The 1619 Landing
The English privateer ship White Lion landed 20 to 30 enslaved Africans at Point Comfort, Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia, at the end of August 1619. In compensation for provisions, these Africans were exchanged in Virginia. The British colonialists from the San Juan Bautista slave ship seized these individuals. They are the first Africans known to have arrived in England’s North American colonies. The first Africans’ arrival in Virginia represents one of the most noteworthy landmarks in the history of African Americans. English colonists in Virginia did not contrive enslavement; a decriminalized system of full-fledged slave ownership took centuries. Therefore, 1619 signifies the start of race-based servitude that characterized the African-American encounter.
Quaker Resolution Against Slavery (1688)
Francis Daniel Pastorius and three of his fellow Quakers crafted the first explicit antislavery statement in the United States in 1688. The resolution expressed philosophical and ethical concerns against slavery at a time when Pennsylvania Quakers were practically unified in their endorsement of the system (Longley, 2020). It articulated principles of fairness and justice that would reverberate throughout the arduous era of American slavery. The creators’ approach was predicated on the Golden Rule from the Bible that expected people to treat others as they would like to be handled. It did establish the germ for future uprisings such as the Stono and Nat Turner insurgencies.
The Stono Rebellion (1739)
On September 9, 1739, a massive slave revolt occurred near the Stono River in South Carolina. Slaves assembled plundered a gun store, and then traveled south, killing about 20 whites. By dusk, half of the enslaved African Americans were dead, and the other half had bolted; however, the majority were finally seized and executed. In reaction to the insurrection, the General Assembly established the Negro Act of 1740, which limited the liberties of slaves but strengthened their work environment and prohibited the importation of other blacks (Strickland, 2019). The Stono and Quaker resolutions are linked since they altered the face of servitude in Carolina.
Crispus Attucks and the Boston Massacre (1770)
Crispus Attucks, a seaman of blended African and Native American origin, died in Boston on March 5, 1770, after British soldiers shot two shotgun rounds into his chest. His and four other men’s execution by the 29th Infantry was later called the Boston Massacre. Attucks’s assassination immediately converted him from a nameless marine into a patriotic martyr. It added to the disapproval of the British administration in much of colonized North America in the years preceding the American Revolution since it was widely known. In the early 19th century, Attucks, just like Gabriel’s conspiracy, became an emblem of the antislavery movement as a hero who died protecting his rights and liberties. The event contributed to the resentment against British rule and prompted the American Revolution.
Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation (1775)
Dunmore’s Proclamation granted independence to indentured servants, imprisoned African Americans, or any individuals held in servitude by American revolutionaries, provided they were ready to carry arms for British forces battling against American forces during the American Revolution. In addition to pledging independence to the captives, Dunmore’s Proclamation declared that the American patriots had abandoned the Crown and instituted military intervention (Mills, 2022). Dunmore believed that his declaration would cause slaveholders to be more preoccupied with probable slave uprisings than with fighting British forces. The only African Americans granted freedom by Dunmore’s decree were those who fled their rebel captors and served the Crown. Its objective was strategic, to stifle revolt, not humanitarian, but its effect was quite the opposite.
Emergence of the Cotton Industry (1793)
As the expansion of the textile factories led irresistibly to a rise in the market for servitude Africans, there was a possibility of a slave insurrection, such as the one that prevailed in Haiti in 1791. Slaveholders were compelled to boost their efforts to avoid a similar occurrence in the South. Spinning technology transformed the English manufacturing sector, resulting in an insatiable need for American cotton. Congress created the Fugitive Slave Act in 1793, making it a federal violation to aid a slave attempting to escape (Wright, 2020). Just like the 1619 landing, this incident grew the number of slaves from other regions of the world brought to America to work on cotton farms.
