American Racial History Timeline

[Hunter Wallace]

The New World and Rise of the Spanish Empire, 1492-1585

1492
August 3, 1492: Christopher Columbus from Spain to the Canary islands.

September 6, 1492: Columbus departs from the Canary islands in his voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.

October 12, 1492: Columbus lands in San Salvador, an island in the Bahamas off the coast of Florida.

October 28, 1492: Columbus explores the coast of Cuba and makes landfall.

December 5, 1492: Columbus explores Hispanolia.

December 25, 1492: Santa Maria runs aground on Christmas morning. Founding of La Navidad settlement in Hispanolia.



1493
January 15, 1493: Columbus sets sail for Europe.

March 15, 1493: Columbus arrives in Spain.

Word of Columbus's discoveres across the Atlantic Ocean rapidly circulates throughout Europe because of the printing press.

September 1493: Second voyage of Columbus to New World.

1494-1548
Natives of Hispanolia eradicated by Spanish disease, slavery, and cruelty.

1494
Treaty of Tordesillas: Pope Alexander VII divides the world between Spain and Portugal. The Treaty of Tordesillas is not recognized by other European powers.

Spanish conquest of Hispanolia.

1495: Columbus transports some five hundred enslaved American Indians across the Atlantic to Seville.

1497
The King of England, Henry VII, commissions John Cabot to discover a Northwest passage to Asia. Cabot sails across the Atlantic and arrives in Newfoundland.

1498
Third voyage of Columbus to New World. Includes Spanish settlers intent on establishing colonies in the Caribbean.

1500
Pedro Alvares Cabral, a Portuguese navigator, discovers the coast of Brazil.

1501: Coast of South America explored by Amerigo Vespucci. Vescpucci

Enslaved black Africans brought to the New World; some perhaps even earlier.

1502
Fourth voyage of Columbus to New World.

1506
Death of Columbus. Columbus dies unaware that he has discovered two previously unknown continents.

1510-1538
Epidemics in Central and South America.

1517
Exploration of Yucatán by Hernández de Córdoba.

1518: Importation of African slaves to Hispanolia. Barolomé de Las Casas, an ardent defender of Indian rights, calls for large importations of African slaves in order to help save American Indians.

1519-1522
Circumnavigation of the world by Magellen.

1519-1550
Rise of Spanish Empire in Latin America.

1519
Cortés invades Mexico, but is ultimately repulsed.

1521
Second invasion of Mexico by Cortés. Conquest of Tenochtitlan, largest city in New World, and capital of Aztec Empire.

1526
Leo Africanus, a Moroccan Moor converted to Christianity, writes a highly popular book about Negroes which is later translated into English. Africanus describes the "Numedians" as being "principally addicted to Treason, Treacherie, Murther, Theft and Robberie." He goes on to say "the Negroes likewise leade a beastly kind of life, being utterly destitute of the use of reason, of dexteritie of wit, and of all the arts. Yeah, they so behave themselves, as if they had continually lived in a Forrest among wild beasts. They have great swarmes of Harlots among them; whereupon a man may easily conjecture their manner of living."

1531
Francisco Pizarro arrives in Peru.

1532-1535
Conquest of Inca Empire.

1532
Battle of Cajamarca.

1535
Founding of Lima in Peru.

1538-1542
Coronado expedition through American Southwest

1539-1543
De Soto expedition through American Southeast. Introduces Spanish diseases to region that proceed to ravage the Indian population in subsequent decades.

1540-1546
Conquest of the Yucatán peninsula under Francisco Montejo.

1542: Death of De Soto. Spain outlaws enslavement of American Indians.

1550s
250,000 Spanish settlers to New World, overwhelmingly men, later take Indian wives.

1554
Negroes make first appearance in England.

1550-1600
Epidemics in American Southeast and Southwest. Mississippian culture decimated.

1560-1570
John Hawkins makes three voyages to West Africa.

1565
Founding of St. Augustine in Florida. First settlement in what later becomes the United States.

1570
Jesuit mission established in Chesapeake Bay.

1580s and 1590s
Francis Drake and piracy along Spanish Main.

1588
Defeat of Spanish Armada off the coast of Britain.

1589
Richard Hakluyt publishes The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation. Hakluyt's book inspires Englishmen to colonize North America and introduces them to the Negro.

1600-1650
Epidemics along Atlantic coast of North America.

[Hunter Wallace]

British America, 1585-1776

1585-1604
English pirates harrass Spanish treasure ships and begin to establish bases in the Lesser Antilles.

1585
At the behest of Sir Walter Raleigh, 100 colonists cross Atlantic and settle on Roanoke, an island off the coast of North Carolina.

1586
Starving, colonists abandon Roanoke and return to England.

1587
Second set of colonists dispatched to Chesapeake Bay, but are dropped off in Roanoke where they ultimately disappear. The colonists abandon Roanoke and migrate to Croataon island. From Croataon island, the colonists will attempt migrate to their original destination in the Chesapeake Bay area only to be intercepted and slaughtered by Powhatan.

1603
James I becomes King of England. Incorporation of Scotland into Britain.

1604
Peace treaty between England and Spain. Forces English to turn their energies away from piracy and towards colonization.

1605
English colony established in St. Lucia. Destroyed by native resistance.

1606
Incorporation of the Virginia Company. James I issues Virginia Company a colonial charter to govern Virginia.

1607
Founding of Virginia: 104 colonists of the Virginia Company arrive in Chesapeake Bay. The founding of Jamestown in Virginia Tidewater, the first permanent English colony in what ultimately became the United States. Colonists are decimated by famine and disease. In nine months, only 38 of the original 104 colonists will be left alive.

English settlement established at mouth of Kennebec River on the coast of Maine.

Founding of Quebec by French.

1607-1622
Virginia Company transports 10,000 colonists to Jamestown over the next fifteen years. In 1622, only 20% of the colonists will still be alive.

