholly African American church denomination in the United States.

1817 Francis Johnson of Philadelphia becomes the first black bandleader and composer to publish sheet music. In 1837 he becomes the first American to perform before Queen Victoria in England.

1830 African American delegates from New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia meet in Philadelphia in the first of a series of National Negro Conventions to devise ways to challenge slavery in the South and racial discrimination in the North.

1831 Jarena Lee's The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee, A Coloured Lady, was the first autobiography by an African American woman.

1833 The American Anti-Slavery Society is established in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1837 The Institute for Colored Youth is founded in Southeastern Pennsylvania. It later becomes Cheyney University.

1837 The Philadelphia Vigilence Committee is organized to help fugitive slaves escape their pursuers.

1838 Pennsylvania disfranchises black voters.

1854 On October 13, Ashmun Institute, the first institution of higher learning for young black men, is founded by John Miller Dickey and his wife, Sarah Emlen Cresson. In 1866 it is renamed Lincoln University (Pa.) after President Abraham Lincoln

1886 The Knights of Labor, founded and headquartered in Philadelphia, reaches it peak membership of 700,000 with approximately 75,000 African American members.

1904 Sigma Pi Phi (the Boule) is founded in Philadelphia on May 15 by four wealthy African American college graduates.

1907 Alain Locke of Philadelphia, a Harvard graduate, becomes the first African American Rhodes Scholar.

1907 The Pittsburgh Courier is established by Edwin Harleston, a security guard and aspiring writer. Three years later attorney Robert Vann takes control of the paper as its editor-publisher.

1918 On July 25-28, a race riot in Chester, Pennsylvania claims five lives, three blacks and two whites.

1918 On July 26-29, in nearby Philadelphia, another race riot breaks out killing four, three blacks and one white.

1927 Floyd Joseph Calvin, a Pittsburgh Courier journalist, becomes the first black radio talk show host when he begins broadcasting from WGBS in Pittsburgh.

1938 In November Crystal Bird Fauset of Philadelphia becomes the first African American woman elected to a state legislature when she is chosen to serve in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

1941 Mary Lucinda Dawson founds the National Negro Opera Company in Pittsburgh.

1984 On January 2, W. Wilson Goode becomes the first African American mayor of Philadelphia.

1985 In May, Philadelphia's African American mayor, Wilson Goode, orders the Philadelphia police to bomb the headquarters of MOVE, a local black nationalist organization. The bombing leaves 11 people dead and 250 homeless.

1988 In September, Temple University offers the first Ph.D. in African American Studies.

1997 On October 25 African American women participate in the Million Woman March in Philadelphia, focusing on health care, education, and self-help.

 

Historical Summary

Enslavement

History of Rhode Island - Wikipedia

Rhode Island in the American Civil War - Wikipedia

Institutional Racism

Personal Narratives

Narrative of an Ashaway Teenager’s Role in the Underground Railroad Rediscovered - Online Review of Rhode Island History

Slavery, Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws

Jim Crow Laws: Rhode Island, South Carolina and South Dakota | AmericansAll

List of Jim Crow law examples by state - Wikipedia

Black History Timeline

RI Black Heritage Society - Rhode Island Civil Rights Timeline (wildapricot.org)

Rhode Island African Heritage & History Timeline: 17th through 19th Centuries (1696heritage.com) (exerpt below)

1636 Providence settlement is established

1639 Newport settlement is established on southern end of Aquidneck Island.

1640 Dr. John Clarke grants land to the Town of Newport to establish a Common Burying Ground for all residents regardless of race, creed and class.

1652 Colony of Rhode Island adopts a law abolishing African slavery, where “black mankinde” cannot be indentured more than ten years. The law is largely unenforced.

1660 Charles II, King of England orders the Council of Foreign Plantations to devise strategies for converting slaves and servants to Christianity.

1660 – 1730 Narragansett’s largest land-owning planters include Updike, Hazard, Champlin, Robinson and Stanton that own at least 1,000 acres. By 1730, enslaved Africans represent about 15% of areas total population.