Gabriel Prosser’s Conspiracy (1800)
Gabriel’s Conspiracy was a scheme devised by enslaved African Americans to attack Richmond and end discrimination in Virginia. On the night of August 30, 1800, two slaves disclosed the scheme just hours before a severe thunderstorm stopped the revolutionaries from convening (Brittan, 2019). In reaction, administrators in Virginia rounded up and charged over seventy slaves on charges of rebellion and conspiracy. The failed revolt prompted modifications in the state’s slave regulations at the next session of the General Assembly, encompassing the acceptance of banishment as a replacement for the death penalty. Like that of Attucks, Gabriel’s insurrection was a noteworthy illustration of slaves taking action to win freedom.
The Missouri Compromise (1820)
Congress was obligated to develop a strategy to regulate the development of slavery throughout the new western region during the expansionary years that followed the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The petition for statehood by Missouri as a slave state prompted a contentious national discussion. Congress eventually agreed to a series of compromises that became renowned as the Missouri Compromise. Missouri was inducted as a slave state, while Maine was entered as a free state, thus maintaining the equilibrium of the Congress (Herschbach, 2019). Its significance is that it maintained a balance between the number of free and enslaved states.
Nat Turner’s Rebellion (1831)
In August of 1831, a slave called Nat Turner instigated an uprising that swept over multiple farms in the southern region of Virginia. Turner and approximately seventy accomplices killed an estimated sixty whites. Turner was among the fifty-five slaves condemned and hanged for their role in the rebellion. Nearly two hundred additional people were executed by lynch mobs. Although small-scale slave rebellions were frequent in the American South, Nat Turner’s revolt was the most violent (Brewer, 2021). Just like abolitionism, his resistance strengthened the pro-slavery sentiments of whites in the South and culminated in the passage of new repressive laws forbidding the education, mobility, and gathering of slaves.
Abolitionism and the Underground Railroad (1831)
White settlers, such as the Quakers, who fought for slavery on theological or ideological grounds, also contributed to the initial abolitionist movement in North America. In the 1780s, abolitionist Northerners, including many free Blacks, began assisting enslaved persons in migrating from Southern plantations to the North through a loose system of safe homes known as the Underground Railroad (Churchill, 2020). William Lloyd Garrison, a championing reporter from Massachusetts, created the editorial The Liberator in 1831 and became renowned as the most extreme antislavery crusader in the United States. The significance of the campaign was that the Underground Railroad assisted 100,000 slaves in escaping to freedom (Churchill, 2020).
The Wilmot Proviso (1846 – 1850)
David Wilmot (D-FS-R, Pennsylvania) introduced the Wilmot Proviso after the Mexican-American War. The Proviso would have abolished slavery in all regions conquered by the USA due to the war, including the majority of the Southwest and all of California, had it been enacted (Hazell, 2022). The ferocity of the controversies around the Proviso sparked the first severe secession thoughts, notwithstanding the failure of all attempts. Despite being a brief phase in American politics, the Wilmot Proviso and Missouri Compromise offered insight into antislavery sentiments among northerners. It reignited arguments regarding slavery in the jurisdictions, which had long-lasting impacts on the American political climate.
The Compromise of 1850
With national ties deteriorating due to the Wilmot Proviso argument, congressmen Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas were able to arrange the Compromise of 1850. The agreement acknowledged California as a free state and strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act, which required Northerners to capture and repatriate runaway slaves to the South. The compromise successfully deferred military conflict between the North and South. By compelling non-slaveholders to engage in the organization, the new Fugitive Slave Act further fostered divisiveness among moderate residents. As a component of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was revised, and the slave trade in Washington, D.C., was prohibited, making this event noteworthy (Almog, 2020).
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)
Harriet Beecher The fictional examination of slavery by Stowe was a cultural phenomenon. Northerners felt as though their senses had been enlightened to the evils of slavery, whilst Southerners argued that Stowe’s book was defamatory. Its prominence brought enslavement to life for those few who were unfazed by centuries of congressional warfare and deepened the rift between North and South. The portrayal of slavery in Stowe’s novel was influenced by her Christian faith and her indulgence in abolitionist literature (Morosetti, 2021). The event is relevant as its combination of topical satire and emotional imagination contributed to the onset of the American Civil War.
