A group of New Orleans black businessmen decided to fight these laws along with railroads who were also against the law.

The group decided to test the case, and a black man by the name of Homer Plessy volunteered to break the law. Plessy

boarded a East Louisiana railroad train in New Orleans and took a seat in a white-only car. He was asked to move and

refused. He was then arrested and brought before New Orleans Parish Judge John Ferguson. Plessy and his attorney argued

that the separate car laws violated his civil rights. Ferguson found Plessy guilty and he was charged with a twenty-five

dollar fine.

However, this case was far from over, it went to the Supreme Court and the law of separate cars was quickly found

constitutional. The Court ruled that "separate but equal facilities" was proper under the 14th Amendment. After the case was

argued twice and almost two years later the court ruled 8-1 that Louisiana was correct.

On May 16, 1896, Brown wrote the majority opinion; Harlan dissented. A state law requiring trains to provide separate but

equal facilities for black and white passengers does not infringe upon federal authority to regulate interstate commerce nor

is it in violation of the 13th or 14th Amendments. The train was local; a legal distinction between the two races did not

destroy the legal equality of the two races guaranteed by the 13th Amendment and the 14th Amendment protected only

political, not social, equality, the majority said.

John Marshall declared that the "Constitution is color blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens."

"Separate but Equal" remained the law of the land for fifty-eight years, until 1954 when the Court held in Brown v. Board of

Education that separate is "inherently unequal." References: Wagman, Robert J. The Supreme Court. Pharos Books 1993.

Witt, Elder. Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court. Congressional quarterly Inc. 1979. (Prepared by Tamara L. Ort. History Of

American Education Web Project maintained by Robert N. Barger, University of Notre Dame)

1889/03/02
President signs National Zoological Park into law. (Marion P. McCrane, Zoologist to Eda B. Frost July, 28, 1967, SIA, RU

365, NZP OPA 1805-1988 Box 35 Folder 9) Design by Frederick Law Olmstead

Olmsted or Olmstead, Frederick Law, 1822–1903, American landscape architect and writer; b. Hartford, Conn. In the 1850s

he attained fame for his travel books, which describe slaveholding society in the South. When Central Park, N.Y.C., was

projected (1856), he and Calvert Vaux prepared the plan that was accepted, and he supervised its execution. This was the

first of many parks he designed; others are in Brooklyn (Prospect Park), Chicago, Montreal, Buffalo, and Boston. He laid out

the grounds for the 1893 Columbian Exposition, Chicago (now Jackson Park). (The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, 1995 by

Columbia University Press from MS Bookshelf.)

1890's
Throughout its history, America had been predominantly an Anglo-Saxon and Protestant country. The Afro-American stood

out in sharp distinction to this picture both because of his color and his African heritage. By the end of the nineteenth

century America was being flooded with immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. They too were much darker than the

dominant strains of Northern Europe, and many were Catholics. There was a growing feeling that these new immigrants, like

the Negroes, were inherently alien and intrinsically inassimilable. Liberals in the progressive movement, who were concerned

about protecting the integrity and morality of American society, were in the fore-front of those who feared the new hordes

of "swarthy" immigrants.

One of those who feared that the large influx of South and East Europeans would undermine the quality of American life

was Madison Grant. In his book The Passing of the Great Race, he warned that Nordic excellence would be swamped by the

faster-spawning Catholic immigrants. Originally these racial stereotypes had some cultural and historical basis, but they

were gaining a new strength and authority from the sociological and biological sciences centering in the concepts of Social

Darwinisn. Darwinism and related theories in anthropology and sociology helped to give an aura of respectability to racism in

both Europe and America. The same kind of pseudo-scientific thinking which was developed in Europe to justify

anti-Semitism was used in America to reinforce prejudices against Negroes as well as against Jews and South Europeans.

In the first half of the nineteenth century the American anthropologist Samuel George Morton argued that each race had its

own unique characteristics. Racial character, he believed, was the result of inheritance rather than of environment. Because

these characteristics found specific environments congenial, each race had gravitated to its preordained geographic habitat.

Darwin's theory of evolution offered another explanation for the existence of differing species in the animal kingdom, and

anthropologists concluded that it would also provide an explanation for racial differences in mankind. Early anthropologists

and sociologists were preoccupied with dividing humanity into differing races and trying to catalog and explain these

differences. Phrenology was another pseudo-science which attempted to construct a system according to which intellectual

and moral characteristics would be correlated with the size and shape of the human head. On this basis many tried to divide

mankind into physical types and to assign to each its own intellectual and moral qualities. (Norman Coombs, The Immigrant

Heritage of America, Twayne Press, 1972, Chapter 4, All Men Are Created Equal, Slavery and the American Revolution.)

