African American History Timelines:

• Before 1601
• 1601 - 1700
• 1701 - 1800
• 1801 - 1900
• 1901 - 2000
• 2001 -
• African Americans in the West Timeline

1700 - 1800

1704—French colonist Elias Neau opens a school for enslaved African Americans in New York City.

1708—Africans in South Carolina outnumber Europeans, making it the first English colony with a black majority.

1711—Great Britain’s Queen Anne overrules a Pennsylvania colonial law prohibiting slavery.

1712—The New York City slave revolt begins on April 6. Nine whites are killed and an unknown number of blacks die in the uprising. Colonial authorities execute 21 slaves and six commit suicide.

1713—England secures the exclusive right to transport slaves to the Spanish colonies in America.

1721—South Carolina limits the vote to free white Christian men.

1724—The Black Code is enacted in New Orleans, French Territory, to control blacks and banish Jews.

Boston imposes a curfew on non-whites.

1727—Enslaved Africans and Native Americans revolt in Middlesex and Gloucester Counties in Virginia.

1733—Spain promises freedom in Spanish Florida to slaves who escape from the English colonies.

1735—South Carolina passes laws requiring enslaved people to wear clothing identifying them as slaves. Freed slaves are required to leave the colony within six months or risk reenslavement.

1737—An indentured black servant petitions a Massachusetts Court and wins his freedom after the death of his master.

1739—The first major South Carolina slave revolt takes place in Stono on September 9. A score of whites and more than twice as many black slaves are killed as the armed slaves try to flee to Florida.

Nineteen white citizens of Darien, Georgia petition the colonial governor to continue the ban on the importation of Africans into the colony, calling African enslavement “shocking to human nature.” This is the first anti-slavery protest in the Southern colonies. Ten years later, however, Georgia authorities repeal the ban.

1741—During the New York Slave Conspiracy Trials, New York City officials execute 34 people for planning to burn down the town. Thirteen African American men are burned at the stake and another 17 black men, two white men and two white women are hanged. Seventy blacks and seven whites are permanently expelled from the city.

South Carolina’s colonial legislature enacts a law banning the teaching of enslaved people to read and write.

1742—New Spain’s (Colonial Mexico) population includes 20,131 blacks and 266,196 mulattoes.

1746—Lucy Terry, a slave, composes "Bars Fight," the first known poem by an African American. A description of an Indian raid on Terry's hometown in Massachusetts, the poem will be passed down orally and published in 1855

1752—Twenty-one year old Benjamin Banneker constructs one of the first clocks in Colonial America, the first of a long line of inventions and innovations until his death in 1806.

1758—The African Baptist or "Bluestone" Church is founded on the William Byrd plantation near the Bluestone River, in Mecklenburg, Virginia, becoming the first known black church in North America

A school for free black children is opened in Philadelphia.

1760—Jupiter Hammon publishes a book of poetry. This is believed to be the first volume written and published by an African American.

1762—Virginia restricts voting rights to white men.

1770—Crispus Attucks, an escaped slave, becomes the first Colonial resident to die for American independence when he is killed by the British in the Boston Massacre.

1772—On June 22, Lord Chief Mansfield rules in the James Somerset case that an enslaved person brought to England becomes free and cannot be returned to slavery, laying the legal basis for the freeing of England’s 15,000 slaves.

1773—Phillis Wheatley publishes a book of poetry.

The Silver Bluff Baptist Church, the oldest continuously operating black church, is founded in Silver Bluff, South Carolina near Savannah, Georgia.

1774—A group of blacks petition the Massachusetts General Court (legislature) insisting they too have a natural right to their freedom.

1775-1781—The American War of Independence. Approximately 450,000 enslaved Africans comprise 20% of the population of the colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independence.

1775—African Americans participate on the Patriot side in the earliest battles of the Revolution, Concord, Lexington and Bunker Hill.

General George Washington reverses his earlier policy of rejecting the services of slaves and free blacks in the army. Five thousand African-Americans serve during the Revolutionary War including two predominantly black units in Massachusetts, one in Connecticut, one in Rhode Island.

The first Abolition Society meeting in North America is held Philadelphia; Benjamin Franklin is elected president of the Society.

On Nov. 7, Lord Dunmore, British Governor of Virginia declares all slaves free who come to the defense of the British Crown against the Patriot forces. Dunmore eventually organizes the first regiment of black soldiers to fight under the British flag.

1776—A passage authored by Thomas Jefferson condemning the slave trade is removed from the Declaration of Independence due to pressure from the southern colonies.

Approximately 100,000 enslaved people flee their masters during the Revolution.

1777—Vermont abolishes slavery.

1778—Boston businessman Paul Cuffe and his brother, John, refuse to pay taxes, claiming as blacks not allowed to vote they suffer taxation without representation.

1780—Massachusetts abolishes slavery and grants African American men the right to vote.

The Free African Union Society is created in Newport, Rhode Island. It is the first cultural organization established by blacks in North America.

Pennsylvania adopts first gradual emancipation law. All children of enslaved people born after Nov. 1, 1780 will be free on their 28th birthday.

1781-1783—Twenty thousand black loyalists depart with British Troops from the newly independent United States. Approximately 5,000 African Americans served with Patriot forces. Three times that many served with the British although not all of them leave the new nation.

1781—Los Angeles is founded by fifty-four settlers including twenty-six of African ancestry.

1784—Connecticut and Rhode Island adopt gradual emancipation laws.

Congress rejects Thomas Jefferson’s proposal to exclude slavery from all western territories after 1800.

1785—New York frees all slaves who served in the Revolutionary Army.

1787—Congress enacts the Northwest Ordinance, which establishes formal procedures for transforming territories into states. It provides for the eventual establishment of three to five states in the area north of the Ohio River, to be considered equal with the original 13. The Ordinance includes a Bill of Rights that guarantees freedom of religion, the right to trial by jury, public education and a ban on slavery in the region.

The U.S. Constitution is drafted. It provides for the continuation of the slave trade for another 20 years and required states to aid slaveholders in the recovery of fugitive slaves. It also stipulates that a slave counts as three-fifths of a man for purposes of determining representation in the House of Representatives.

Free blacks in New York City found the African Free School, where future leaders Henry Highland Garnett and Alexander Crummell are educated.

Richard Allen and Absalom Jones form the Free African Society in Philadelphia.

1788—In Massachusetts, following an incident in which free blacks were kidnapped and transported to the island of Martinique, the Massachusetts legislature declares the slave trade illegal and provides monetary damages to victims of kidnappings.

1789—The French Revolution begins.

1790—First Census of the United States
U.S. Population: 3,929,214
Black Population: 757,208 (19.3%) including 59,557 free African Americans.

Free African Americans in Charleston form the Brown Fellowship Society.

1791—The Haitian Revolution begins.

1793—The United States Congress enacts the first Fugitive Slave Law. Providing assistance to fugitive slaves is now a criminal offense.

Eli Whitney patents the cotton gin on March 13 which begins the slave-based "cotton economy" of the South.

1794—The French Government abolishes slavery. The law is repealed by Napoleon in 1802.

Mother Bethel AME Church is established in Philadelphia.

New York adopts a gradual emancipation law.

1793—New Spain’s (Colonial Mexico) population includes 6,100 blacks and 369,790 mulattoes.

1795—Bowdoin College is founded in Maine. It later becomes a center for Abolitionist activity; Gen. Oliver O. Howard (Howard University) graduated from the college; Harriet Beecher Stowe taught there and began to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin while there (in 1850)

1796—On August 23, The African Methodist Episcopal Church is organized in Philadelphia.

1800—Census of 1800
U.S. Population: 5,308,483
Black Population: 1,002.037 (18.9%) including 108,435 free African Americans.

Gabriel Prosser attempts a slave rebellion in Virginia

The United States Congress rejects 85 to 1 an antislavery petition offered by free Philadelphia African Americans.