Bleeding Kansas (1854 – 1859)
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 founded Kansas and Nebraska as settlements and, by adopting direct democracy, prepared the groundwork for Bleeding Kansas. Between 1855 and 1859, Kansans fought in a brutal guerrilla battle between pro-slavery and antislavery organizations (Buchkoski, 2019). This episode, nicknamed Bleeding Kansas, substantially influenced American politics and resulted in the Civil War’s onset. John Brown and his accomplices murdered five pro-slavery landowners in Kansas. Similar to the Nat Turner Rebellion, both pro-slavery and antislavery campaigners swarmed the territory to influence the vote. Following political upheaval, the relics of the old Whig alliance were destroyed, and the Republican Party was founded.
Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857)
Dred Scott was a slave from Virginia who attempted to petition for his freedom. The issue eventually reached the Supreme Court, where the judges determined that, as an enslaved person, Dred Scott possessed none of the constitutional rights or acknowledgments accorded to a human being. The Dred Scott ruling projected to completely transform the political landscape, which had thus far prevented civil war (Morretta, 2018). Classifying slaves as ordinary property hampered the government’s capacity to oversee the industry. The growing rift between the North and South over enslavement led to the Southern states’ annexation and the formation of the Confederate States of America (Morretta, 2018).
Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858)
In 1858, Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas Lincoln and Douglas participated in seven televised discussions around Illinois, addressing the most contentious subject of the abolitionist movement. Even though Douglas secured the senate election, these discussions thrust Lincoln into the political spotlight and paved the way for his 1860 candidacy for head of state. In comparison, these confrontations separated Douglas further from the southern part of the Democratic establishment. The statements Douglas made in these discussions returned to haunt him in 1860. By eliminating the prohibition on slavery in the territory north of 36°30′ latitude, Douglas’s bill effectively invalidated the Missouri Compromise (Wells, 2021).
John Brown’s Raid (1859)
John Brown, an abolitionist who advocated aggressive action against the South to eradicate slavery, was instrumental in igniting the Civil War. Brown journeyed to the North after the Pottawatomie Massacre during Bleeding Kansas and devised a far more dangerous crime. In October 1859, he and 19 allies, loaded with Beecher’s Bibles, conducted an attack on the federal garrison and ammunition in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (Thoreau, 2021). They tried to capture the armaments, distribute them to slave areas, and start an armed insurrection. The attack led to the near impossibility of future negotiations between the North and the South, serving as a significant catalyst for the Civil War.
Abraham Lincoln’s Election (1860)
In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was chosen by a substantial margin despite not appearing in several Southern votes. As a Republican, his government’s views against slavery instilled terror in many Southerners. South Carolina broke away from the Union on December 20, 1860, roughly a month after the voting ended, and six more states followed in the summer of 1861 (Villard, 2018). His election immediately precipitated the commencement of the Civil War. The election of 1860 was crucial to the flow of African Americans because it changed the destiny of the USA by signaling the abolition of slavery and ushering in a period of tremendous violence.
The Battle of Fort Sumter (1861)
Numerous federal buildings, particularly Fort Sumter in South Carolina, became international strongholds due to the secession. On April 12, 1861, Confederate battleships repelled the Fort Sumter reinforcement caravan and launched a 34-hour shelling of the castle. On April 14, the garrison capitulated, and the Civil War began. Lincoln called for 75,000 individuals to enter the Northern Army on April 15 (Otfinoski, 2018). The assault on Fort Sumter signified the official start of the American Civil War, a conflict that lasted four years, claimed the lives of more than 620,000 Americans, and resulted in the liberation of more than 3.9 million slaves (Otfinoski, 2018).
Civil War and Emancipation (1861)
Eleven southern states seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America in 1861, after 40 years of severe sectional struggle between North and South. The Civil Struggle at its inception was not a rebellion to end segregation. Five days after the Union victory at Antietam in September, Lincoln released a proclamation of amnesty and reconstruction. On January 1, 1863, he officially declared that all slaves in whatever states they were then were eternally free. This event, just like abolitionism and the Underground Railroad, released 3 million slaves in rebel states, and by 1865, 186,000 Blacks had joined the Union Army.
References
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