1890
African-Americans are disenfranchised. The Mississippi Plan, approved on November 1, used literacy and "understanding"

tests to disenfranchise black American citizens. Similar statutes were adopted by South Carolina (1895), Louisiana (1898),

North Carolina (1900), Alabama (1901), Virginia (1901), Georgia (1908), and Oklahoma (1910). (Timeline of African American

History, 1852-1925 by the Staff of the Library of Congress)

1893-1897
Massive depression convinced many that equal opportunity was out of reach for many Americans. (The Progressive Era,

Polytechnic School Pasadena, California, 1999 )

1895
Georgetown becomes part of the City of Washington. (1890 DC Census Index)

1896
Plessy v. Ferguson. The Supreme Court decided on May 18 in Plessy v. Ferguson that "separate but equal" facilities satisfy

Fourteenth Amendment guarantees, thus giving legal sanction to Jim Crow segregation laws. (Timeline of African American

History, 1852-1925 by the Staff of the Library of Congress)

1900
Rayford W. Logan, in his book The Betrayal of the Negro described the turn of the century as the low point in

Afro-American history. After Emancipation, he contended, the hopes of the Negroes were betrayed. Again they were pushed

down into second-class status. It appeared that democracy was for whites only. Actually, the increasing growth of racism

and of segregation as well, led inevitably to the development of opposition groups bent on destroying this discrimination.

Segregation promoted the creation of Negro institutions which then became the center for this counterattack. (Norman

Coombs, The Immigrant Heritage of America, Twayne Press, 1972. , Chapter 4, All Men Are Created Equal, Slavery and the

American Revolution)

1901
The last African-American congressman for 28 years. George H. White gave up his seat on March 4. No African-American

would serve in Congress for the next 28 years.(Timeline of African American History, 1852-1925 by the Staff of the

Library of Congress)

1908
Race Riot in Springfield Illinois leads to the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

(NAACP) (The Springfield Race Riot of 1908, Deepak Madala, Jennifer Jordan, and August Appleton)

1909
The NAACP is formed. On February 12 -- the centennial of the birth of Lincoln -- a national appeal led to the establishment

of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, an organization formed to promote use of the courts to

restore the legal rights of black Americans. (Timeline of African American History, 1852-1925 by the Staff of the Library

of Congress)
1910
Segregated neighborhoods. On December 19, the City Council of Baltimore approved the first city ordinance designating the

boundaries of black and white neighborhoods. This ordinance was followed by similar ones in Dallas, Texas, Greensboro,

North Carolina, Louisville, Kentucky, Norfolk, Virginia, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Richmond, Virginia, Roanoke, Virginia, and

St. Louis, Missouri. The Supreme Court declared the Louisville ordinance to be unconstitutional in 1917 (Timeline of African

American History, 1852-1925 by the Staff of the Library of Congress)

1913
Federal segregation. On April 11, the Wilson administration began government-wide segregation of work places, rest rooms

and lunch rooms. (Timeline of African American History, 1852-1925 by the Staff of the Library of Congress)

1915
"D.W. Griffith's "Birth of A Nation" represented the essence of racism in film. The movie set the stage for future portrayals

of blacks in film. Griffith showed blacks as, "endearing inferiors duped into rising above their accustomed station by

misinformed abolitionists and vindictive reconstruction congressmen who had betrayed Lincoln's benign plans for the

defeated South." 'Birth of a Nation' created a set of black comic figures studios used as prototypes in film for years to

come. (Television and Film)

One final factor made the United States in 1915 perhaps more ready than it had ever been for Simmons’s vision of a new

Klan. That year, a media phenomenon began that was to profoundly alter the course of American race relations: D.W.

Griffith’s racist epic film The Birth of a Nation debuted that fall, and race-hatred would never be the same.

