Salem Witch Trials
September 1692
Volume 6, Scene 1
The Stono Rebellion
of South Carolina
September 9th, 1739
Volume 6, Scene 2
The Boston Massacre
March 5th, 1770
Volume 6, Scene 3
The Declaration of Independence
July 4th, 1776
Volume 1, Scene 1
The U.S. Constitution is written
Summer 1787
Volume 3, Scenes 1-4
The Missouri Compromise
signed into law
March 6th, 1820
Volume 3, Scene 5
The Vesey Rebellion
June 16th, 1822
Volume 6, Scene 4
David Walker writes, "Appeal to the Coloured People of the World"
September 1829
Volume 6, Scene 5
The Nat Turner Rebellion
November 11th, 1831
Volume 2, Scene 2
Congress passes the
"Gag Rule" on Slavery
May 26th, 1836
Volume 3, Scene 6
The assasination of abolitionist
Elijah P. Lovejoy
November, 1837
Volume 6, Secne 6
The Supreme Court frees
the Amistad slaves
March 9th, 1841
Volume 4, Scene 2
President Millard Fillmore
signs the Fugitive Slave Act
September 18th, 1850
Volume 5, Scene 5
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe is published
March 20th, 1852
Volume 1, Scene 12
The Kansas-Nebraska Act is signed into law
May 30th, 1854
Volume 3, Scene 8
The Supreme Court hands down the "Dred Scott Decision"
March 6th, 1858
Volume 1, Scenes 5-7
John Brown is hanged for
raid on Harper's Ferry
December 2nd, 1859
Volume 1, Scenes 10-10a
Fort Sumpter is attacked
the civil war begins
April 13th, 1861
Volume 7, Scene 8
The Emancipation Proclamation is issued
January 1st, 1863
Volume 1, Scene 14
Congress repeals all
fugitive slave laws
June 24th, 1864
Volume 7
The 13th Amendment is ratified by the States abolishing slavery in all the states.
December 18th, 1865
Volume 5, Scene 10

Slavery in America

Hover over the dots with your mouse to learn more about the important milestones in the road to the abolition of slavery.

African people were kidnapped, chained and transported to the New World. For more than 250-years, these people and their descendants faced a life of hard labor, servitude and cruelty.

From the arrival of the first slaves in the 1600s, the economy of the US Colonies depended on slave labor to do hard physical work picking tobacco and cotton. By the 1800s abolitionists, who believed slavery was wrong, were working to ban slavery. It was made illegal in 1865 with the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.