System of oppression · 1619–1865
Chattel Slavery
The legal ownership of human beings as inheritable property, codified in colonial and state slave codes.
On the timeline
- August 20, 1619· debated"20 and odd" Africans arrive at Point Comfort
An English privateer trades roughly two dozen captive Angolans to Virginia colonists at Old Point Comfort — a foundational moment whose exact legal status (enslaved vs. indentured) historians still debate.
- December 10, 1641Massachusetts legalizes slavery
The Massachusetts Body of Liberties makes it the first English colony to give slavery legal sanction.
- December 1662Virginia makes slavery hereditary
Virginia law declares that a child's status follows the mother, making slavery inheritable and permanent.
- September 20, 1664Maryland makes slavery hereditary
Maryland decrees lifelong, inheritable slavery and penalizes interracial marriage.
- April 16, 1691Virginia hardens the racial caste
Virginia bars manumission and interracial marriage, sharpening the line between white and Black.
- October 1705Virginia Slave Codes of 1705
Colonial Virginia consolidates slavery into a sweeping legal code defining the enslaved as property.
- April 6, 1712New York City slave revolt
Enslaved New Yorkers set fires and fought back; brutal executions followed.
- September 17, 1787The Constitution and the Three-Fifths Clause
The Constitution counts the enslaved as three-fifths of a person and protects the slave trade.
- March 26, 1790The Naturalization Act of 1790
Citizenship by naturalization is restricted to "free white persons."
- September 18, 1850The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
A federal law compelling citizens to capture escapees — radicalizing the North and endangering all Black Americans.
Resources
Life inside the antebellum slave market.
2,300+ first-person accounts of slavery and 500 photographs of formerly enslaved people.
The museum's narrative of slavery, emancipation, and the Thirteenth Amendment.
Audio recordings (1932–1975) of formerly enslaved people across nine states.
The web
Connections to other moments, systems, and investigations — the links rarely drawn together.
- enabled (incoming)·EventThe cotton gin entrenches slavery
The cotton gin made slavery vastly more profitable, expanding it westward.
- caused (incoming)·EventBacon's Rebellion
After the interracial revolt of 1676, Virginia hardened race-based slavery to divide Black and white laborers.
- enabled (incoming)·ThreadWhite-Supremacist Ideology
The ideology that justified owning human beings.
- enabled (incoming)·ThreadRacial Capitalism (Profit)
Slavery was, above all, an engine of profit.
- enabled (incoming)·EventMassachusetts legalizes slavery
The first colonial law to give slavery legal footing.