The Birth of a Nation occupies a seminal position in American film. It introduced the very concept of the film epic to the

American people, and transformed the way Americans thought about the motion picture. Unfortunately, its impact was at

least as influential on the Ku Klux Klan. The Birth of a Nation is perhaps the greatest single piece of propaganda in the

history of mass media, both in its efficacy and in its reach, and its prime beneficiaries have been the Klan. (Text Footnote:

Discussion of The Birth of a Nation literally fills volumes. See, for example, The Birth of a Nation, a 1994 collection edited

by Robert Lang)

The Birth of a Nation depicts events in a Southern town before, during and after the Civil War, giving special attention to

the "heroic" actions of the Klan, and depicting them as a noble order of valiant white men who restored order and justice in

a chaotic time. While Birth propagated the false history of the first-era Klan as discussed earlier, what the film added to

Klan lore was vitally important. First, Birth gave the Klan a visual iconography that they had never before enjoyed. Contrary

to widespread belief, the first-era Klan did not burn crosses—that practice was purely an invention of Thomas Dixon Jr., the

author of the books upon which Birth of a Nation was based. (Text note: While the literature on Birth of a Nation is

extensive, much less attention is paid to the books on which the movie was based. The Leopard's Spots and The Clansman, by

Thomas Dixon, Jr. These books were wildly popular in their day (early 1900s) and laid the groundwork for 20th century

racism in the United States. See Joel Williamson's The Crucible of Race for a rare investigation of Dixon's novels)

Likewise, the first-era Klan did not always wear the impressive white robes depicted in the film. First-era uniforms were a

motley assortment, and often consisted of nothing more than a flour bag thrown over the head for disguise.

The second effect that the film had for the Klan was that it exposed millions of Americans to a rousing adventure story in

which the Klan were the saviors of all that was good, holy, and pure about America. The sensation that The Birth of a Nation

created is hard to overestimate. Grossing an unheard-of $18 million dollars (the equivalent of 360 million today), Birth of a

Nation took the nation by storm. In Historian Wyn Craig Wade’s words, "In an astonishing few months, Griffith’s

masterpiece had united white Americans in a vast national drama, convincing them of a past that had never been." (Text

Footnote: Wade, Wyn Craig, The Fiery Cross. (Simon and Schuster, 1987) p 139)

Although the film’s gross inaccuracies were strongly attacked, especially by the NAACP, it should be noted that the film was

accurate according to the history books of its time. A generation of (mostly Northern) scholars including future president

Woodrow Wilson and historian William A. Dunning had, from 1873 to 1907, "systematically distorted the motives of radical

Republicans, falsified the behavior of Southern Blacks, and glorified the Ku-Klux Klansmen as heroes." (Text Footnote:

Wade, Wyn Craig, The Fiery Cross. (Simon and Schuster, 1987) p 115)

As malicious as The Birth of a nation was, it was also a "faithful composite of the "proven facts" and " authentic evidence"

contained in the most reputable history books of 1915." (Text Footnote: Wade, Wyn Craig, The Fiery Cross. (Simon and

Schuster, 1987) p 132)

The impact of The Birth of a Nation was not lost on Joseph Simmons. He could tell that the public was receptive to the idea

of a heroic Klan, and made every effort to turn the sensation the film caused into free advertising for his new Klan. In

addition, he was not above capitalizing on a gruesome murder and subsequent lynching to advertise his "fraternal order."

(Robert Arjet, History of the Ku Klux Klan: The Second Era of the Ku Klux Klan, 1915-1944, found in HateWatch was

originally called "A Guide to Hate Groups on the Internet")

The film "The Birth of a Nation" by David W. Griffith is released. An adaptation of Rev. Thomas Dixon JR's. novel/play The

Klansmen or The Clansmen.

In its presentation of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) as heroes and Southern blacks as villains, it appealed to white Americans due

to its mythic view of the Old South, and its thematic exploration of two great American issues: inter-racial sex and the

empowerment of blacks. Ironically, the film's major black roles (stereotypically played) were filled with white actors - in

blackface. [The real blacks in the film only played in minor roles.] Its climactic finale helped to assuage America's sexual

fears about the rise of defiant, strong (and sexual) black men.

"The propagandistic film was one of the biggest box-office money-makers in the history of film - it made $18 million by the

start of the talkies. It caused immediate criticism by the NAACP for its racist portrayal of blacks. They denounced the film

as "the meanest vilification of the Negro race." Riots broke out in major cities, and subsequent lawsuits and picketing tailed

the film for years. Even President Woodrow Wilson during a private screening at the White House is reported to have naively

exclaimed: "It's like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all terribly true." (The Birth Of A Nation

(1915) reviewed by Tim Dirks, 1996, tdirks@filmsite.org, full version on line))

Lynchings, Searching through America's past for the last 25 years, collector James Allen uncovered an extraordinary visual

legacy: photographs and postcards taken as souvenirs at lynchings throughout America. With essays by Hilton Als, Leon

Litwack, Congressman John Lewis and James Allen, these photographs have been published as a book "Without Sanctuary"

by Twin Palms Publishers and are on display at the New York Historical Society through July 9. Experience the images as a

flash movie with narrative comments by James Allen, or as a gallery of photos which will grow to over 100 photos in coming

weeks. Participate in a forum about the images, and contact us if you know of other similar postcards and photographs.

