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| (source) (map of burned areas) |
Sir, I am a true labourer: I earn that I eat, get
that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness, glad of other men's good, content with my harm, and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck. -- Corin, As You Like It, Act 3, Scene 21835 (Dec. 16 ) A frigid night in December along the Hudson. Harsh arctic winds. Along the Manhattan waterfront, Hudson River and East River frozen solid around. Cisterns are empty from an all-night fire two nights previously. A new fire breaks out (The Great Fire of 1835) and consumes nearly all of the old city below Wall Street on the East side, and destroys much of the city below Canal Street . Among all the damage, the two-decade-old mercantile business of Orlando Harriman Sr. on Pearl Street is gone.*
"[Orlando the Elder, then age 45] lost a large part of his property in the great fire which then swept over the city. From this mishap he never truly recovered; but in later years he partly retrieved his fortunes..." (Kennan, 1922)
The fire began in the evening in a five-story warehouse at 25 Merchant Street, now known as Beaver Street, at the intersection of Hanover Square and Wall Street. As the fire spread, gale-force winds blowing from the northwest towards the East River spread the fire. At the time of the fire, major water sources including the East River and the Hudson River were frozen solid in temperatures as low as −17 °F.
Firefighters were forced to drill holes through ice to access water, which later froze in the hoses and pipes. Attempts were made to deprive the fire of fuel by demolishing surrounding buildings, but at first there was insufficient gunpowder in Manhattan.
Some merchandise was carried to churches that were thought fireproof, but several of these burned anyway. Later in the evening, Marines returned with gunpowder from the Brooklyn Navy Yard and began to blow up buildings in the fire's path, which eventually brought the fire under control.
The conflagration was visible from Philadelphia, approximately 80 miles away. An investigation did not assign blame and reported that a burst gas pipe, ignited by a coal stove was the initial source.
*Both Kennan (1922) and Klein (2000) report the date of the devastating fire that nearly destroyed the Harriman business as 1837. The description of the fire is almost certainly that of the 1835 conflagation.
1835 (Dec. 14) A cold winter night. A large fire in freezing weather burns overnight, overwhelms entire N.Y. Fire Department. "On December 14th, the entire fire department – 1500 strong – spent the freezing, miserable evening fighting two large fires, which destroyed thirteen buildings and two shops. The next day, the city’s fire cisterns were nearly empty and its firefighting force exhausted." (wikipedia)
1835 (Oct. 9) Battle of Gonzales. Start of the Texas Revolution.
1835 (summer and fall) New York fire department fights a large number of fires (wp)
1835 (Jun) Orlando Harriman Jr. graduates from Columbia College with honors.
"He distinguished himself as a student and graduated with honor, having won the gold, silver, and bronze medals in his class." (Kennan, 1922)
"As the [sons of Orlando Harriman Sr.] came of age, they joined their father in business except for young Orlando [Jr.], who showed a flair for scholarship." (Klein, 2000, p. 28)1835 Population of New York has been rapidly increasing for a decade in a row. Fire department understaffed and overwhelmed.
"[Since 1825], the city’s population had swelled by an additional 145,000 but the department had added only about 300 firemen. The expanded city could not be protected by a mere 55 engines, 6 ladder companies and 5 hose carts "1834 Brooklyn elects its first mayor.
1834 (Jul. 7) A series of race riots among immigrants break out in the the Five Points area of New York, terminating in the destruction of St. Phillip's Negro Church on Center Street.
1833 (Mar. 15) South Carolina repeals the Nullification Ordinance regarding enforcement of the tariff. Three days later, as a symbolic gesture, they also vote to nullify the federal Force Bill. "The crisis was over, and both sides could find reasons to claim victory. The tariff rates were reduced and stayed low to the satisfaction of the South, but the states’ rights doctrine of nullification remained controversial."
1833 (Mar. 4) Second inauguration of Andrew Jackson. Martin Van Buren, Democrat of New York, is inaugurated as Andrew Jackson's new Vice President.