1663 On July 8th, King Charles II grants the Colony of Rhode Island a Charter that guarantees religious toleration.

1676 As a direct outcome of the King Phillip’s War (1675-1676), surviving Natives are enslaved in Rhode Island.

1680 According to the colonial census, there were 175 Native and Negro slaves in Rhode Island.

1683 On March 30th, Negro servant Salmardore is emancipated by his master John Champlin in Newport.

1696 The first documented slave ship the Boston bound, “Sea Flower” arrives in Newport.

A Negro named Peter Pylatt was executed at Newport for the crime of rape, after which his body was hung in chains on Miantonomi Hill.

1703 Rhode Island General Assembly adopts an early “Negro Code” to restrict activities of free and servant Negros and Indians stating, “If any negroes or Indians either freemen, servants, or slaves, do walk in the street of the town of Newport, or any other town in this Colony, after nine of the clock of night, without certificate from their masters, or some English person of said family with, or some lawful excuse for the same, that it shall be lawful for any person to take them up and deliver them to a Constable.”

1705 A Negro burying section of the Common Burying Ground is established. It is later known to the African American community as “God’s Little Acre.”

1708 Enslaved Africans outnumber indentured white servants in Newport 10:1

1709 A duty of three pounds was placed on every Negro imported into the colony.

1709 – 1809 Rhode Island merchants sponsored nearly 1,000 slaving voyages to the coast of Africa and carried over 100,000 slaves to the New World. Before the American Revolution, Newport was the leading slave port and after would be Bristol. Rhode Island’s slave traders transported more slaves than the other British North American colonies combined during the 18th century.

1713 Rhode Island merchants introduced rum on the African coast; the “new” liquor quickly becomes a chief source for trade of slaves.

1714 Colony of Rhode Island enacts a law that bans any ferryman from transporting a slave “without a certificate in their hand from their master or mistress or some person in authority.”

1715 The General Assembly of Rhode Island officially authorizes African enslavement by requiring a listing of imported slaves and a per head fee payment to the Naval Officer upon arrival.

1725 In Warwick, Rhode Island on July 28, 1725, Hager, a “negro” slave, was willed 10 shillings and her children were bequeathed 5 shillings each by Captain Peter Green.

1739 Venture Smith who was born Broteer Furro from Guinea is brought to Newport as a 10 year old slave boy. He would later as a free man author, “Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa: But Resident above Sixty Years in the United States of America, Related by Himself.”

1741-1763 Several of Newport’s most important civic structures, Old Colony House, Redwood Library, Brick Market and Touro Synagogue are built with the participation of enslaved and free African skilled labor.

1743 The Reverend Honyman of Newport Trinity Church in a June 1743 letter reports that his church is in very flourishing and improving condition, “there are in it a very large proportion of white people and one hundred Negroes who constantly attend the worship of God.”

The Reverend James McSparren of Narragansett’s St. Paul’s Church noted that “70 slaves and Indians were members of his church.

1750 The General Assembly of Rhode Island enacts a law that “prevents all persons keeping house within this Colony from entertaining Indian, Negro or Mulatto slaves or servants.”

1752 In December of that year, Cuffee Cockroach an enslaved African cook of Jaheel Brenton prepared a feast that featured a sea turtle stew for a community gathering held at Fort George, on Goat Island. The “Turtle Frolic” became an annual celebration.

1755 Africans represent approximately 20% of entire Newport population.

1756 Newport Africans begin to assemble each June at corners of Thames and Farewell Streets to elect a “Negro Governor” – a mixture of European and African traditions. This West African tradition is later seen in Boston, Providence, Portsmouth, NH and Connecticut.

1750-1780 Hundreds of Africans in Newport are converted into Christianity as part of the Great Awakening Religious Movement sweeping across American Colonies. Trinity Church, along with First and Second Congregational Churches lead the conversion activities.

1758 Sarah Osborn establishes a school for religious and civic instruction for white and black children under the support of Newport’s Second Congregational Church.