1918
Writing (on the history of slavery) in the first half of the twentieth century was that blacks were inferior to whites, that

races should be separated, and that therefore slavery was not so bad after all. This perspective is best typified by Ulrich B.

Phillips's American Negro Slavery (1918), a classic work which dominated the interpretation of southern history for the next

thirty years. Phillips depicted a plantation system in which slaves were generally contented with their lot and unlikely to

resist. Those rare occasions in which resistance did occur were more likely the result of slaves having lazy or criminal

characters rather than any legitimate complaint about their conditions. Indeed, Phillips saw slavery as a system which was

economically unprofitable but socially desirable--a civilizing institution necessitated by the racial inferiority of African

Americans. (Theresa Anne Murphy, Scholarship On Southern Farms And Plantations 1996 American Studies Department of

George Washington University, for the National Park Service Web Page on Slavery)

Journal article analyzes writings that provided important American perceptions of Africa from colonial times through the

early 20th century when American impressions of Africa derived substantially from commentators such as Theodore

Roosevelt, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, and Charles Francis Adams, Jr. Generally American portrayals of Africa have been

characterized by distortions and frequently have served uniquely American purposes such as justifying slavery and

sanctioning racial segregation. Since 1900, many American writers on Africa equated the events of European colonization in

Eastern and Southeastern Africa with the processes that Americans popularly presumed were inherent in the taming of

American frontiers. Based on American writings about Africa and on secondary sources; 43 notes. (McCarthy, Michael.

Africa And The American West. Journal of American Studies [Great Britain] 1977 11(2): 187-201.)

1918
Flew epidemic then called the Spanish Influenza hits Washington, DC. 35,000 become ill while 3,500 die. (WAMU Radio the

20th Century Real Audio file. Broadcast May 8, 1999.)

1919/07/19
Whites riot against blacks in Washington, DC. The rampage by about 400 whites initially drew only scattered resistance in

the black community, and the police were nowhere to be seen. When the Metropolitan Police Department finally arrived in

force, its white officers arrested more blacks than whites, sending a clear signal about their sympathies.

It was only the beginning. The white mob – whose actions were triggered in large part by weeks of sensational newspaper

accounts of alleged sex crimes by a "Negro fiend" – unleashed a wave of violence that swept over the city for four days.

Nine people were killed in brutal street fighting, and an estimated 30 more would die eventually from their wounds. More

than 150 men, women and children were clubbed, beaten and shot by mobs of both races. Several Marine guards and six D.C.

policemen were shot, two fatally.

The Washington riot was one of more than 20 that took place that summer. With rioting in Chicago, Omaha, Knoxville, Tenn.,

Charleston, S.C., and other cities, the bloody interval came to be known as "the Red Summer." Unlike virtually all the

disturbances that preceded it – in which white-on-black violence dominated – the Washington riot of 1919 was distinguished

by strong, organized and armed black resistance, foreshadowing the civil rights struggles later in the century.

Racial resentment was particularly intense among Washington's several thousand returning black war veterans. They had

proudly served their country in such units as the District's 1st Separate Battalion, part of the segregated Army force that

fought in France. These men had been forced to fight for the right to serve in combat because the Army at first refused to

draft blacks for any role other than laborer. They returned home hopeful that their military service would earn them fair

treatment.

Instead, they saw race relations worsening in an administration dominated by conservative Southern whites brought here by

Woodrow Wilson, a Virginian. Wilson's promise of a "New Freedom" had won him more black voters than any Democrat

before him, but they were cruelly disappointed: Previously integrated departments such as the Post Office and the Treasury

had now set up "Jim Crow corners" with separate washrooms and lunchrooms for "colored only." Meanwhile, the Ku Klux Klan

was being revived in Maryland and Virginia, as racial hatred burst forth with the resurgence of lynching of black men and

women around the country – 28 public lynchings in the first six months of 1919 alone, including seven black veterans killed

while still wearing their Army uniforms.

