Black history timeline

1619 : The first African slaves arrive in Virginia 1746 : Lucy terry (who was a enslaved person from Africa in 1746), becomes the earliest known black American poet, when she writes about the last American Indian attack on her village of Deerfield, Massachusetts. The poem she wrote is called “Bar’s fight”. This poem was not published until 1855. 1773 : Phillis Wheatley's book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral is published, making her the first African American to do so. 1787 : Slavery is made illegal in the Northwest Territory. The U.S Constitution states that Congress may not ban the slave trade until 1808. 1793 : Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin greatly increases the demand for slave labor. 1793 : A federal fugitive slave law is enacted, providing for the return slaves who had escaped and crossed state lines. If you saw any runaway slaves, and caught them, you would get a reward on 100 dollars. 1800 : Gabriel Prosser, (an enslaved African-American blacksmith) organizes a slave revolt intending to march on Richmond, Virginia. The conspiracy is uncovered, and Prosser and a number of the rebels are hanged. Virginia's slave laws are consequently tightened. 1808 : Congress bans the importation of slaves from Arica 1820 : The Missouri Compromise bans slavery north of the southern boundary of Missouri. 1822 : Denmark Vesey (an enslaved African-American carpenter who had purchased his freedom) plans a slave revolt with the intent to lay siege on Charleston, South Carolina. The plot is discovered, and Vesey and 34 coconspirators are hanged. 1831 : Nat Turner (an enslaved African-American preacher) leads the most significant slave uprising in American history. He and his band of followers launch a short, bloody, rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. The militia quells the rebellion, and Turner is eventually hanged. As a consequence, Virginia institutes much stricter slave laws. William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing the Liberator, a weekly paper that advocates the complete abolition of slavery. He becomes one of the most famous figures in the abolitionist movement. 1839 : On July 2, 1839, 53 African slaves on board the slave ship the Amistad revolted against their captors, killing all but the ship's navigator, who sailed them to Long Island, N.Y., instead of their intended destination, Africa. Joseph Cinqué was the group's leader. The slaves aboard the ship became unwitting symbols for the antislavery movement in pre-Civil War United States. After several trials in which local and federal courts argued that the slaves were taken as kidnap victims rather than merchandise, the slaves were acquitted. The former slaves aboard the Spanish vessel Amistad secured passage home to Africa with the help of sympathetic missionary societies in 1842. 1846 : The Wilmot Proviso, introduced by Democratic representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, attempts to ban slavery in territory gained in the Mexican War. The proviso is blocked by Southerners, but continues to enflame the debate over slavery. Frederick Douglass launches his abolitionist newspaper.