1763 Rev. Marmaduke Brown of Trinity Church opens a school for African children.

1766 A group of free and enslaved Africans take a picnic in Portsmouth led by Caesar Lyndon, personal secretary and clerk for Governor Josiah Lyndon.

1767 Phyllis Wheatley of Boston, America’s earliest African woman poet has her first poem published in the Newport Mercury newspaper in 1767. During the time, Wheatley is close friend of fellow African woman of Newport Obour Tanner.

1768 Signed by “A True Son of Liberty,” an article appears in the Newport Mercury Newspaper under the caption, “If you say you have the right to enslave Negroes, because it is for your interests, why do you dispute the legality of Great Britain enslaving you?”

1772 Mary Brett with support from Trinity Church opens a second school for African children at her High Street (Division Street) home in Newport.

Mintus Northrup is born into slavery in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. He is the father of Solomon Northrup, author of “12 Years A Slave.”

British Customs Schooner, HMS Gaspee is looted and burned off the coast of Warwick. One of the participants is enslaved Aaron Briggs from Prudence Island.

1773 Fortune, listed as an “abandoned Negro,” reportedly set fire to the Long Wharf in Newport causing £80,000 in damage. He is executed for his crime.

1774 Africans John Quamino and Bristol Yamma are sent to study at College of New Jersey (the future Princeton University) to train as Christian Missionaries. These will be the first Africans to attend college in America. The plan is devised by Rev’s Samuel Hopkins and Ezra Stiles of Newport.

1776 American Revolution begins.
Rev. Samuel Hopkins of First Congregational Church in Newport authors “A Dialogue Concerning the Slavery of Africans” that he presents to the Continental Congress stating slavery is incongruous to the ideals of American civil and personal liberty.

In a June 6, 1776 letter from John Quamino of Newport to Moses Brown of Providence, Quamino thanking him for emancipating his servants and his “boundless benevolence with regards to the unforfeited rights of the poor and unhappy Africans of this province.”

1778 The 1st Rhode Island Regiment is reformed including 132 enslaved and free African and Indian men. Later to be called the “Black Regiment” they fight with great valor in the Battle of Rhode Island in August, 1778.

1780 A group of free African men meet in the Newport home of Abraham Casey and form the Free African Union Society, the first such society in America.

1781 Rhode Island General Assembly rules in favor of a petition of Quarco Honyman, former slave to the Honyman family that he had served his country during the war and is deemed a free man.

1784 General Assembly of Rhode Island grants the gradual emancipation of slaves. Slaves born before 1784 were to remain slaves for life.

1785 Eleanor Eldridge, a free Mulatto woman was born in Warwick and would go on to become a well-known land and business owner in Providence. In 1838 her memoirs are published describing the life of a free African American woman in Rhode Island.

1786 John Brown of Providence in a November 26, 1786 letter to his brother Moses states, “I lately heard several respectable people say that the merchants of Newport scarcely earned any property in any other trade, that all the estates that had ever been acquired in that town had been got in the trade in slaves from Guinea.”

1787 Anthony Taylor, President of the African Union Society sends letters promoting the return to Africa by free Africans in Newport. In the letter, Taylor describes the situation for Africans in Rhode Island as “strangers and outcasts in a strange land.”

Anthony Taylor and Salmar Nubia of Newport send a letter to Cato Gardner and London Spear of Providence instructing them to urge their fellow African Union Society members to not participate in the African slave trade.

1789 New Goree community is established in Bristol, RI by free Africans. Today the neighborhood is bordered by Wood and Bay View Avenue.

Members of the Free African Benevolent Society in Newport actively develop a plan to return to Africa.

1790 The Providence Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery is incorporated.

1792 African Charity “Duchess” Quamino dies in Newport; recognized as the “Pastry Queen of Rhode Island” and one of the most successful African women entrepreneurs of her time. Her marker is inscribed by Reverend William Ellery Channing.

1793 Sixty-three former members of the Rhode Island 1st (Black) Regiment petition to receive pensions for service during the American Revolution.

1800 Five free Africans own homes on the section of Pope Street in Newport between Spring and Thames streets referred to as “Negro Lane.”