Washington's newspapers made a tense situation worse, with an unrelenting series of sensational stories of alleged sexual

assaults by an unknown black perpetrator upon white women. The headlines dominated the city's four daily papers – the

Evening Star, the Times, the Herald and The Post – for more than a month. A sampling of these July headlines illustrates the

growing lynch-mob mentality: 13 SUSPECTS ARRESTED IN NEGRO HUNT; POSSES KEEP UP HUNT FOR NEGRO; HUNT

COLORED ASSAILANT; NEGRO FIEND SOUGHT ANEW. Washington's newly formed chapter of the NAACP was so

concerned that on July 9 – 10 days before the bloodshed – it sent a letter to the four daily papers saying they were "sowing

the seeds of a race riot by their inflammatory headlines." (Excerpted from "Race Riot of 1919, Gave Glimpse of Future

Struggles" By Peter Perl Washington Post Staff Writer. Monday, March 1, 1999; Page A1)

1921/06/01
Perhaps the nations deadliest racial confrontation begin in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The exact number of people killed in the riot,

which destroyed a 30-square-block area of north Tulsa known as Greenwood, a primarily black neighborhood, was never

determined. Newspaper accounts at the time varied, with some reporting as many as 76 dead. But some historians, citing

survivors' accounts, have put the figure as high as 300. Blacks here have long maintained that whites used airplanes to bomb

homes, churches and businesses in north Tulsa. By 1999, a special commission to investigate the incident and determine

compensation was financed through a $50,000 grant from the Oklahoma Historical Society. Scott Ellsworth, a former

historian at the Smithsonian Institution and author of "Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921," is one of the

advisers to the commission. The historian John Hope Franklin, whose father lost his home in the riot, is also an adviser to the

commission. Franklin last year headed the advisory board to the President's Initiative on Race. (New York Times 2/21/99

Panel Tries to Get Clearer Picture of 1921 Race Riot)

An anti-lynching effort. On January 26, a federal anti-lynching bill was killed by a filibuster in the United States Senate.

(Timeline of African American History, 1852-1925 by the Staff of the Library of Congress)

1939
"Sit down" at segregated Barrett Library by five young African American men: Otto L. Tucker, Edward Gaddis, Morris L.

Murray, William Evans, and Clarence Strange. The protest led the City to open Alexandria’s first library for African

Americans, Robert Robinson Library, in 1940. Today, the building houses the Black History Resource Center (City of

Alexandria Timeline)

1990's
A proliferating number of popular and scholarly books about slavery are stripping away whatever is left of the velvety

romance of benign slaveholders presiding over docile slaves. And they are emphasizing efforts of the enslaved to escape or

rebel and the punishments they faced that ranged from branding to amputation. Much of the bleaker information emerges

from the faded pages of court records and antebellum divorce petitions. But among the newly published books are some

milder views expressed in the memoirs of planters' wives, old handwritten diaries and slave narratives. Much of the burst in

publishing about slavery has come in the 1990s, with 53 titles published last year and 16 published so far this year,

according to R.R. Bowker's Books in Print. In previous decades, the yearly output of titles was less than 12 a year. (Doreen

Carvajal, Slavery's Truths (and Tales) Come Flocking Home New York Times 3/28/99)

End of Slavery Chronology

The Chronology is broken up into three parts:

1. 1619 – 1789 .
2. 1790 - 1829
3. 1830 - the end

Citation information and credit: (Chronology on the History of Slavery, Compiled by Eddie Becker 1999, see on line at

http://innercity.org/holt/slavechron.html)
Revolts and Escapes, Lerone Bennett, Before the Mayflower)

Prosser, Gabriel (circa 1776-1800), American leader of an aborted slave uprising, whose intention was to create a free

black state in Virginia. Born near Richmond, he was the son of an African mother who instilled in him the love of freedom.

Inspired perhaps by the success of the black revolutionaries of Haiti, he plotted with other slaves, notably Jack Bowler, in

the spring of 1800 to seize the arsenal at Richmond and kill whites. On August 30 as many as 1000 armed slaves gathered

outside Richmond ready for action. A torrential downpour and thunderstorm, however, washed away a bridge vital to the

insurrectionists' march; at the same time Governor James Monroe, the future president, was informed of the plot and

dispatched the state militia against them. Prosser and some 35 of his young comrades were captured and hanged. ("Prosser,

Gabriel," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia.)

In August, 1800, Gabriel Prosser led a slave attack on Richmond, Virginia. During several months of careful planning and

organizing, the insurrectionists had gathered clubs, swords, and other crude weapons. The intention was to divide into three

columns: one to attack the penitentiary which was being used as an arsenal, another to capture the powder house, and a third

to attack the city itself. If the citizens would not surrender, the rebels planned to kill all of the whites with the exception

of Quakers, Methodists, and Frenchman. Apparently, Prosser and his followers shared a deep distrust of most white men.

