1. Slavery in America
A Legal History

2. 1619
Jamestown, approximately 20 captive Africans are sold into slavery
Legally like indentured servants

3. 1676
In Virginia, black slaves and black and white indentured servants band together to participate in Bacon's Rebellion

4. 1787
The Northwest Ordinance forbids slavery in the Northwest Territory. Residents required to return fugitive slaves

5. 1788
The U.S. Constitution ratified. It includes a fugitive slave clause and the "three-fifths" clause by which each slave is considered three-fifths of a person for the purposes of congressional representation and tax apportionment

6. 1793
The First Fugitive Slave Law is passed, allowing slave owners to cross state lines in the pursuit of fugitives and making it a penal offense to abet runaway slaves.

7. 1819
The Tallmadge Amendment proposed to a bill requesting the Territory of Missouri to be admitted to the Union as a free state.

8. 1820
The Missouri Compromise forbids slavery in the Louisiana territory north of Missouri's Southern border. Maine is admitted to the Union as a free state and Missouri as a slave state

9. 1836
U.S. House of Representatives adopts a "gag rule". Abolitionist materials are automatically tabled.

10. 1842
Prigg v. Pennsylvania, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the 1793 Fugitive Slave law is constitutional, while state personal liberty laws are unconstitutional demands on slave owners.

11. 1846
The Wilmot Proviso proposed to ban slavery in territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War.
NOT adopted

12. 1850
The Compromise of 1850 admits California to the Union as a free state, allows the slave states of New Mexico and Utah to be decided by popular sovereignty, and bans slave trade in D.C.

13. 1854
The Kansas-Nebraska Act creates the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and allows popular sovereignty to decide the slave status of each. It also repeals the anti-slavery clause of the Missouri Compromise

14. 1856
The Republican Party is formed out of the Free Soil Party

15. 1857
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Dred Scott v. Sanford denies citizenship to all slaves, ex-slaves, and descendants of slaves and denies Congress the right to prohibit slavery in the territories

16. 1863
Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in areas of rebellion

17. 1865
The thirteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolishes slavery throughout the country