James DeWolf of Bristol is one of the most active slave traders in America during late 18th and early 19th centuries.

1800 -1870 During that era and led by the Hazzard family, 84 “Negro cloth” mills opened in Rhode Island. Rhode Island industrialists bought and processed slave-picked cotton, while southern slaveholders purchased Rhode Island manufactured cloth for themselves and their slaves.

1803 Former enslaved African Nkrumah Mireku becomes the first published African musical composer in America; songs include “Crooked Shanks” and the religious anthem “The Promise.”

1808 In March the Free African Benevolent Society of Newport establishes the first free African school (private) in America on School Street.

1809 The Free African Female Benevolent Society is established in Newport with founding members including Obour Tanner and Sara Lyna.

1812 During the War of 1812, free African Hannibal Collins of Newport along with other African sailors were present at the Battle of Lake Erie under the command of Newport Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry.

1814 The narrative of William J. Brown of Providence is published. Entitled The Life of William J. Brown with Personal Recollection of Incidents in Rhode Island.

1819 African Union Society in Providence evolves into the African Meeting House and later Congdon Street Baptist Church.

1822 Black men are barred from voting in Rhode Island.

1824 The Free African Benevolent Society evolves into the Union Colored Congregational Church located in old Baptist Meeting House on Division Street.

Hardscrabble, a predominately black community in Providence is rocked by a race riot.

1826 On January 4th, led by Nkrumah Mireku (aka Newport Gardner) and Salmar Nubia (aka Jack Mason) a group of Newport Africans set sail for Africa settling in Liberia. The entire party dies of coastal fever within one year.

1830 Pond Street Free Baptist Church organized in Providence, RI

1831 Snow Town, the Providence neighborhood that replaces Hardscrabble, is the scene to a second major race riot.

1838 First public school for black children is established on Meeting Street in Providence.

1839 The Providence Shelter for Colored Children is organized.

1842 At the November session of the General Assembly of Rhode Island meeting at Newport, the Rhode Island Constitution is revised and ratified giving African American men among others the right to vote.

1846 The summer of 1846, African American businessman, George T. Downing opens a restaurant on Bellevue Avenue in Newport to cater to the emerging summer resort market.

1850 African Church located on Wood Street in Bristol, RI. Building also housed a school for Black children.

1856 Thomas Howland becomes first Black elected to public office in Providence as Warden of the Third Ward.

George T. Downing builds the Sea Girt Hotel along a Bellevue Avenue commercial block that would bear his name.

1859 James Howland of Jamestown dies as the last slave in Rhode Island at the age of 100 years.

1860 Isaac Rice homestead in Newport is used as an Underground Railroad stop.

1861 The American Civil War begins.

1863 The 14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (Colored) is organized in Providence, Rhode Island.

Newport and Providence African American leaders begin a movement to fully integrate public schools in Rhode Island.

1865 A group of Newport philanthropists, including George T. Downing underwrite the purchase of land to become Touro Park on Bellevue Avenue.

The 14th Rhode Island Heavy Artillery Regiment is mustered out at Portsmouth Grove.

1866 Dr. Harriet A. Rice was born to George and Lucinda Rice in Newport. She graduated as a top student at Newport’s Rogers High School and in 1882 went on to become the first African American student to graduate from Wellesley College. Soon after she would earn a medical degree at the University of Michigan Medical School. During WWI, she was a physician serving the French Army.

1867 Mary Jackson is born in Providence. She would later work as a statistician at state Labor Department and during WWI, was appointed as a Special Worker for Colored Girls on the YWCA War Work Council.

George T. Downing successfully leads the integration of public schools in Rhode Island.

1869 Rev. Mahlon Van Horne assumes the pastorate of Union Colored Congregational Church on Division Street in Newport.

1870 The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified prohibiting the restriction of voting rights “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

1871 Painter Edward Bannister and his wife Christiana settle in Providence. He is part of founders of Providence Art Club and RISD.

1872 Rev. Van Horne becomes the first African American member of the Newport School Board.

1875 In July 1875 the Congdon Street Baptist Church building is completed in Providence.

St John’s Episcopal Church in Newport is founded at the Point Neighborhood home of African American Peter Quire.