1608-1609
Captain John Smith in charge of Jamestown. Smith is ultimately captured by Powhatan and proceeds with a mock execution in order to render Smith his subordinate. Smith is "adopted" by Pocahontas, Powhatan's daughter, as part of the ritual. Powhatan will encourage clandestine Indian attacks on Jamestwon over the next five years.

1608
English colonists in Maine abandon settlement and return home.

1609
220 colonists at Jamestown.

English colony established in Grenada. Destroyed by native resistance.

Hudson valley explored by Henry Hudson.

Samuel de Champlain in Canada.

1610
60 colonists at Jamestown. In August, Captain George Percy attacks a neighboring Indian village and kills hostages. Runaways from Jamestown to neighboring Indian tribes.

1612
Spring 1612: Runaways are recaptured and ruthlessly executed.

1613
Pocahontas captured and forced to convert to Christianity.

1614
Pocahontas marries John Rolfe.

John Smith explores the North Atlantic seaboard and bestows the name "New England" upon the region due to similarities in climate and soil.

Founding of Fort Nassau by Dutch in New York.

1616
350 colonists in Jamestown

1617
March 1617: Pocahontas dies in England of disease.

1618
Death of Powhatan.

1619: A Dutch ship brings "twenty Negars" to Jamestown; some blacks arrived even earlier.

1620
Voyage of the Mayflower: 102 Puritan separatists, or the "Pilgrims," cross the frigid Atlantic and found Plymouth on the south shore of Massachusetts Bay. Plymouth is built on the site of an abandoned Indian village. The Indians of the region had been recently decimated by European diseases.

1621
During their first winter in America, half of the Pilgrim colonists. Contrary to the myth of the first Thanksgiving, the Puritans regard the Indians as being little more than half naked pagan savages living as idle beasts amongst the abundance of nature. In Governor William Bradford's words, they are "savage people, who are cruel, barbarous, and most treacherous." The Indians did not teach the Puritans how to grow corn with rotting fish, as American schoolchildren are often told. In fact, there is no archaeological evidence that this was ever an Indian custom, but the practice had long existed in Western Europe, and England in particular, since at least Medieval times.

1622
March 22, 1622: Algonquian Indians ambush colonial Virginians in a massive coordinated surprise attack. 347 Virginians will be killed in the raid, one third of the total colonists. Virginians will use the attack as a pretext to conquer Indian territory in Eastern Virginia. The war between the Virginians and Indians will rage for the better part of the next decades.

Sir Francis Wyatt, governor of Jamestown: "Our first worke is explusion of the Salvages to gain the free range of the countrey for encrease of Cattle, swine &c . . . for it is infinitely better to have no heathen among us, who at best were but thornes in our sides, than to be at peace and league with them."

John Smith: "good for the plantation because now we have just cause to destroy them by all means possible."

1623
The Plymouth colonists lure a band of Indians from the north into a trap and massacare seven of them. The colonists display the head of the Indian sachem as a trophy atop their fort at Plymouth. The Puritans will spend little of their time during the 1620s and 1630s trying to convert the Indians.

1624
Crown terminates Virginia Company charter. Virginia becomes a royal colony.

English colony established in St. Christopher/St. Kitts.

[Hunter Wallace]

1625
Founding of the city of New Amsterdam in New Netherlands by Dutch. The Dutch are even more commercial than the Puritans and make no effort to convert the local Indians. In the words of the most prominant Dutch clergyman in New Netherlands, "As to the natives of this country, I find them entirely savage and wild, strangers to all decency, yeah, uncivil and stupid as garden poles, proficient to all wickedness and godlessness."

1627
English colony established in Barbados.

1628
English colony established in Nevis.

1630
1,500 colonists in Plymouth colony.

Founding of Massachusetts: "Great Migration" of Puritans to New England under John Winthrop commissioned by Massachusetts Bay Company. 14,000 settlers will emigrate to New England during the 1630s out of a total of 21,000 during the seventeenth century. Massachusetts receives a charter as a royal colony. Puritans establish a republic, a radical experiment in the seventeenth century. The Puritans will henceforth elect their governor, deputy governor, and legislature. Founding of Boston.

Founding of Providence, Rhode Island.

Massachusetts and Plymouth, reinforced by immigration from England during the 1630s, form an alliance and bully local Indian tribes into paying tribute.

Dutch seize Salvador as part of conquest of Portuguese Brazil; expelled in 1654 by Portuguese; Dutch influential in extending sugar cultivation to the Caribbean.

1630-1650
16,000 English settlers move to Virginia and Maryland. Puritans push into the interior of New England and begin to establish new colonies. During the 1640s, scattered attempts are made in Massachusetts to convert the Indians to Christianity, and some Indians come to live in towns, but most colonists still despise the Indians. The Puritans thoroughly reject multiculturalism and insist that the Indians completely reject their culture and adopt English ways. Not surprisingly, few chose to do so.

1632
Virginians negotiate peace with Indians in exchange for massive annexations of territory.

Crown sets aside twelve million acres north of Chesapeake Bay for the establishment of a new colony, Maryland. Maryland is given to Lord Baltimore and becomes a "proprietary colony" (owned by private interests). Maryland is originally intended to be a haven for English Catholics but attracts few Catholic settlers.

English colonies established in Monserrat and Antigua.

1634
Founding of Maryland: English colonists establish the colony of Maryland and St. Mary's City.

1635
French colonization of Guadeloupe and Martinique begins,

1636
Founding of Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1637
Pequot War: Destruction of Pequot Indians by New England colonies.

New Sweden Company chartered.

1638
Founding of Fort Christina and New Sweden in Delaware.

First evidence of chattel racial slavery in New England.

Captain William Peirce of Salem ship Desire brings the first Negro slaves to New England.

1639
First evidence of chattel racial slavery in Virginia and Maryland.

1640-1660
Almost two-thirds of English colonials coming to the New World settle in the West Indies during this period.

1640-1700
130,000 black slaves are brought to Barbados. In 1700, only 50,000 will remain alive. 260,000 black slaves in total are brought to the West Indies during this period.

1643
Dutch investors in New Sweden Company sell out and turn over New Sweden to the Swedish crown. About three hundred colonists arrive from Sweden and Finland in Delaware. The quinessential American "log cabin" stems from these Scandinavian colonists.

1644
April 18, 1644: Indian surprise attack. 400 colonists killed. There are now 10,000 English colonists in Virginia. Alqonquain Indian population reduced from 24,000 in 1607 to a mere 2,000 in 1669 due to war, famine, and disease.

800 black slaves on Barbados.

War between Dutch and Indians.

1645-1655
12,000 white convicts shipped to Barbados.

1647-1664
Pieter Struyvesant governor of New Netherlands. Struyvesant opposes Jewish immigration but is ultimately slapped down by the Dutch West India Company. Jews will have more freedom in New Netherlands than any of British colonies along the Atlantic seaboard. The Dutch policy of tolerance attracts an ethnically and religiously diverse group of settlers from Europe. This policy will ultimately prove the undoing of New Netherlands in the later English conquest.

1649
300 blacks in Virginia, 15,000 whites. Negroes 2% of population of Virginia.

[Hunter Wallace]

1650-1670
36,000 English setters move to Virginia and Maryland.

1650
13,000 colonists in Virginia and Maryland (300 African slaves in Virginia and Maryland, 2% of population). 44,000 colonists in West Indies (30,000 in Barbados). 23,000 colonists in New England.

1652
Rhode Island prohibits slavery.

Massachusetts and Connecticut pass laws excluded Negroes from the colonial militia.

1652-1654
Anglo-Dutch War over Navigation Acts.

1655-1660
French colonization of Santo Domingo (Haiti).

1655
Conquest of Jamaica by English.

War between Dutch and Indians in New Amsterdam.

Conquest of New Sweden by Dutch.

1659
33,000 colonists in New England. 20,000 colonists in Massachusetts.

War between Dutch and Indians.

1660
A black majority emerges in Barbados due to the importation of slaves in the previous fifteen years (27,000 blacks, 26,000 whites). As the demographic situation in Barbados worsens, whites will begin to flee Barbados to other Caribbean islands and the Carolinas.

Barbados and Jamaica become royal colonies.

5,000 colonists in New Netherlands.

Virginia Assembly establishes chattel slavery in statute.

1660-1685
Reign of King Charles II.

1661
Slavery becomes widespread in Virginia.
Formalization of slave code in Barbados.

1661-1715
Reign of Louis XIV.

1662
Virginia Anti-Miscegenation Law: "If any Christian shall commit fornication with a Negro man or woman, hee or shee soe offending will pay double the usual fine."

1663
Bermuda Anti-Miscegenation Law: Sexual relations between blacks and whites forbidden.

Rhode Island and Connecticut receive royal charters.

War between Dutch and Indians.

3,000 colonists in New France, 500 in Acadia. French crown takes control of colony.

1664-1667
Second Anglo-Dutch War over Navigation Acts.

1664
Jamaica adopts Barbados slave code.

Founding of New York: Conquest of New Netherlands by English.

Founding of New Jersey: Jersey established as a proprietary colony.

1665
Maryland Anti-Miscegenation Law: Bans interracial marriages. "Foreasmuch as divers freeborne English women forgettfull of their free condition and to the disgrace of our Nation doe intermarry with Negro slaves by which alsoe divers suites may arise touching the Issue of such woemen and a great damage doth befall the masters of such Negroes for prevention whereof for deterring such freeborne women from such shameful matches."

New Haven colony absorbed by Connecticut.

First evidence of chattel racial slavery in New York.

1667
A peace treaty is signed between the English and Dutch. English assume control over New Netherlands which becomes the colony of New York.

1688
Virginia Assembly: free Negroes "ought not in all respects be admitted to a full fruition of the exemptions and impunities of the English."

1669
Constitution of Carolina gives masters "absolute power over his negro slaves of what opinion or religion soever."

1670
41,000 colonists in Virginia and Maryland. 52,000 colonists in New England (Indians now outnumbered 3 to 1).

Founding of South Carolina: 200 colonists from Barbados sail to the mainland of North America and found the colony of Carolina and the city of Charles Town.

London merchants organize Hudson Bay Company. Intermarriage between whites and English settlers forbidden.

1672-1674
Third Anglo-Dutch War over Navigation Acts.

1673
Dutch briefly recapture New York City during the Third Anglo-Dutch War. The Dutch colonists of New Netherlands will preserve their own customs and resist Anglicization until the middle of the eighteenth century.

[Hunter Wallace]

1675-1676
War between Virginia colonists and Susquehonnock Indians.

Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia: Bacon demands destruction of "all Indians in generall for . . .they are all enemies." Jamestown sacked and burned. Governor Berkeley driven out of Virginia. The rebellion ultimately disintegrates after Bacon unexpectedly dies of dysentary. Berkeley reestablishes control. King Charles II is alarmed by unrest in Virginia and uses Bacon's Rebellion as a pretext to reassert royal control over the colony. Dispatches six warships and eight transports with 1,100 troops to Virginia to restore order. Governor Berkeley is deposed and moves to England where he dies a year later. Sir Herberty Jeffreys takes over as Governor of Virginia.

King Philip's War in New England: During the spring of 1675, Plymouth colonists hang three Wampanoag Indians for murdering an Indian convert. Wampanoag warriors go on a rampage attacking colonials up and down the frontier. Puritans retalitate. Narragansett Indians, four thousand strong, enter the war on side of Wampanoag. 52 of 90 towns in New England are attacked, 12 of them completely destroyed. Indians obtain and use muskets throughout the war. The Indians launch a race war against the colonials, massacare Puritan women and children, and attempt to destroy all traces of English civilization. The Puritans respond by waging total war against the Indians. The settled Indian Christians in New England praying towns are attacked by furious white settlers. Eventually, during the summer of 1676, the Indians run out of bullets and lose the war after the Mohawk allies of the Puritans attack them from the west. 3,000 Indians die in King Philip's War. 1,000 Puritan colonists lose their lives (roughly 25% of the population of New England) making King Philip's War the bloodiest war in American history.

King Philip's War will ultimately prove to be a major turning point in American history. The race war waged against the Puritans steels their already growing sense of racial consciousness. In previous decades, the Puritans had attempted to convert and assimilate the Indians, but after the bloodshed of 1676 a racial regime will arise in New England concurrent with the one arising in Virginia and Maryland. An eighteenth century missionary points out that after King Philip's War the Indians "are generally considered by white people, and placed, as if by common consent, in an inferiour and degraded situation, and treated accordingly."

1678
Jeffreys and most of the British troops succumb to disease.

1680-1690
13,000 English colonists migrate to Virginia and Maryland.

1680
Virginia passes a law prescribing thirty lashes on the bare back of any black slave who threatens or strikes a white person.

1681
Maryland passes anti-miscegenation legislation.

1682
Remaining British troops discharged and sent back to England. In the aftermath of Bacon's Rebellion and the subsequent military occupation of Virginia, the planter elite begins to reinvent itself as the champion of the common white: moves to support white expansion at the expense of the Indians, decreases the poll tax, and opposes increases in taxation.

Founding of Pennsylvania: 23 ships set sail with 2,000 colonists. Founding of the colony of Pennsylvania by William Penn and Quakers.

Founding of Louisiana: Establishment of Louisiana by French in Mississippi Valley.

1683
20 ships bring 2,000 more colonists to Pennsylvania.

1684
New England colonies, along with New York and New Jersey, consolidated into the "Dominion of New England," a British attempt to imitate Viceroyalty of New Spain.

1685
The Duke of York ascends the throne to become King James II.

Edict of Nantes rescinds toleration of Protestants in France. Exodus of Huguenots.

1686
8,000 colonists in Pennsylvania.

New Hampshire passes a law forbidding the sale of strong drinks to Negroes.

1688
Glorious Revolution: William of Orange invades England at the request of Parliament and ascends the throne.

Four Quakers sign antislavery petition in Germantown, Pennsylvania.

1689
April 18, 1689: New England colonists rebel, dissolve the Dominion of New England, restore their old seperate colonies.

Leisler's Rebellion: Dutch revolt in New York City.

1689-1697
Nine Years War: British and French at war. Induces huge expansion of British army and navy. Radical increases in taxation. French and Indian raids ravage New England and New York.

1690
10,000 whites in Jamaica.

1,500 black slaves in Carolina.

11,000 colonists in Pennsylvania.

1691
Virginia Anti-Miscegenation Law: Prohibits interracial liasons "that abominable mixture and spurious issue."

Virginia passes a law forbidding emancipation of slaves unless free blacks are transported outside the colony.

Crown issues a new charter for Massachusetts, extending its jurisdiction over Plymouth colony.

Founding of North Carolina: North Carolina becomes a seperate colony.

Pennsylvania receives a royal charter.

1692
Maryland Anti-Miscegenation Law: Revision of earlier anti-miscegenation law. Drops Christian qualification.

Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts.

Establishment of Anglican Church in Maryland.

1693
Establishment of Anglican Church in southern counties of New York.

Founding of College of William and Mary in Virginia.

Slave uprising in Barbados.

1694
Death of Queen Mary.

1696
Barbados slave code adopted in Carolinas. The conversion of slaves to Christianity is banned in South Carolina.

1698
Bank of England established.

1699
By the end of the seventeenth century, Boston has become a thriving city, and the third largest shipbuilding port in the Empire behind Bristol and London. New England has a higher literacy rate than the mother country and the highest rate of book ownership in the world. The Puritans emigrated to America, not to establish the liberal society that America would ultimately become, but to escape the ungodliness, religious tolerance, corruption, and anarchy they so despised in England.

The Puritans set out to establish a perfect, uniform, homogeneous Protestant society in the wilderness of New England, a city on a hill, that was to be a shining example to their wayward cousins in the mother country. In the process, they established a rigid, totalitarian, theocracy in New England in which all forms of immorality were thoroughly criminalized. Crimes included breaking the Sabbath, engaging in blasphemy, practicing magic or sorcery, and worshiping idols. The press was thoroughly censorsed to weed out irreligious materials and religious dissidents were driven into exile. The colony of Connecticut was founded by disaffected conservative Puritans who felt Massachusetts had gone too soft on religious.

French establish a fort at Mobile.

[Hunter Wallace]

1700
85,000 colonists in Virginia and Maryland with 13,000 African slaves (13% of the population). 91,000 colonists in New England (African slaves comprise 2% of the population). 3,800 whites, 2,800 blacks in Carolinas. 15,000 whites in Barbados. 14,000 colonists in New Jersey. Scots settle East Jersey. Quakers settle West Jersey. 18,000 colonists in Pennsylvania. After 1700, the growing wealth and power of Britain will discourage British emigration to the American colonies.

80,000 English immigrants to America from 1770 until 1775, of these, half are deported convicts. 145,000 Scottish immigrants to America, of these, half are from Ulster. 100,000 Germans from Westphalia immigrate to America. Most settle in Pennsylvania where they come to compose 40% of the population by 1750.

American colonies account for 4% of England's GDP.

15,000 colonists in New France.

By 1700, racial chattel slavery has been established in all the American colonies.

1701
Founding of Yale.

1702
West Jersey and East Jersey colonies reunited. New Jersey receives a royal charter.

Death of King William.

1702-1713
War of Spanish Succession: British and French at war again.

1704
Founding of Delaware: Separation of Delaware from Pennsylvania.

1705
Virginia adopts a new slave code. Declares Negroes ineligible for public office. Mulattos defined as "the child, grandchild, or great-grandchild of a Negro."

North Carolina defines mulattos as any person having 1/16th Negro ancestry.

Virginia passes a law ordering the confiscation of livestock own by black slaves to be sold to benefit white poor.

Virginia Anti-Miscegenation Law: Virginia passes a law fining any minister who conducts an interracial marriage five thousand pounds of tobacco. Any white man who marries a free black or any white woman who slept with any black man faces six months in prison and a fine of ten pounds. Any white woman who gives birth to a mullato child given five year sentence of indentured servitude.

Massachusetts Anti-Miscegenation Law: Forbids miscegenation.

Pennsylvania Anti-Miscegenation Law: Forbids miscegenation.

1706
Establishment of Anglican Church in South Carolina.

1707
Creation of Great Britain: Union of Scotland and England into Great Britain.

1710
4,100 slaves in South Carolina. South Carolina becomes the first mainland colony to have a black majority population.

Port Royal in Acadia captured. French surrender their claim to Acadia, Newfoundland, Hudson Bay, and St. Kitts in the Caribbean.

1711
Tuscarora Indians attack North Carolina colonists.

1712: Slave uprising in New York City.

1713
7,000 whites in Jamaica. 55,000 blacks.

Treaty of Utrecht: British acquire Acadia. Acadia renamed Nova Scotia.

1714
New Hampshire passes a law preventing free Negroes from going outside at night after nine o'clock.

1715
North Carolina Anti-Miscegenation Law: Forbids miscegenation.

Establishment of Anglican Church in North Carolina.

Negroes prohibiting from voting in North and South Carolina.

Lower Creek, Yanasee, and Cawtaba Indians launch an attack on South Carolina killing 400 colonists.

1717
South Carolina Anti-Miscegenation Law: Forbids miscegenation. Maryland and South Carolina condemn miscegenation as "unnatural and inordinate Copulations."

1718
Death of William Penn.

Founding of New Orleans.

Founding of San Antonio in Texas by Spanish.

1722
South Carolina and North Carolina pass laws requiring emigration of free Negroes from colonies.

1723
Governor of Virginia declares that only by fixing "a perpetual Brand upon Free-Negroes & Mullatos by excluding them from the great Priviledge of a Freeman" could they be taught "that a distinction ought to be made between their offspring and the Descendants of an Englishman with whom they never were to be Accounted Equal." Subsequently, free blacks lose the right to bear arms, hold office, vote, and employ white servants in Virginia. They pay higher taxes and are punished with harsher for committing the same crimes as whites.

1726
Pennsylvania Anti-Miscegenation Law: Forbids miscegenation.

1725-1730
Founding of Georgia: The colony of Georgia founded by James Oglethorpe and English philanthropists. Georgia is intended to be a colony for the British poor and is named in honor of King George II. Georgia will be first and only colony established in which the importation of African slaves is initially forbidden. The British hope to establish a strong white buffer state between the profitable plantation colony of South Carolina and Spanish Florida. As an added bonus, a white Georgia would have been useful in capturing runaway slaves that often made their way to freedom in Florida.

1729
North and South Carolina become royal colonies.

Destruction of Cusabo Indians by Carolinians.

November: French in Louisiana attacked by Natchez Indians. 145 men, 36 women, 56 children killed (one-tenth of white Louisiana colonists). 50 French women taken hostage.

1730
20,00 black slaves, 10,000 whites in South Carolina. Whites outnumbered two to one. The planter elite in South Carolina lives in terror of slave rebellions.

1731
2,000 whites, 6,000 blacks in Louisiana. French crown assumes control of Louisiana.

1732
Georgia receives a royal charter.

1733-1742
1,800 colonists sent to Georgia from England.

1733
Founding of Savannah.

Barbados bans any person "whose original Extract shall be proved to have been from a Negro" from voting or testifying against whites.

1734
Destruction of Chicasaw Indians in Mississippi by French and Choctaw.

French establish Fort Toulouse in Alabama.

1735
Slave Code of South Carolina: WHEREAS, the plantations and estates of this Province cannot be weel and sufficiently managed and brought into use, without hte labor and service of Negroes and other slaves; and forasmuch as the said Negroes and other slaves brought until the people of the Province for that purpose, are of barbarous, wild, savage natures, and such as renders them wholly unqualified to be governed by the laws customs and practices of this Province; but that it is absolutely necessary, and asuch other constitutions, laws and orders, should in this Province be made and enacted, for the good regulating and ordering them, as may restrain the disorders, rapines and inhumanity to which, theyare naturally prone and inclined; and may also tend to the safety and severity of the people of this Province and their estates."

[Hunter Wallace]

1739
Stono slave rebellion in South Carolina. Seven plantations burned, twenty whites killed.

Britain and Spain at war.

1740
Plantation Act. Foreign born Protestant colonists can acquire British citizenship. British colonial policy discourages Jewish and Catholic emigration to America.

British and American colonials attack St. Augustine in Florida. Repulsed by Spanish.

1740-1750
Great Awakening: Major religious revival sweeps American colonies.

1741
British attack Cartenega.

Russians probe coast of Alaska. Discover Bering Strait.

Slave conspiracy uncovered in New York City. Many hanged and burned at the stake.

1742
Invasion of Georgia by Spanish. Repulsed by British and colonials.

1744-1748
War of Austrian Succession: French enter war between Britain and Spain.

1745
41,000 slaves, 20,000 whites in South Carolina.

New England colonials capture Louisberg, most formidable French fortress in North America. Relentless French and Indian attacks upon English settlers up and down frontier of New York and New England.

Massachusetts passes a law forbidding Negroes for participating in government lottery.

1746
3,300 whites, 4,100 slaves in Louisiana.

1748
End of War of Austrian Succession.

1749
Founding of Halifax in Nova Scotia. American colonists penetrate Ohio Valley.

1750: British government sanctions slavery in Georgia (prohibited in 1735).

Georgia Anti-Miscegenation Law: Forbids miscegenation.

150,000 Africans in Maryland and Virginia, 40% of the population. Black slaves account for 2% of the population of New England and 8% of the population of the middle colonies (New York, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania).

120,000 colonists in Pennsylvania.

1751
The trustees of the colony of Georgia capitulate to pressure from colonists. Georgia is turned over to the Crown and receives a royal charter which allows the importation of slaves.

1752
3,000 whites in Georgia, 600 black slaves.

1753-1754
French establish Fort Duquesne at Pittsburg.

1754-1763
Seven Years War/French and Indian War: Full scale war erupts between Britain and France for supremacy in North America. Legendary massacares of American colonials by Indians up and down American frontier.

1754
1.5 million British colonials in North America. 70,000 French in New France.

Governor of Virginia attempts to oust French at Fort Duquesne. Sends young George Washington with a small regiment. Washington attacks French patrol, forced to surrender on July 4th.

1755
English chose to escalate war. Send an unprecedented nuymber of troops to colonies. French ousted from Bay of Fundy. Expulsion of Acadians from Nova Scotia. British assault on Fort Duquesne repulsed by French and Indians.

Delaware and Shawnee Indians attack frontier along frontier of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. 700 American settlers killed. Frontier families flee for Philadelphia reeling from attack.

1756
French capture British fort at Lake Ontario

1757
French capture British fort at Lake George.

Rise of William Pitt in Britain.

1758
45,000 British troops (half colonials). 6,800 French troops, 2,700 provincials. British army marches on Fort Duquesne. French blow it up and retreat. Establishment of Fort Pitt on site of Fort Duquesne. Evolves into Pittsburgh.

General Jeffrey Amherst besieges and captures Louisberg.

1759
General James Wolfe attacks Quebec.

September 18, 1759: Surrender of Quebec.

Cherokee Indians at war with South Carolina.

1760
1,200 Spanish colonists in Texas.

British capture Montreal, Vandreuil forced to surrender all of New France.

1761
British and American colonials invade Cherokee lands in South Carolina and North Georgia. Destroy fifteen towns. Cherokee forced into massive territorial concessions.

Georgia restricts voting rights to white men.

1763
Treaty of Paris: French surrender Canada to British and all French claims east of the Mississippi river. Dominica, Grenada, St. Vincent, and Tobago conceded. French give New Orleans to Spanish and most of Louisiana west of Mississippi. Spanish cede Florida to British to retain Cuba.

Pontiac's Rebellion: A massive Indian assault on American colonials along the American frontier ensues upon the British conquest of New France. Raids into Virginia and Pennsylvania. Indians sack most British forts around Great Lakes and Ohio Valley (Detroit, Fort Pitt, and Niagara are exceptions). 2,000 American colonists captured. Settlers regard Indians as brutes fit only for extermination after Pontiac's Rebellion is suppressed.

1764
Massacare of Conestoga Indians on Pennsylvania reservations by furious colonials. Colonials invasion of Ohio Valley begins.

British impose a boundry law limiting American settlement to lands east of Appalachians. Colonials infuriated.

British impose a new tax on sugar to pay for their expenses during the Seven Years War.

1765
New tax on stamps.

Georgia allows immigration and naturalization of free Negroes. No one ever naturalized under this law.

1763-1775
Micromanagement of American colonies by Crown: trade laws tightened, new taxes, permanent military garrison maintained.

1765
9,600 Spanish colonists in New Mexico (2,000 at El Paso, 2,300 at Santa Fe).

1768
Spanish colonize California out of fear of British and Russian penetration of the Pacific.

1769
First Spanish mission in California established at San Diego. Discovery of San Francisco Bay. Mission established at Monterrey.

1770
American colonies account for 40% of England's GDP.

1774
576,000 blacks in America (20% of the population). 1% of blacks in America are free on the eve of the American Revolution.

1775
18,000 whites in Georgia, 15,000 black slaves.

[Hunter Wallace]

The Glorious Cause, The American Revolution, 1763-1789

1770: American colonies account for 40% of England's GDP.

Delaware passes a law forbidding Negroes from inflicting corporal punishment upon whites.

1772: The Somerset decision is popularly interpreted as outlawing slavery in England.

1773-1779: New England slaves petition legislatures for freedom. Increasing numbers of antislavery tracts are published in America.

1774: 576,000 blacks in America (20% of the population). 1% of blacks in America are free on the eve of the American Revolution.

1775: 18,000 whites in Georgia, 15,000 black slaves. 2.5 million American colonials. Less religious tolerance in America than England.

American Revolution beings at Lexignton. Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland remain loyal.

Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, promises freedom to any slaves who desert rebellious masters and serve in the king's forces, an offer taken up by some eight hundred blacks. This incident is later cited in the Declaration of Independence, "inciting insurrections amongst us," as one of the causes of the decision of the colonies to seek independence.

1775-1783: American Revolution.

1776

Declaration of Independence: Americans announce their independence from Great Britain to the world in the Declaration of Independence. King George III is accused of inciting slave insurrections (a reference to Lord Dunmore's actions in Virginia) and inciting the "merciless Indian savages" to attack whites along the frontier.

Cherokee Indians attack Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

1777: Vermont's constitution outlaws slavery.

1779:
Spain enters the war against Great Britain.

As the War of Independence shifts to the Deep South, John Laurens of South Carolina proposes arming three thousand slaves with promise of freedom. The Continental Congress approves, but the South Carolina legislature rejects the proposal.

1780:
Pennsylvania Abolition of Slavery: Pennsylvania adopts a gradual emanicpation law.

Fall of Charleston: Charleston occupied by Clinton and Cornwallis.

1781
Articles of Confederation: Ratification of Articles of Confederation by states.

Virginia Slavery Bill: Called for gradual emancipation, slaves born after passage of the act freed upon adulthood, trained, sent out of commonwealth to be colonized at a distance. Never introduced.

1782
Americans and British sign preliminary articles of peace (November 30th).

1783:
British and French sign preliminary articles of peace (January 20th).

Massachusetts Abolition of Slavery: In Massachusetts, the case of Commonwealth v. Jennison is interpreted as removing any judicial sanctions for slavery.

Treaty of Paris: Peace between Great Britain and United States (September 3rd). British recognize American independence and cede all British territory east of the Mississippi to the Americans. British cede Minorica and East and West Florida to Spain.

1784:

Connecticut and Rhode Island Abolition of Slavery: Connecticut and Rhode Island enact gradual emancipation laws. Congress narrowly rejects Jefferson's proposal to exclude slavery from all Western territories after the year 1800. The New York Manumission Society is organized.

The Pennsylvania Abolition Society is formed.

1786: Anglican Church disestablished in Virginia.

1787: In Britain, the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade is formed; Thomas Clarkson travels to collect evidence for the society.

Constitutional Convention: In the United States (May 1787), the Constitutional Convention meets and agrees to count three-fifths of a state's slave population in apportioning representation; to forbid Congress from ending the slave trade until 1808; and to require that fugitive slaves who cross state lines be surrendered to their owners. The Continental Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance, prohibiting slavery in the territories north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi rivers.

Federalist Papers: October 1787, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay write the Federalist Papers

Ratification of Constitution by Delaware (Dec. 7th), Pennsylvania (Dec 12th), and New Jersey (December 18th).

1788:

Ratification of Constitution by Georgia (Jan. 2nd), Connecticut (Jan. 9th), Massachusetts (February), Maryland (April), South Carolina (May), New Hampshire (June), Virginia (June), New York (July).

U.S. Constitution adopted with ratification of New Hampshire.

In France, the Société des Amis des Noirs is formed and enters into correspondence with London, Philadelphia, and New York abolition societies. In Britain, abolitionists organize a large national petition campaign against the slave trade.

1789: With the onset of the French Revolution, the Amis des Noirs agitate for ending the slave trade and urge the Estates General to follow the example of some Northern American states and free slaves in the colonies. But representatives of white colonists and merchants prevent debate on the slave trade.

Ratification of Constitution by North Carolina (November).

[Hunter Wallace]

Early America: The Birth of a Nation, 1790-1861

1784: Russian settlement on Kodiak island in Alaska.

1788: 725 convicts sent to Batery Bay in Australia. First British settlement in Australia.

1789: 700,000 blacks in United States.

1790: The Naturalization Act of 1790 limits naturalization of immigrants to "free white persons."

Vincent Ogé leads a mulatto uprising in Saint-Domingue, but it is crushed and he is executed.

The French Constituent Assembly agrees not to interfere with the slave trade and promises not to interfere "with the status of persons" in the colonies.

In the United States, both Quakers and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society petition Congress to use its fullest constitutional powers to discourage slavery and slave trade; the petitions evoke angry debate and attacks on petititoners by congressmen from the Deep South.

1790-1854: The U.S. Congress passes fifteen laws concerning naturalization during this time period all of which contain the phrase "free white persons."

The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Cherokee Nation v. State of Georgia that Indian tribes in U.S. territory are dependent peoples.

1791-1804: Haitian Revolution. Slaves and free blacks finally defeat British, Spanish, and French armies and declare independence.

1792: The French Legislative Assembly decress equal rights for all free blacks and mulattoes in the colonies.

In Britain, the House of Commons votes to terminate the slave trade in four years, but the measure fails in the House of Lords.

1794: The French Convention outlaws slavery in all French colonies and extends citizenship to all men regardless of color. But in 1802 Napoleon restores both slavery and the slave trade.

1796: In Britain's House of Commons, William Wilberforce's bill for abolishing the slave trade is defeated by four votes.

1799: New York State adopts a law for gradual emancipation.


1800: 20,000 Spanish colonists in New Mexico.

Gabriel's slave rebellion in Virginia.

1804: New Jersey adopts a law for gradual emancipation.

1806: Virginia forces emancipated slaves to leave state.

1808: Britain and the United States both outlaw participation in the African slave trade.

1811: Slave uprising in Louisiana.

1816: Major slave rebellion in British Barbados.

In the United States, the American colonization Society is formed to promote the colonization of free blacks in Africa.

1817: New York State adopts a law that frees all remaining slaves in 1827.

1818-21: The Missouri Crisis, followed by the Compromise of 1820 and further debate over Missouri's constitution, which restricts entry of free blacks and mulattos.

1822: Denmark Vesey's alleged conspiracy in South Carolina.

Brazil wins independence from Portugal.

1823: Large slave rebellion in British colony of Demerara.

In Britain, the Society for the Amelioration and Gradual Abolition of Slavery is founded, and the House of Commons approves George Canning's resolution for "amelioration of colonial slavery.

1831: Immense slave revolt ("Baptist War") In Jamaica.

[Hunter Wallace]

Reconstruction, 1865-1877

1865-1877: Reconstruction Era.

1865
Union victorious in the American Civil War.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is passed and abolishes slavery nationwide.

Freedman's Bureau established.

President Andrew Johnson pardons Southerners who supported the Confederacy.

Mississippi Anti-Miscegenation Statute: Declared a felony for any freedman, free Negro, or mulatto to intermarry with any white person. Penalty: Imprisonment in state penitentiary for life.

Alabama Anti-Miscegenation Constitution: Stated that it was the duty of the general assembly to periodically enact laws prohibiting intermarriage between whites and blacks, or with persons of mixed blood, and to establish penalties.

Georgia Anti-Miscegenation Statute: Unlawful for officials to issue marriage licenses to persons of African descent and the other a white person. Penalty: A misdemeanor that carried a fine between $200 and $500, or confinement in jail for three months, or both. Ministers who married such persons also guilty of a misdemeanor, and fined between $500 and $1,000, or confied in jail for six months, or both.

South Carolina Anti-Miscegenation Statute: Prohibited marriage between a white person and a person of color.

Nebraska Anti-Miscegenation Statute: Declared marriage between whites and a Negro or mulatto as illegal. Penalty: Misdemeanor, with a fine up to $100, or imprisonment in the county jail up to six months, or both.

Arizona Anti-Miscegenation Statute: Marriages between whites with "Negroes, mulattoes, Indians, Mongolians" were declared illegal and void. The word "Descendants" does not appear in the statute.

1866
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 grants citizenship to to freed black slaves, the right to own property, enforce contracts, and give evidence in courts. It is subsequently vetoed by President Johnson, but Congress overrides his veto by one vote.

The U.S. Congress repeals a federal law that prohibits blacks from carrying the mail.

The U.S. Congress passes the Freedman's Bureau Bill, but it is also vetoed by President Johnson.

Memphis Race Riot

New Orleans Race Riot

Radical Republicans in the U.S. Congress refuse to seat Southern representatives. Southern states forced to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment as a precondition for reentering the union (which, interesting enough, the Republicans had claimed during the Civil War they had never left).

Kentucky Anti-Miscegenation Statute: Prohibited whites from marrying any Negro or any descendant of any Negro to the third generation inclusive. Penalty: Felony, punishable by imprisonment in the state penitentiary up to five years.

Missouri Anti-Miscegenation Statute: Prohibited all marriages between whites and Negroes.

Arkansas Anti-Miscegenation Statute: Repeals or modifications of statutes of common laws concerning intermarriage between whites and Negroes or mulattoes would be prohibited.

South Carolina Anti-Miscegenation Statute: Upheld 1865 law prohibiting intermarriage

Washington Anti-Miscegenation Statute: Prohibited marriage between white persons and Negroes, Indians, or a person of half or more Negro or Indian blood.

1867
Philidelphia desegregates streetcars.

Alabama Anti-Miscegenation State Code: Set penalties for intermarriage and cohabitation between blacks and whites. Penalties: Confinement in the penitentiary at hard labor between two and seven years. Those who issued the license or performed such a ceremony could be fined from $100 to $1,000, or imprisoned for six months, or both.

Idaho Anti-Miscegenation Statute: Prohibited marriage between white persons and Negroes or mulattoes.

Oregon Anti-Miscegenation Statute: Unlawful for any white person to intermarry with any "Negro, Chinese, or any person having one-quarter or more Negro, Chinese or kanaka blood, or any person having more than one-half Indian blood." Penalty: Imprisonment in the penitentiary or the county jail for between three months and one year. Those who licensed or performed such a ceremony could be jailed for three months to one year, or fined between $100 and $1,000.

1868: The Fourteenth Amendment disenfranchises the leaders of the Confederacy and extends equal protection of the laws to blacks.

Start of Cuban Ten Years' War of independence; enlistment and freeing of many slaves on both sides.

Liberal revolution in Spain.

1869
Francis Galton publishes Hereditary Genius.

1870: Spain passes a gradual emancipation act.

The Naturalization Act of 1870 extends naturalization to people of African descent living in the United States.

Force Act of 1870

Fifteenth Amendment.

Tennessee Anti-Miscegenation Constitution: Intermarriage prohibited between white persons and Negroes, or descendants of Negro ancestors to the third generation.

Tennessee Anti-Miscegenation Statute: Penalty for intermarriage between whites an blacks was labeled a felony, punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary from one to five years.

Kentucky Repeal of Anti-Miscegenation Law: Private or religious marriages legal to all persons of whatever race or color as well as to marriages formerly prohibited by any law of the state. No language prohibiting intermarriage or miscegenation.

Louisiana Repeal of Anti-Miscegenation Law: Private or religious marriages legal to all persons of whatever race or color as well as to marriages formerly prohibited by any law of the state. No language prohibiting intermarriage or miscegenation.

1871: Brazil passes Rio Blanco Act, freeing all children of slaves at age twenty-one.

Civil Rights Act of 1871: The Civil Rights Act of 1871, or the second "Force Bill," authorizes U.S. troops to attack the Ku Klux Klan.

Charles Darwin publishes The Descent of Man.

Mississippi Repeal of Anti-Miscegenation Law: Omitted miscegenation or intermarriage statute.

1872
Slaughterhouse Cases

Rhode Island Anti-Miscegenation State Code: Prohibited intermarriage. Penalty: $1,000 fine, or up to six months' imprisonment.

1873-1876: Puerto Rico frees slaves and then ex-slave apprentices.

1873

Virginia Anti-Miscegenation State Code: White persons who married Negroes would be jailed for at least one year, and fined a minimum of $100. Those who performed such ceremonies faced fines of $200, of which one-half would go to the informer.

North Carolina Anti-Miscegenation Statute: Prohibited marriages between whites and Negroes or Indians or persons of Negro or Indian descent to third generation.

1874

Delaware Anti-Miscegenation Statute: Prohibited marriage between white persons and Negroes. Penalty: A fine of $100 imposed on offenders and upon the minister performing the ceremony.

1875
Force Act of 1875
Civil Rights Act of 1875

North Carolina Anti-Miscegenation Constitution: Prohibited forever all marriages between a white person and a Negro or between a white person and a person of Negro descent to third generation inclusive.

1876
U.S. v. Cruikshank

U.S. v. Reese

The U.S. Supreme Court rules parts of 1870 Force Bill are unconstitutional.

1877

End of Reconstruction. Federal troops withdrawn from the South.

Ohio Anti-Miscegenation Statute: Unlawful for a person of "pure white blood, who intermarries, or has illicit carnal intercourse, with any Negro or person having a distinct and visible admixture of African blood." Penalty: Fined up to $100, or imprisoned up to three months, or both. Any person who knowingly officiates such a marriage charged with misdemeanor and fined up to $100 or imprisoned in three months, or both.