1833 (Mar. 1) U.S. Congress authorizes the President to use military force against South Carolina (Force Bill). At the same time they authorize the Compromise Tariff of 1833, proposed by Henry Clay, which South Carolina finds acceptable. President Jackson then sends U.S. Navy warships to Charleston harbor, and threatens to hang Calhoun or any man who worked to support nullification or secession.
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1832 (Dec. 28) John C. Calhoun of South Carolina resigns as Andrew Jackson's Vice President to take a seat in the U.S. Senate. V.P.-elect Martin Van Buren of New York had already been nominated and elected to succeed him on the ticket with Jackson.
1832 (Nov, 24) State convention in South Carolina adopts the Ordinance of Nullification, declaring the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 to be unconstitutional and unenforceable in the state. The state governnent begins making military preparations to resist anticipated federal enforcement.
1832 (Jul) Andrew Jackson signs protective tariff designed as a compromise. It receives the support of most northerners and half of the southerners in Congress, but South Carolina finds it unacceptable.
1831 (summer) Orlando Harriman Jr. enters Columbia College.
1828 (Nov) Presidential election of 1828. In a rematch of highly-contested 1824 election, President John Quincy Adams, National Republican, is soundly defeated in his bid for re-election by Andrew Jackson, Democratic of Tennessee.
1828 (May 19) President Adams signs a protective tariff act, later known as the "The Tariff of Abominations" by its southern detractors. The legislation was a ploy by Sen. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, an ardent foe of tariffs, that included a "poison pill" of high tariffs on wool items designed to be unpalatable to New England industrialists. But the plan backfired disastrously when many Western Senators, and just enough New Englanders, voted for it, as a means of strengthening the national industrial economy (the National Republicans, later called the Whigs).
1827 (Jul. 4) Emancipation of the last slave in New York, as stipulated by the 1799 state law.
1827 Auction of over 100 slaves at Monticello following the death of Thomas Jefferson.
1825 (Oct) Opening of the Erie Canal. New York begins a rapid rise to economic dominance over Philadelphia, Boston, and other rival cities. Within a decade, over half the export trade in the country will pass through the city.
1825 (Feb. 9) Following a four-way split in the Electoral College, John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts is elected U.S. President by vote of the U.S. House of Representatives. Adams won on the first ballot with 13 states, followed by Jackson with 7, and Crawford with 4. He is inaugurated as the sixth U.S. President on March 4.
1824 U.S. Congress increases the tariff.
1824 Mexico adopts Constitution effectively freeing slaves. Last slaves in Mexico are freed in 1829.
1821 (Feb. 24) Mexico becomes fully independent from Spain, by adopting the Plan of Iguala, which is ratified by Spaish Viceroy Juan O'Donojú. The plan does not immediately free slaves.
The Plan stated that Mexico was to become a constitutional monarchy, whose sole official religion would be Roman Catholicism, in which all inhabitants of Mexico would enjoy equal political and social rights. It took its name from the city of Iguala in the modern-day state of Guerrero.
1820 U.S. Congress passes law defining participating in the slave trade to be piracy as well. (see Nathaniel Gordon, hanged 1862)
1820 U.S. Congress passes law prohibiting slavery in the former Louisiana Purchase north of a line (36°30′). Signed into law by President Monroe.
1818 France abolishes the slave trade.
1816 U.S. Congress passes the first restrictive tariff against British imports. It is generally supported by the New England states and resisted by Southern states.
"Southern opponents generally felt that the protective features of tariffs were harmful to southern agrarian interests and claimed they were unconstitutional because they favored one sector of the economy over another. "(source)
1815 Britain pays Portugal £750,000 to cease their slave trade north of the Equator.
1815 (and following) Rapid expansion of Atlantic trade in the peacetime following the Napoleonic Wars. Peace allows British manufacturers to offer goods in America at low prices that American manufacturers often cannot match. The imports especially hurt the economy of the New England states, where there is a nascent industrial base.
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| Portrait of delegates at the 1814-1815 Congress of Vienna (source) |
1815 Congress of Vienna convenes to negotiate the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Among other things, the European powers declare their opposition to slavery.
1814 (May 8) Fulton's Ferry established, first steam ferry across East River linking Manhattan and Brooklyn.
1814 The Netherlands outlaws the slave trade.
1811 Orlando Harriman Sr., having followed his father into the commission goods business, opens his business on Pearl Street in lower Manhattan.
1808 First set of Black Codes is passed by mayor and aldermen of Washington, D.C., making it unlawful for “Negroes” or “loose, idle, disorderly persons” to be on the streets after 10 p.m. Free black people who violated this curfew could be fined five dollars (equal to $65 in 2007). Enslaved African Americans had to rely on their owners to pay the fine. (source)
1807 The Embargo Act prohibited most foreign trade in the U.S. is signed into law by President Jefferson, as retaliation against Britain. It devastates the economies of New England until its repeal two years later.
1807 (Mar. 25) The British Parliament passes an act abolishing the international slave trade in the British Empire (but not abolishing slavery itself). Slavery remains legal in most of the Empire until 1833.
1807 (Mar. 2) The U.S. Congress officially outlaws the slave trade, passing an act prohibiting any future importation of African slaves in the United States. It is signed by President Jefferson takes effect on the first day 1808, the earliest date permitted as stipulated by Article 1 Section 9 of the United States Constitution. Slavery remains legal in certain U.S. states and territories until 1865, and at times the act itself is not well enforced.
1806 (Dec) In his annual address to Congress, President Jefferson denounces the slave trade as a "violation of human rights" and calls upon Congress to abolish it at the first possible date, which is Jan. 1, 1808. His speech is widely printed in newspapers.
"I congratulate you, fellow-citizens, on the approach of the period at which you may interpose your authority constitutionally, to withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights which have been so long continued on the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, and which the morality, the reputation, and the best interests of our country, have long been eager to proscribe." (source)
1804 New Jersey adopts a gradual abolition of slavery. freeing future children of slaves. Those born prior to the Act remain enslaved for life. The process later becomes complete with the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865.
1800 U.S. Congress passes legislation outlawing U.S. citizens' investment in the slave trade, as well as the employment of U.S. citizens on foreign vessels involved in the slave trade. Signed into law by President Adams. (Slave Trade Act of 1800)
1800 William Harriman moves from New Haven to New York.
"He continued to carry on the trade with the West Indies, but added to it a general commission business...Although he never acquired great wealth, he always lived in comfort and was generally prosperous until the time of his death [in 1820]."
(Kennan, 1922)
1799 New York Legislature passes act freeing all future children of slaves, and of all slaves by 1827. Signed into law by Governor Jay.
1798 U.S. Congress passes an act imposing a 300 dollar per slave penalty on persons convicted of performing the illegal importation of slaves. Signed into law by President Adams.
1797 John Brown of Providence becomes the first American captain to be tried under the federal Slave Trade Act. He is convicted and forfeits his ship.
1795 William Harriman of London sells his successful stationer's business and emigrates to America, arriving in New York.
"Soon after his arrival in this country, he bought or chartered a number of sailing vessels engaged in the West India trade---a field of maritime enterprise which, if the hazards were sometimes great, the profits were generally large." (Kennan, 1922)
1794 French Republic outlaws slavery in all its possession. Slavery is restored by Napoleon in 1802.
1794 U.S. Congress passes the Slave Trade Act of 1794, effectively outlawing the slave trade by American captains. Signed into law by President Washington, it prohibited the making, loading, outfitting, equipping, or dispatching of any ship to be used in the trade of slaves, essentially limiting the trade to foreign ships.
1793 Invention of the modern cotton gin, a machine for quickly and easily separating cotton fibers from their seeds, by Eli Whitney. The efficiency allows expansion in the cultivation of short-staple cotton in a wide variety of mainland areas, and subsequently generates a rapid need for expanded slave labor among planters.
1790 U.S. Congress creates the District of Columbia. Within ten years, blacks are a quarter of the district's population.
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Stowage of the British slave ship Brookes under the regulated slave trade act of 1788.
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1787 (Sept) The U.S. Constitution is drafted in Philadelphia with a clause stipulating that the slave trade cannot be abolished until twenty years after ratification.
1787 Upon suggestion of Thomas Jefferson, the Confederation Congress adopts the Northwest Ordinance prohibiting slavery in the territory north and west of the Ohio River.
"Considered one of the most important legislative acts of the Confederation Congress,it established the precedent by which the Federal government would be sovereign and expand westward with the admission of new states, rather than with the expansion of existing states and their established sovereignty under the Articles of Confederation. It was also precedent setting legislation with regard to American public domain lands."
1785 Notes on the State of Virginia by Thomas Jefferson. He expresses the opinion that slavery corrupts both master and slave alike and promotes colonization of freed slaves.
1784 Rhode Island begins gradual abolition of slavery, freeing all future children of existing slaves.
1784 Connecticut begins gradual abolition of slavery, freeing all future children of existing slaves.
1783 New Hampshire begins gradual abolition of slavery, following the Pennsylvania model.
1783 Massachusetts Supreme Court rules that slavery is unconstitutional under the state's 1780 Constitution, freeing all slaves immediately.
1783 (Nov) At the end of the Revolutionary War, the British Army evacuates New York by sea, sailing away without returning approximately 3,000 escaped slaves, most of whom they transport to Nova Scotia with the white Loyalists.
1780 Pennsylvania adopts legislature freeing future children of slaves. Those born prior to the Act remain enslaved for life. The Act becomes a model for other Northern states. The ast slaves in the state are freed in 1847.
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| Runaway slave announcement in 1778. (source) |
1780 Under British occupation, many escaped slaves from both the North and the South find refuge in New York City, where the population of blacks explodes to over 10,000.
1779 "Amazing Grace", a Christian hymn, is published with words written by the English poet and clergyman John Newton, a former slave captain.
Newton wrote the words from personal experience. He grew up without any particular religious conviction, but his life's path was formed by a variety of twists and coincidences that were often put into motion by his recalcitrant insubordination. He was pressed (conscripted) into service in the Royal Navy, and after leaving the service, he became involved in the Atlantic slave trade. In 1748, a violent storm battered his vessel off the coast of County Donegal, Ireland, so severely that he called out to God for mercy, a moment that marked his spiritual conversion. He continued his slave trading career until 1754 or 1755, when he ended his seafaring altogether and began studying Christian theology.
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| Artist's depiction of the Great Fire of New York on September 19, 1776. (source) |
1776 (Sept) Great Fire of New York. During the first few days of the British occupation, much of the west side of the city burns, up to the location of King's College near present-day City Hall Park.
When Thomas Jefferson included a passage attacking slavery in his draft of the Declaration of Independence it initiated the most intense debate among the delegates gathered at Philadelphia in the spring and early summer of 1776. Jefferson's passage on slavery was the most important section removed from the final document. It was replaced with a more ambiguous passage about King George's incitement of "domestic insurrections among us." Decades later Jefferson blamed the removal of the passage on delegates from South Carolina and Georgia and Northern delegates who represented merchants who were at the time actively involved in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Jefferson's original passage on slavery appears below.According to the eyewitness account... it began in the Fighting Cocks Tavern, near Whitehall Slip. Abetted by dry weather and strong winds, the flames spread north and west, moving rapidly among tightly packed homes and businesses. Residents poured into the streets, clutching what possessions they could, and found refuge on the grassy town commons (present-day City Hall Park). The fire crossed Broadway near Beaver Street, and then burned most of the city between Broadway and the Hudson River. The fire raged into the daylight hours, and was stopped as much by changes in the wind as by the actions of some of the citizenry and British marines. It may also have been stopped by the relatively undeveloped property of King's College, located at the northern end of the fire-damaged area.
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liber - See more at: http://www.blackpast.org/primary/declaration-independence-and-debate-over-slavery#sthash.dwB4qzk6.dpuf
The total number of buildings destroyed is not known with precision; estimates range from 400 to 1,000, between 10 and 25 percent of the 4,000 city buildings Among the buildings destroyed was Trinity Church.
British commander Howe's report to London implied that the fire was deliberately set: "a most horrid attempt was made by a number of wretches to burn the town"
1776 (Jul) The American Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence but deletes Thomas Jefferson's passage denouncing slavery.
1776 James Watt of Scotland patents an improved steam engine with drastic gains in efficiency.
1775 (Nov. 7) Royal governor of Virginia Lord Dunmore issues Lord Dunmore's Proclamation which declaring martial law and promisingfreedom for any slaves of American patriots who will leave their masters and join the royal forces.
He
has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most
sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who
never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in
another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation
thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is
the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep
open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted
his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or
restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors
might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very
people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which
he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded
them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one
people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of
another. - See more at:
http://www.blackpast.org/primary/declaration-independence-and-debate-over-slavery#sthash.dwB4qzk6.dpuf
When Thomas Jefferson included a passage attacking slavery in his draft of the Declaration of Independence it initiated the most intense debate among the delegates gathered at Philadelphia in the spring and early summer of 1776. Jefferson's passage on slavery was the most important section removed from the final document. It was replaced with a more ambiguous passage about King George's incitement of "domestic insurrections among us." Decades later Jefferson blamed the removal of the passage on delegates from South Carolina and Georgia and Northern delegates who represented merchants who were at the time actively involved in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Jefferson's original passage on slavery appears below.
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another - See more at: http://www.blackpast.org/primary/declaration-independence-and-debate-over-slavery#sthash.dwB4qzk6.dpufs
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| In 1741, British authorities executed 34 people for conspiring to burn down the city. Thirteen African American men were burned at the stake and another 17 black men, two white men, and two white women were hanged. An additional 70 blacks and seven whites were banished from the city (source) |
1774 Rhode Island becomes the first colony to prohibit the importation of slaves.
1774 Connecticut slave population at over 6,500 people, or 3.4% of the population. "There were very few free Blacks, probably fewer than ten by some accounts." (yale.edu)
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| Phillis Wheatley, as illustrated by Scipio Moorhead in the Frontispiece to her book Poems on Various Subjects. Wheatley was brought to British-ruled Boston, Massachusetts, on July 11, 1761,[on a slave ship called The Phillis It was owned by Timothy Fitch and captained by Peter Gwinn
At the age of eight, she was sold to the wealthy Boston merchant and
tailor John Wheatley, who bought the young girl as a servant for his
wife Susanna. John and Susanna Wheatley named the young girl Phillis,
after the ship that had brought her to America. She was given their last
name of Wheatley, as was a common custom if any surname was used for slaves. (source) |
1773 Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley (born 1753, West Africa).
1773 With the death of his wife's father, Thomas Jefferson inherits over 100 slaves. Many are primarily of European descent.
"Intercourse between white male masters and their female slaves coupled with the partus law resulted in numerous slaves of mixed-race and primarily European ancestry, as European visitors noted in Virginia by the eighteenth century. Such was the case in the household of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Among the more than 100 slaves his wife inherited after the death of her father John Wayles in 1773 were the eleven mixed-race members of the Hemings family: Betty Hemings was the daughter of an enslaved African woman and an English sea captain. Her six mixed-race children from a 12-year relationship with the widower Wayles were three-quarters white, and half-siblings to Jefferson's wife Martha Wayles." (source)
1761 Portugal abolishes slavery in mainland Portugal
1760s Britain eclipses Portugal as the foremost nation in the Atlantic slave trade.
"British involvement expanded rapidly in response to the demand for labour to cultivate sugar in Barbados and other British West Indian islands. In the 1660s, the number of slaves taken from Africa in British ships averaged 6,700 per year. By the 1760s, Britain was the foremost European country engaged in the Slave Trade.
The profits gained from chattel slavery helped to finance the Industrial Revolution and the Caribbean islands became the hub of the British Empire. The sugar colonies were Britain's most valuable colonies. By the end of the eighteenth century, four million pounds came into Britain from its West Indian plantations, compared with one million from the rest of the world." (source)1741 Severe fires plague New York City and are blamed on the black community. In the aftermath, dozens of blacks are executed by burning and hanging (New York Conspiracy of 1741)
In the spring of 1741 fear gripped Manhattan as fires burned all across the island. The suspected culprits were New York's slaves, some 200 of whom were arrested and tried for conspiracy to burn the town and murder its white inhabitants. As in the Salem witch trials and the Court examining the Denmark Vesey plot in Charleston, a few witnesses implicated many other suspects. In the end, over 100 people were hanged, exiled, or burned at the stake.
"A grand jury called by the Supreme Court quickly concluded that the fires were the work of black arsonists, “plot Negroes” from the half-free community. They were accused of acting as part of a vast conspiracy that seemed to involve just about every slave in the city and was carefully planned by John Ury, an “alleged” white priest, and John Hughson. It seems that the Supreme Court Justice was unwilling to believe that black people could have devised the plot themselves."(The Nation, Oct. 2005)
1733 Province of Georgia is created in the U.S. with a charter uniquely prohibiting slavery among colonies. The colony is designed to enable the "worthy poor" as well as persecuted European Protestants to have a new start. The colony's founder warns against introduction of slavery. Sluggish settlement growth and discontentment lead the colony to permit slavery after 1749.
1720 In South Carolina, 60% of the population are enslaved (source)
1706 England abolishes slavery in England by court decision. In the case of Smith v. Browne & Cooper, Sir John Holt, Lord Chief Justice of England, rules that "as soon as a Negro comes into England, he becomes free. One may be a villein in England, but not a slave."
1705 Virginia law codifies as slaves those people imported from nations that were not Christian. Native Americans who were sold to colonists by other Native Americans (from rival tribes), or captured by Europeans during village raids, were also defined as slaves
1703 In New York, 42 percent of households hold slaves, much more than Philadelphia and Boston combined. "Among the colonies’ cities, only Charleston, South Carolina, had more." (The Nation, Oct. 2005).
1676 Boston merchants pioneer the slave trade to Madagascar. They begin selling imported slaves to Virginia by 1678, usually after swapping for better slaves in the West Indies.
1672 English crown attempts to monopolize the slave trade in England with formation of the Royal African Company in London. The monopoly is abandoned in 1698 after lobbying by the rival ports of Bristol and Liverpool.
"For the home [American] market, the Puritans generally took the Africans to the West Indies and sold them in exchange for a few experienced slaves, which they brought back to New England. In other cases, they brought back the weaklings that could not be sold on the harsh West Indies plantations (Phyllis Wheatley, the poetess, was one) and tried to get the best bargain they could for them in New England. Massachusetts merchants and ships were supplying slaves to Connecticut by 1680 and Rhode Island by 1696."(source)
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| "Slaves working in 17th-century Virginia," by an unknown artist, 1670. (source) |
1662 Virginia becomes first British colony to establish concept of partus sequitur ventrum, by which children of slaves inherit the condition fo servitude and become the permanent property of the slave master.
"Some historians suggest the partus doctrine was based in the economic needs of a colony with perpetual labor shortages. Conditions were difficult, mortality was high, and the government was having difficulty attracting sufficient numbers of indentured servants. The change also legitimized the rape of slave women by white planters, their sons, overseers and other white men. Their illegitimate mixed-race children were "confined" to slave quarters unless fathers took specific legal actions on their behalf. The new law in 1662 meant that white fathers were no longer required to legally acknowledge, support, or emancipate their illegitimate children by slave women. Men could sell their children or put them to work."
1660 First recorded black indentured servants in Connecticut. Servitude was not for life, and was not hereditary. "Indian slavery was much more common." (yale.edu)
1658 Elizabeth Key, mixed race woman of Virginia, wins her freedom in court.
"[She was] the first woman of African descent to bring a freedom suit in the Virginia colony, seeking recognition as a free woman of color, rather than being classified as a Negro (African) and slave. Her natural father was an Englishman and a member of the House of Burgesses. He had acknowledged her, had her baptized as a Christian in the Church of England, and arranged for her guardianship under an indenture before his death. Her guardian returned to England and sold the indenture to another man, who held Key beyond its term. When he died, the estate classified Key and her child (also the son of an English subject) as Negro slaves. Aided by a young English lawyer working as an indentured servant on the plantation, Key sued for her freedom and that of her infant son. She won her case."
The legal scholar Taunya Lovell Banks suggests the early cases in the colonies dealing with mixed-race children of ethnic Africans and English had more to do with determining "subjecthood" than with modern ideas about race or citizenship. English colonists were considered subjects of the Crown, but Africans and others, in England and the colonies at the time, were considered foreigners and not eligible for the rights of subjects. The fact that they were not Christians also caused the Africans to be classified as foreigners. The colonies had no process for naturalizing them as subjects, and citizenship had not been fully defined. The courts struggled to define the status of children born to couples of whom one was an English subject and the other a foreigner.1655 In Virginia, John Casor becomes the first person of African descent in England's Thirteen Colonies to be declared as a slave for life as the result of a civil suit.
1655 First recorded slave auction in New Amsterdam.
1644 Boston merchants make the first American attempt to participate in the Atlantic slave trade. (source)
1640 John Punch, an African indentured servant in Virginia, escapes from his master, running away to Maryland. After capture he is sentenced to lifetime servitude to his master. Two white indentured servants who escaped as well are merely granted longer servitude, not for a lifetime.
1638 Pequot War in New England. The English trade captured natives to the West Indies for African slaves.
1635 Slaves in New Amsterdam petition for wages, and are granted "half freedom," which their children do not inherit.
"Slavery was so ill defined in those days that slaves collected wages. In 1635, when wages were not forthcoming, a small group petitioned the company for redress, and that’s when they became “half-free.” As a condition of their half-freedom, families who sustained themselves as farmers agreed to labor for the company when it called on them and pay an annual tribute in furs, produce or wampum."
1626 The Dutch West India Company imports the first slaves to New Amsterdam.Their "half free" status was not automatically passed down to their children, who instead remained the property of the company. This anomalous sorting of humanity produced an ongoing struggle over freedom, and it reflected “the ambiguous place of black men and black women in New Netherland. Exploited, enslaved, unequal to be sure,” write Berlin and Harris, “they were recognized as integral, if inferior, members of the Dutch colony on the Hudson.” And their status conferred on them a penchant to make trouble.(The Nation, Oct. 2005)
1625 English establish their first colony in the West Indies on the island of Barbados.
1624 New England's first slaveholder, Samuel Maverick, arrives in Massachusetts with two negro slaves.
1619 First Africans arrive in Virginia, probably via Portuguese traders. They are sold in Jamestown and dispersed through the colony.
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| Portrait of an African Slave Woman attributrd to Annibale Carracci, ca. 1580s. Oil on canvas, 60 x 39 x 2 cm (fragment of a larger painting). Tomasso Brothers, Leeds, England (source) |
"The exact number of British ships that took part in the Slave Trade will probably never be known but, in the 245 years between Hawkins first voyage and the abolition of the Slave Trade in 1807, merchants in Britain despatched about 10,000 voyages to Africa for slaves, with merchants in other parts of the British Empire perhaps fitting out a further 1,150 voyages.
"Historian, Professor David Richardson, has calculated that British ships carried 3.4 million or more enslaved Africans to the Americas.
"Only the Portuguese, who carried on the trade for almost 50 years after Britain had abolished its Slave Trade, carried more enslaved Africans to the Americas than the British (the most recent estimate suggests just over 5 million people)." (source)
1440s First black slaves in Portugal. (Atlas of Slavery, Walvin)
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