1882 The Daisy Tonsorial Parlor is established at 148 Bellevue Avenue by African American business and civic leader, Fredrick E. Williams.

1883 On October 15th, the Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional and declared that the Fourteenth Amendment forbids states, but not citizens, from discriminating.

1885 Rev. Van Horne of Newport becomes the first African American member of the General Assembly of Rhode Island.

1885-90 George T. Downing is member of the committee responsible for the Bellevue Avenue extension to Bailey’s Beach in Newport.

1887 Dr. Harriet A. Rice of Newport becomes the first African American to graduate Wellesley College. Soon after, she earned a medical degree at the University of Michigan.

1888 Sisseretta Jones of Providence becomes an international singing star.

1890 Rhode Island enacts a law that establishes the “Home For Aged Colored Women.” Christina Bannister is the leader of the effort and later the home would bear her name as Bannister House in Providence.

1891 The first Black owned and operated newspaper in New England, Torchlight, is established by John Minkins in Providence.

1892 Over 160 documented African American lynching’s in America; the highest annual total in history.

1893 The Breakers Mansion, Newport’s grandest summer cottage is built by Cornelius Vanderbilt II. The Newport Gilded Age has arrived.

J T Allen and his brother David arrive in Newport and soon established the Hygeia Spa at Easton’s Beach and dining facility in the Perry Mansion on Touro Street.

1894 Dr. Marcus Wheatland becomes the first known African-American physician to live and practice in Rhode Island. Dr. Wheatland was nationally recognized as an early radiology specialist.

John Hope graduates from Brown University and later becomes President of Morehouse College.

1896 United States Supreme Court issues Plessy v. Ferguson ruling decided that “separate but equal” facilities satisfy Fourteenth Amendment guarantees, thus giving legal sanction to Jim Crow segregation laws.

President William McKinley appoints Rev. Van Horne of Newport to become U.S. Consul to St. Thomas in the Danish West Indies, serving through the Spanish American War.

1897 Newport born Dr. M. Alonzo Van Horne graduates from Howard Medical School and becomes the first African American dentist in Newport practicing at 47 John Street and later at 22 Broadway.

1898 During the Spanish America War sixteen regiments of black volunteers nationally are recruited and four see combat.

1899 Members of the (African American) Women’s League Newport gather led by Mary Dickerson who owns a dress shop on Bellevue Avenue.

and

1652 Rhode Island enacts first anti-slavery law in the British colonies. The law limits slavery to ten years.

1778 The 1st Rhode Island Regiment comprised of enslaved and free black men is formed. It is the first and only all-black military unit to fight on the Patriot side in the American Revolution

1780 The Free African Union Society is created in Newport, Rhode Island. It is the first cultural organization established by blacks in North America.

1822 Rhode Island disfranchises black voters.

1842 Frederick Douglass leads a successful campaign against Rhode Island's proposed Dorr Constitution which would continue the prohibition on black voting rights.

Slavery, emancipation and Black freedom in Rhode Island, 1652-1842 (uiowa.edu)

Rhode Island Dominates North American Slave Trade in 18th Century - Online Review of Rhode Island History (smallstatebighistory.com)

How Slavery Persisted in New England Until the 19th Century - HISTORY

Rhode Island Connection | The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition (yale.edu)

A Northern Family Confronts Its Slaveholding Past | History | Smithsonian Magazine

Tracing Center | James DeWolf and the DeWolf Family

JCBL_Exhibitions (brown.edu)

Rhode Island History & the Slave Trade.pdf (rihs.org)

Newport Historical Society Abolition and Anti-Abolition in Newport, 1835-1866 - Newport Historical Society (newporthistory.org)

Books

James DeWolf and the Rhode Island Slave Trade by Cynthia Mestad Johnson

The Notorious Triangle: Rhode Island And The African Slave Trade, 1700 1807 by Jay Coughtry