When they had gathered a large supply of guns and powder, and taken over the state's treasury, the rebels calculated, they

would be able to hold out for several weeks. What they hoped for was that slaves from the surrounding territory would join

them and, eventually, that the uprising would reach such proportions as to compel the whites to come to terms with them.

Unfortunately for the plotters, on the day of the insurrection a severe storm struck Virginia, wiping out roads and bridges.

This forced a delay of several days. In the meantime, two slaves betrayed the plot, and the government took swift action.

Thirty-five of the participants, including Prosser, were executed. As the leaders refused to divulge any details of their

plans, the exact number involved in the plot remains unknown. However, rumor had it that somewhere between two thousand

and fifty thousand slaves were connected with the conspiracy. During the trials, one of the rebels said that he had done

nothing more than what Washington had done, that he had ventured his life for his countrymen, and that he was a willing

sacrifice. (Norman Coombs, The Immigrant Heritage of America, Twayne Press, 1972. , Chapter 4, Slave Insurrections)

"...Africans and their descendants forged two distinct identities: one as Black Virginians sharing a provincial culture, and a

second as African Americans sharing a fate with enslaved peoples throughout the hemisphere. Neither identity emerged

before 1750. Like Michael Gomez, Michael Mullin, and Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, [see not below] James Sidbury. (Author of

Book on Gabriel's Insurrection) contends that African ethnicity mattered in the New World.[ Michael A. Gomez, _Exchanging

Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South_ (Chapel Hill, 1998);

Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, _Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century_

(Baton Rouge, 1992); Michael Mullin, _Africa in America: Slave Acculturation in the American South and the British

Caribbean, 1736-1831_ (Urbana, 1992)]. Virginia's slaves came from inland communities along the Bight of Biafra, where a

narrow kinship system structured Igbo, Igala, and Ibibio villages. Once across the Atlantic, slaves created new but similarly

localistic identities specific to a given plantation and well-suited to the dispersed geography of Virginia farms. Although

slaveowners readily grouped their diverse slaves in a single racial category, "the abstract and imposed quality of racial

similarity held less sway than the concrete ties of kinship and friendship that enslaved people created in Virginia's quarters"

(p. 20).

To highlight the absence of racial solidarity, Sidbury points to the refusal of slaves from one locality to aid those of

another in resisting their common oppressor. Ironically, the lack of a broader collective identity was itself the primary

"Africanism" in early Virginia. In the half-century after 1750, four developments fostered a broader racial consciousness.

First, as plantation slavery expanded into Piedmont counties, links between old and new quarters enlarged the boundaries of

community. Secondly, evangelical Christianity created a network of the faithful, especially as black Baptists pushed to

establish autonomous churches. At the same time, the American Revolution gave black Virginians a reason to see themselves as

a cohesive people. In particular, Dunmore's Proclamation addressed the colony's slaves in collective terms. Finally, events in

Saint Domingue [Haiti] provided a model of revolutionary racial justice that prompted black Virginians to situate themselves

in a larger African Diaspora.

By 1800, Gabriel and his neighbors asserted a double consciousness that was at once provincial (black and Virginian) and

global (black Virginian and African American). Sidbury carefully roots community and identity in concrete social relations,

specific to time and place. People can simultaneously inhabit multiple, and potentially antagonistic, communities. Likewise,

identities are "crosscutting," the term Sidbury uses to capture the tension among an individual's class, race, gender, status,

nativity, and religious positions. Race was the foundation of many, but not all, of the communities to which enslaved

Virginians belonged. When Haitian slaves arrived with their exiled masters in Richmond in 1793, local slaves skirmished with

the strange, predominately-African refugees. In 1800, Gabriel and his allies excluded women from their uprising. They also

debated whether to spare Quakers, Methodists, Frenchmen, and white women. Not long after, two slaves alerted their master

to the plot, another black man turned the fleeing Gabriel over to the authorities, and several co-conspirators turned state's

evidence. Where other historians have mythologized a homogeneous "slave community," Sidbury introduces complexity and

conflict. He delights in the unpredictable, particularly the interracial alliances between men and women in Richmond's

taverns, workshops, and jail." (James Sidbury. _Ploughshares into Swords: Race, Rebellion, and Identity in Gabriel's
Virginia, 1730-1810_. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. x + 292 pp. Maps, footnotes, appendix, and index.

$54.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-521-58454-x; $18.95 (paper), ISBN 0-521-59860-5.=20. Reviewed for H-SHEAR by Seth Rockman

<serockman@ucdavis.edu>,University of California—Davis)

The ten years form 1790 to 1800 not only saw an increase of the number of free blacks in the district from a handful to

400 in the midst of 2,369 slaves, but an influx of French Creole refugees, some of color, from Haiti. James Greenleaf, the

developer of southwest Washington, hired several who were characterized by one native Marylander as a "miscreant junto

of gypsies." (Slaves at the Founding. http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/swamp1800/slaves.html)

With regard to the ethnicity of Africans brought to Virginia, the majority of the original Slaves in a Tidewater Virginia

plantation (Burwell Plantation) in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, came from the Niger River Delta in Africa. The

book provides a detailed account on how these individuals lived and survived in their native land, and how they endured the

"middle passage" to the "civilized" New World. (Lorena S. Walsh. _From Calabar to Carter's Grove: The History of a Virginia

slave Community_. Colonial Williamsburg Studies in Chesapeake History and Culture. Charlottesville: University Press of

Virginia, 1997. Xxii + 335 pp. Illustrations, maps, bibliographical references, and index. $34.95 (paper), ISBN

0-8139-1719-0. Reviewed for H-Review by Karen R. Utz , History Department, University of Alabama-Birmingham)

The state of Virginia passes a law forbidding African-Americans to assemble between sunset and sunrise for religious

worship or for instruction. (Slavery and Religion in America: A timeline 1440-1866. By the Internet Public Library )

1800
Africans in Philadelphia petition Congress to end slavery. (The History Channels Chronology of Slavery in America)

Washington, D.C.- By a vote of 85 to 1, Congress rejects petition by free blacks of Philadelphia to gradually end slavery in

the United States. (Chronology: A Historical Review, Major Events in Black History 1492 thru 1953 by Roger Davis and

Wanda Neal-Davis )

1800/05/10
The United States Senate and House of approved An Act in Addition to the Act entitled "An Act to Prohibit the Carrying on

the Slave Trade from the United States to any Foreign Place or Country. (United States Statutes at Large Volume 2 on line.

The Avalon Project : Statutes of the United States Concerning Slavery)

In the Convention, it was proposed by a committee of eleven to limit the importation of slaves to the year 1800, when Mr.

Pinckney moved to extend the time to the year 1808. This motion was carried -- New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut,

Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, voting in the affirmative; and New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and

Virginia, in the negative. In opposition to the [**328] motion, Mr. Madison said: "Twenty years will produce all the mischief

that can be apprehended from the liberty to import slaves; so long a term will be more dishonorable to the American

character than to say nothing about it in the Constitution." (Madison Papers.) The provision in regard to the slave trade shows

clearly that Congress considered slavery a State institution, to be continued and regulated by its individual sovereignty; and

to conciliate that interest, the slave trade was continued twenty years, not as a general measure, but for the "benefit of

such States as shall think proper to encourage it." (Dissent: Mr. Justice McLean in the Case of Dred Scott, Plaintiff In

Error, v. John F. A Sandford. Supreme Court Of The United States, 60 U.S. 393; 1856 U.S. Lexis 472; 15 L. Ed. 691; 19

HOW 393, December, 1856)
1800/06/04/
The White House was completed and its first occupants, President and Mrs. John Adams, moved in. (D.T.'s Chronology of

History 1800-1809)
1800/11
Congress moved to its new home in the U.S. Capital. (Before the Capitol, Congress Convened on the Road, by the United

States Capitol Historical Society, Volume 7, Number 1, with Gift Catalog, Spring 1999)

1801-09
Thomas Jefferson becomes president as Democratic-Republican. VP Aaron Burr served from 1801-5 replaced by George

Clinton from 1805-9. Jefferson brought his slaves from Montecello to the White House to use as his servants. (William Seale

, The President's House: a History, White House Historical Association with the Cooperation of the National Geographic

Society and Harry N Abrams, 1986, vol. 1, pages 99, 101)

The domestic offices and servants quarters were in the basement story. They were airy rooms directly beneath the principal

floor of the house and on the north side of the long groin-vaulted hall that ran from one end of the house to the other.

(William Seale, "The President's House: a History," White House Historical Association with the Cooperation of the National

Geographic Society and Harry N Abrams, 1986, vol. 1, pages 102)

1801
Napoleon decides to establish slavery in France again. (Chronology of the abolition of French slavery Remerciements à

Pascal Boyries, Professeur d'Histoire-Géographie, au lycée Charles Baudelaire d'Annecy )

1801/02/27
The State of 'Virginia ceded a part of Fairfax County to the District, this area was later returned to Virginia by an act of

Congress on 9 July 1849. (1890 DC Census Index)

Two counties were established in the District: Washington County, east of the Potomac, and Alexandria County, on the west

side of the river. The City of Washington was incorporated in 1802. Georgetown wills and deeds continued to be registered

in Montgomery County, Maryland, until the late nineteenth century. (Research Outline, District of Columbia Family History

Library, The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-Day Saints This page has an extensive list of archive research sites.)

After the Federal Government had formally moved to the District of Columbia, Congress made the arrangement permanent by

creating the county of Alexandria, in which the laws of Virginia as they then existed should prevail and Washington County,

where the laws of Maryland as they then existed should be the basic code. (Letitia W Brown, Residence Patterns of Negroes

in the District of Columbia, 1800-1860, Records of the Columbia Historical Society of Washington DC, 1969-70, p 70)
Senator Charles Sumner, a Massachusetts Republican, would latter outline how Maryland's slave code came to be the law of

the District: Congress proceeded to assume that complete jurisdiction which is conferred in the Constitution by enacting, on

the 27th February 1801, "that the laws of the State of Maryland, as they now exist, shall be and continue in force in that

part of the said District which was ceded by that State to the United States, and by them accepted for the permanent seat

of Government." Thus at one stroke all the existing laws of Maryland were adopted by Congress in gross, and from that time

forward became the laws of the United States at the national capital. . . . Among the statutes of Maryland thus solemnly

reenacted in gross by Congress was the following, originally passed as early as 1715--in colonial days: "All Negroes and

other slaves already imported or hereafter to be imported into this province, and all children now born or hereafter to be

born of such Negroes and slaves shall be slaves during their natural lives." Laws of Maryland, 1715, ch. 44, sec. 22. (Cong.

Globe, 37th Cong., 2d Sess. 1448, 1862).

The Maryland code was latter described as "unjust, outmoded and unworthy of the nations capital" at the time of its

adoption. (William Frank Zornow, "The Judicial Modifications of the Maryland Black Code in the District of Columbia,"

Maryland Historical Magazine, XLIV (March, 1949). 19-21). In 1830, the House Committee for the District of Columbia

characterized the Code as "revolting to humanity" and "suited to barbarous ages. ("Laws for the District of Columbia,"

House Report No. 269, 20 Cong., 1 sess., 7) The Virginia Code was generally as cruel and oppressive as that of Maryland. The

law sanctioned such primitive and savage practices as the nailing of a Negro's ears to a pillory as punishment for giving false

testimony in a trial, or thirty-nine lashes "well laid on" if a black, free or slave, lifted his hand in opposition to any

non-Negro. (Samuel Shepherd (comp.) The Statutes at Large of Virginia, from October Session 1792, to December Session

1806, Inclusive, in Three Volumes (new series) Being a Continuation of Hening (3 vols., Richmond, 1835), I, 125-27 (Dec,

1792). (All these citations were taken from Dorothy Sproles Provine, The Free Negro In the District of Columbia 1800-1860,

Thesis Louisiana State University Department of History, 1959, 1963)

Provine would argue in her thesis that the Courts under Judge William Cranch who served on the District Court from
1801-1835, played a major role in softening the impact of the law on Negroes in the District. Provine used court cases to

show that the court did allow Free Negroes to testify in cases against other Negroes and that in some cases Free Negroes

were allowed to partition for their Freedom if it so stated in the will though the court held that Negroes could not enter into

a contract so that if they entered into a contract that said that their servitude would last for seven years, and the master

decided otherwise, the Negro had no legal recourse to enforce the contract. Cranch apparently was harder on cases brought

before him on criminal where a Negro is accused of a criminal offence. One case, which drew a great deal of attention at

the time because President Monroe granted a reprieve for the Cranch's death sentence to a Negro found guilty of stealing

four dollars. (William F. Carne, "Life and Times of William Cranch, Judge of the District Circuit Court, 1801-1835," Records

of the Columbia Historical Society, V 1902 pages 300-301), For a selection of Judge Cranch's decisions see Helen

Tunnicliff Catterall (ed.), Cases from the Courts of New England, the Middle States and the District of Columbia, Vol. IV

Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro, 5 vol., Washington: Carnegie Institution of Washington,

1926-1937, 154-208 some cases in Dorothy Sproles Provine, The Free Negro In the District of Columbia 1800-1860, Thesis

Louisiana State University Department of History, 1959, 1963)