Inheriting the Trade: A Northern Family Confronts Its Legacy as the Largest Slave-Trading Dynasty in U.S. History by Thomas Norman DeWolf

Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island by Christy Clark-Pujara

A Bristol, Rhode Island, and Matanzas, Cuba, Slavery Connection: The Diary of George Howe by Rafael Ocasio

Podcasts

Episode 118: Christy Clark-Pujara, The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island - Ben Franklin's World

Rhode To The Slave Trade - Rhode to the slave trade

Slavery and the Northern Economy | Learning for Justice

Film/Video

Hidden Truths: Slavery and the Slave Trade in Rhode Island

Hidden Truths: Slavery and the Slave Trade in Rhode Island

URI: Slavery in Rhode Island - Dr. Clark-Pujara

Filmmaker Uncovers Her Family's Shocking Slave-Trading History, Urges Americans to Explore Own Roots

Faced and Traced Slavetrading in her Family History - Meet Katrina Browne

Plantations

Genealogical Research

African American Resources for Rhode Island • FamilySearch

Questions for Research and Reflection:

 

Historical Summary

Enslavement

History of slavery in Vermont - Wikipedia

Vermont in the American Civil War - Wikipedia

Institutional Racism and Racial Terror

Slavery in the Constitution

Removing Slavery From Vermont's Constitution - The Atlantic

Vermont, the first state to abolish adult slavery, is trying to remove any mention of slavery from its Constitution altogether

Vermont Senate votes to remove slavery from Constitution (burlingtonfreepress.com)

Personal Narratives

Williamson: Douglass in Vermont | Vermont Public Radio (vpr.org)

Summary of A Lost Family Found; An Authentic Narrative of Cyrus Branch and His Family, Alias John White (unc.edu)

Slavery, Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws

VERMONT

Background: As early as 1837 the term Jim Crow was used to describe racial segregation in Vermont. Source  Importantly, it should be noted that all white Vermonters were preceded by the original Vermonters, before Vermont was Vermont: Native Americans. Vermont was the first state to abolish slavery, but after the Civil War, former slaves could not afford to travel all the way to Vermont to buy land. But for the most part, when African Americans came north, they went to work in cities, in industrial jobs. And even when Vermont’s industries got going, with mills and quarries, black were not in the labor pool. Source  Between 1913 and 1948, 30 out of the then 48 states enforced anti-miscegenation laws. Vermont never enacted them.

Black History Timeline

Vermont African American Heritage Trail 2017 Web (vermonthumanities.org)

1777 On July 8, Vermont becomes the first political jurisdiction in the United States to abolish slavery.

1804 Lemuel Haynes is the first African American to receive an honorary degree in U.S. history when Middlebury College awards him a Master's Degree at its second commencement.

1877 George Washington Henderson of the University of Vermont is the first African American elected to Phi Beta Kappa, the oldest humanities honor society in the U.S.

Speech of Mr. Slade, of Vermont, on the Right of Petition: The Power of Congress to Abolish Slavery and the Slave Trade in the District of Columbia: The Implied Faith of the North and the South to Each Other in Forming the Constitution: And The... by William Slade

The Problem of Slavery in Early Vermont, 1777-1810 by Harvey Amani Whitfield

Discovering Black Vermont: African American Farmers in Hinesburgh, 1790-1890 by Elise A. Guyette

Mr. and Mrs. Prince: How an Extraordinary Eighteenth-Century Family Moved Out of Slavery and into Legend by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina

Daisy Turner's Kin: An African American Family Saga by Jane C. Beck

Podcasts

The History Of Slavery In Vermont, Across New England | Vermont Public Radio (vpr.org)

Film/Video

North of Slavery: African-Americans in Vermont, 1760-1860

Harvey Amani Whitfield: Slavery in Vermont

The Problem of Slavery in Early Vermont: Harvey Whitfield

02/19/20 The Abolitionist Movement in VT during the 1800's on 'Across The Fence' (history)

Black History: Vermont Abolish Slavery and Walter Francis White

Plantations

Genealogical Research

African American Resources for Vermont • FamilySearch

Questions for Research and Reflection: